From the AP:
Al Jazeera aired an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden on Thursday, saying al Qaeda is making preparations for attacks in the U.S. but offering a truce to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.
The voice on the tape said heightened security measures in the U.S. aren’t 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, and you will see them,” he said.
“Based on what I have said, it is better not to fight the Muslims on their land,” the speaker said. “We do not mind offering you a truce that is fair and long-term….so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan … there is no shame in this solution because it prevents wasting of billions of dollars … to merchants of war.”
The speaker did not give conditions for a truce in the excerpts aired by the Arab broadcaster.
Russ Feingold was quick to blame the Bush adminstration for “Bin Laden’s” failure to spell out the condition of the truce in detail, pointing to the “chill” in fruitful terrorist / US “conversation” since the NYT broke the story about the NSA potentially spying on foreign agents and their embedded operatives.
“When this country surrendered its civil liberties for a modicum of security,” Senator Feingold informed a supportive crowd of students and faculty at George Washington University, “the terrorists had already won. Today’s refusal on the part of al Qaeda to provide us with any information about the conditions of a potential truce simply reinforces that message: you can’t fight terror by fighting terror in a way that fights terror unfairly.
“As far as I’m concerned, George Bush is not only responsible for al Qaeda’s ultimate victory. But now, these jihadists are just, y’know, doing an elaborate, theocratic end zone dance that, had America not surrendered the moral highground, would most certainly be flagged by officials for excessive celebration—particularly the part where they lop of the head of that poor CS Monitor reporter and dunk it over the crossbar.”
(h/t Stop the ACLU)
Of course, as Conferate Yankee points out (and what I think many of us on the pro-war right already acknowledge), is there really isn’t much here that’s terribly new—and in fact, the message seems rather stale, historically speaking.
Three things might account for this deja vu: 1) we’re dealing with a culture whose notion of time is more relaxed and transcendent—deliberate and resolved in its long term global patience, a testament to its sustained trust in a diety that works by his own lights in a time frame that we humans are not meant to fully comprehend. Plus, he’s been busy lately finding hundreds of thousand of heavenly virgins to pleasure all the limbless jihadis that are trucked into heaven each day in the back of reinforced Toyota pickup trucks; or 2) bin Laden and his communications crew are holed up somewhere and are having difficulty disseminating new material, and so are relying on tried and true recruiting messages, such as “prepare to die in a fiery burning hell of your own making, infidels,” or “we don’t much care for your Spice channel, libertine pig dogs”; or 3) bin Laden is dead as a boot, but somebody managed to save this clip to an MP3.
Time will tell, I suppose.
Allah has the response of real American patriots, who—let’s face it, it’s not so much that they’d like to see our militaristic arrogance and imperial hegemonic designs on world domination humbled (their attendant al-Qaeda-friendly, anti-Bush narratives notwithstanding) so much as it is they just really like a quality sandal and a savory sweet tea, and kicking back in caves to just, y’know, do the important things men in robes do.
*****
See also, Michelle Malkin, LGF, Strata-sphere, Flopping Aces, Anti-Idiotarian Rotweiller, Part Time Pundit, and the Counter Terrorism Blog, Austin Bay, Clayton Cramer, Atlas Shrugs, Don Singleton, JunkYardBlog, Political Pit Bull, Never Yet Melted, FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog, California Yankee, Neophyte pundit, Noisy Room, and Presto Agitato
No reason. Just because it still makes me giggle. ALL HAIL THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS! ALL HAIL DARK MEAT THAT PRACTICALLY SLIDES RIGHT OFF THE THIGH BONE!
Wow… it HAS gotten to that point. I do not for the life of me know if this is the Goldsteinian Feingold or the real life Feingold.
*Sigh*
Hmmm. Maybe I should not have laughed back in ‘04 at being told there was a 12-14 year old boy at the front gate (of Bagram AF) that said he knew where bin Laden was hiding…
I still think he is Purina Vulture Chow – tell me he would not have sent out a stream of video “Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyahs” since ‘01-’02.
OHNOES – I’m with you.
Jeff, did Feingold really say that, or are you yanking us?
Or, is Osama another Rove operative? Is Feingold? Is Chirac?
http://tinyurl.com/ckj2m
Are you? Am I?
sw: I seek clarity, and cannot find it.
Do you have a link to Feingold’s comments?
AJStrata
Allah is playing “just the tip” with blogging. No blog, but linkmecca and consistent commenting on other blogs.
He’s accepting teh buttsecks and claiming born-again blogging virginity.
I would think that the Democrats would learn to get serious about presenting a united front on the US’s resolve to fight this war when Osama quotes polls the same way liberals do.
How the hell can we take liberals seriously when Osama Bin Freaking Laden is parroting their talking points?
Major John—I’m inclined to agree with you; I’d think that if Usama were alive, he would keep releasing tapes, and for that matter, he wouldn’t have ignored the loss of Columbia.
Still, that’s more or less the same thing I thought abaout Hussein in that gap between Saddam’s command post being bombed and his capture, so it’s probably not wise to rely on that.
Is Ted Kennedy writing Feingold’s stuff for him now?
Can you say “weak horse”. I knew you could boys and girls.
Osama—mom, W is hitting me again. Make him stop.
Osama’s mama—Now George. Cut it out.
W.—What. Evah. Beyotch. I gots yo hellfire right here.
I once got my ass kicked by a 40 lb girl named Stephanie Bolotin. BUt in my defense, she used her lip gloss like MACE, man.
Oh. And please read my site. It’s filled with chickenhawk talk, which drives what I like to call “the wingnuts” CRAZY!
HA! Is it any wonder the chicks in dig my feminist support group TOTALLY DIG ME?
Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait. In that tape, didn’t “bin Laden” say that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the United States again?
But doesn’t hearing (or reading a Presidential Daily Briefing) that “Bin Laden determined to attack the US” require that Bush put the entire nation on full-scale RED ALERT??!! This is not a drill! Stop all airplane flights! Martial law must be declared! Everyone out of the tall buildings and into the cellars (except for the Jews, who are no doubt already there)! Oh my God, bin Laden is determined to attack the US! EVERYBODY TAKE COVER for at least the next six months!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Oh, boy! Someone played the “CHICKENHAWK!” card.
Being a rethuglican, I can’t think of a snappy rebuttal to “CHICKENHAWK!”
Can anyone help a neanderthal rethuglican like me out?
I still think Osama has been taking a dirtnap since 2002. These vague audio tapes just seem to contrived.
Are you telling me a media savvy guy like Bin Laden wouldn’t love to have a picture of him holding a New York Times from today or some other newspaper that proves he’s alive? I can’t imagine that if could do this right now that he wouldn’t be.
I stand by the dirtnap theory. If anything this is a pathetic and desperate attempt by the remaining 10 head leaders….(BLAM!!) oh wait, -make that 9- of al-qaeda to save their sorry asses. I think you can safely say that that little “incident” in Pakistan a few days ago scared the bejeezus out of these guys.
Hey, mightcan, it’s not too late to fight for YOUR side, too! Please enroll here:
<a href=”http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006156.php” target=”_blank”>
Mohammad has promised that lib martyrs who make the ultimate sacrifice will be rewarded in paradise with 72 virgins who look just like Nancy Pelosi.
Ok if I follow the KOS “logic” (linked on Allah’s page), Bush is Osama’s puppet, Osama wants to kill Americans, thus Osama is using Bush to kill Americans.
There seems to be a part of that equation missing but not being mathmatically inclined, I don’t seem to know the missing part.
Wow, it looks like some of your readers have a tin-ear for satire (including AJ Strata! ha!).
Is that what Democrats have been doing the last four years? It certainly explains a lot.
Bah… but a flesh wound… how bout we call it a truce… AH… come back you yellow bellied coward!
KFC, huh? Then just have intel locate the mountain venting serious gas. I guess it could be fried goat.
I don’t guess that’s a JooHoo he’s drinking?
AL, after reading your stuff, I need a tin ear.
Dead giveaway: the real Feingold talks like a rained-on robot. That mockery up there is just too smooth.
Anywayâ€â€
Not to get all Stockhausen here, but I’m kind of impressed with Osama and/or his ghost. He has a lock on strategical rhetoric. By dropping the wacky Caliphate shit and moving on to anti-imperialist boilerplate, he’s unsubtly shifted the Western left from anti-imperialist boilerplate into the wacked out crap he actually wants an airing forâ€â€not in his name, of course.
Example (as if one more is needed): This past Sunday night I wound up at a local college bar one table away from a huddle of crunchies getting loud about the machinations of International Jewry w/r/t the WoT. Without Osama’s help, that Great Moment In Leftist History couldn’t have happened. (Just try to imagine it happening in 1996. C’mon. Try.)
Smart ghost.
AL, the stuff the Dems say is often so outrageous that it’s just about impossible to tell satire from “reality” any more.
Or maybe, it’s just not good satire.
It’s scary that the Feingold “quote” seemed so plausible to so many.
That doesn’t speak to their tin ear so much as it does the increasing convergence of anti-war left rhetoric and that being adopted, promoted by al Qaeda.
BTW, MEMRI says that bin Laden did NOT offer a truce; the tape was mistranslated by the MSM. What bin Laden really said was that he would ACCEPT a truce if offered by the U. S.
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD107406
Just to clarify by the way, I think Jeff’s satire was good; mightcan’s wasn’t. I’m not sure which AL was referring to.
[Eeeeeeeeeeevil] Zionist hard-on, he’s unsubtly shifted the Western left from anti-imperialist boilerplate into the wacked out crap he actually wants an airing for…
Good times. Exactly how many positions are there in the kama sutra? Exactly how many different ways are Democrats going to get pOwned by Islamofascists stealing their talking points.
Good times. For liberals, nah, not so much. Good times indeed.
– Well I guess that pretty well fucks up the left party line that there is no war. Usama just really isn’t getting with the program. Of course Colmes made it clear that its not the Dems fault if Bin Laden happens to aggree with them – thats certainly no indication the the left sides with the terrorists. Usama, that tricky prankster, is just taking advantage. Here they’re working so hard to get him a “clear” phone line and he up and does this. Shame on him.
Great satire is subtle farce overlaid on a grain of truth.
The script of this tape was not satire. It was an exercise in cut-and-paste from DU, MoveOn, PFAW, DNC, New York Times editorials, and Kos message threads.
No subtlety or farce here. Just moonbat.
He’s still trying to do strategic planning based on MSM. He plays well in Boston, Berkely, and New York… but that’s (sadly) not the America that he has to beat.
TW = “justice”. Coming soon to a mullahocracy in Iran.