Posted on 09/10/2002 2:00:31 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:40:56 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) --
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Agreed. He died in December at Tora Bora.
Thanks to the US Military arse kicking, he truly became a member of "Islam is the religion of pieces"...
If you idea of heaven is a whore house then maybe- just maybe- you are the pagan.
Wish the two tapes could be laid side by side for us for comparison. We do not say the same thing in the exact same way the second time around.
We already know these tapes are edited before they get to al Jazeera.
Sac
SR
I believe he is dead or we would have had another tape from him by now. It would have been authenicated in someway to reflect a current date and would have gloated over our inability to find him. Yep...he's gone...
I heard an interesting theory right here on FR about al Qaeda. In Arabic, al Qaeda means "The Foundation" and it is commonly rendered into English as "The Base". When I had initially heard that they called themselves "The Base" I had thought of "military base"- which seemed a funny thing to call yourselves if you were trying to become the premiere terrorists in the world. But if you think of "base of a tree" or "foundation of a house" it makes a little bit more sense- in the sense that they might have looked at themselves as the foundation from which to build a world wide house of Islam.
Anyway, the theory goes: "The Foundation" could be a reference to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction "Foundation" Series. If you've read these, you know that the hero, Hari Seldon, has invented a science that allows him to predict to a very high degree of accuracy- the future. The Galactic Empire is falling and he has surmised that nothing will prevent it. So, instead, he sets up two "Foundations" on opposite ends of the Galaxy to ensure the survival of science and knowledge while the Empire falls into ruin. One Foundation consists of pure scientists and "encyclopedists" who are sent to a remote planet to document all of the accumulated knowledge of mankind and to continue research and technological progress, while the other Foundation concerns itself with keeping mankind and history on a proper track to ensure man's quickest possible renaissance from the dark ages.
Hari is an old man when he sets all this up, but he has used his science to calculate exactly what needs to happen for the next thousand years. Obviously, he is long dead before any critical moments pop up in the Foundation's unfolding history, so what he does is for every crisis moment that he forsees, he has made a recording of himself giving pertinent advice to the leaders at that point in time. These recordings are locked away into a vault and the vault only opens at preset times- determined through his calculations of future history. When a crisis presents itself, the vault opens, whatever leaders are at hand go in, receive the wisdom of the recording Hari has made and they use this knowledge to act against the crisis. The series is pretty good and thought provoking.
At any rate, the speculation goes that bin Laden had read these series and this is why he named his group the Foundation. His vision was for a united fundamentalist Islamic nation but he also realized he wouldn't be around to see it happen. So he has made many video tapes of himself, praising the jihadis in their struggles and maybe even giving vague advice that can be open to much interpretation but also twisted to fit just about any situation.
It's a kooky kind of theory really, but seeing these videos keep popping up when he is most likely dead makes me reflect on it. It could be that this is what's going on here.
There are also some references to Dune that I've heard in regards to al Qaeda as well. It would be sort of ironic in a way if bin Laden had been a big fan of these books and used ideas from them to try and destroy the very culture that produced them.
FWIW.
I bet it won't stop them, though! Someone should ask Farrakhan.
"Al Your Qaeda Are Belong To Us."
Actually, one of the pages I turned up when googling for this topic was named something like that. I searched for "al qaeda means the foundation"- it was one of the top returns.
They say the story is bunk because the only thing similar to the Galactic Library (as depicted in the Series) is the Library of Congress and since bin Laden obviously isn't there, the story is false.
But I think it's plausible enough that he read the series and drew some ideas from it that he liked. Like in Dune, Paul Atreides wrests control from the Emperor by threatening to destroy the spice- many people like to view the spice as an allegory for oil. If we liken Saudi Arabia to the planet Arrakis, and if bin Laden's ultimate goal was to overthrow the Saudi Royals and put a squeeze on the oil in order to enrich himself and extract concessions from the Western world (to basically withdraw from the Islamic world forever)- it seems like he might have taken some inspiration there if he had read the book. If he had read Dune, it is also likely that he had read the Foundation series and vice versa.
It's interesting for a few minutes of thought at any rate. God knows, most of the tin foil theories about 9/11 are much more far fetched.
I admit, myself, that it's far fetched- but you never know and if it is true, it gives you valuable info and insight on how to combat them.
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