UNITED STATES: Osama Bin Laden's "voting"
Istvan Simon writes: I followed the link to MEMRI in Ed Jajko's recent contribution to WAIS and browsed around on the website. I found a comment on the recent Osama Bin Laden tape attempting to influence the American Elections: http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=jihad&ID=SP80904. This contains quotes from an article by Dr. Mamoun Fandy in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram titled 'Bin Laden Votes for John Kerry: A Tape of Admission, Voting and Capitulation.'
I found the quotes from Dr. Fandy's article most interesting:
"The new phenomenon in the U.S. elections is that non-Americans are voting in the elections in the hope of changing America's course. [ U.N. Secretary-General] Kofi Annan, for example, voted for [Senator] John Kerry when he criticized [President] Bush's policy in Iraq and described the invasion of Iraq as an illegal action. On the other hand, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi voted for Bush in his recent visit to the U.S. when he thanked the U.S. and its president in [his address] to the Congress and in the White House. Recently, Osama bin Laden announced his vote for John Kerry in his latest tape, which was presented to us by the political porn channel [i.e. Al-Jazeera]."
This paragraph is most interesting, especially in light of the same trend evident in WAIS through some of our European WAISers, who similarly "voted" for John Kerry. Given the result of the election, the tactic appears to have misfired -- the American electorate seems to have delivered a message to all foreign voters that it is they that choose the President, not the foreign voters.
Dr. Fandy goes on:
"The most important thing in the tape is his sincere admission that he is the man who had planned the September 11 attacks. He specified the motives that justified this operation, which began to ferment in his mind since Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982…"The main point in this case is that Osama himself admitted to carrying out the operation which his friends and disciples were denying for a long time. And here we have evidence, in sound and
image, that the man [i.e. bin Laden] is the primary [party] responsible for the events of September 11 and that neither the Mossad nor the CIA were behind the [events], as the low-ranking [Arab] commentators have claimed. Nor the Serbs, as the senior political commentators have claimed."
This again is a most interesting quote. Indeed, I had found always most disgusting the Arab media's attribution of responsibility for 9/11 to everyone else, except the true perpetrators.
The final paragraphs on the web page are also interesting: " The tape tells George Bush: 'Leave us alone, and we will leave you alone.' It is obvious, from both the language and the body language, that this is a speech of a man who is capitulating, withdrawing, or trying to 'change his spots' from a Jihad fighter to a politician. This tape resembles the announcements of commercial companies which are going out of business. Bin Laden gave justifications for the events of September 11, and admitted responsibility for them, and here he is announcing that he votes for John Kerry in the elections. His speech contained expressions borrowed from the Democratic Convention or from Kerry's speeches, such as the story of George Bush telling a girl in Florida a tale about a goat. This expression appeared frequently in John Kerry's speeches, and it is obvious that whoever wrote bin Laden's speeches has democratic leanings, or at the very least that he follows John Kerry's speeches with interest. Moreover, bin Laden appeared in the tape as if he were advisor to Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, for he provided hints, free-of-charge, about the way to [better] preserve U.S. security. "
Dr. Fandy seems to have got it mostly right. His analysis of Bin Laden's latest tape is most insightful, and usually right on the money. I would add only that his reference to the "goat story" as far as I know is not from Senator Kerry's speeches, but Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" which showed footage of the President at the Florida school, as he received news of the 9/11 attacks
RH: The article confirms that 9/11 was in retaliation for US support of Israel. Later tapes state that attacks on the US willcontinue as long as is necessary.
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Ronald Hilton 2004
last updated:
December 5, 2004