[1324] in peace2
Re: The Bin Laden Tape
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard J. Barbalace)
Fri Dec 14 11:26:19 2001
Message-Id: <200112141626.LAA00128@starbase.mit.edu>
To: reagle@MIT.EDU
Cc: Rhett Creighton <rhett@MIT.EDU>, peace-list@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 14 Dec 2001 11:20:18 -0500.
<20011214162018.126D12A9D@policy.w3.org>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 11:26:14 -0500
From: "Richard J. Barbalace" <rjbarbal@MIT.EDU>
> We already know bin Laden doesn't worry about life in general (consider all
> the innocent Muslims killed in the African bombings) but the
> administration/media is putting some new spin on this to generate an
> emotional response that doesn't fit my understanding of the events.
There a few elements to this:
1) If you don't believe "bin Laden doesn't worry about life", this
pressures you to believe it. Remember that the tape was released
more for the rest of the world than for the US population.
2) It emphasizes that he is more responsible for the attacks than
the terrorists who died. They did not plan the attacks, they
did not have a chance to question or alter the attacks, etc.
3) It opens the question, "Would the terrorists who died have
carried out the attacks if they had understood what they were
doing?" If you personally answer with "probably not", bin Ladin
looks worse.
+ R
