New BinLaden tape - wants to repeat 9/11

And the reaction to the tape:

[quote]
[b]Bin Laden Tape Seen As Bid to Sway Vote

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press Writer[/b]

International experts said the message was a clear attempt to influence the U.S. presidential election.

Around the world, observers debated what impact the dramatically timed message would have on the U.S. election, just days away.

Many saw the tape - in which the al-Qaida leader warned Americans not to “mess” with the security of Muslims - as an attempt to influence Tuesday’s presidential vote.

On Web sites devoted to extremist Muslim comment, contributors reacted with glee to the tape, saying it was proof bin Laden was alive and was a “slap” at America.

Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University in Scotland, called the tape “a very crude but sinister attempt to try to influence the presidential election.”

Montasser el-Zayat, a Cairo-based lawyer who defends Islamic radicals, said the video amounted to an “unprecedented attack on Bush at a very critical time, before the U.S. elections.”

Diaa Rashwan, a Cairo-based expert on extremist Muslim militants, said bin Laden was trying to influence Americans “to give Kerry their votes, not Bush.”[/quote]

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/ … TE=DEFAULT

[quote=“Comrade Stalin”]

Diaa Rashwan, a Cairo-based expert on extremist Muslim militants, said bin Laden was trying to influence Americans “to give Kerry their votes, not Bush.”[/quote]

Gee he must have us confused with the Spanish.

[color=red]
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH
KKKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY[/color]

Interesting that the bin Laden video reinforces the fact that he is alive. I don’t think most Americans really give a crap what bin Laden says, as they’re the rantings of a guy who clearly hates all of us. However, this may be bad for the Bush camp in that it makes it startingly clear that Bush has not gotten bin Laden “dead or alive” or “smoked him out.”

Will Americans connect the dots to see that Bush has taken his eye off the ball and dumped American military resources into a non-terror-related fight? Hard to tell at this phase. However, the video evidence showing bin Laden very much alive is quite a graphic reminder that we are far from finishing off the guys who pulled off 9-11.

You’re not one of those idiots who thinks that if we kill or capture bin laden the war is over and the terrorists will all give up and go home, are you?

You’re not one of those idiots who thinks that if we kill or capture bin laden the war is over and the terrorists will all give up and go home, are you?[/quote]
No, he’s one of those idiots who thinks that if we just elect Kerry, that will appease Osama and the terrorists will all become our friends.

[quote]Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your hands. Each state that doesn’t mess with our security has automatically secured their security.
[/quote]
Dear OBL:

No. You started this. Fuck you, and die.

Yours,

The civilized world*

*not including the Left

Bin Laden would have to prefer a Kerry presidency. He’s probably tired of being out of the action in the mountains of Xinjuang Province where he’s been driven by the relentless pressure of the neoconservative Bush Administration and a less focused Kerry Administration would offer him some respite.

In the short run then, a Bush re-election will probably continue to dampen the effectiveness of world-wide Islamic fundamentalism and a Kerry Administration would give it some room to regenerate.

In the long run though, the overall Bush Administration strategy of aggressive global religious warfare will provide more fuel for the forces which spawned bin Laden and Islamic fundamentalism – imagine a second Bush Administration US simultaneously engaged in military conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Iran.

A Kerry Administration won’t really be much different though in the overall scheme of things in the Middle East because Kerry shares the Bush Administration’s fundamental philosophy there, differing only in how and when to execute it.

So the choice then is between an adminstration which is effective at inflaming the Muslim world and conducting endless religious warfare or one which is less effective at both and may give its jihadis more short-term latitude.

So, will OBL’s new tape help Kerry or Bush?

On the one hand, it shows that Bush’s war on terror has been misguided, with the Shrub trying to avenge his daddy’s failure, or whatever, instead of going after OBL, who was responsible for 9/11 and poses the greatest threat to Americans. It shows the Shrub’s “war on terror” is irrational and a failure (as evidenced by the increased hostilities and divisiveness since the “war” began and the fact that OBL is still out there taunting us).

On the other hand, there are those who feel that, despite the fact that he went AWOL from the Natl Guard, that was years ago and today Shrub really is a tough guy who will somehow be more effective than Kerry at fighting OBL and his ilk.

So which candidate will garner more votes due to the tape?

The patsy’s video is perfect timing for Bush I would say. The war mongers would have been rubbing their hands with glee. “Look he is still out there, we need more soldiers [cannon fodder] for the war on [some] terror.”
The dick cheneys of the world don’t want this to end. They don’t want peace. Especially when they are getting kickbacks from the madness.

The americans always need a devil. If there is no devil they have less excuses to attack countries and destroy the US constitution with (un)patriotic nazi acts.

Once OBL has gone the next one is the Jordanian nut who people blame for terrorism in Iraq.

And they don’t have to lie, they can imply that mushroom clouds could appear in cities in america, or that chemical and biological weapons will be dropped in cities. And then mention the devils name. That is enough for people to think these devils are guilty of everything from tornados to the common cold.

A bomb goes off in the US. The government blames the Jordanian so he must be guilty. Oh and block all invesitgation and hide things that will expose the truth.

As Bill Hicks said

“Go back to sleep, America, your government is in control”.

when people are attacking you you have a war. all the college student armchair leftist rhetoric in the world will not hide that fact from anyone with half a brain.

Yep, it’s a good thing that bin Laden guy’s so stupid, huh?

I mean, with the Bushies for the last two years trying to focus total attention on the War on Terror and away from anything else (except the vital question of gay marriage), up pops OBL right before the election shouting "Look at me! BOO! "

I guess he’s just too dumb to realise that, as the Republican campaign source described it, this is a “little gift”

From OBL to GWB.

It would seem quite obvious that OBL would prefer a Bush presidency again, seeing as how Bush completely took his eye off the ball when it came to the “war on terror” and got the U.S. sunk into our “quagmire in Iraq”. Apparently Bush has played right into OBL’s hands, doing everything possible to alienate the United States internationally and to foster the growth of anti-US terror. Basically Al Qaeda has gotten a free ride under Bush – they ram planefuls of our citizens into our own buildings, and Bush doesn’t even have the attention span to destroy OBL? This guy is still making videotapes to inspire his followers about what a paper tiger the United States is, how impotent we are in the face of an old bearded man with kidney problems.

Fundamentally, U.S. policy “against” terror has been to do everything possible to encourage its growth. There’s an old joke about the guy looking for his lost keys under a lamppost, not because he lost them there but because there was more light. We’ve lost 1,100+ American soldiers because our president doesn’t have the patience to struggle through the more-difficult fight against OBL and his minions. In the most charitable light, Bush has been a very poorly disciplined leader who has never stopped to ask his advisers hard questions nor to go deeper than the 1-page briefing papers his attention span evidently requires. In a less-favorable light, Bush has cravenly used the “war on terror” to carry out a military action that had no relationship whatsoever to the security of the American people.

OBL has got to be cheering for 4 more years of Bush – only because of Bush’s ineptitude has OBL survived to make videos on election eve intended to rally his jihadists against us.

I agree that if Bin Ladin has any brains (and he does) he should support Bush, not Kerry. Bush polarizes the world and inspires Muslims everywhere to rise up, which is what Bin Ladin wants. This means his quasi-endorsement of Kerry (a few days before the election, too) must have been a smokescreen.

For similar reasons, Bush ought to support Bin Ladin.

waiting for the partisans on the left to follow cronkite’s lead and declare that the bin laden video was made by karl rove. :slight_smile:

Come now, Flipper, be fair to Cronkite. The quote that I read didn’t say that Rove made the video, only that he “set up bin Laden to do this thing.”

So, it’s possible that Rove’s role in this video, which according to today’s cnn.com poll helps Kerry more than Bush, was more one of support than actual participation. Perhaps the idea is that Rove sent OBL the camera equitment or something…

In any event, assuming that most people agree that the video is a boost for Kerry (anyone know if other polls have been done on this question – those cnn.com ones seem pretty lame) I guess Cronkite is saying that Rove either (a) screwed up, or (b) is actually a “double-agent” working for Kerry?

I see it as helping Bush, at least in the way I see things. Recently, I decided to support Kerry, but after seeing the tape, I figure that if Bin Laden despises Bush that much, then Bush must be the way to go. We’ll just have to wait and see how much the rest of America has in the way of balls … give Bin Laden what he says he wants (i.e. stop attacking al-Qaeda and stop supporting Israel), or keep on taking the fight to him. I say F**K him and elect the guy he doesn’t want … Bush. And for only that reason… :raspberry:

Nice of bin Laden to pop up a few days before the election. What timing. :unamused:

Well, of course it was a Republican trick…just like the Madrid bombings.

OBL’s ability to continue to thumb his nose at the United States is a continuing source of inspiration to the terrorists who want to kill our citizens. Bush has utterly taken his attention off the terrorists to conduct this war in Iraq, and this attitude has percolated down throughout his government. Apparently Ashcroft feels it is more important to spend money on giant curtains to hide naked statues in the DOJ building than to upgrade the equipment of FBI agents to knit together the U.S. security aparatus.

[quote][quote]Flicka wrote:
Nice of bin Laden to pop up a few days before the election. What timing[/quote].

Well, of course it was a Republican trick…just like the Madrid bombings. -Comrade Stalin[/quote]

You seem to be assuming that Flicka was being insincere in expressing how “nice” it was (from a Kerry supporter’s point of view) that the bin Laden tape arrived just in time to give Kerry a boost right before the election.

In fact, Flicka’s thankfulness for bin Laden’s gift to Kerry could be perfectly genuine. Note that Flicka is not advocating any kind of bizarre conspiracy theory here – nowhere does Flicka argue, for example, that the Kerry campaign conspired to have this video released just in time to give Kerry a shot in the arm. He’s just saying that it’s nice that it turned out that way.

For what it’s worth, the Democrats’ own polling seems to confirm what the cnn.com poll said yesterday – that the OBL video helps Kerry by a significant margin:

[quote][color=blue]please tell me what comes closer to your view: One, it makes me think that George W. Bush took his eye of the ball in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and diverted his resources to Iraq; Two, it underscores the importance of George Bush (news - web sites)'s approach to terrorism

By ten points, 46-36 percent, voters responding to the survey agreed with the first statement , rather than the second.[/color][/quote]

news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u … _2_113_xml

So Flicka’s position seems quite reasonable to me given that (a) Flicka is not putting forth some kind of silly claim that the OBL tape was a Kerry conspiracy, and (b) the available polling data overwhelmingly supports Flicka’s point that the it was “nice” of bin Laden to pop up and help Kerry’s electoral prospects at such a critical time.