Al Qaeda Gag Shop
UPDATE: TPM’s Josh Marshall gets the OBL memo, chimes in with the talking points …
As I skimmed the transcript of the new bin Laden tape with its discussion of global warming, subprime credit woes, Noam Chomsky, Richard Perle, the low tax nirvana of Islam and a bunch of other stuff, I could not help feeling sad again about how we gave this joker a new lease on life by invading Iraq.
… as an articulator of a vision, an expounder of “Islamofascism,” or whatever the new trademarked word is now, he’s about as coherent and comprehensible as a 9th tier blogger … I’m sure I’ll catch flack for taking such a mocking attitude toward this man who has so much American blood on his hands. But this, I think, is only the flip side of the vaunted perch we insist on giving him, a insistence that is a paradoxical part of Bushism. They are tacit partners in creating the world in which we now live.
Damned Bushites and their Bushism! But for them, OBL’d be just another joker with a fake beard! Speaking of which …
You’ll want to tune in the Rock Garden Press Conference.
What is this, Islamophobia?
Fake beard? Best guess is OBL’s alive, ABC Blotter report suggests he just wants to prove that and needle us a bit. Inspire the troops, I add. Clarke at ABC suggests fake beard means he’s shaved it, and he’s hiding some place where a beard would stand out. He lists places in Southeast Asia. I have news for Clarke. In Southeast Asia, anyone over 6 feet with a big nose sticks out like a sore thumb:
“It does look oddly like he is wearing a false beard,” Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism official and now ABC News consultant, said. “If we go back to the tape three years, he had a very white beard. This looks like a phony beard that has been passed on.”
The “phony beard” may be an important clue as to where bin Laden is hiding, according to Clarke.
“One place where a beard would stand out would be southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia,” Clarke told ABC News. “No one’s thought he was there, but that is an environment where most men, Muslim men don’t have beards.”
U.S. officials say there is little doubt the al Qaeda leader timed his latest message to the 9/11 anniversary.
“He came up on this occasion to prove he’s alive, to taunt us and to take advantage of the 9/11 remembrance ceremonies to get some propaganda,” Clarke said.
ABC News report indicates Osama, like Cindy Sheehan etal, is very unhappy with the failures of the Democratic leadership:
According to the transcript, which can be viewed by clicking here, bin Laden opens with “praise to Allah” and his “law of retaliation” — “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed.”
Bin Laden also spoke to the ongoing situation in Iraq throughout the tape, heavily criticizing the Bush administration.
He says to the American people, “you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld…”
“You permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you — with your full knowledge and consent — to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then you claim to be innocent! The innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th — were I to claim such a thing.”
Is it just me, or is the old goat rambling a bit?
“People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven’t made a move worth mentioning. On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there.”
See. Osama wants to govern by poll, too. But about that beard. The guy looks like crap. Maybe his beard fell out. Think about it. Other good stuff. Osama says if we don’t surrender, his side will be forced to win.
According to the transcript, bin Laden says there are two ways to end the war:
“The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you.”
The second is to do away with the American democratic system of government. “It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.”
As opposed to sacrificing terrorists and innocent people from Iraq to New York to achieve the interests of a cave-dwelling Caliphate. Here’s a shocker. Osama’s a Chomsky fan:
He goes on to call Noam Chomsky “among one of the most capable of those from your own side,” and mentions global warming and “the Kyoto accord.”
He also speaks to recent issues grabbing headlines in the United States, referring to “the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes…”
“To conclude,” bin Laden says, “I invite you to embrace Islam.” He goes on to say: “There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent.”
Like I said, the old goat is rambling. Should have cut it off at “no taxes in Islam.” Sure its a lie, but all pols do that. He needs to work on the fine art of leaving out the fine print.
Topics: al qaeda
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 4:43 pm Comments (17) on Friday, September 7, 2007
17 Responses to “Al Qaeda Gag Shop”
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September 7th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I’m betting that Naom Chomsky had an orgasm when he saw this tape, and that the Dhimmicrats are working hard on a plan to placate Osama.
September 7th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
No, Jeffy, he sounds a lot like Guiliani:
“the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes”
No wait! He’s going after that Steve Forbes flat tax action:
“To conclude,” bin Laden says, “I invite you to embrace Islam.” He goes on to say: “There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent.”
September 7th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I was thinking he sounded like corndog.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
“the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes”
Tsk, tsk, corndog, it’s the Dhimmicrats who keep on proposing new taxes, and it is they who complained about Emperor McChimpy’s tax cuts a few years back. Guiliani is a New Yorker…..his tax&spend philosophy is closer to Hillary!’s than anyone else.
“There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent.”
Actually, that’s just doubletalk. There may not be many “taxes”, but there are plenty of fees, fines, and so on. I mind me a discussion I had with one expat who noted that while “usury” is forbidden in Islam, “interest” is not. It depends on what your definition of “unreasonable” is.
Likewise, there’s something called Khums, or “The Islamic Tax”. Which appears to be a tithing system. Since Islam considers religion and government to be as one, methinks that OBL is talking out of the side of his mouth.
Plus, Osama is in the leader of a network, not an organization. Just how does he get the intermediate governments to limit their take to 2.5%?
Heh. Come to think of it, Al Quaeda is probably taking a page from the IRS on this one! In addition to the Dhimmicrats, of course.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Osama (if this is indeed Osama) sure spends a lot of time fretting about our circumstances. It’s almost like he’s obsessed, ‘cuz you know, we just won’t go away.
OTOH the invitation to join Islam is required of a good jihadi just before he stabs you. I just hope it’s another “big operation” by a cadre of the usual bumblers and not somebody smart.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
“Fake Beard”
Osama was rumored to be on Kidney Dialysis. If he managed to find a Kidney Donor(Omar check the blood type of every head you chop off) then a transplant would necessitate imune suppressants which would cause hair loss.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Rebecca, notice how Osama feels he needs to offer a financial incentive to submit? Anyone taking that offer seriously is defintely a mercenary.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
THAT’S NOT BIN LADEN. (1) His nose is too fat and long. (2) His shoulders are narrow and sloped. In previous videos Bin Laden’s were square and wide. (3) His voice is stilted and emotionless, and he sticks closely to a script. In the past, Bin Laden was animated and spontaneous, with very little script. (3) He shows almost no hand gestures, almost none at all, whereas previous videos show Bin Laden gesturing effusively, and using his hand gestures as a nunaced contribution to the message. (4) This person shows no upper body movement, whereas previous videos of Bin Laden show him moving constantly, rocking, swaying, almost jumping up to make a point. (5) The voice is wrong, slow, sonorous, uninflected, there is nothing intellectually nimble about it. Bin Laden is quick, charismatic, and his speech is constantly changing in volume and pitch as he drives home his many nuanced points, (6) This speaker is clearly not very intelligent, he lacks the smooth and nuanced articulatory apparatus of an intelligent person, whereas Bin Laden is clearly extremely intelligent.
Honestly, if you compare this sonorous ’speech from the throne’ to the last verified video taken of Bin Laden in October, 2001, it is not the same person.
I’ve just put together a quick comparison between Osama in Oct 2001, and this one, Sept 2007.
http://www.box.net/shared/7dnvimtb5z
On there I’ve put 2 pics side by side of OBL. The file is called OBL pics.ppt
I tell you it’s not the same guy. Look for yourself. The shoulders are obviously different. There is absolutely nothing charismatic about this speaker. OBL was riveting, this guy is fabulously boring.
OBL is dead.
Pro Patria
September 7th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Bushism? Bushism??? I ignore TPM for a just a few years and the next thing you know it’s a 9th tier site for off-my-meds paranoid crankiness.
September 8th, 2007 at 12:35 am
JeffS, I do indeed.
I’m going to tell a story that may or may not be pertinent: In my years at the university, we had a Pakistani student who was caught cheating, and who plagiarized his thesis. Long story short, he was invited to leave the university without his degree (they were too cowardly to expel him, in case his relatives were, as the chair of the computer science department put it, “big bugs” in Pakistan). A year later, he reappeared under another name, at least we thought so. Same face, same build, different name, darker skin. We could not prove it was the same student, and in fact, many Pakistanis are so inbred, we weren’t sure ourselves. He was a dead ringer, but he could have been a cousin.
I say that’s what we’re looking at here. A cousin, a brother, a son, or a freakin’ distant relative, who has been persuaded to impersonate OBL in order to keep the America-tweaking mythos alive.
Osama is worm food.
September 8th, 2007 at 2:20 am
That’s a good hypothesis, Rebecca. IIRC, Osama belonged to a very large family. The chances of a “near double” are pretty good.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:29 am
He keeps this up and next thing you know old OBL will be getting the Union endorsement.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:52 am
“The innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th — were I to claim such a thing.””
If I Did It – OJ Simpson. Interesting dissembling. I guess he read Johnny Cochran’s obit, or is afraid F. Lee wouldn’t take his case.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:57 am
“(6) This speaker is clearly not very intelligent, he lacks the smooth and nuanced articulatory apparatus of an intelligent person, whereas Bin Laden is clearly extremely intelligent.”
Bin laden was always considered slow academically when he was growing up with those 50 odd brothers and sisters.
And how can a guy who bragged he knew how those buildings. would “fall” (as a function of tagging along after his builder daddy on projects) be considered…intelligent ?
I think this tape and (dumb things like) the zakat comments & others might quite accurately reflect both the absurdity and the puerility of his “thinking”.
Altho’, despite the voice print claims that it may well be he, it may be another Photoshop deal.
September 8th, 2007 at 11:15 am
K. Masud nails it.
It is the resurrection of medieval teaching and medieval thinking.
It is kept alive and well among the stupid by fanning 2 particularly idiotic flames:
1. Hatred of “the Jews” (especially)
2. The notion that “the west ” is bent on the destruction of Islam.
“Khalid Masud, the chairman of Pakistan’s widely respected Council of Islamic Ideology, despairs that medieval thinking still dominates Islamic discourse and acts as a rigid barrier against integration in Britain.
He was “saddened but not surprised” to read a sermon in which Riyadh ul Haq, a leading Deobandi preacher, urged British Muslims not to make friends with Jews or Christians.
“This is a very normal thing that you hear in sermons here as well. He is not in a minority. They \ are in the Koran and in our literature, but the historical circumstances have changed,” he said.
“These are medieval teachings, yet even for people living in Europe they have not become irrelevant. That is what surprises me. These are worrying times for all of us.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2409834.ece
September 9th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Rebecca,
You mean it might be Iseema bin Laden, Osama’s younger borther? That will certainly interest Meryl Yourish.
Glad to see Ali, Farouk, and Achmed have new jobs. I think their careers in the jihad business were stalled. They were not progressing in the upwardly mobile way that an ambitious jihadi would expect.
Funny how OBL has picked up so many of the shallow, soundbite talking points of the Western left. He forgot to check his facts about Vietnam, of course, but so have the American liberals and the lefties for the last forty some years. And he is still delusional, but that is why our leftists love him; they are delusional too. Remember Cindy Sheehan’s immortal cry “US out of occupied New Orleans.” She’s still outraged by General Ben Butler I guess.
September 9th, 2007 at 3:39 am
So Osama shaved his beard to hide in the Philippenes, Indonesia or Thailand, huh. That’ll work, the clown is six feet four, he’ll blend right in.
No wonder the Jihadis had such an easy time doing 9/11. Clarke is an idiot. A Guy five nine towers over the people in that part of the world.