bin-Laden bin Lyin’?
Vol: 80 Issue: 19 Monday, May 19, 2008
Osama bin Laden has graced the West with not one, but two fireside chats in the space of three days. I don’t know where he is (too bad, I could use $50 million) but wherever he is, he’s apparently bored.
He doesn’t seem to have much to do except try and scare the pants of little children and liberal Democrats.
But is anybody listening? Not really. After three years of silence, Osama began releasing new messages in September of last year. He released one on September 7th, another on September 11, and a third on September 20th.
With each new release came a flood of media reports suggesting that Osama’s latest communique was really a coded strike message and that we should hunker down and get ready.
But all Osama bombed us with was more messages; October 22nd, October 24th, November 29, December 29, March 19th and March 20th. (Guess who got a new videocam for Ramadan?)
Something else we can learn from his recent missives; wherever he is, he’s got a TV set. And he’s been watching the election coverage. He’s been taking a cue from the candidate’s playbook; he trots out something he thinks everybody ought to hate and tries it out on his audience.
(Somewhere, there is undoubtedly an Islamic Frank Luntz-type testing audience reaction to Osama’s various antagonists to help him focus his message against the most popular enemy)
In his 1998 declaration of war against the West, Osama’s main complaint wasn’t about Israel or America — it was about the presence of infidels on ‘sacred Islamic soil’.
Osama specifically singled out the ‘Crusaders’ (Christian America) and the ‘Zionists (Jewish Israel), but his war was aimed at driving American forces out of Saudi Arabia.
But as time went on, we discovered that Osama was not as bigoted as we had first believed — turns out that he hates pretty much everybody.
So far, he has expressed his anger at George Bush; specific members of the Bush administration (Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld); the media, Pervez Musharraf, the Europeans, conspiracies (except jihadi conspiracies): but it seems that Osama’s ‘Frank Luntz’ has identified Israel and the Palestinians as the winning issue.
“We will continue, God permitting, the fight against the Israelis and their allies … and will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on earth,” he said.
Osama said Israel’s anniversary celebrations were a reminder that the Jewish state did not exist 60 years ago and was established on land ‘violently seized from the Palestinians’; (who, for the record, did not EXIST sixty years ago. In 1948, the “West Bank” was part of Jordan and Gaza part of Egypt.)
Osama mocked peace efforts he said had been going on for 60 years but had failed to establish a Palestinian state. (Had the Arabs accepted the 1947 Partition Plan, the ‘Palestinian State’ would be celebrating its own sixty-first birthday instead of the sixtieth anniversary of The Catastrophe’.)
The speech was addressed to “western peoples” and entitled “The Causes of Conflict on the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israeli Occupation”d. It is worth noting that Osama cites a different “cause of the conflict” in every speech.
In the last one, the causes not only include the establishment of Israel but now include the shortcomings of the Islamic world. According to bin-Laden, the Arab world has let down the Palestinians, and it is therefore no sin for Muslims to kill other Muslims.
Those leaders came to power “either by a military coup or with backing from foreign forces”, he said.
“Those (Arab) kings and leaders sacrificed Palestine and Al-Aqsa to keep their crowns,” bin Laden said, referring to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites. “But we will not be relieved of this responsibility.”
Assessment:
When one sits back and takes a broad look at Osama bin Laden’s Big Picture, one gets the sense of a rabid dog — striking out blindly at anything that moves. It is almost as pathetic as it is revealing.
In 1998, it was because the ‘Crusaders’ were in Saudi Arabia. In 2001, Osama denied he had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, but that it was a ‘great deed’ nevertheless.
Then, in 2004, he admitted he was a liar, but that this time, he would tell the truth:
“I will explain to you the reasons behind these events, and I will tell you the truth about the moments when this decision was taken, so that you can reflect on it. God knows that the plan of striking the towers had not occurred to us, but the idea came to me when things went just too far with the American-Israeli alliance’s oppression and atrocities against our people in Palestine and Lebanon.”
In his September 11, 2007 message, Osama explained that the war wasn’t about US forces in Saudi Arabia, the Israeli-Arab conflict, or the “Crusaders” — now it was about Iraq.
A week later, it was about Pervez Musharraf. By October’s message, it was back to the Crusader’s occupation of Iraq. Osama ended 2007 with a message directed “to the peoples of Europe” telling them that the war was about Afghanistan.
In March of this year, not having anything new to hate the West for, he threatened the EU over the reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons in the European press. Now, he’s back to Israel as the ‘reason for the struggle’.
The fact is that Osama doesn’t have a reason for the struggle — he’s just fumbling for a good excuse to keep it going. Each of his messages were immediately interpreted as a harbinger for the next attack, but the next attack hasn’t come.
This is why I said Osama is probably watching the US election coverage. He’s using the same tactics. Blame the other side for everything under the sun and wait to see what sticks.
“Chase the Crusaders from our land!” (Shucks! The #@$%^ Crusaders started building hospitals and schools!)
“Israel’s existence justifies a new attack!” (No, that didn’t work,either) “Ummm, let’s wipe out the Crusaders and end the ‘occupation’!” (Darn. That didn’t work, either. Now what?)
“I had nothing to do with 9/11! They’re picking on me!” (Not even the Arabs were buying that one.)
“Ok, I did 9/11!” (Hey, that’s better!)
“The Crusaders have taken over Afghanistan!” (Oh no! The Afghanis like the #@#%$# Crusaders!)
“Wait! I know what will rock ’em! George Bush . . George Bush . . . George Bush . . . ”
(Wow! That works great! I don’t even have to give a reason!)
Like I said, Osama has probably been watching the US election coverage. Repeating “George Bush” as if one was invoking Satan has been working well for Obama.
Why not for Osama?
Omegaletter 