The AP reports:
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt.
He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for “drastic solutions” to global warming, and “not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change.”
DJR says:
“that the way to stop it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt.”
Who is Osama Bin Galt?
January 29, 2010, 9:51 amDaniel Chapman says:
You can lock the comments now, Mr. Adler… It can only go downhill after DJR’s post :)
January 29, 2010, 10:08 amHouston Lawyer says:
He must not have air conditioning in whatever mud hut he is stuck in. And that desert he is familiar with predates industrial society.
Also, Hitler was against smoking.
January 29, 2010, 10:12 amMark Field says:
Apparently he’s unaware that the US has a several hundred billion dollar trade deficit. We’re doing quite well enough on our own to not sell our goods overseas.
But I agree that DJR won the thread in the first post.
January 29, 2010, 10:17 amAssistant Village Idiot says:
I think his comments about climate change ought to play rather poorly in oil-producing nations. If they follow his idea to its inevitable conclusion, that is.
He originally cared more about Americans in Saudi and the tragedy of Andalusia than about Israel, until he learned what a great rhetorical selling point that was. He’s trying to do that again, catching a wave of enthusiasm and hoping to ride it for his own purposes. Seems a bit desperate.
January 29, 2010, 10:47 amzuch says:
Hitler was a vegetarian.
PETA members are vegetarian.
Therefore, all PETA members are Nazis.
Q.E.D.
That’s just the first mistake here. bin Laden’s opportunism is similar to the insidious campaigns of Lyndon LaRouche and his merry band of nutters as supposed “Democrats”.
Cheers,
January 29, 2010, 11:26 amThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
My reaction is that this shows that Bin Laden (if it is indeed him) is actually desparate; he’s trying to piggy-back on the cause du jour in the West.
January 29, 2010, 11:41 amDave N. says:
zuch,
Almost. The logical chain would be:
Hitler was a vegeterian.
PETA members are vegetarians.
PETA members are Nazis.
Note the absence of the word “all.”
Of course, none of this has anything to do with Osama Bin Ladin’s aspirations for a Nobel Peace Prize.
January 29, 2010, 11:43 amMalvolio says:
Wow, Obama really has brought back Chicago-style politics. Dead people voting is old hat; now we have dead people issuing press releases.
One night, two Daley operatives are moving through South Side cemetery, copying names off of tombstones for voting rolls. “Damn Polish names,” growls one. “Too long. I’m skipping this one.”
“Hey,” insists the other. “This is America! That guy has as much right to vote as anyone in this cemetery!”
January 29, 2010, 11:50 amAnton Sirius says:
I can only hope our intelligence community draws the same conclusion from this that I did: bin Laden’s current undisclosed location must be at sea level.
January 29, 2010, 12:06 pmlgm says:
I wish Jonathan Alder would supply a hint of his reaction to this tidbit. Otherwise he’s like Instapundit, posting outrageous conservative stuff because it’s “interesting”.
January 29, 2010, 12:56 pmDAnD says:
I think the Anthropogenic Global Warming suggestion has officially jumped the shark with this news.
January 29, 2010, 1:02 pmSarcastro says:
That is so logical!
January 29, 2010, 1:51 pmDennis N says:
Well, there it is. Settled science.
January 29, 2010, 2:01 pmjames says:
He’s just concern trolling
January 29, 2010, 2:34 pmegd says:
FIFY.
January 29, 2010, 2:53 pmzuch says:
I believe I’m correct. In Illinois, I’m pretty sure that Larouchites hijacked the local somnolent parties to put their own candidates up on the “Democratic” line….
Cheers,
January 29, 2010, 3:18 pmDaniel Chapman says:
I think the funniest thing about this story (aside from the first comment) is the fact that it puts liberal commenters in a tizzy.
January 29, 2010, 4:43 pmNickM says:
zuch actually is correct here. LaRouchies have gotten themselves Democratic nominations for offices as high as U.S. Senate (Erik Fleming, in MS), and Congressman John Conyers had long and deep ties with the LaRouche organization (from being a featured speaker at their PAC in 2005 to inviting LaRouche-affiliated people to be half the witnesses at a hearing he held on DC General Hospital years ago). LaRouche also had a traveling roadshow of a group of Democratic state legislators, including Fleming, who appear at his events on a variety of topics around the country.
Oddly enough, most of the prominent LaRouche-connected Democrats are black, even though LaRouche is a vicious racist.
Nick
January 29, 2010, 4:53 pmDNJ says:
This has made me think a little more favourably of Mr bin Laden. At least he is better on this issue than most Republicans, who stupidly question climate change in the face of overwhelming evidence and a scientific consensus.
January 29, 2010, 5:06 pmMichael Ejercito says:
Bin Laden cares as much about climate change as he does about the Palestinian Arabs.
January 29, 2010, 5:57 pmzuch says:
… then there’s Michael Steele … and some bro that was on Sean Hannity’s radio show today agreeing with Hannity all the way. People are people, you can’t figure out everything they’re gonna do.
Cheers,
January 29, 2010, 8:30 pmRicardo says:
This isn’t quite as bizarre as Ayatollah Khomeini’s defense of the rights of transexuals, but weird none the less. And probably desperate as well.
After 9/11, Dinesh D’Souza devoted a book to the idea that maybe social conservatives ought to try to find common ground with fundamentalist Muslims due to their similar views on loose sexual mores and homosexuality and should change social policy at home to make future terrorist attacks less likely.
Environmentalists would be well-advised not to pull a D’Souza on this one.
January 30, 2010, 4:53 amJonathan H. Adler says:
How is a news tidbit “outrageous conservative stuff”? This made the top of the Washington Post‘s web page, it’s newsworthy, and it is interesting. Your comment is also curious given the headline. As I thought it indicated, assuming bin Laden is sincere (a questionable assumption), this would make him an example of a real eco-terrorist, in contrast to many of those who are labeled as such by political opponents.
JHA
January 30, 2010, 9:17 amNickM says:
JHA – you’re assuming an interest in rational discourse. lgm is quite well known as an especially humorless troll through the conservative blogosphere.
Nick
January 30, 2010, 7:08 pmDavid Sucher says:
What IGNM says.
Adler.
Plausible deniability.
“Hmmm!.”
January 31, 2010, 12:34 am