El Bloggero Fundamentalista

Osama bin Laden, el bloggero:

Osama bin Laden's latest message to the world, broadcast by al-Jazeera last Thursday, provoked the same sense of déjà vu as has Messages to the World: the Statements of Osama bin Laden, recently published by the left-leaning literary publishing house Verso. The book is a collection of every public utterance made by the al-Qaeda leader between 1994 and 2004, and according to one excitable reviewer it shows that he is a "charismatic man of action, an eloquent preacher, a teacher of literature and a resilient, cunning, wonderfully briefed politician." To me, however, there was something irritatingly familiar rather than surprisingly eloquent about his tone and turns of phrase.

Then it struck me: Bin Laden is a blogger. Not literally, of course, but he certainly speaks in the language of the blogosphere. He references Robert Fisk and Michael Moore, those darlings of the anti-war Web. In his latest statement, he recommends that people read Rogue State by leftist author William Blum, another favorite of the leftwing blogosphere whose email newsletter, "Anti-Empire Report," is frequently republished and discussed. Bin Laden also repeats conspiracy theories about 9/11 and lines of attack against Bush that I have read a thousand times on a thousand blogs.