Sunday, April 23, 2006
Bin Laden changes the subject
Osama Bin Laden has opened his pie hole again via Al Jazz. Walid Phares of the newly re-launched Counterterrorism Blog has summarized bin Laden's key points, at least as revealed in the fragments broadcast on al Jazeera, to wit:
1. Hamas: Despite the fact that we (including Ayman Zawahiri) warned (Muslim Palestinians) not to take part in elections in general, the victory of Hamas shows that there is a "Crusader Zionist War against Islam." Cutting foreign aid to the Palestinians because of Hamas victory proves that war.
2. The public (in the West and the US), despite our warnings, continues to reelect these Governments, pay taxes to these Governments, and send their children to fight against us. They (civilians) are therefore part of the war against us. They are responsible for any harm that would be caused to them.
3. Sudan: The Bashir Government is failing in stopping the Crusader War in Sudan. The Crusaders (Britain) has pushed the southerners (Blacks) to separate. The US has armed them and is supporting them. And now, because of tribal tensions in Darfour, the Crusaders are planning on intervening there. We are calling on the Jihadists to fight them in Darfour and Southern Sudan.
4. Long War: We're calling on all Jihadists, particularly in Sudan and the Arabian Peninsula to prepare themselves for a long war.
5. Danish Cartoons: We are asking the Danish Government to remit the Cartoonists to al Qaida.
6. Saudis: We criticize the Saudi Monarch for refuting the idea of Clash of civilization. There is a clash led by the West against Islam.
7. Arab Liberals: Jihadists must silence the Arab and Muslim liberals. (A list has been established, but it wasn't aired).
8. Education: We warn from any change that would affect the educational curriculum in the Arab and Muslim world.
9. Arab TV: We warn against those TV stations airing into the region and propagating Crusader propaganda.
10: Truce: We offered a truce to the West (US and Europe) but their public refused to accept it. They will only blame themselves.
Apart from the list's comic aspects, it is fascinating for its omissions. Why didn't bin Laden talk about Iraq?
Less than 2 1/2 years ago, al Qaeda broke the news to the Taliban that it was diverting resources to Iraq so as to humiliate the American "Crusaders."
All this was on the orders of bin Laden himself, the sources said. Why? Because the terror chieftain and his top lieutenants see a great opportunity for killing Americans and their allies in Iraq and neighboring countries such as Turkey, according to Taliban sources who complain that their own movement will suffer... Bin Laden believes that Iraq is becoming the perfect battlefield to fight the “American crusaders” and that the Iraqi insurgency has been “100 percent successful so far,” according to a Taliban participant at the mid-November meeting who goes by the nom de guerre Sharafullah.
Al Qaeda drew a line in the sands of the Sunni Triangle, and the United States Army and Marines walked right across it. First, al Qaeda tried to kill Americans, per bin Laden's orders. It largely failed. Then al Qaeda went after America's allies, and succeeded only in turning public opinion against itself in every Muslim country it attacked. After thirty months of battlefield defeats and political embarrassments, bin Laden won't even mention Iraq in one of his rare public utterances, and he rallies his troops to fight a war where American soldiers aren't. How humiliating. How delightful.
Al Qaeda has lost in Iraq, and bin Laden is desperate to change the subject. He and his organization are at grave risk of being discredited, and when that happens it will be much harder for al Qaeda to attract recruits, raise money, or deal with governments.
UPDATE (9:00 EDT Monday): A commenter provided a link to Al Jazz's transcript of the tape, which was not up yesterday afternoon when I wrote my post (or if it was, I couldn't find it). In that transcript, it is obvious that bin Laden did talk about Iraq:
Despite the numerous Crusader attacks against our Muslim nation in military, economic, cultural and moral aspects, but the gravest of them all is the attack against our religion, our prophet and the our Sharia tenets. The epicentre of these wars is Baghdad, the seat of the khalifate rule. They keep reiterating that success in Baghdad will be success for the US, failure in Iraq the failure of the US.
Their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their wars and a beginning to the receding of their Zionist-Crusader tide against us. Your mujahidin sons and brothers in Iraq have taught the US a hard lesson while in the fourth year of the Crusaders' invasion, they are steadfast and patient and keep killing and wounding enemy soldiers every day.
Walid Phares has a complete analysis up on the new Counterterrorism Blog:
In two decades of Salafi and Khumeini rhetoric monitoring, I haven’t heard or seen a cross-infidel speech as the one aired by al Jazeera on April 23, 2006. There will be lots of ink and mega bites spent on its analysis for months and years to come, but here are the main points. Al Jazeera dubbed them: “The main axis of the speech.” المحاور الأساسية في خطاب بن لادن
Twenty" marching orders"
* One a long attack on the Cartoons crisis: Blood is needed to cleanse the matter.
* Two, there is a Western war on Muslims and Islam.
*Three, Western policy towards Hamas proves this aggression.
* Four, the United Nations is an infidel and criminal institution.
* Five, there is a Western-infidel aggression against Muslim Sudan. The Black southerners are bandits and the Darfur Blacks are agents of the infidels
* Six, Iraq’s Jihad is to stop future US military bases
* Seven, a cultural invasion is underway: Arab TVs are to be stopped, Muslim liberals to be killed
* Eight, France is to be punished for the female Hijab affair
* Nine, Bosnia’s Muslims were not salvaged by the West
* Ten, The independence of East Timor is a defeat to the Muslims
* Eleven, India and the Hindus are the enemies in Kashmir
* Twelve, Pakistan’s Musharraf is to be killed
* Thirteen, Russia must be punished
* Fourteen: Salman Rushdie is not to be forgotten
* Fifteen: The masses in the infidel lands think like their leaders. Their public (enemies) is responsible
* Sixteen: Calls for Dialogue with the West are to be rejected
* Seventeen: Do not trust the “traitors” including Muftis and moderate clerics
* Eighteen: King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia ignores world realities
* Nineteen: (Western) civilization is attacking ours
* Twenty: It is of the duty of all members of the Umma to offer everything for Jihad, including their lives.
Throughout the day I analyzed most of these "axis" on MSNBC, but I was able to observe the airing process on al Jazeera as well.
Imagine yourself as an Arab viewer: The speech was repeated endlessly throughout the day. Bin Laden didn't have his 20 minutes of shine, but 24 hours at least. The Bin Laden audiotape wasn't played one or two times but until every word was sinking deep in the minds of the attentive viewers. However the most powerful part of the speech wasn't restricted to its content: Al Jazeera lined up the best of its "experts on Islamist groups" to react instantly to the audiotape and throughout the day, and add "more details and substance."
Read the whole thing.
21 Comments:
By 
Dan Collins, at
Sun Apr 23, 04:56:00 PM:
It's been ages since I've seen the old boy on video. I think that some enterprising person ought to overdub a sock puppet and post it to YouTube.
By 
, at
Sun Apr 23, 05:07:00 PM:
Thank you for a funny and terrific breakdown of Osama's latest bilge spout. As soon as I saw he was talking about Darfur, I was wondering what I missed - after reading your take on it, it looks so obvious I can't believe I didn't catch it immediately. *grin*
By , at
Sun Apr 23, 07:21:00 PM:
It looks Like OBL didn't mention Iran in his latest diatribe, could you comment on this.
By , at
Sun Apr 23, 07:25:00 PM:
Gee, I wish I shared your optimism, but I hardly think this signals that al Qaeda has lost in Iraq. But it does seem to be a tacit admission that OBL realizes slaughtering his co-religionists is a bad PR move. If they have truly given up on trying to screw the US by fomenting a sectarian war in Iraq, that's a very good thing, obviously.
OBL is clearly trying to control the spin by redirecting jihadi ire towards more politically correct targets -- the US and Israel.
The question is did he fatally damage his credibility with radical Islam in the effort to screw us in Iraq via sectarian violence, or will his return to more PC tactics have the effect he intends -- to return him prominence as the leader of global jihad.
The answer probably hinges on the reaction of people like the tribal chief you posted about recently (the one who complained that foreign jihadis only targeted Americans occasionally). Will he welcome foreign jihadis back to the fold as brothers in arms against the common enemy? And if that happens, will the restive population of the Middle East cheer them on? We shall see.
By , at
Sun Apr 23, 08:14:00 PM:
I figure Osama is hiding out in Iran. Their deal with him is to give him safe haven, so long as he doesn't reveal that they are hiding him. That is why no pictures, and no mention of Iran.
Darn great Satan could track the spectrography of paint inside buildings are trace that to a country.
Another reason for going into Iran.
By Bill Baar, at
Sun Apr 23, 09:01:00 PM:
I'm trying to square Al-Turabi's interview with Al-Arabiya.
Is Al-Turabi an apostate libera now UBL is targating?
By Pangloss, at
Sun Apr 23, 09:29:00 PM:
Anonymous, at Sun Apr 23, 07:21:55 PM
OBL hasn't acknowledged that it's bad to kill fellow Moslems. Check out numbers 3 and 7. The genocide in Sudan (3) is by Arab Moslems against Black African Moslems. He urges the Arab Moslems in Sudan to continue their genocidal campaign against other Moslems (of the wrong race). And number 7 specifically calls for jihad (death, war, destruction) upon "moderate and liberal Moslems."
IMHO, it is in the interest of those who must fight this defensive war against Jihad to keep OBL front and center. He is an embarrassment to Moslems everywhere. If the fight can be kept up long enough OBL might very well discredit Jihad, Arabs, and possibly even Islam itself in the minds and hearts of Moslems all over the world.
By Sonic, at
Sun Apr 23, 10:02:00 PM:
er, the war in Iraq has already been won, all we are waiting for is for the losing side to admit it and pull out.
By , at
Mon Apr 24, 01:42:00 AM:
It's intersting that few of the "left-leaning" blogs seem to have any interest in the emanations from this Islamist cave dweller.
By Kai Carver, at
Mon Apr 24, 02:49:00 AM:
Huh?
> Why didn't bin Laden talk about Iraq?
He did. Here's an excerpt from the audiotape transcript at
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F9694745-060C-419C-8523-2E093B7B807D.htm
"Despite the numerous Crusader attacks against our Muslim nation in military, economic, cultural and moral aspects, but the gravest of them all is the attack against our religion, our prophet and the our Sharia tenets. The epicentre of these wars is Baghdad, the seat of the khalifate rule. They keep reiterating that success in Baghdad will be success for the US, failure in Iraq the failure of the US.
Their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their wars and a beginning to the receding of their Zionist-Crusader tide against us. Your mujahidin sons and brothers in Iraq have taught the US a hard lesson while in the fourth year of the Crusaders' invasion, they are steadfast and patient and keep killing and wounding enemy soldiers every day.
It is a duty for the Umma with all its categories, men, women and youths, to give away themselves, their money, experiences and all types of material support, enough to establish jihad in the fields of jihad particularly in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kashmir and Chechnya."
By , at
Mon Apr 24, 04:37:00 AM:
Kai:
maybe that's why you are not hearing this from the MSM. It validates Bush's statements that if we lave they will have won.
By , at
Mon Apr 24, 09:17:00 AM:
Osama the Putrefying is Dead.
He's Dead, Jim.
His oozing remains are buried under Tora Bora and.... all of the dispatches since then have been the work of the CIA - or perhaps an Intelligence Agency. It is possible that it is the CIA because they have always been better at disinformation than anything else.
I mean, either the former (dead) wacko is incredibly stupid and simply wants the world to hate and depise his inanities or, someone has come up with a least a modicum of useful disinformation to feed the gullible fools out here who are trying to make sense of ol' Putrefying's effort to get even his closest friends pissed off at him.
I vote for the latter and call it the most successful effort of our war against the Jihaddi Death Cultists.
That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
Moishe3rd
By Gordon Smith, at
Mon Apr 24, 09:24:00 AM:
Hawk,
You say that Al Qaeda has lost in Iraq. Funny, they weren't even fighting there until after we showed up. I guess the grand plan was, in fact, to fix the facts around the policy, invade, create massive instability, draw Al Qaeda in, sacrifice over twenty thousand U.S. soldiers to casualty, throw together a nascent theocratic govt., have Tigerhawk declare victory, and then on to Iran!
Your guys are really smart.
/snark
By , at
Mon Apr 24, 11:39:00 AM:
Sonic, the NZ troll, is everywhere. Go to dKos, Sonic, they would love you there. And there can be no argument about the nick screwy hoolie.
By Christopher R Taylor, at
Mon Apr 24, 05:22:00 PM:
It is of the duty of all members of the Umma to offer everything for Jihad, including their lives.
Unless, of course, you're in the leadership. Then you should run like a squealing bitch and hide to save your life at all possible costs.
By , at
Mon Apr 24, 06:04:00 PM:
Osama's son, or one of them, is the New Osama.
By , at
Tue Apr 25, 01:09:00 PM:
Sure wish Bush would go after the guy instead of wasting soldiers in Iraq. Maybe you should sign up, Chickenh...er...I mean "tiger"hawk!
By Post American, at
Tue Apr 25, 02:00:00 PM:
Honest to Christ haven't you stupid ugly Americans ever seen Weekend at Bernies? Do you honestly think some ragtag raghead in a cave somehow made the US Military stand down during the wargames on 911? UBL = RIP
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
Osama bin Laden:
A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osama_dead.html
1,681 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!' SNARK
By , at
Tue Apr 25, 05:18:00 PM:
Someone else said it before, but I think Iraq is al-Qaeda's Vietnam. Thank goodness Bush is going to keep the troops in there for three more years to finish the job.
By Karridine, at
Wed Apr 26, 09:38:00 PM:
NOTICE: bin Laden REFUSES to comment on Baha'u'llah, the Glory of God, and ramlbles on as if Baha'u'llah hasn't come or doesn't exist.
Yet daily, the possibility of the 'ummah' learning of His coming, His life and suffering, His teachings and His fulfillment of Scriptural prophecies are increasing, nearing the point when a public dialogue is initiated and good people LEAVE Islam for a modern life as a Baha'i, Dedicated to the Glory of God...
bin Laden shows his ignorance AND his bias... these, at least, are his downfall!
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