There's a very interesting piece in today's Arab News, whose lede is that bin Laden is dead.

But that's not what's interesting. Considering the source, what's interesting is that it almost reads like a blogger piece--it indicts Wahhabism, cynical Europeans, naive and not-so-naive funding sources and complacent Americans. It identifies Pakistan and the Sudan as culprits.

Andrew Sullivan, from whom I got the link, writes:

The reasons given for the death of Islamism in the Arab world are also eye-opening. Could we be winning this propaganda war?

But Andrew misses what is to me the most significant thing, which is not what it says, but what it doesn't say. The only significant way in which it differs from an essay by Victor Davis Hanson or Daniel Pipes is that it doesn't mention...Saudi Arabia.

I'm wondering if the Sauds are now getting ready to accept the truth, and give up on the Wahhabi colonization and dreams of an Islamic empire, in exchange for being allowed to deflect blame away from themselves?

You know, no harm, no foul? Let us not bicker and argue over 'oo drove airplanes into 'oo's skyscrapers--let bygones be bygones.

Let's not focus on the past. Let us instead just stride forward, hand in hand, into a westernized future, in which we keep our oil money and our power to oppress people at home.

I just checked the permalink I put on this article back on July 8, and it does have today's date on it. But I rather doubt that is supposed to be the date of the article.

This sounds like a webmastering error at ArabNews.com

I think they're just trying to deflect attention from themselves. They CAN'T give up their dreams of conquest and superiority without giving up their religion.

They may want us to forget 9/11. I won't. Bush better not, either.

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