Emmanuel Goldstein’s Dark Victory

by William Norman Grigg

Recently by William Norman Grigg: Allen West: Has the Militarist Right Found its New Warlord?

Whether Osama bin Laden departed the mortal realm for an unpleasant eternity years ago – as sober and serious people have reported – or last week in a firefight suitable for a sweeps week episode of NCIS, this much is certain: The government ruling us managed to turn that despicable creature into a prophet.

"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," bin Laden gloated shortly after 9-11. "The U.S. government will lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and a choking life."

Osama's fondest wish was to see a civilizational conflict between the West and the Islamic world. A subsidiary desire was to see the United States spend itself into oblivion by carrying out that demented crusade. He doubtless was delighted to see the United States become mired in an intractable war in Afghanistan, and to see Washington expand the compass of its conflict with the Muslim world to include Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

Bin Laden was almost certainly gleeful to witness the collapse of the most recent Fed-engineered financial bubble in 2008, and probably emitted a chuckle or two over the dollar's rapid disintegration. Assuming that CNN or Fox is available in hell, bin Laden will probably be permitted a fleeting moment of satisfaction when the United States descends into a hyperinflationary crisis worthy of Weimar Germany or contemporary Zimbabwe – something that could occur before the end of this year.

As a CIA-nurtured student of post-Leninist terrorist tactics, bin Laden understood the revolutionary formula outlined in Carlos Marighella's Mini-Manual for the Urban Guerrilla.

The purpose of terrorism, explained Marighella, is to "to intensify repression," resulting in draconian measures that "make life unbearable" for the subject population. When faced with "revolutionary violence," government will eagerly resort to "police roundups, house searches, arrests of innocent people [that] make life in the city unbearable.... " Rejecting the "so-called political solution," the urban guerrilla must become more aggressive and violent, resorting without letup to sabotage, terrorism, expropriations, assaults, kidnappings, and executions, heightening the disastrous situation in which the government must act...."

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who published and widely disseminated Marighella's terrorist tract, was a millionaire Marxist publishing magnate (yes, such people do exist). He concisely summarized Marighella's strategy as using relentless violence against the innocent in order to provoke an "authoritarian turn to the right" – the imposition of dictatorial measures and the consolidation of power by a State that ere long will fall into the hands of the revolutionaries.

Whatever else bin Laden was, he understood that dynamic and eagerly promoted it. Whether or not it was a product of conscious design, bin Laden and Washington's Power Elite existed in symbiosis. Every action taken by the government ruling us that abridged individual liberties and enlarged the public debt was a small victory for bin Laden's vision. The same is true of every CIA-conducted Predator drone strike that wiped out a helpless Muslim family, thereby sowing seeds of rancor that will blossom into anti-American terrorism.

Some people have long suspected that worms had gagged on bin Laden's mortal remains long ago, and that his name and likeness were being used in a "Weekend at Bernie's"-style hoax by our rulers.

Every once in a while the image of the omnipotent troglodyte – who supposedly had the power to threaten our very existence while living in a cave somewhere in the Tora Bora Mountains – would be resurrected to rally the public on behalf of the Long War. This routine succumbed to the law of diminishing returns about five years ago.

By now, however, the Regime no longer requires bin Laden's service as a hate figure. The purpose of such a totem is to personify an abstract "Enemy." Over the past two years, proponents of a civilizational conflict with the Muslim world have succeeded in convincing a large and growing segment of the population that Islam itself – everywhere it exists, in whatever form it takes – is the Enemy, and that coexistence isn't an option.

Although he would be on the opposing side of the proposition, bin Laden would appreciate the War Party's efforts to criminalize the practice of Islam in the United States. This is the objective of the "anti-Sharia" enactments that are sprouting like poisonous toadstools wherever the War Party and its acolytes have fertilized the ground with that malodorous substance in which such fungi thrive.

Bin Laden would have admired the clarifying fanaticism behind the original version of Tennessee's proposed anti-Sharia ordinance, which would have treated peaceful belief in Sharia law as a felony punishable by up to twenty years in prison. He would be delighted to see the same U.S. government that is bombing, invading, and occupying Muslim nations abroad actively working to suppress the religious liberty of American Muslims at home. What better way to validate bin Laden's claim that war between Islam and the West is inevitable?

Ten years ago, the image of the Enemy was that of an unabashedly hostile self-proclaimed sheik who reveled in his hatred for America. By now, much of the Right has been convinced that law-abiding American Muslims who conduct peaceful commerce and profess to love our country are the most insidious threat we face.

When sectarian collectivism has metastasized into the marrow of our culture, an apparition like bin Laden is no longer necessary.

Assuming that the official narrative of bin Laden's death as a recent event is reliable, this development fulfills a promise made about a year ago by Attorney General Eric Holder, who told a congressional committee that bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom." Bin Laden was indicted for mass murder and other terrorism-related offenses (although, intriguingly, not the 9-11 atrocities), which means that it would have been entirely proper for him to be arraigned before a criminal court in an appropriate jurisdiction.

But that's not how things are done now by the Regime ruling us: The post-Bush doctrine of presidential war powers dictates that the incumbent dictator, as our "living Constitution," can order the summary execution of anyone on the planet for any reason he deems suitable. A corollary to that doctrine is that a "terrorist" is anyone thus designated by the Regime.

For a decade bin Laden was used to demonstrate the supposed necessity and wisdom of these totalitarian innovations. Anwar al-Awlaki, a "radical cleric" in Yemen who was clearly groomed as bin Laden's understudy for the past two years, will now assume the marquee role.

Al-Awlaki – who, like bin Laden, was cultivated by the National Security State before being designated an Official Enemy Of The People – is a U.S. citizen targeted for assassination by a presidential order. This kind of thing was all but unimaginable ten years ago, but is now treated with torpid indifference by the people responsible for shaping public opinion.

Thanks in no small measure to the ministrations of such people, much of the American public will be praising the government ruling us for sending Osama to hell, oblivious to the hell that the same government has stored up for the rest of us.

May 3, 2011

William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.

Copyright © 2011 William Norman Grigg

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