Living on Planet Bin Laden

"Living on Planet Bin Laden" is a quote from a French journalist, Christian Chesnot,  in a recent interview in Salon.com concerning his kidnapping at the hands of radical Islamists in Iraq.

He and George Malbrunot, during their captivity, caught a glimpse of the underbelly of the beast, and lived to tell about it.

Something Malbrunot said of the radical Islamists' goals, struck me as eerily similar to the grandiose ambitions of George Bush, as he expressed in his inauguration speech.  

From the story:

Malbrunot is still trying to sort out his disjointed impressions. Before his abduction, he had never heard of the Islamic Army in Iraq, an extreme fundamentalist group with close ties to Osama bin Laden. Now he knows a lot. They are, for example, better organized and wealthier than he ever imagined, even more than they were six months ago. Also, he said, they are adamant jihadists, convinced that they are waging war to defend the Muslim faith against the West. "There was a lot of talk about Chief Osama, references to Chechnya and how the Muslim world is fighting the Western world in Chechnya, Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said. Some of the men were Saddam Hussein loyalists, including one who claims he was Saddam's personal secretary...

..."One of our jailers told us they have four enemies," he said. "American soldiers and other coalition members; collaborators, which meant businessmen -- Italian, American or even French -- who are working there; the Iraqi police; and spies." Any new Iraqi government, he said, will be viewed as an enemy, just as the Americans -- and even secular Arab leaders -- are seen. The groups want to defeat America in Iraq, drive a wedge between Europe and America, and "overthrow the Arab leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and return to the caliphate [Islamic rule] from Andalusia [Spain] to China."

George Bush's goal of ending tyranny is Orwellian speak for the goal of controlling  the oil rich middle east. If he really wanted to end tyranny, he would start in his own backyard. We all know that.

The radical Islamists' goal, as stated above, is equally grandiose, and  mirrors our ambitions in the Middle East (witness now the talk of Iran).

Bin Laden is George Bush's best friend. Each mirrors the extreme ambitions of the other. Fighting on the same battlefield, violent and non-forgiving, they would sacrifice, and are sacrificing, innocent blood for their ambitions.