Bin Laden’s review pleases book’s author

WASHINGTON – Twenty-four hours after Osama bin Laden told the world that the American people should read the work of a little-known Washington historian, William Blum was still adjusting.

Blum, who at 72 is accustomed to laboring in relative left-wing obscurity, checked his emotions and pronounced himself shocked and, well, pleased.

“This is almost as good as being an Oprah book,” he said Friday between telephone calls from the world media and bites of a bagel. “I’m glad.” Overnight, his 2000 work, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower,” had become an Osama book.

In gray slacks, plaid shirt and black slippers, Blum padded around his one-bedroom apartment on Connecticut Avenue. A portrait of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the ‘50s hung on his kitchen wall. Bookshelves bowed under the weight of secret histories of the CIA. The cord on his prehistoric phone let him roam across the living room. He’d already done CNN and MSNBC. A guy from the New York Post knocked on the door to take pictures. The BBC rang, then Reuters and Pacifica Radio stations on both coasts.

From Blum’s end of the conversations, you could tell the reporters were expecting him to express some kind of discomfort, remorse, maybe even shame. Blum refused to acknowledge feelings he did not have.

“I was not turned off by such an endorsement,” he informed a New York radio station. “I’m not repulsed, and I’m not going to pretend I am.” He patiently reiterated the thesis of his foreign-policy critique – that American interventions abroad create enemies.

You could almost hear the ticking of a stopwatch. These were Blum’s 15 American minutes, brought to him by a murderous zealot on the other side of the world who had named him to a kind of Terrorists Book-of-the-Month Club. The CIA verified the audiotape from bin Laden, and there it was: Blum had a bona fide book blurb from the evil one.

Better known in radical circles and on the college lecture circuit than he is among most readers of American history, Blum is a former underground journalist who specializes in sharp critiques of foreign policy. Published by a small outfit in Maine, he also sells his books over the Internet and issues a free monthly e-mail newsletter called the Anti-Empire Report.

What bin Laden said was this, as translated from Arabic by the Associated Press:

“And if Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book `Rogue State,’ which states in its introduction: ‘If I were president, I would stop the attacks on the United States: First, I would give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that American interference in the nations of the world has ended once and for all.’ “

By Friday night, “Rogue State” shot up from 205,763 to 26 on Amazon.com’s index of the most-ordered books.

“I’m calling it the book review of the decade,” said Sam Smith, editor of the Progressive Review in Washington and a fan of Blum’s work.

Since Amazon’s delivery service, while comprehensive, would not seem to extend to faraway caves, how might bin Laden have gotten his hands on Blum’s work?

The author noted “Rogue State” had been published in Arabic in Egypt and Lebanon. And perhaps bin Laden owns the entire Blum canon, because the quote he cited actually is not in “Rogue State,” but on the back cover of a collection of Blum essays, “Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire.” (That book is languishing on Amazon, while two other books titled “Rogue State” have enjoyed a spike in ranking.)

Blum’s exact words? “If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize – very publicly and very sincerely – to all the widows and orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism.”

Friday, he made clear that he deplores the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But he argues, as many other essayists have, that they were an understandable retaliation against U.S. foreign policy. “The thesis in my books and my writing is that anti-American terrorism arises from the behavior of U.S. foreign policy,” he said. “It is what the U.S. government does which angers people all over the world.”

“I am totally against what they did. But we cannot view that as totally the acts of a bunch of madmen. If we do … we will continue making the same mistakes, and the so-called war on terror will be as doomed to fail as the war on drugs.”

Until now, the mainstream media have paid virtually no attention to Blum. His publisher, Common Courage Press, on Friday could not provide estimates of his sales. Blum says “Rogue State” and “Killing Hope” together have sold more than 100,000 copies, plus an additional 50,000 in a dozen foreign languages. He said he supports himself with his writing and speaking engagements on college campuses.