Out here on the East Coast, left-wingers ignore all sorts of research proving their feel-good remedies often exacerbate the problems they try to solve, such as violence (with gun buy-backs) and unemployment (by raising the minimum wage).
This week, a scruffy font of Big Government wisdom has been pontificating on the “real nature” of the 9/11 attacks on America.
This leading voice for East Coast progressives has been addressing nodding heads with the idea that Osama bin Laden was not attacking “America.”
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda had no interest in terrorizing Americans.
Nope. The real target was “Corporations” and “Capitalism.”
How does he know this? Because the World Trade Center belonged to private industry and represented the global corporations, not the U.S.A.
While listening to him speak, I wondered if he would ever bring up Osama bin Laden’s famous 2002 “Letter to the American People.”
He did not and, I suspect, for good reason.
If he had, it would have immediately ended the attractive premise for his audience.
The audience is rapt. Agreement snuggles with expanding theories on how global corporations “created” radical Islamic terrorism, as though the ideological agenda of creating a caliphate from the African continent to Spain adhering to Sharia law was a construct in defiance of Big Macs and Cadillacs, not heretics.
Curious enough to refresh my memory of Osama bin Laden’s stated reasons for murdering 3,000 Americans, I read bin Laden’s “Letter to the American People” again, this time searching for references to corporations.
Bin Laden addressed two questions. First was, “Why are we fighting and opposing you?” The second was, “What are we calling you to and what do we want from you?”
The first question is answered with anger towards the American people for supporting Israel and military engagements in Somalia (which was a peace mission until Americans were attacked), “supporting” the Russian atrocities in Chechnya, the “Indian oppression against us in Kashmir,” and defending Israel against Lebanon.
Global Corporations? Not yet. Let’s continue.
Bin Laden said he attacked American people because their taxes paid for the military and, again, we support Israel. In fact, bin Laden mentions Israel nine times and “Jews” ten times.
He blames “governments” thirteen times in the letter.
Mostly, he blames the American people and our government for the crimes of failing to establish Sharia law and encouraging foreign governments to eschew the Sharia law that calls for stoning a woman to death when she is raped.
Americans are a corrupting influence and... aha! Here it is! Here is the egregious behavior of corporations that caused al Qaeda to murder innocents on 9/11:
“You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are established on this, under the name of art, entertainment, tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to it.”
Well, now, that doesn’t exactly demonize the global corporations as the originators of behavior worthy of 9/11, does it? No, bin Laden is again railing against the American government for allowing corporations to use of sex in promoting trade.
He also mentioned Clinton and Monica.
Bin Laden’s call to action is most telling. He demanded America adopt Islam.
There was no call to action regarding corporations, global or otherwise.
So, why might liberals be so enthusiastic about inventing a false narrative for the 911 attacks?
Capitalism is bad. Global corporations are bad. They are so bad that terrorist organizations are created out of retaliation for the bad behaviors of these entities.
It seems a rather bizarre way to promote socialism to say we need to give up capitalism because it makes religious zealots want to kill us.
Since bin Laden himself said he was attacking America, not global corporations, I asked the presenter how he came about this unusual conclusion.
He replied, “bin Laden himself didn’t know it.”
Ah. Of course.
Rick Jensen is Delaware’s Award-Winning Conservative Talk Show Host on 1150AM WDEL and 93.7FM HD3, Streaming live on WDEL.com from 1pm - 4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL.