Posted on 10/30/2004 5:18:20 PM PDT by ambrose
Bin Laden Offers Americans a Deal in TV Address
Amir Taheri, Arab News
JEDDAH, 31 October 2004 — Hi everybody! I am still around!
This was the gist of Osama Bin Laden’s latest videotaped message as broadcast by his favorite television channel Al-Jazeera late Friday night.
The fugitive terror mastermind wanted to say that he was alive, in good health, self-confident, and in a place safe enough for making and distributing videotapes. Oh yes, and he wanted to say that he has been watching Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”.
The timing was no coincidence. The fugitive meant to influence the outcome of the American presidential election. He couched his message in such a way that, whoever wins next Tuesday, he would be able to claim part of the credit.
While Bin Laden’s fire was mostly aimed at Bush, whom he accused of having “deceived and tricked” the Americans for four years, he did not offer a clear endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry. The most he could do for Kerry was to assert that “liberals”, presumably meaning Kerry, could be as strong on security as anyone else. But few people have forgotten that Bin Laden’s first attack against the World Trade Center came in 1993 when Bill Clinton, a “liberal” was president.
A more careful reading of Bin Laden’s text, however, reveals his notorious thirst for publicity and self-aggrandizement.
For the first time he claims the copyright for the 9/11 attacks, seeking to end rumors that the operation was planned and carried out without him being informed of the specifics. Indirectly, the fugitive is rejecting the theory that it was Khalid Sheikh Muhammad who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, and that Bin Laden’s role was limited to providing the cash. Like a child who wants to take credit, he is crying “I did it, I did it!”
The tape is interesting for still other reasons.
The first is the style. For the first time, Bin Laden uses a clean, direct prose, free of blood-curdling hyperbole, childish poetics, and flowery rhetoric. This may be because his message is specifically addressed at the American voters rather than Islamist militants.
Second, this is a clearly political message. There are no religious motifs, no citations from the Holy Book or the Hadith, and no pseudo-theological arguments.
Having claimed for years that religion and politics were one, he now acknowledges that they are distinct domains. In that sense he has taken his first step toward secularization.
Third, Bin Laden appears to have abandoned his messianic pretensions. He no longer wants to save humanity from “kufr” (unbelief), and plant the banner of the Only True Faith on top of every capital in all continents. He is, in fact, reading an op-ed piece written in the style of Michael Moore.
Fourth, Bin Laden is trying, rather belatedly, to attach himself to political causes that might attract some Arabs. These include the Palestinian cause, a key ingredient of Pan-Arab bitterness. But he also speaks of the US intervention in Lebanon in 1982, forgetting the fact that the US Marines and the French paras went there on behalf of the United Nations to prevent Israel from marching on Beirut to capture and kill Yasser Arafat and the entire Palestinian leadership trapped there. Nor does he mention that Arafat and his colleagues were taken to safety in an American ship under US Marine escort.
His selective memory also omits the numerous instances when the Americans came to help Muslims such as in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in Kosovo. Finally, and here is the most surprising theme of the message, Bin Laden is offering the Americans a deal. To cast himself as an honest deal-maker he takes up some of Michael Moore’s themes, especially about President George W. Bush not reacting to the 9/11 attacks fast enough. The deal is simple, and Bin Laden hammers it in more specifically: “Do not play with our security, and spontaneously you will secure yourself.”
What does this mean? Translated into practical terms it means that Bin Laden would call off his hounds, if he has any left, provided the US and its allies halt hunting him down.
Compare this with Bin Laden’s previous statements and you will be struck by the change of tone and substance. He is no longer promising to destroy America come what may. Nor is he issuing one of his typical jeremiads about the Americans never again being safe or secure. Nor, again, is there any sign of one of his favorite phrases: “Every street in America will become a river of blood.”
Also gone are all his pretensions that his perverted version of Islam provides an alternative world vision. In offering a deal to the Americans, Bin Laden has few cards to play. He is holed up somewhere with his movements seriously restricted. His group has managed to produce just three videotapes and four audiotapes in four years, not an impressive figure even for amateurs who make home movies. In the past four years, a number of terrorist attacks have been attributed to Al-Qaeda. But in not a single case, from Bali to Madrid and passing by Islamabad and Tunis, a clear link with Al-Qaeda has been established.
Most experts agree that the threat comes from a wide variety of terrorist groups with little or no central coordination and command. In any case, the latest estimates by the State Department in Washington indicate a fall in the number of international terror attacks in the past two years compared with the years 2000 and 2001. More importantly, there has been no terror attack in the United States or in the territory of its closest allies the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan and Australia.
Theoretically, Bin Laden and his closest aides could continue in hiding for years, producing a couple of videos every now and then. But it is clear that they are no longer major league players in international terrorism. This does not mean that international terrorism has disappeared. Far from it. What it means is that Bin Laden, isolated in hiding as he is, can no longer play a leading role in shaping its strategy.
In fact, one aim of the latest tape may well be to counter recent claims by various terror leaders that Bin Laden belongs to the past. One such claim came last month in the form of a videotape from the Uzbek terror leader Tahir Yuldash who has been located in the roughlands of the Afghan-Pakistani border.
In the hour-long tape Yuldash does not mention Bin Laden at all. Instead, he speaks of a new jihadist leadership under Mulla Omar. Unlike Bin Laden, Yuldash does not offer Americans a deal and renews the jihadist promise of “destroying America.”
So, what does Bin Laden have to offer. His chief asset is name recognition. He has become an iconic figure of terror throughout the world. It is enough for him to send one of his Al-Jazeera messages to capture the headlines in the West, though not in the Muslim world. Whatever the outcome of the US election he could always boast that he had an impact. And who can be sure whether he did or did not? Appearing on the eve of elections in democratic countries to throw in a political hand grenade is the major asset that Bin Laden has left. And it is on that basis that he is offering a deal. Bin Laden may have the illusion that by offering an olive branch, albeit in his own strange way, he might pave the way for negotiations with a putative Kerry administration in Washington. There is, however, no chance that any American leader would ever be able to take up the fugitive’s offer.
BINNY'S FIRESIDE CHAT telling us his "deal". He's getting tired of running and living in holes so he made his first installment of his blackmail new deal.
Ah think he's got a purty mouf.
UBL will take credit for Bush's defeat if he loses the election, and the Arab world will believe it. The end result will be more American deaths. That's the real tragedy.
This tape is a sign of weakness by Bin Laden. See my essay on the matter: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1262612/posts
Here's the deal, Osama: You die, and I'll stop trying to kill you.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: "ATTACK ON AMERICA!" (Update)
http://www.truthusa.com/911.html
Why does he keep releasing individual tapes? When is he going to come out with a Box Set?
OK, Sammie, let's let bygones be bygones. We've all but
gotten over that Twin Towers incident and your other little
faux paus. Why don't we do lunch sometime?
Yeh, lunch with Osamie -- no 'tasters' allowed. I hear that part of the tape is a very personal (death) threat against Bush and his family. Nice guy.
Signed: John F. Kerry
OBL's support for liberal dems can easily be seen as an attack on the American presidential election process. The correlation of OBL's views with those of the majority of the Arab-American portion of the electorate is as plain as day. It clearly affords an unflatoring picture of where Arab-American sentiment lies. There's only one solution available to the liberal Arab media concerned about public perception of Arab-American loyalties -- spin like a tornado.
So what do we get instead of an honest evaluation of OBL's conduct and motives? We get an coughed-up depiction of him as not as bloodthirsty, but rather, publicity seeking and self-agrandizing -- like any good Democrat.
I was watching Nightline talking about this last night and I just about ralphed. BOTH the weasel talking heads were working the Kerry spin, "Oh, you can tell Osama did this to help Bush!"
Yeah, the American people are buying that, all right. Which is why Bush got a bump, and Kerry fell--Americans want to do what Osama wants! /sarcasm
If I hear any more of this "Osama knows Bush would be good for recruiting so he spoke to get us to elect Bush" b.s. I'm gonna fly to Hawaii and vote for Bush AGAIN.
And Kerry flipped again about Tora Bora!
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/10/30/134736.shtml
another reason we MUST win on Tuesday! A victory for Hanoi Kerry would inspire and strengthen all the wrong forces worldwide. John 'Vichy' Kerry would give heart to the Islamo-fascists and dictators who are praying that something stops Bush from sweeping them into history's ash heap. It would cheer up the Euro-trash left who dream of world socialism controlled through the EU and the UN with the US dominated and subordinated like Gulliver in Lilliput......
It was a call to arms for his people if Bush wins.
fyi
He is a wierd looking ......
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