Eminent Domain

I couldn't help but smirk when I saw this on Drudge. Bin Laden offers Americans truce. Bin Laden claims that there is an attack in the works and promises that it is coming very soon. He also makes a few other statements that I think deserve examination. Let's take this apart...

This message is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end those wars.

It was not my intention to talk to you about this, because those wars are definitely going our way.

But what triggered my desire to talk to you is the continuous deliberate misinformation given by your President [George] Bush, when it comes to polls made in your home country which reveal that the majority of your people are willing to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

And then...

We do not mind establishing a long-term truce between us and you.

Okay, logical disconnect here. If you are winning a war ("definitely" too), why would you offer a truce? You wouldn't. You'd press your advantage and kill some infidels. Bin Laden promised a holy war in the Middle East. He promised that governments would topple under his forces, and his kind of fundamentalist regimes would take over. So far, that hasn't happened. You call for a truce when you're losing. You say "we're winning" to save face.

We know that the majority of your people want this war to end and opinion polls show the Americans don't want to fight the Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their (US) land.

Translation: Let's stop fighting because I'm not winning.

In response to the substance of the polls in the US, which indicate that Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land, we do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to.

Translation: There will be "peace in our time", and we won't break our word...

We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war.

...honest.

I would like to tell you that everything is going to our advantage and the number of your dead is increasing, according to Pentagon figures.

Translation: Really, I am still winning. But can you please take your troops home now?

Here's what I think we should do. Accept the truce offer. Bin Laden and his top lieutenants as well as Zarqawi and his top lieutenants can meet with Secretary of State Rice and representatives from other nations. We can hammer out a peace deal that will stop the war and allow rebuilding to begin. As the Bin Laden delegation leaves, kill all of them. It will be just like what Muhammed Ali of Egypt did to the Mamluks in 1811.

In one of the most infamous episodes of his reign, Muhammad Ali definitively broke the power of the Mamluks by massacring their leaders. Having worn down the Mamluks for years with raids and skirmishes, in 1811 he invited their amirs to a feast to celebrate his son Tusun Pasha's appointment to lead the army being sent against the Wahhabi rebellion in Arabia. As the procession of Mamluk princes made its way through a narrow gated alley in the Citadel, Muhammad Ali's men shut the gates, trapping all the Mamluks inside, and soldiers positioned in the buildings facing the alley opened fire from above. When the shooting ended, soldiers on the ground finished off any Mamluks still living with swords and axes.

Believe me, Bin Laden will appreciate the historical reference.

Seriously though. This is just another tape and another threat with a rotten olive branch slapped onto it. If an attack is going to come, it's going to come. There is no foolproof defense against terrorism. A handful of dedicated people can accomplish a hell of a lot without tipping off the authorities. That's just the way it is. However, there's no reason to shut your life down because of it.