Bin Reading November 11, 2004February 28, 2017 BIN LADEN SHOWS HIS CARDS If Al Gore or John Kerry had been President, I believe either 9/11 would have been averted (because the urgent warnings that began for Bush on January 7, 2001, would have been heeded) or else Bin Laden would today be dead. Possibly both. Well, spilt milk. But in thinking about what one’s long-term investment prospects, I was struck by Bin Laden’s game plan, as described here. So far, we seem to be playing right into it. In part: (CNN) — The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript Monday of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group’s goal is to force America into bankruptcy. Al-Jazeera aired portions of the videotape Friday but released the full transcript of the entire tape on its Web site Monday. “We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah,” bin Laden said in the transcript. He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, “using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers.” “We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat,” bin Laden said. He also said al Qaeda has found it “easy for us to provoke and bait this administration.” “All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations,” bin Laden said. TWO BOOKS WORTH READING Jim: ‘I just finished The Plot Against America, the fantastic new book by Philip Roth. Many parallels to today.’ Also, I just spent some time with Kitty Kelly’s excellent editor. He described the process by which her book about the Bush dynasty was vetted by the lawyers – and savaged by the White House, intimidating most national TV shows into canceling her appearance or (in the case of The Today Show, getting them to give her a very, very hard time). Consider that if you’re 44 today, by 2008 you will have lived with a Bush presidency for 12 of your 48 years – 25%, or or a third of your conscious life (I, at least, was barely aware of my surroundings before I turned 12) . . . so you might want to know more about the family. It’s an interesting story, well researched.