OK, so Osama Bin Laden is back with a new video. This time he’s giving us a lecture on the errors of our ways. He’s urging Americans to convert en mass to Islam. That guy has some imagination. But he’s not issuing any threats. Well, that’s different. Is this a kinder and gentler Al Qaeda that we’re seeing?

Yea, right. I’m not an expert on Islam, but I do know that Al Qaeda is trying to justify its brand of violent jihad to the “establishment” of imams and Moslem scholars who define and interpret the Qur’an for the faithful. One theory that seems popular in some quarters of the Islamic world is that violence against dangerous infidels can sometimes be justified, but only after they’ve been warned of the errors of their ways. Thus, I can’t help but wonder if Bin Laden has something big up his sleeve, and wants to get the imams ready to take some heat once the blood starts spilling, once the regular citizens and even children who pose no direct threat to any Moslem get slaughtered. (Even some local Moslems might well get caught in the mix, as happened on 9-11).

But who knows. Maybe he’s just going thru the motions; maybe he can’t really get anything big going with US Rangers just a couple of klicks to his west (but a friendly Pakistani intelligence service to his east). Let’s just hope.

The unfortunate thing is that Bin Laden is playing to an audience (i.e., the clerics and scholars in the Islamic world) that we have no idea how to impress, or even how to get a hearing from. If we could get them to sit down and watch a 30 minute video about “the way of the west”, just what would we say?

That’s the problem. Just what do we stand for? Democracy? A government with elected officials is good, but it still leaves a whole lot of woes (as we see in both Gaza and Iran, two VERY democratic nations). Capitalism and wealth? Yes, capitalism has served the western world rather well; but again, not without causing a whole lot of nasty side effects (e.g., poverty in a rich land is sometimes worse than general poverty, given the insult-to-injury factor; the poor start doing crazy things for some “bling-bling”). Liberalism, in the classic sense of freedom, justice and individual rights? Yes, this stuff is good, but again — it also gives you the right to be terribly poor and to be shut out by the wealthy and enfranchised “old guard”. In America, you have the right to buy excellent health care — if you can afford it. Otherwise, so sorry; you stay sick and die early. Liberalism in the other sense, i.e. increased governmental protection against scams and toxic chemicals and pollution and dangerous workplaces and all that? We tried that, but the voters wanted tax cuts.

I wish I could say that there is one really good thing that we strongly believe in here in “The West”. As an “eternal student”, I propose that to be EDUCATION. If we could say to the Moslem world that WE BELIEVE IN EDUCATION FOR ALL, then maybe the other things would start to fit together. I’d like us to be able to say that education is so sacred in “The West” that everyone can get as much of it as they want regardless of their ability to pay, and they get the same quality regardless of economic status or family connections. Education makes all the other stuff fall into place. Education makes better citizens, better workers, better government officials, better entrepreneurs, better teachers. It just plain makes people better. Not just richer, not just more employable, not just more able to play the system and elect better governments and choose wiser religious beliefs. It does all that — but it adds up to something bigger. It adds up to people living fulfilled lives, doing and being at their best. THAT is what I’d like to tell the Moslem world that we believe in. THAT is what I’d say is their alternative to Osama Bin Laden.

(We could thus call the Islamic world to remember it’s own rich scholarly heritage during it’s golden age!)

Once upon a time, we could honestly tell the world that this was true. When I went to college, at a decent state engineering school, the tuition was next to nothing. The State and Federal Governments were so committed to education that literally anyone who could pass the classes could get a degree. But guess what? That was 30 years ago.

Times have changed. Even the state schools have become awfully expensive. You can still get a scholarship if you’re a real goody-goody. But what about those poorer, lazier types who don’t have such impressive high school records? I went to law school with a guy who was basically a lout; he barely got out of high school and went to work in a factory. Between bouts of partying, he took some evening classes in a community college and he hated it. It was back to partying and factory life for him. But a few years later, he tried again. And that time around, he met a professor that “found” him. Then it was on to completing a four-year college degree, and then on to law school. Today he has a very successful legal practice and is a local councilman. That’s what you get when you let people go to college on the cheap.

I wish I could tell the imams about that guy, how anyone here in the USA can do that. But no, today that can’t be done. The guy would have needed to sign his life away for an education loan. Forget it, it wouldn’t happen if he had to play by today’s rules. People want their tax cuts. People want to shop. That was George Bush’s answer to the last big attack on our country by Al Qaeda — keep on shopping. And so we did. But can we buy protection against a Moslem world that thinks that’s all we stand for? We shall see.

PS, Bush’s homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, was on TV today taunting Bin Laden for being on the run and powerless. Senator John McCain tried to inject a dose of reality afterward when he said that Townsend’s comments were “not helpful”.