Rachel on Osama and money: "The goal of Al Qaeda was to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy"
by Gaius Publius on 5/04/2011 12:48:00 PM
Fascinating. Rachel Maddow has a "Who was Osama?" report that's eye-opening. Not that any of this is new, but little of it is reported in this, the Tom Clancy phase of the bin Laden termination story.
Put differently, we want to be watching an action movie, so that's what we're fed. But in fact we've been watching a very clever heist all the time - one where the perp got the mark to rob himself blind. And thus we're blind.
Maddow's report:
"According to bin Laden, the goal of Al Qaeda was to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy. That was his grand strategy" (6:35 in the clip).
She titles her report "On Our Terms, Not His". On his terms, we lost, right? After all, isn't that what the Reagan of our myths did to the old Soviet Union - get them to spend themselves into bankruptcy?
Food for thought, though I don't hold out hope for our digesting it. The real predators feeding on our decline - the military-security industry - are feasting. They're unlikely to allow the process of decay to stop until the last drinkable drop has passed their lips. And we're unlikely to stop them.
GP