Anne Applebaum outlines a possible rational for Bin Laden's videotapes and why he spends so much time touching on issues that seem to have no relevance to radical Islam (the like the subprime mortgage crisis).
He wants to recruit disaffected youth, even those in the United States, to his cause.
This seems to me to be an issue of consent. A democratic government rests on the consent of the governed, so perhaps he wants to persuade just enough people to not consent to the laws--to see government as illegitimate-- to upend the governing system.
How does a society fight against this? Touching on some of the subject matter of the opening lectures, is this why Texas wants you to take two government classes?
