Bin Laden clarifies the debate

Dan Darling:

IN HIS MOST RECENT audio taped message, Osama bin Laden succinctly restated his rationale for international terrorism. This is worth understanding for several reasons, not the least of which being that it provides a much-needed refutation to the often-stated argument that al Qaeda and its supporters are driven and strengthened only by the actions of the United States in general and, more narrowly speaking, the Bush administration.

As bin Laden makes clear, his grievances are by no means limited to the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or the now-familiar litany of the Israeli-Palestinian, Chechen, and Kashmiri insurgencies. Indeed, he includes accusations that Western nations were involved in "barring arms from the unarmed people in Bosnia and letting the Serb army to massacre Muslims and spill their blood for years under U.N. cover," that the United States "sought to reach southern Sudan, recruited an army of southerners, supported them with weapons and funding and directed them to seek separation from Sudan," and the bizarre charges that "a Zionist-Crusaders war" resulted in "the humiliation of Muslims in Somalia and killing 13,000 Muslims . . . along with torching Muslims' bodies."

Those who argue that bin Laden's complaints represent an honest assessment of international politics (as he sees it) will be hard-pressed to hold to this position. At some point, even the most adamant defenders of the view that bin Laden is a rational actor will have to acknowledge that someone with a sophisticated understanding of international politics would not believe that America deliberately allowed Serbia to carry out its massacres in the Balkans, while it was creating the Sudan People's Liberation Army and killing 13,000 Somalis. These are not the views of a rational actor.

THE LACK OF RATIONALITY ASIDE, the most notable change in bin Laden's rhetoric is a focus on Sudan, and in particular the Darfur region. While giving no indication that he intends to abandon his support for the Iraqi insurgency (indeed, he explicitly says that "The epicenter of these wars is Baghdad, the seat of the khalifate rule" and notes favorably that "They keep reiterating that success in Baghdad will be success for the US, failure in Iraq the failure of the US"), bin Laden is now keen to side with Sudan when it comes to Darfur and is advising his followers to do this same. The message is simple: If there is any international intervention in Darfur, al Qaeda will be there waiting for them.

Bin Laden's relationship with the Sudanese government is best characterized as love-hate. He's eager to defend Sudan, despite its actions against the Muslim population of Darfur, but at the same time he chastises the Sudanese government for backtracking on its pledge to implement sharia throughout the country. But bin Laden has never been without allies--most notably the "pope of terror," Hassan Turabi--in Sudan, where al Qaeda was harbored from 1991 to 1996.

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There is more.

One of the refreshing things about a bin Laden tape is how he blows away liberal arguments or in the alternative embraces them. Either way, when Osama speaks it is bad for liberals and their world view. Gone is their argument that liberating Iraq is the cause of terrorism. Now we know what I have been saying all along about Darfur, that humanitarian intervention is considered an act of war of the Islamist. It would be Somalia all over again unless the UN forces that go in their go in prepared to fight and win a war. His world view may be myoptic, but his plan is not. It is probably too much to hope that liberals will now want to defeat him.