Bin Laden: Killer, Coward, Bad Politician

Osama bin Laden’s ultimate objective is not to kill Americans or topple the U.S. government. His objective is to topple the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc., through internal revolutions fanned by fundamentalist rage at an ill-considered and overly broad U.S. response to his cowardly terrorism.

Bin Laden is a modern-day Charlie Manson hoping to create “helter skelter” in the Muslim world. Whether he is successful is now largely within our control. We must resist the urge to take politically appealing, quick, hot and broad responses.

Mr. President, when you serve up revenge for me, make sure it’s narrowly targeted and righteous. And serve it ice-cold.

John L. Jurewitz

Claremont

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Bin Laden should be destroyed by Muslims because he is, among other things, a bad politician. Just a few weeks ago, at the international racism conference in South Africa, the U.S. and Israel were backed into a corner by themselves.

The U.S. was becoming isolated because of its refusal to sign the Kyoto agreement. The Palestinian cause was gaining sympathy. But look at the international backlash against Bin Laden’s actions: All old alliances and allegiances have changed, in our favor. Now we are the victims.

Even Libya and Cuba are sounding sympathetic. Muslims have denounced Bin Laden everywhere. His henchmen, while they got away with horrid carnage, left a paper trail and many other clues leading back to him, showing how amateurish he and they really are. He’s also a coward: Instead of being proud and defiant, Bin Laden has tried to disassociate himself from these acts. How does he explain that all the suicide henchmen are linked to him?

Paul Silverman

North Hollywood

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I find it ironic that the coward Bin Laden, who has sent so many of his disciples to their deaths in the name of his cause, on countless occasions, over a period of several years, has himself never chosen to seize the opportunity. Maybe he doesn’t believe in what he preaches.

Steve Thomas

Yorba Linda

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Why are we and our allies so concerned with finding irrefutable proof that Bin Laden was behind the attacks on New York and the Pentagon? We have declared war on all terrorism. Bin Laden has himself admitted he was behind the bombing of the Cole, in which 17 U.S. sailors were killed. His operatives have admitted their ties to, and the complicity of, Bin Laden in the two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. He has already been indicted for these earlier attacks, and he’s listed among the FBI’s 10 most wanted.

Of course, we should continue to investigate precisely who is responsible for the heinous crimes of Sept. 11 to best understand how they were accomplished and by whom. However, it is not necessary to wait for the results of that investigation to justify killing Bin Laden and all those in his camp.

Those of our purported allies who tell us not to do anything precipitous but to wait until we have irrefutable evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement in recent attacks are being disingenuous. We already know that he killed Americans and others.

Kill him as soon as possible. Don’t wait.

Leonard Tachner

Irvine

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Bin Laden sells his ideology to poor, young, ill-educated Muslims by telling them the West is out to destroy Islam. Then President Bush, who one would think would want all moderate and clear-thinking Muslims to be sympathetic to our side, calls his plan to get the terrorists a “crusade.”

This is maybe the very thing that Muslims remember and fear the most about the West: the Crusades. Was this a deliberate jab on his part, or just another one of his blunders with words?

Tim Metcalfe

Los Angeles