Are we missing something in the Bin Laden messages? Adorno's Immanent Critique of Al-Qa`idah. I have thought about this before. That all of us who analyze the tapes of Bin Laden, Zarqawi, and Zawahiri are either secularists or atheists or people entirely hostile to the premises and ideology of the movement. That we criticize and analyze the movement from the outside, to speak. I say this because I watched today a tape (or a DVR event) of Al-Jazeera's Hiwar Maftuh which dealt with the analysis of the tapes. It featured the well-known (and courageous--even if you disagree with him) Jordanian dissident, Layth Shubaylat. Shubaylat suffered under the rule of King Husayn: he started as a Fath activist at AUB (before my days), and then became an Islamist activist in Jordan. He is now retired from politics, according to him. He made observations about the tapes. He once shared a cell with Zarqawi and Zarqawi declared him an infidel because Zarqawi thinks that everybody who is not with him is an infidel. Shubaylat observed that the failure and bankruptcy (in his words) of "mainstream" Islamsits like him, and like the Muslim Brotherhood, have boosted the appeal of Zarqawi. Shubaylat refused to declare Zarqawi a "kafir"--as the Iraqi Shi`ite guest kept requesting--because he said that he is opposed to the very method. He kept referring, to my surprise, to Bin Laden as "Shaykh Bin Laden." He then quoted a saying to `Ali Ibn Ibi Talib in which he says that: there is a difference between one who errs while seeking righteousness, and one who acts correctly while seeking falsehood, implying that Al-Qa`idah is seeking...righteousness. He was saying that the first part applies to Al-Qa`idah. I was surprised. He identified with the overall message of opposition to occupation, even by Zarqawi. He then observed that the message of Bin Laden (and even Zarqawi) has changed and softened, especially toward the Islamists of the region, who they used to condemn with consistent regularity. I don't know what to make of this: are we about to witness a new alliance?