Br'er bin Laden
By Libby
ABC has released a transcript of the new bin Laden tape. You'll read a lot of spin on this one but I can sum it up in one sentence. Bin Laden to America: Oh please, please, please, don't throw me in that briar patch. For those who don't get the reference, it's from the old story of Br'er Rabbit, whose only hope of survival is to trick Br'er Fox into throwing him into the briar patch.
Pretend for a moment you're bin Laden. Before 9/11 you were a two-bit terrorist who nobody paid much attention to. You commanded a small band of loyalists and you had to work really hard to get noticed. Then you pull a stunt that succeeds beyond your wildest dreams. The president of the USeffinA has declared you international public enemy number one. You're a super-star. All you have to do to get noticed is release a 30 minute videotape.
Your enemy has kindly turned your country into a no-man's land where it's easy to hide and destroyed your rival's country and turned it into a training ground for your men and a great source of funding. Your foe is spending 3 billion dollars a week to fight you. You can keep him there indefinitely with a couple of hundred three dollar IEDs and another couple of thousand bucks worth of car bombs a month. You don't even have to recruit anymore. They're lining up to join and you've inspired freelancers to emulate you. No way do you want to lose all that. You need to keep this occupation going.
But Americans are tired of playing the game and it looks like the occupation might be in serious danger of ending. The Democrats might really do something about it. So what do you do? How do you thwart the Dems? By insisting that they end the war of course.
Bin Laden is insane but he's not stupid. What better way to rile up the pro-war crowd and put the anti-occupation proponents in the awkward position of "agreeing" with the enemy? Just as Br'er Rabbit begged not to get the one thing he really wanted, bin Laden demands the one thing he doesn't really want.
How many times are we going to let him get away with that trick?
[cross-posted to The Reaction]
ABC has released a transcript of the new bin Laden tape. You'll read a lot of spin on this one but I can sum it up in one sentence. Bin Laden to America: Oh please, please, please, don't throw me in that briar patch. For those who don't get the reference, it's from the old story of Br'er Rabbit, whose only hope of survival is to trick Br'er Fox into throwing him into the briar patch.
Pretend for a moment you're bin Laden. Before 9/11 you were a two-bit terrorist who nobody paid much attention to. You commanded a small band of loyalists and you had to work really hard to get noticed. Then you pull a stunt that succeeds beyond your wildest dreams. The president of the USeffinA has declared you international public enemy number one. You're a super-star. All you have to do to get noticed is release a 30 minute videotape.
Your enemy has kindly turned your country into a no-man's land where it's easy to hide and destroyed your rival's country and turned it into a training ground for your men and a great source of funding. Your foe is spending 3 billion dollars a week to fight you. You can keep him there indefinitely with a couple of hundred three dollar IEDs and another couple of thousand bucks worth of car bombs a month. You don't even have to recruit anymore. They're lining up to join and you've inspired freelancers to emulate you. No way do you want to lose all that. You need to keep this occupation going.
But Americans are tired of playing the game and it looks like the occupation might be in serious danger of ending. The Democrats might really do something about it. So what do you do? How do you thwart the Dems? By insisting that they end the war of course.
Bin Laden is insane but he's not stupid. What better way to rile up the pro-war crowd and put the anti-occupation proponents in the awkward position of "agreeing" with the enemy? Just as Br'er Rabbit begged not to get the one thing he really wanted, bin Laden demands the one thing he doesn't really want.
How many times are we going to let him get away with that trick?
[cross-posted to The Reaction]
posted by Libby Spencer at 6:41 PM
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