Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney's speechwriter

Glenn Greenwald examines Dick Cheney's tirade yesterday at AIPAC in some detail. As usual, not only does Cheney sound exactly like Osama bin Laden, he actually quotes him at length:

Yet the critics conveniently disregard the words of bin Laden himself. The most serious issue today for the whole world, he has said, is this third world war that is raging in Iraq. He calls it a destiny between infidelity and Islam. He said the whole world is watching this war and that it will end in victory and glory or misery and humiliation. And in words directed at the American people, bin Laden declares, "The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever."

This leader of al Qaeda has referred to Baghdad as the capital of the Caliphate. He has also said, and I quote, "Success in Baghdad will be success for the United States. Failure in Iraq is the failure of the United States. Their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their wars."

Obviously, the terrorists have no illusion about the importance of the struggle in Iraq. They have not called it a distraction or a diversion from their war against the United States. They know it is a central front in that war and it's where they've chosen to make a stand.

Many problems here, of course. Bin Laden's continued existence has hardly been proved for several years, and the provenance of these "quotes" is highly dubious, having gone through various recordings, transmittals, transcriptions, and translations, with multiple opportunities for mischief or mistakes at each step. But, supposing for now that this is in fact the Word of Osama--is Cheney really so dense as to believe that bin Laden had no ulterior motives in saying them? Doesn't he at least suspect that bin Laden writes speeches for him AS PART OF his grand scheme to destroy America? That bin Laden might want the US to stay stuck in the Iraq quagmire for ever, and that feeding BS to rabid US politicians about caliphates stretching from Spain to Indonesia is the ONLY chance bin Laden has of remotely succeeding? Without our help, bin Laden is restricted to killing a month's worth of car crashes of Americans every few years. But now he has the world's largest military working for him, and the most powerful man in the world (c'mon, Bush?) parroting his rhetoric.

Cheney is a sick, delusional old fart, whose insane ideas should be bouncing off statues in a park somewhere. Unfortunately, he is in a position of immense power, and most everyone else with any power in this country refuses to disagree with him in any significant way.