VDH Watch 20: Vic unpacks Osama bin Laden for us

Our man Vic is Deconstructing bin Laden by Victor Davis Hanson Jewish World Review 01/26/06. He writes:

First, things must be going very badly for the terrorists to propose a ceasefire: "We don't mind offering you a long-term truce."

Well, Vic, uh, no, it doesn't mean that at all. If you had gone so far as to, like, read Bin Laden's previous missives, you might have caught it that this is a standard feature of his "warnings". The offers of a deal are not aimed at his enemies. Rather, they are pitched to his supporters, as a way of saying, "We gave the infidels a chance to repent and change their ways", thus justifying the attacks in radical Salafists' minds.

Now Bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization as it existed in 2001 has taken some major hits. Whether his and similar jihadist groups are more or less of a threat to the US today than they were on 09/10/01 is another question. But that's not what Bin Laden's "truce" offer means.

Oh, and Bin Laden's kinda like Hitler (of course!), and maybe like Kaiser Bill, too:

In truth, the winning side does not ask for a reprieve. Losing autocrats — whether the officers of the German army in the summer of 1918 or Hitler's cadre in the spring of 1945 — always "don't mind" sending out peace feelers in the 11th hour to salvage their power before they lose it for good.

Vic is his usual fatuous self. He says war critics are pretty much like Bin Laden, too:

... al-Qaida's talking points seem to derive from American anti-war rhetoric, as bin Laden and Co. desperately cling to the notion that our resolve may yet crumble. Whether domestic critiques of the Bush administration's anti-terror policies are heartfelt or gratuitous, accurate or fabricated, an encouraged bin Laden doesn't care: He simply regurgitates these arguments as his own to throw back against us. Either bin Laden can't come up with any more grievances himself, or he figures that Americans are better at making his case for him.

If Vic payed attention to what critics of the Iraq War have actually been saying since Bush's 2002 "axis of evil" State of the Union speech, he would know that most of us have argued that the war in Iraq distracted attention and resources in major ways from the effort to fight and defend against jihadist terror groups. And that the Iraq War gives them an important new recruiting cause. In other words, American critics of Bush's Iraq War are saying we should be giving much more attention to fighting Bin Laden and similar jihadists, not less.

But Bush's favorite historian seems to think Bin Laden needed Sen. Dick Durbin's help to know to complain about Guantanamo. Being one of the Great Discerners of Historical Currents, he has brilliantly divined that all enemies of Freedom, decency and the Bush adminsitration are pretty much the same: Muslims, Democrats, jihadists, French people, whoever.

Pretty much the same conclusion that radio bigot Rush Limbaugh and his like came to long ago, though perhaps with assistance of large doses of hillybilly heroin in some cases. I suppose that compared to junkie bigots like Limbaugh or psycho-bitches like Mad Annie Coulter, VDH does seem almost like a voice of calm, scholarly reason. But he's talking the same smack that Mad Annie and Mr. OxyContin and the rest of Republican hate radio. And it just happens to be - surprise, surprise! - the Rovian Party line.

| +Save/Share | |