Bin Laden tape aired (updated)
(Originally posted 12:26 PM EST, updates below)
A supposed audio tape of Bin Laden was aired on Al Jazeera today:
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Jazeera on Thursday broadcast portions of an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden, saying al-Qaida is making preparations for attacks in the United States but offering a possible truce to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.
The voice on the tape said heightened security in the United States is not the reason there have been no attacks there since the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings.
Instead, the reason is "because there are operations that need preparations," he said.
"The delay in similar operations happening in America has not been because of failure to break through your security measures. But the operations are happening in Baghdad and you will see them here at home the minute they are through (with preparations), with God's permission," he said.
"We do not mind offering you a long-term truce with fair conditions that we adhere to," he said. "We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war. There is no shame in this solution, which prevents the wasting of billions of dollars that have gone to those with influence and merchants of war in America."
The speaker did not give conditions for a truce in the excerpts aired by Al-Jazeera.
Hmmm. If we let you have Afganistan and Iraq, you'll leave us alone. Sorry, but that's an old plan. The left thought it up long ago.
Just a question: If we were really doing poorly in Iraq, if we were really doing poorly in the GWOT, would Bin Laden really be asking for a truce?
Or maybe it's because he's afraid of France.
Update (6:05 PM EST) and bump: The full transcript is here (via Powerline). Here's a taste - Osama on torture:
Jihad is continuing, praise be to God, despite all the repressive measures the US army and its agents take to the point where there is no significant difference between these crimes and those of Saddam.
These crimes include the raping of women and taking them hostage instead of their husbands. There is no power but in God.
The torturing of men has reached the point of using chemical acids and electric drills in their joints. If they become desperate with them, they put the drill on their heads until death.
If you like, read the humanitarian reports on the atrocities and crimes in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
I agree with John over at Powerline:
"It doesn't take a genius to see that things are going very badly for bin Laden and al Qaeda. Where does he turn for hope? To American opinion polls--which, of course, he reads very selectively. Still, think how encouraging it must be to him to read about calls for withdrawal from Iraq by Congressmen like Jack Murtha. It's hard to see much daylight between Murtha's position and bin Laden's: we're losing in Iraq; the American people are tired of the conflict; Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists; and al Qaeda is less likely to attack us if we just give up and go home."
It's remarkable how similar Bin Ladin's tape is to the anti-war crowd's rhetoric. I wonder how long it will be before:
1. Cindy Sheehan (or her pal George Galloway) uses quotes from the tape in a moonbatty diatribe
2. A promenant liberal takes the power drill allegation seriously and starts using it as a smear against the administration?
Shouldn't be long - and I'll let you know when it happens.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Bin Laden tape aired (updated).
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.dontgointothelight.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4878
LB - you seem subscribe to the notion that there are only two choices here: 1) either you support Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq, or 2) you advocate making some sort of Munich style deal to appease al-qaeda. (please forgive me if I am mischaracterizing)
This false dichotomy is based on a vewry dubious underlying assertion that the invasion of Iraq was really to make war on the terrorists.
Most of us who criticize the war in Iraq are certainly not seeking to appease the terrorists who attacked us. On the contrary - we lament that the war in Iraq has diverted our resources away from fighting the war on terror. Instead of taking the fight to al-qaeda, our military is crippled with this sideshow of occupying Iraq. Had we stayed focused on finishing the job in Afghanistan - securing and rebuilding that country - we'd have done far more to exterminate al-qaeda, by now would certainly have captured bin Laden, and done much more to undermine al-qaeda's appeal in the region.
I think you could make a very plausible argument that what bin Laden wanted most was to have the US invade an occupy a secular oil-rich Arab nation that was a sworn enemy of al-qaeda. Bush gave bin Laden his wish - so who is really appeasing the terrorists?
Aaron,
Please read this article - I'm curious as to whether it changes your view as stated above.
If you read the authorization to use force that congress passed, you'll see the there were many reasons, and Iraq's support for terrorism was among them.
On most issues, I'm not normally a "black or white" kind of guy. But considering the stakes, I personally would rather we stay as long as necessary to insure the greatest chance of success. Anything less leaves too much to chance, as Bin Ladin's statement makes clear.
If the premature egress from Iraq benefits terror, it matters little what the motivations are of those who are pushing for pulling out.
”This false dichotomy is based on a vewry dubious underlying assertion that the invasion of Iraq was really to make war on the terrorists.”
For a dubious assertion, it certainly seems to be working; Al-Qaeda has lost significant numbers of their fighters in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.
”…we lament that the war in Iraq has diverted our resources away from fighting the war on terror.”
I’m sorry, Aaron, but unless you are a military General Officer, your comment is without credibility. President Bush (and Secretary Rumsfeld) has said, time and again, that the military planners and commanders are getting all the troops they want for the mission they’ve been given. For you to second guess their requirements and lament that they don’t know what they are doing is rather elitist and arrogant.
I also take exception to the “our military is crippled” comment. We have enough reserve forces to take on Iran if necessary; so how is our military “crippled”? Every week more Iraqi military and police forces take responsibility for their own security. Soon there will be enough internal Iraqi security to permit withdrawal of some of our forces.
”Had we stayed focused on finishing the job in Afghanistan - securing and rebuilding that country - we'd have done far more to exterminate al-qaeda, by now would certainly have captured bin Laden, and done much more to undermine al-qaeda's appeal in the region.”
Afghanistan has experienced free elections, the schools and other infrastructure is up and running, the Taliban is reduced to small pockets of resistance, so how many more troops are needed to complete the mission? Al-Qaeda was over in Iraq being trained by the thousands, so how would additional troops in Afghanistan have improved effectiveness? As for bin Laden; we could have had our entire military on the ground and he could have effectively hidden from us. Without the human intelligence disclosing his location we would not find him. Too, he is believed to be in Pakistan who refused to let our troops (en masse) conduct operations in their country. Do you propose an invasion of Pakistan to neutralize one man? Bin Laden has effectively been neutralized. He is not the threat he once was, so why waste the resources hunting him needlessly. I admire the president’s composure to resist the temptation to make this revenge against one man.
Thanks all for an interesting discussion.
From what little we know of bin Laden (and I can't pretend any special knowledge in this regard beyond what is publicly known), it seems that he is bent on provoking an all out conflagration between Islam and the West. To us, this of course seems fool-hardy, given the overwhelming military power of the US. But bin Laden, if anything, is apparently a true believer in his radicalized interpretation of Islam. From the point of view of a fanatic believer, Allah the All Powerful would vanquish the West in any such confrontation.
It is my opinion that US invasion and occupation of Iraq is convenient for bin Laden on many levels. In all of their communications, al-qaeda have made it clear that they perceive the west as evil and decadent, and nothing makes them more outraged than the slow creep of western cultural influences in the heart of Islam. Iraq was in many ways one of the most western-leaning countries in the region. Saddam, for all of his murderous methods, was obsessed with "modernizing" his country, which to him meant secularization and emulating western ideas (and buying lots of weapons from the west).
I believe bin Laden sees the US occupation of Iraq as beneficial to him for several reasons. It pins down US forces in a protracted guerrilla war in hostile territory. It inflames the region against the US. It removes a secular, western-oriented Iraqi government anathema to al-qaeda, and replaces it with what is shaping up to be an Islamic fundamentalist government. It addresses the slow creep of western culture into the Mideast by polarizing the region into firmly pro-US and anti-US. It draws US power and political resolve away from hunting him and thwarting his attempts to reconstitute the Taliban/al-qaeda in Afghanistan. And it furthers his plans to provoke an all out confrontation with the west.
Now, I don't judge bin Laden to be some sort of evil genius. But I think we can all agree that he is no dummy either. I don't think he would have had success against the Soviets, pulled off 9/11, and eluded US capture for so long if he were an dim bulb. I will also say that president Bush isn't a particularly a inscrutible or complex man. Indeed, if anything, he is renowned for being straight forward and steadfast - a guy who predictably stays the course and who refuses to bend to criticism. It is also no secret that US leaders - both Republican and Democrat - are clearly moving towards a withdrawal from Iraq as soon as possible. Even Rumsfeld has signaled the draw-down of US forces beginning this year.
Given all of this, bin Laden would not have to be very smart to see that the easiest and best way to ensure continued US occupation of Iraq would be to simply offer a truce in exchange for US withdrawal from Iraq. To further seal the deal, he would only need to tie his offer to those who Bush sees as his enemies: US public opinion against the war. Conservative pundits would predicably (as here) jump at this communique from bin Laden as an opportunity paint democrats and those against the war in Iraq as allies of bin Laden. So now, a Bush withdrawal from Iraq would be perceieved by the Right as both a concession to bin Laden, and to Bush's critics. It would be "giving in" to bin Laden. Bush is now effectively (and predictably) hamstrung from leaving Iraq.
You all may disagree plenty with my analysis and opinion here. I welcome and respect that - there is plenty to debate about my assumptions here. But my original point is this: it is a false dichotomy to say that the only two choices are either support for occupation of Iraq, or conceding to al-qaeda. That thinking is both a trap, and is something being used by the Right for political gain. My opposition to the invasion and occupation, like many of us, is that I want to see our true enemy - which is militant religious fanaticism - neutralized. I believe the invasion and occupation of Iraq to run counter to the goal of vanquishing those who attacked us.
Aaron, your opinion contradicts itself. You comment that you believe Bush to be very straight forward and a stay the course type, but then believe he will be pursuaded to be emotionally contrary to spite OBL. I believe the president will continue to follow his plan regardless of what OBL has to say.
We have not withdrawn from Afghanistan; we continue to hunt an neutralized both al-Qaeda and Taliban when/where we find them. We also still have special forces actively pursuing OBL. I believe his days are numbered, but I don't believe he is still an effective leader.
Old Soldier -
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I of course have to dissent with a couple of your points:
"For a dubious assertion, it certainly seems to be working; Al-Qaeda has lost significant numbers of their fighters in Iraq as well as Afghanistan."
In Afghanistan, yes. That is why we should have continued to concentrate our efforts there. But in Iraq, I don't know that we effectively know who is fighting and being killed by US forces. As best I can tell from multiple reporting sources on the ground, roughly a third of the insurgency in Iraq is composed of foreign jihadists (those inspired to travel to Iraq to wage holy war on the infidel). That leaves two-thirds (best estimate) to be a mix of local resistance cells - including old regime Baathists (who are obviously dying out), and those inspired by nationalism, local clerics, and loss of loved ones to fight against US occupation (who seem to be growing in number). These are of course guesses based on slim reporting. However, even if the proportion of the insurgency that is foreign jihadists (including al-qaeda) is much higher than one third, that does not mean that the source of these jihadists is being depleted. On the contrary, there is evidence that US occupation inspires new foreign recruits all of the time.
"Afghanistan has experienced free elections, the schools and other infrastructure is up and running, the Taliban is reduced to small pockets of resistance, so how many more troops are needed to complete the mission? Al-Qaeda was over in Iraq being trained by the thousands, so how would additional troops in Afghanistan have improved effectiveness?"
I'm sorry to have to burst this rosy Fox News bubble. The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated severely over the last couple of years. The Taliban and their allies have retaken control of vast areas of the country. In many cases they have been welcomed back by Afghans who formerly opposed them simply because they can provide at least some sense of law and order. In the latest elections, fundamentalist Muslim parties closely allied with the Taliban and al-qaeda won strong mandates, fueled mostly by the inability of the moderate interim government and its US backers to secure and rebuild the country. The current government of Afghanistan has little effective control outside of Kabul, and indeed President Karzai is little more than Mayor of that city. That same president Karzai has raged against the west for abandoning pledges to rebuild Afghan infrastructure and secure the country. Had we focused our efforts on rebuilding and securing Afghanistan, we might have produced the shining example of US goodwill and of a moderate, democratic nation. Instead, we have a failed state, increasing fundamentalist control, and an Afghanistan that feels abandoned and betrayed by the west. To accomplish a positive outcome in Afghanistan, we needed vastly more security forces than the paltry number we have left there in order to fight in Iraq. To those who say that the generals didn't want any more troops , I would point out that many generals did indeed say we needed far more. In fact, General Shinseki was drummed out of the military for saying just that. No dissent from the Bushies is allowed.
As far as "Al-Qaeda was over in Iraq being trained by the thousands" - there is absolutely no evidence that Al-Qaeda was being trained in Iraq in any significant numbers. Yes, Zarqawi had a small band of jihadists ironically fighting Saddam from a tiny base in the north of the country in an area that was not under Saddam's control (it was under Kurdish control in the no-fly zone). Other than that, the US could not point to one single al-qaeda training camp in the whole country during Powell's case before the UN.
"Bin Laden has effectively been neutralized. He is not the threat he once was, so why waste the resources hunting him needlessly. I admire the president’s composure to resist the temptation to make this revenge against one man."
Why wouldn't that reasoning not apply even more to Saddam Hussein? Well, actually, that very reasoning was indeed applied to Saddam by current US officials:
..."we had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was 10 years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
-Colin Powell, Feb, 2001 (source: US State Dept website)
That wording is pretty much black and white. Saddam was effectively neutralized, and was not considered a threat to his neighbors. So why did we, in your words, "waste the resources hunting him needlessly", and why did we not "resist the temptation to make this revenge against one man"? So now you are saying that bin Laden, the guy who attacked us, is not worth wasting rescources to capture, but that Saddam, the guy who didn't attack us, was worth wasting many many more resources to capture?
LB -
I have heard of these documents in the Standard article, yes. I've also heard of exiles and prisoners who have said that there were terrorist camps. My responses:
1) It was always known that Saddam provided financial assistance to groups that attacked Israel. In that sense, yes he supported terror cells. However, that support was apparently not quite as significant as the Standard may like - Israel, despite being in the neighborhood and being on the receieving end of much of Saddam's vitriol, was not overly concerned with the threat posed by him. Moreover, in his support for terrorism, Saddam was much less of a player than just about any other government in the region. Far more funding for terrorist organizations fighting Israel comes from Saudi Arabia and other countries who we count as our "allies". And while it is doubtful that Iraq hosted training facilities for al-qaeda, it is well known that such training facilities exist in Saudi Arabia. Why haven't we invaded them?
2) It was also known (though only thinly alluded to in the Standard's article) that Saddam often played religious/ethnic groups off against one another, and that included supporting various local Iraqi Islamic terror groups - especially those that would fight against the Kurds and Shia. This is an internal Iraqi dynamic, and is not the same as saying Saddam was training and supporting al-qaeda. Indeed, Saddam was extremely paranoid about al-qaeda. To lend weapons and support to them, we would have to assume that Saddam trusted them. Well, Saddam, like all ruthless dictators, did not get into his position by being the trusting type. With al-qaeda's repeated admonitions that Saddam's secular dictatorship was heretical, it is very hard to see how Saddam would supply weapons to al-qaeda, when al-qaeda could easily turn those weapons against him.
The "enemy of my enemy" theory proferred by the Right to imply a strategic alliance between Saddam and al-qaeda is rather far-fetched. First of all, the US was never Saddam's burning enemy, even after the Gulf War. Saddam admired the US, and was a US ally for most of his tenure. Israel was Saddam's true obsession, and as I mentioned, the Israeli's didn't seem particularly impressed with his hollow threats. Secondly, you have to understand just how deeply Saddam's Iraq angered al-qaeda. In Iraq, women wore what they pleased, were educated in the West, and held high positions of authority in government, university, and private professions (the head of Iraq's bio-weapons program in the 80's was a woman!). Christians were allowed to worship relatively freely in Iraq, and there was always a sizable Christian minority there (Iraq's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian!) There are even a small number of Iraqi Jews. None of this could possibly be imagined in places like Saudi Arabia, and it all deeply infuriated the militant Islamics.
3) And finally, I would caution against The Weekly Standard's liberal use of testimony from exiles and prisoners. These people have shown themselves to be consistent liars, giving the US Right-wingers any story they want to hear. When will we ever learn that exiles are not reliable sources? That goes even more so for prisoners who most likely are being coerced to say what the adminsitration wants to hear.
I believe the Standard article was referring to documents gathered from Iraq - not to testimony from exiles and prisoners, Aaron.
As for what to do about Saudi - Yeah, it bothers me too. The oppression we were so proud of ridding Afganistan of still exists in many areas in Saudi. Major cities have improved the last decade, but in the outlying areas - well, I saw it firsthand and it's not pretty. On that point, we're not so far apart.
LB and everybody - have a great weekend!