[quote name='The Crotch']God dammit.
On the Moore thing:
He's a bit more right on this than some of you are giving him credit for, though he's still wrong in parts.
Bin Laden gave zero cunt-sucks about "giving away our freedoms" and all that noise. He also didn't care about "bringing down the US". Attacking the US was a means to an entirely different end: Islamist revolutions against secular regimes across the Middle East. The hope was that the inevitable American invasion would anger enough people that bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and other Islamist groups would be able to ride a wave of popular support - they, after all, had dealt great blows to "The West", whereas the current rulers were basically just sitting on their dicks.
Now, the Afghan invasion was a good deal better planned than anticipated, so no world-shocking bloodbath there, but the Iraq war was a

ing freebie. Still didn't work out for the would-be revolutionaries, as things got a little too ethnic-civil-war-y to really fuel a religious uprising. If there was a Step C: Crush America in the gameplan, we'll probably never know.
Now, bin Laden using religion as a cover? Well, it's feasible, I guess - there's his motivation, up in the paragraphs above - but it's an entirely unnecessary and unlikely little add-on to the story.
The "millionaire" tangent is one that I really don't feel like getting in to. It's... not particularly relevant, in my mind.[/QUOTE]
I think that Bin Laden's ultimate goal was a self-determined government defined by his own cultural context, but still viewed himself a member of the ruling class...a touch of megalomania wouldn't be an exaggeration imo.
There are lots of conflicting reports on the religiosity of Bin Laden, so I'm still up in the air about that one.
As far as the money part is concerned, Bin Laden lucked out in that he had his own wealth to make things easier, but if he didn't have it, there are plenty of other factions willing to fill-in that spot if it was there.
Moore has his kookiness, but like Ron Paul, they can arrive at socially equitable and responsible conclusions, albeit, for wrong reasons. Not to say that I condone either one. I think that the Moore letter is better used for introspection and that's what I get out of it. I tend to not be a huge fan of lefty celebrities as they usually don't try to educate themselves too much on the issues.