I posted this one at RedState.com.
It’s a joke, right? Osama bin Laden is one of the good guys, we’re told – just misunderstood and considered evil.
The lightweight diarist at a popular lefty blog scribbles this:
So is Osama bin Laden truly “evil?” Most people who lost family members at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 would probably consider him to be evil. Was President Ronald Reagan evil? Most residents of Beirut who lost family members when the USS New Jersey rained 2,700 pound Mark 7 shells on residential neighborhoods in 1983 during the Lebanese Civil War probably considered Reagan to have been evil. Bottom line? Bin Laden is no more evil than other revolutionary leaders in other times or even than ordinary national leaders who propel their countries to war for “national honor,” or to acquire the resources of others, or even to “do good.”
The diarist confuses actual evil with what is considered evil by people who use the term as a blanket insult. He doesn’t even attempt to hide is confusion, even though that confusion – between evil de facto and “evil” based on personal or group opinion – renders his conclusion – that bin Laden was no more evil than was President Reagan – meaningless, having the intellectual weight of an MTV review of the an old Prometheus and Bob cartoon.
Evil. Immoral. Involving the designed taking of innocent human life, liberty, or property, or the desire to steer others toward evil, immoral behavior. Bin Laden designed to take innocent lives on 9-11-01. In the Lebanese Civil War, in February of 2004, the U.S.S. New Jersey shelled Druze and Syrian positions in the Bekaa valley, taking out a Syrian command post. This was a move designed to prevent violence in the Lebanon, not an attack designed to kill innocent civilians. The two are comparable only to a morally confused person who equates one with another merely for the sake of convenience. There is no merit to this.
Osama bin Laden commissioned the killings of 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001. This is not a tiny, discountable detail.
The diary is a pool of vapid conjecture and mindless non-sequitur which does nothing to support what purports to be the underlying theme: George Bush and the neocons are playing by Osama bin Laden’s rules. The diarist supposes to read Osama bin Laden’s mind, understand his intent and strategy, and find in it a corporate image. I’ve read through the thing three times! Nothing.
So, since it accomplishes nothing, I have to assume that it was written as a way to take a cheap shot at the late President Reagan and to give us a happy look at the thoughtful Osama bin Laden. Well, there they go again.
(Check out this review of the diary at Policy Media.)
