By Col. Bill Connor ——Bio and Archives--November 30, 2023
American Politics, News | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
A recent article in Foreign Policy by Sajjan M. Gohel, international security director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, best describes a disturbing zeitgeist among Western youth: “For several days last week, U.S. media was saturated with stories about how al Qaeda’s 2002 ‘Letter to the American People’ had apparently gone viral on TikTok and other social media platforms. According to these early reports, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, videos of TikTok users reading portions of the terrorist group’s manifesto and characterizing Osama bin Laden, commonly credited as the letter’s author, as a hero fighting Western-led oppression were finding receptive viewers among some Gen Z users.” [Please see – Why Al Qaeda’s Letter Went Viral on TikTok]
The newfound popularity of Bin Laden’s letter among Gen-Z brought shock to many of us, and even caused the United Kingdom’s prime liberal media source, The Guardian, to remove the letter from its website for the first time in two decades. Some have lambasted TikTok for appearing to assist the trending of the letter online, though the TikTok platform algorithms don’t explain what happened: Why the letter of a terrorist mass-murderer of thousands of American civilians would meet with such agreement and support among so many Western youth? The real reason is the same reason so many of those youth support Hamas (as leader of Palestinians in Gaza) over Israel: A dangerous level of national and cultural self-loathing the progressive left has pushed for years to now become an existential threat.
As Sajjan Gohel opined about the letter: “A surface-level reading of the text (of bin Laden’s letter to America) implies that bin Laden and his organization were decolonial voices of the subaltern, fighting against Western capitalist hegemony in the Middle East.”
The snippets of the 4,000-word letter pushed around on TikTok and other sources focus on bin Laden’s criticisms of America. Unfortunately, these are the same criticisms our young have heard from the progressive left for years: Criticism of American capitalism. Criticism of alleged American racism. Criticism of alleged American colonialism. The cynical mention of America’s failure to sign the Kyoto accords.
The letter gives justification for the murder of the 3,000 civilian men, women, and children on 9-11 due to their alleged support for the American government bin Laden claimed to be responsible for exponentially more deaths of Muslims. The contents of bin Laden’s letter have unfortunately been spewed out in the progressive strongholds in academia to the point those views have become the only acceptable opinions. A healthy national pride in American exceptionalism has now become the “extremist” position through progressive brainwashing. Bin Laden would thrive on a Western campus now.
Support Canada Free Press
What has grabbed the attention of many in agreement with the bin Laden letter has been his description of Israel as the alleged oppressor of oppressed Palestinians. The wide-ranging anti-Israel protests on Western campuses, which include the bin Laden and Hamas rhetoric of the “oppressor-oppressed” began immediately in the aftermath of the October 7 slaughter. This is a culmination of cultural Marxism going back half a century.
The primarily genesis of Israel as the “oppressor” came in the wake of the 1967 “Six Day War”, and the international alignment of communism with Arabs against Israel. The DNI website describes the first primary Palestinian Terror group and its connection to international communism: “The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a terrorist group based in the Gaza strip and West Bank. It combines Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology, viewing the destruction of Israel as integral to the struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East… The group was founded after the Six Day War in 1967… and carried out (terror) attacks with leftist groups across the world during the 1970s.” [Please see – Foreign Terrorist Organizations -- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) ]
The famous hijacking of the Israel airliner diverted to Entebbe, Uganda in 1976 was done by primarily German communists driven by the Marxist-Leninist ‘oppressor-oppressed’ worldview. Thankfully during the Cold War, communists were kept down in the West.
Over two decades ago when bin Laden crafted his screed cultural Marxism had not made the inroads it has today and so the letter was seen as evil by almost all.
The seeming insanity of cultural Marxist progressives joining with strict Islamists who seek a world under Sharia law comes with the mutual hatred of Israel as “oppressor.”
If those supporting bin Laden’s letter read the full content, they might ponder the ideas antithetical to progressive ideology. The letter hammers the “immorality and debauchery,” of the West, and condemns the “acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling...” As we are all aware, these condemnations are not aimed at Western conservatives (though Western conservatives aren’t finding any sort of common ground). The Sharia law bin Laden advocates would have homosexuals thrown off buildings, and women would have few of the rights they enjoy in the West. The level of insanity within cultural Marxism in regards to bin Laden becomes hard to comprehend and yet cannot be ignored.
It is time for the silent majority to wake up to what this progressive ideology has wrought on society. October 7 was one of the worst atrocities imaginable. It would be even worse if we didn’t wake up to forces supporting it and where it is leading. The destruction of this great nation and the worst kind of self-destructive insanity.
View Comments