Bumfight
There's a knee-jerk reaction by some who suggest that the most recent Bin Laden tape proves a connection, or at least a commonality of interests, between Al-Qaida and Saddam's Iraq, and that this is the "smoking gun" that whiners like me have been clammoring for to justify an invasion. Well, perhaps. But I don't think it's any secret that neither Osama nor Saddam are about to join in a chorus of "God Bless America" anytime soon. Bin Laden is just chiming in to encourage ordinary Iraqis to bloody the nose of the "crusaders" when we come calling. When Bush is having a hard enough time getting our ostensible allies behind any action, what exactly was anyone expecting public enemy #1 to say?
In any case, I still contend that a common hatred of America is not enough to unite a pair of villains whose actual agendas are really quite distinct. To paraphrase Tolstoy, every stable regime is the same, but every nutbag tyrant and terrorist is crazy in his own particular way. It could be argued just as easily that Osama is shrewd enough to realize the effect his "endorsement" will have on public opinion about Iraq, and so he's happy to plant a sloppy wet kiss of death on the cheek of his hated secular rival. After all, no one is likely to benefit more from a destablized Iraq than Al-Qaida, who can use the chaos to stage operations and recruit new "martyrs" to the cause.
12:19:26 PM 
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