Osama's Global Warming Rant

The disembodied voice of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has once again been made public in airing his grievances against the US for causing global warming and destroying the environment.

In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.

He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change."

Bin Laden has mentioned climate change and global warning in past messages, but the latest tape was his first dedicated to the topic. The speech, which included almost no religious rhetoric, could be an attempt by the terror leader to give his message an appeal beyond Islamic militants.

The al-Qaida leader also targeted the U.S. economy in the recording, calling for a boycott of American products and an end to the dollar's domination as a world currency.

Well, where to start with this? I know, how about shifting to nuclear power which would eliminate emissions and reliance on many of the very regimes that support and export terrorists like Osama bin Laden's coreligionists. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other oil-rich states used the money from the oil industry to export jihadis and to pay for madrassas that teach and indoctrinate a new generation of Muslims to engage in jihad.

Cut the flow of money into those regimes by reducing reliance on oil, and you reduce their influence.

Again, this goes to economic arguments that bin Laden has made in the past, and he's hoping to engage in war against the US by all the means at his disposal; the 9/11 attacks were as much about creating physical devastation and symbolism as they were about disrupting the US economy.