So often the debate about Al Qaeda focuses on the contemporary perceived injustices which the West, or more specifically the US, has meted out on the Muslim world. Two examples spring immediately to mind. The first is the freeing of the Iraqis from a genocidal despot, and the second offence is the release of the Afghan people from an appallingly reactionary regime. Rather disgracefully, the US replaced both of those anti-Muslim regimes with democratic governments, in contrast to previous decades when they replaced them with despots to their liking. For this they will never be forgiven. We have never seen such a hankering after US realist policies from the left. Anyway, I digress.

Here is Osama in an interview in 1998. Re-reading it now, just illustrates why so much of the glib blathering about the War on Terror is ungrounded in the reality of the enemy.

The American people, by and large, do not know the name bin Laden, but they soon likely will. Do you have a message for the American people?

I say to them that they have put themselves at the mercy of a disloyal government, and this is most evident in Clinton’s administration … . We believe that this administration represents Israel inside America. Take the sensitive ministries such as the Ministry of Exterior and the Ministry of Defense and the CIA, you will find that the Jews have the upper hand in them. They make use of America to further their plans for the world, especially the Islamic world. American presence in the Gulf provides support to the Jews and protects their rear. And while millions of Americans are homeless and destitute and live in abject poverty, their government is busy occupying our land and building new settlements and helping Israel build new settlements in the point of departure for our Prophet’s midnight journey to the seven heavens. America throws her own sons in the land of the two Holy Mosques for the sake of protecting Jewish interests. …

The American government is leading the country towards hell. … We say to the Americans as people and to American mothers, if they cherish their lives and if they cherish their sons, they must elect an American patriotic government that caters to their interests not the interests of the Jews. If the present injustice continues with the wave of national consciousness, it will inevitably move the battle to American soil, just as Ramzi Yousef and others have done. This is my message to the American people. I urge them to find a serious administration that acts in their interest and does not attack people and violate their honor and pilfer their wealth. …

It’s also interesting to note how Osama’s view on Israel have moved into the liberal mainstream.

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta is reportedly out of danger, after being flown to Darwin in a medically induced coma, for treatment following an assassination and coup attempt on Monday. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao was targeted, although unharmed, in another attack, and has subsequently declared a state of emergency. Australia has mobilised around 200 soldiers and federal police, to supplement 800 personnel already in Timor-Leste, and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is expected to visit Dili later this week.

The Foreign Minister of the former occupying power, Hassan Wirajuda wasted no time in sneering that:

the attack took place in the presence of security forces of Australia and New Zealand as well as from the United Nations.

Brass.Fucking.Neck.

The coup attempt and the attendant unrest pushes back the date of eventual withdrawal for peace enforcers - particularly Australian troops, with their attendant whiff of concern for petrochemicals in the Timor Gap.

So here’s a Google video in honour of Roy Scheider

Listeners to Radio 5 live are listening to an appalling ill-informed discussion about the six men charged with offenses related to 911. Both of the invited speakers are poor; the pro-torture moron is particularly offensive. But of course, it’s the callers who make it.

Second caller in. “911 was a conspiracy by the Bush administration. BUSH! BUSH!”

Tune in and despair.

The funny headline is intended to attract the attention of our British readers, of whom I make this one, small, modest request: If the 9-11 Conspirazoids - those intellectual equivalents of Holocaust deniers - decide to make a habit of confronting and harassing  our dear comrade Nick on the street,  as they did recently (see a couple of minutes or so into this tube, although the first bits are instructive as well), please reciprocate by deciding that you will adopt a custom of similarly situating  yourselves, with bells on, full of piss and vinegar, and filled with the resolve to give no quarter and show no mercy.

I’m about sick to the teeth of all the highbrow “free speech” debates that moral leprosy of this kind tends to set off ad nauseum ad infinitum. In matters like this, the role of “speech” exhausts its relevance with these words:

Do Not Fuck With Nick Cohen.

CH doth speaketh here.