On the Red-Green Axis

I linked this yesterday in my drunk post, but Little Miss Atilla excerpts it more fully.

Here's some of it:

It seems both fair and accurate to note that there is a confluence of interests between bin Laden and those Americans who seek defeat in Iraq. It is little wonder that this is an embarrassment to the latter. But it would be unfair and inaccurate to suggest that this is anything more than a de facto tactical alliance. The Angry Left wants America to lose in Iraq for its own ideological and partisan purposes, which have little to do with the establishment of a global caliphate.

So what are we to make of bin Laden's striking a pose as a global warmist who hates capitalism? Here's a theory: Slate reports that by one estimate 10% of al Qaeda's "soldiers in the global jihad" are converts to radical Islamism, a religion/ideology that, as Slate puts it, "has become a magnet for some of the world's angriest people."

Blogger Roger L. Simon speculates that "the true author (or scriptwriter) of the tape" is Adam Gadahn, né Pearlman, an American-born "spokesman" for al Qaeda who, as The New Yorker reported earlier this year, had a decidedly countercultural upbringing -- raised by hippie parents who converted to Christianity and lived on an isolated farm raising goats. A "shy, bookish" boy who rebelled against his parents' faith, Gadahn immersed himself in the world of satanic "death metal" before converting to Islam.

More there at the link, plus the original link to the Taranto piece.

That says it rather well. They are not united in ultimate goals, but do share a belief that the current regime must be destroyed or at least greatly diminished by one way or another before the New Utopia can come. They don't quite agree on that New Utopia, of course, and whether or not gays should be praised for their specialness and courage or stoned to death for their perverse blasphemy, but they do know who stands in the way of either of those glorious outcomes, and to that extent, they have a shared enemy.

posted by Ace at 02:34 PM

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