Tim Furnish pens a sober critique of Osama bin Laden's 'Letter to America', and reveals how OBL's western supporters don't realize what they're cheering for.
A Letter to My Sons And Their College Classmates on Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’
Or, Why My Sons Won't Buy TikTok's Bin Laden Worship
By TIMOTHY FURNISH , The Stream
Published on November 21, 2023
To my sons (and their fellow college students):
By now you’ll have seen Osama Bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America” being promoted on TikTok. I don’t use that platform, so I learned of it from news stories. This morning I watched some TikTokers’ responses. Then I re-read OBL’s dispatch. Allow me to share my reactions to both.
To my sons (and their fellow college students):
By now you’ll have seen Osama Bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America” being promoted on TikTok. I don’t use that platform, so I learned of it from news stories. This morning I watched some TikTokers’ responses. Then I re-read OBL’s dispatch. Allow me to share my reactions to both.
TikTokers’ Takes
The clips I saw were the ones posted on X by Yashar Ali on November 15, 7:08 PM. A blonde woman led off, saying she was “ashamed” she’d never known of or read UBL’s letter before now. It left her “disillusioned,” feeling the same way she did when “deconstructing Christianity.” Like all the other TikTokers, she recommended everyone read it.
Next up was a black woman who said UBL’s words caused her an “existential crisis.” And that after reading it she “would never look at life the same way again.” Her entire worldview “changed in the last 20 minutes.”
Another black woman followed, expressing much the same sentiments. Then a wild-haired white man raged against “settler colonialism.” And how anyone resisting it was deemed a terrorist. The next TikTokker was another black woman. She dropped numerous f-bombs, then ended with blaming the mass murders of 9/11 on “our nation” having “failed other nations.” And said that UBL showed her how “deeply propaganda is embedded in our DNA.”
Another black woman simply recommended, between deep sighs, that everyone “go read it.” A pensive white woman was then shown, with the label “mood since reading Osama’s ‘Letter to America:’ rethinking things I grew up learning.” A black man then declaimed, simply, “I read Osama bin Laden’s letter to America.”
Then a Muslim woman appeared. “The way this letter is going viral right now is giving me the greatest sense of relief.” Also, “if you’re Muslim and you’ve lived in the US since 9/11, you know more truth than the typical citizen.” The last clip was of another white woman, under the heading “you just read Bin Laden’s letter to America and notice the media is trying to bury it.”
Why Race Matters Here
Why did I note the races of these OBL enthusiasts? Remember, one of you asked me recently why college professors obsess about race. I told you that it’s because so many of them are so far left. And such Marxists have replaced class struggle with race conflict. Which they have turned into a global issue, not just an American one.
And the biggest component of that is their “Red-Green Alliance,” Marxists allying with Muslims, both here (mainly in universities) and abroad. Although the former would be promptly dispatched, legally and probably literally, if the latter took power. So the professors pretend that isn’t true. And their students never learn any different. But trotting out a diverse cast of sympathetic TikTokers is part of the “progressive” plan in this regard. Differing skin hues cover over a multitude of Marxist-Muslim cognitive dissonance.
So are these al-Qaeda admirers on to something? Has the West really been ignoring OBL’s pearls of wisdom for two decades? Let’s take a look.
Why did I note the races of these OBL enthusiasts? Remember, one of you asked me recently why college professors obsess about race. I told you that it’s because so many of them are so far left. And such Marxists have replaced class struggle with race conflict. Which they have turned into a global issue, not just an American one.
And the biggest component of that is their “Red-Green Alliance,” Marxists allying with Muslims, both here (mainly in universities) and abroad. Although the former would be promptly dispatched, legally and probably literally, if the latter took power. So the professors pretend that isn’t true. And their students never learn any different. But trotting out a diverse cast of sympathetic TikTokers is part of the “progressive” plan in this regard. Differing skin hues cover over a multitude of Marxist-Muslim cognitive dissonance.
So are these al-Qaeda admirers on to something? Has the West really been ignoring OBL’s pearls of wisdom for two decades? Let’s take a look.
Leading, and Closing, With the Quran
First, note that OBL opens and closes with Quranic passages. Five of them mandate fighting against “disbelievers.” The other three predict the victory of Islam over all other religions, via “martyrdom.” Which actually means dying to kill others, not the Christian idea of accepting death in the name of Christ. I wonder why TikToker #1 can’t deconstruct Islam, as she says she did Christianity. OBL then gives his version of why “we are fighting and opposing you.” Followed by “what do we want from you?”
First, note that OBL opens and closes with Quranic passages. Five of them mandate fighting against “disbelievers.” The other three predict the victory of Islam over all other religions, via “martyrdom.” Which actually means dying to kill others, not the Christian idea of accepting death in the name of Christ. I wonder why TikToker #1 can’t deconstruct Islam, as she says she did Christianity. OBL then gives his version of why “we are fighting and opposing you.” Followed by “what do we want from you?”