Regarding the Sept. 9 article "Bin Laden tells America: Turn to Islam or you perish": Notwithstanding his demand to "embrace Islam," Osama bin Laden makes some good points. The warning is simply artful baiting to draw Americans deeper into the mire of Iraq and the Middle East. He has everything to gain, while the U.S., thanks to leaders who use his communications to justify continued Mideast meddling, has everything to lose.
It's perhaps to be expected that American media will latch on to a sensational story headline that misses the point. Poor Osama must be getting dizzy from the spins placed on him. The Bush administration claims "he is impotent," while some presidential candidates argue that he is a dangerously charismatic propaganda device. Just whose propaganda device is he anyway!?
Bin Laden's claims remain consistent -- America's quest for oil and its efforts to build client states -- and are at the root of this struggle. When U.S leaders understand that, a solution to America's terrorist woes will be at hand.
sk,1 I'll support any U.S. candidate, Democrat or Republican, who embraces policies along those rational lines. However, from the rhetoric I hear, such candidates will be hard to identify.
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