Osama Bin Laden Was Right, After All

Decolonization justifies everything.

Hamas slaughtered 1,200 innocent people in Israel on October 7.

Some people foolishly thought that Israel had a right to respond. But no.

Decolonization excuses everything! Palestinians were oppressed; someone had to fight for their freedom; 1,200 innocent people died. That’s just fine.

For Israel to respond is an outrage. There should be an immediate ceasefire. Why does Israel believe it has the right to destroy Hamas?

That’s what many on the left are saying. But those on the far left have now realized an inconsistency in their views.

When Osama bin Laden masterminded killing 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, the United States believed this was wrong. America retaliated. About 243,000 people were killed in the resulting war in Afghanistan, including more than 70,000 civilians. Public opinion fully supported the American response (at the outset). Almost nobody complained about the loss of civilian lives.

The loonies of the left have now realized the error of our ways.

Osama bin Laden published his “Letter to the American People” in 2002, in which he explained, among other things, that the United States had been supporting Israel for years (which was certainly true), and the terrorist attack on 9/11 was simply part of the Palestinians’ fight for freedom. (I’d like to provide a link to a translation of bin Laden’s words, but those words have largely disappeared from the web over the past week.  Here’s where bin Laden’s letter used to appear on Wikipedia. I read the letter there last Thursday; the letter had been taken down by Friday.)

Apparently, in the aftermath of events in Israel, some folks recently read the letter, concluded that Osama bin Laden was correct and the murderous attacks on 9/11 were justified, and started praising bin Laden on TikTok. TikTok is now trying to remove this praise, which supports terrorism, from its platform.

The logic of the left is pretty compelling: Decolonization justifies anything. For decades, the United States supported Israel, which included Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. The American and Israeli policies effectively colonized the Palestinians, so those policies were evil. Therefore, anyone in the world could slaughter innocent Americans in the name of decolonization.

If it’s wrong for Israel to respond to the terrorism of Hamas, then it must have been wrong for the United States to respond to the terrorism of Osama bin Laden. Sauce for the goose, and all that.

I’m delighted that the far left has finally adopted a position that’s consistent.  Insane, maybe, but consistent: No country has the right to defend itself when the country is attacked in the name of decolonization.

Moreover, the 70,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan were surely “disproportionate” to the mere 3,000 Americans who died on 9/11.

Somehow, the idea that a country has a right to defend itself when it’s attacked is simply forgotten.

(World War II was a disproportionate response to Pearl Harbor, right?  Only 2,400 Americans died at Pearl Harbor. How could America have declared war over that? There should have been an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated resolution. Besides, if you’d asked Hirohito, he probably would have said that Pearl Harbor was a legitimate protest after America froze all Japanese assets in the United States, so Japan was deprived of oil. The very nerve! A sneak attack was perfectly justified.)

I suspect (actually, I hope) that many of the people who now think that our response to 9/11 wasn’t justified were too young in 2001 to remember how Americans felt on September 12. We had been attacked; innocents had been slaughtered; and we didn’t care too much about the purported justification for the attack. There is no possible justification for terrorism. The Twin Towers had been destroyed, innocent people had died, and America was going to respond — “the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon” — because terrorism is wrong. End of story.

There are plenty of legitimate ways to protest perceived colonization. Give a speech. Write a screed on Xwitter. Better yet: Engage in nonviolent protest. If the Palestinians had engaged in nonviolent protest starting 50 years ago, I bet they’d have a country by now. If the Palestinians started to engage in nonviolent protest today, I bet they’d have a country within the next 50 years.

That’s all permissible.

But don’t slaughter innocents.

That’s wrong.

And don’t object when a country defends itself after being attacked.

(One last thing: I’m not a crazy warmonger. Hamas engaged in terrorism on October 7. Hamas is now engaged in the war crime of using civilians as shields against attack. Both of those things are wrong. Of course, Israel should not engage in war crimes in response. Israel has the right to attack military targets; it should not gratuitously attack civilians.

For all those who argue in favor of an immediate ceasefire, I ask: What’s your solution to the problem of Hamas? It’s easy to deplore civilian deaths; I deplore them, too. It’s harder to explain how Hamas can be eliminated without a military response.)

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