The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- eight years ago today -- targeted not just the U.S. government at the Pentagon and all the police and firefighters who were killed that day, but the World Trade Center, Jay Richards reminds us at the blog of the American Enterprise Institute.
For more of Osama Bin Laden's view of capitalism, see his tape of September 2007:
Those with real power and influence are those with the most capital. And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they presidential or congressional, there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment - and there isn't any- in the Democrats' failure to stop the war. And you're the ones who have the saying which goes, "Money talks." ...
It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the m ajor corporations. And with that, it has become clear to all that they are the real tyrannical terrorists. In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations, yet despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that the statistic speaks of the death and displacement of the millions of human beings because of that, especially in Africa. This greatest of plagues and most dangerous of threats to the lives of humans is taking place in an accelerating fashion as the world is being dominated by the democratic system, which confirms its massive failure to protect humans and their interests from the greed and avarice of the major corporations and their representatives."
"And despite this brazen attack on the people, the leaders of the West - especially Bush, Blair, Sarkozy and Brown- still talk about freedom and human rights with a flagrant disregard for the intellects of human beings. So is there a form of terrorism stronger, clearer and more dangerous than this? This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system."
"If you were to ponder it well, you would find that in the end, it is a system harsher and fiercer than your systems in the Middle Ages. The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations.
There's a whole sector of "experts" who think that America should try to solve the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict because Osama Bin Laden and other anti-American terrorists complain about that, too. The group of experts who think America should overthrow capitalism so that the terrorists won't hate us as more is smaller and less vocal. It should go without saying that not all critics of capitalism or of corporations are loathsome terrorists like Bin Laden. But we are at a moment when capitalism and corporations are under attack from a lot of different directions, and the fact that elements of critique are shared by Bin Laden is a small point worth mentioning (SPWM) on this particular day of the year.