Rootsie

Whatever one feels personally about the murderous tactics of Bin Laden, the strategy he uses against the US power is...dare I say - (brilliant?) and a serious cause for reflection. His stregnth lie not in pitting military might against might but rather lies in his skilled adeptness to detonate the most explosive points within this country's defense - the vulnerable psyche of it's collective people.  

Like Sampson and Goliath he continues to chip away at the beast from the very foundation it stands on; targeting it's symbols, it's security, it's wealth, it's greed, it's pride, it's fear, and now it's resources. Bullseye.

This man has waged war from the opposite side of the planet no less. Luring the mountain to come to Muhamed to get all caught-up and ensnared in a most intricate and tangled web, so that when all is exhausted - boom... there's nothing left to fight back with.

-It reminds me of watching the strategy Muhamed Ali used to fight George Forman, w/ Ali literally instigating the big Forman to hit him - "Come on...hit me..is that all you got?" .. going deeper and deeper into the ropes taking the punches, taking the hits...yet continuing to goad the giant Forman on..."come on-HIT ME!"...his lips talking SMACK right in Forman's ear. You could literally see Forman waste away using all up all his stregnth in a reactionary rage only to succumb to jello sucker punches...then POW...the fight was over..w/ Osama..I mean Ali dancing and chanting.."I AM THE GREATEST!"

Bin Laden says he wants to bankrupt America

November 2, 2004

BY DONNA BRYSON

CAIRO, Egypt -- Osama bin Laden said he is trying to bankrupt the United States through its war on terror, a strategy he says felled the Soviet Union two decades ago in Afghanistan, according to a translation by al-Jazeera television of his full, videotaped statement.

The al-Qaida leader boasted in his first appearance in more than a year that for every $1 his terrorist organization has spent on strikes, it has cost the United States $1 million in economic fallout and military spending, including emergency funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

''As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers,'' bin Laden said, estimating the deficit at more than $1 trillion.

In reality, spending in the war against terror and other factors have resulted in an expected $377 billion shortfall for 2003 -- the highest deficit since World War II when inflation is factored out. The total U.S. national debt is near the $7.4 trillion legal limit.

Bin Laden dwelled on al-Qaida's economic strategy against the United States in portions of an 18-minute video aired Friday on the Arab television station al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera aired about 14 minutes of the video.

The terror mastermind whose al-Qaida network carried out the Sept. 11 attacks credited the religiously inspired Arab volunteers who he fought with against the Soviets in Afghanistan with having ''bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.'' He suggested the same strategy would work against the United States.

''So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy,'' he said.

Evan F. Kohlmann, a U.S.-based counterterrorism researcher, said it was as if bin Laden were following the news from the United States, perhaps on satellite TV.

''He is trying to create doubts in America's mind that this war is worth the cost,'' Kohlmann said.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-laden02.html

hmm. i wouldn't get caught up in this weird concocted bin laden image that is being fed to us. i have found that many times when things are spoken of in this way - it is actually a reflection of the actual policies of the powers that be.

sure, bin laden is a great scapegoat, but think about it - who really is bankrupting america right now? who is looting the treasury and spending it on world conquest proportion military spending? who is getting the biggest tax cuts? who is pushing immoral and obscene behavior to the youths in the media - who is bankrupting this new generation?

while we are at it - who bankrupted russia? ever heard of the oligarchs there? - a small clique who bought up many parts of the russian economy when the soviet union fell. follow the money trail - who is bankrupting who?

it is harvest time.

Though this is true, America has no one but to blame itself on all the many difficult issues at hand. The fact remains...Osama has been able to hit some very critical pressure points in seeking to defllate the mighty super power/ego of the US.

It is not the recent video nor the image that is worth getting one's panties in a twist..but rather the predictable nature by which Goliath takes the bait and plays right into the strategy that leads it into swallowing not only the hook, but the line and the sinker.

Like in Akido...you use the percieved stregnth (hot wind, arrogance and rage) of your opponant against them. Often times they take themselves out...all you have to do is step aside.

I am talking about strategy here...not who deserves their just deserts. That's quite obvious.

i think you totally missed the point of what i was getting at. perhaps it is because you think bin laden is actually who/what they continue to tell us he is and the motives, reasons behind. while your analysis is interesting, it is still caught up in the frame of discourse that has been set up for you by the powers that be about these issues.

Irregardless of how the "powers that be" choose to portray the "axis of evil" (or whatever symbol of terrorism used to justify the means ) ..I think we are in over our heads in Iraq..and that there are other strategies besides our own at play.

I think there are many things to consider beyond what this country can control.. no matter what they want you to believe or not.

no doubt we are in over our heads. keep in mind as well that there are ones who are fond of the strategy of creating maximum chaos to create a very out of control situation where there will be no choice but to resort to the plan for order - already pre-written of course.

think about this - perhaps the plan IS to bankrupt america(in its present form) and the people doing it are some of the same interests who we equate with america. who will bail "us" out? - answer - perhaps the ones who are running the economy on overdrive filling their private coffers with the loot from the chaos inflicted. find out who that is. having a fall guy like bin laden to blame when the sh* hits the fan is great too(many will remember his speech on bankrupting america when that time comes).

today is the day of private consortiums who hold more sway than "public" governments. it is time to re-assess our notion of the nation-state in the age of private corporate global dominance if one really wants to get to the core of what really in the hell is going on.

i was thinking about this, and yes there are other things to consider. but, the way that the news media is controlled in this country, the person/purpose of bin laden stands out as suspicious at least and a complete fabrication at most. the image of him single handedly taking on the empire is romantic at best. it also ignores the larger picture of who benefits from terrorist attacks - the duality fed to us about the person and purpose of bin laden is suspect.  in the age of private multi-national corporate dominance, investment clubs, financial instututions, etc. - the nation-state is an antiquated notion of who is hurt and who benefits from an attack. i think it is time for a serious update - they have moved ahead with the new world order and it is anti-thetical to effective analysis and solutions if we are still stuck in the mindset of the duality of the old world order.

I guess we can't really know what Osama is. Has he always been on the US payroll? The one thing that seems clear to me is that he has always been a most useful and convenient bad guy. Why he popped up just last weekend to ratchet up the fear index before the election.

The thing that just recently dawned on me (duh) is that the US is financing its military adventures on borrowed money, and that the Chinese primarily are holding the IOU's (treasury bills). A bunch of them went on sale a couple weeks ago, and the Chinese said they weren't buying. Which means in a minute interest rates are going to rocket up and this economy is going into a tailspin. US interest payments now run $1 billion A DAY.

I think middle-class Americans will soon come to see that their wellbeing is as expendable as anyone else's. Lord knows poor people have already figured that out.

Now whether "Osama" is a convenient fiction or not really doesn't matter. Osama is not why the US is fighting this war. And those who think it's really only about 'greed' or 'oil' aren't seeing the whole picture. This is the continuing saga of imperialism and colonialism, and it's about more than economic gain. It's about how the US and Europe needs to see themselves,
as the ultimate human expression of culture and civilization. Because of their arrogant inferiority/superiority complex due to their estrangement from their roots.  It is no accident that the same language accompanies every single imperial/colonial adventure of the past 500 years: 'they' are incapable of civilization; 'they' can't govern themselves; 'they' need us to interpret their culture for them; 'they' will be lost without us; and so on and so on. It is dangerous to underestimate the power of ideologies. There is no way to separate white Europe's (and America's) cultural, intellectual, political, and social development without considering racism. It is no accident that 'they' are (except for brief periods with the Irish and so on) NEVER white.

Similarities abound:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin

http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=55356