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al-Qaeda

Top 7 Ways Bin Laden Underestimated Joe Biden

Juan Cole 03/16/2012

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Captured documents from Usamah Bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout show that the terrorist leader urged an associate to attempt to assassinate President Barack Obama so that Vice President Joe Biden would come to power. “Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make (Vice President Joe) Biden take over the presidency. Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the US into a crisis.”

Bin Laden’s letter underscores how dangerous al-Qaeda feels President Barack Obama is. Despite Ayman al-Zawahiri’s racist attack on Obama as a “house Negro,” and the ways in which Obama’s American adversaries underestimated him, it is clear that he is perhaps the most formidable leader the US could have had in the effort to polish off al-Qaeda and to improve American standing in the world. (Favorability ratings for the US in world opinion polling improved dramatically on his election).

But Bin Laden, like many observers, woefully underestimated Joe Biden.

7. Biden, when elected to the Senate in 1972, was the 6th-youngest person ever to achieve that position. He ran, with virtually no money, against a long-time Republican incumbent, campaigning on the environment, getting out of Vietnam, and civil rights, and won an upset victory through sheer doggedness and a face to face statewide campaign.

6. Biden faced a tough emotional battle soon after his first senate victory when his wife and bady daughter were killed in an automobile accident. He overcame this horrible tragedy to rebuild his life.

5. Biden proved enormously popular as a senator in Delaware, winning another 6 elections handily, and becoming the state’s longest-serving senator in history.

4. Biden as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee spearheaded the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which provided billions to stop domestic abuse and which he considers his major legislative achievement. Let us just say that al-Qaeda doesn’t share Biden’s values.

3. Biden was ranking minority member or chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee for many years. He was a major voice for intervention in the Balkan War to stop Croat and Serb massacres of Bosnian Muslims, and called for lifting the then arms embargo and for arming the Bosnians. It was Biden, not Bin Laden, who did most to save Balkan Muslims.

2. Biden was a hawk on air intervention to stop the neo-fascist Slobodan Milosevic from massacring Kosovo Muslims. Again, it was Biden and the Clinton administration, not Bin Laden, who deserve the gratitude of Muslims for this intervention.

1.

Filed Under: al-Qaeda, Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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