New Bin Laden video surfaces

[Grojlach]

Now on CNN; more info will probably follow later.

Bin Laden video: Americans' security does not depend on the president they elect, but on U.S. policy. "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda."

[Grojlach]

Bin Laden threatens new attacks

Arabic TV station al-Jazeera has broadcast a videotape apparently featuring Osama Bin Laden, in which he threatens new attacks on the US.

In his opening remarks, the al-Qaeda leader accused President George W Bush of deceiving Americans in the years since the 11 September 2001 attacks.

He compared the Bush administration to what he termed corrupt Arab regimes.

The development comes as US voters prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday in the presidential election.

Bin Laden said he first thought of attacking the US after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

He said the attacks on the US would have been less severe if President Bush had been more alert.

But he added that the security of the American people depended neither on Mr Bush nor on his challenger, John Kerry, but on US policy.

"The reasons to repeat what happened remain," he said, quoted by the AFP news agency.

If genuine, this is the first videotape of Bin Laden speaking to have surfaced since the US-led war in Afghanistan following the 11 September attacks, which he is generally thought to have masterminded.

It was not obvious when the video was recorded.

However, several audio messages believed to be from Bin Laden have emerged since then.

The most recent, posted on a website known to be used by Islamist militants, strongly criticised the US and coalition forces in Iraq and ordered a jihad, or holy war, against them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3966741.stm

[Dreamer128]

Bin Laden Tape Could Help Bush - Analysts

By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden, the man President Bush vowed to capture "dead or alive," tossed a bombshell into the deadheat U.S. presidential campaign on Friday in a video address to the American people which some political analysts said could actually help Bush.

Bin Laden, in his first video in more than a year, threatened new attacks on the United States.

"Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened," he said.

Political analysts contacted by Reuters were still trying to digest the effect on the race with only four days to go until Election Day next Tuesday and Bush tied with Democrat John Kerry in the polls.

None thought it would persuade a large number of voters one way or another but with the race this close, even a small movement could be decisive.

"My visceral reaction is that it could hurt Kerry. I don't think the American people will take kindly to Osama bin Laden stepping into our election," said St. Louis University political scientist Joel Goldstein.

"It's an unfortunate 11th hour diversion but it reminds people of the terrorist threat and that's Bush's strong point," Goldstein said.

Kerry argued in the three presidential debates that Bush had made a fatal error in late 2001 by failing to send U.S. troops after bin Laden when he was believed to be trapped in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan.

He also says the invasion of Iraq was a mistake because it diverted attention and resources from the real enemy -- bin Laden's al Qaeda organization.

RALLY AROUND THE FLAG

"Kerry is going to say, 'Why is this guy still out there threatening us? Why is he still sending videos? Why hasn't he been stopped?' But foreign threats usually work in favor of the Commander-in-Chief," said University of Iowa political scientist Michael Lewis-Beck.

"People get scared and rally around the flag. I don't think the effect will be huge but even a small change could be important," he said.

Some analysts believe bin Laden would prefer Bush to be re-elected because he has become such an unpopular figure in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

"There's no question bin Laden would rather have Bush in the White House. The Iraq war has been a fantastic recruiting tool for him and the behavior of this administration has played into his hands," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

"Bush's one strong suit is that people trust him more than Kerry in the war on terrorism and this reminds people of their insecurity. Bin Laden is smart enough to know that helps Bush," Zogby said.

Polls show more voters support Kerry's positions on the economy but more trust Bush to keep the country safe.

But Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she did not think the video would ultimately have any effect.

"My gut instinct is that it's a pretty irrelevant October surprise. We already knew bin Laden is out there and that he wants to harm us," she said.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

[shamrock_uk]

Heh! Well, this was a surprise! I assumed he'd been dead a long time ago, but he's still alive and kicking.

All the same, I'm not quite sure what his objectives are. He's very intelligent, so presumably he realises that the American's will do the exact opposite of the Spanish and rally round Bush in response to a message like this...which suggests he wants Bush to get back in to the White House?...He can't be that cocky, can he? Surely, incompetency or not, it's only a matter of time before they get him...

[ 10-29-2004, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Dreamer128]

I doubt it matters much who gets elected. Kerry just anounced that he would "stop at nothing" to hunt down Bin Laden. Bush, while determined to take out Osama, has become the focal point for Anti-Americanism all over the world. In the eyes of many Muslims, he is walking propaganda for Bin Laden.

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: He can't be that cocky, can he? Surely, incompetency or not, it's only a matter of time before they get him...

Well, gut instinct tells me that if the Bush admin really wanted Bin Laden bagged they'd have bagged him long ago. As it stands the constant 'terrorist threat' has proven to be undeniable political gold for the Bush admin (and will continue to be for the possible Kerry admin too if thewy get elected, make no mistake)... it needs to be drawn out for as long as possible until the next great evil enemy can be thought up (which will probably involve Europe again in some shape or form)

[ 10-29-2004, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

[Chewbacca]

Does anyone else think this is nothing more than a signal for some AQ sleeper cell somewhere to take action? I hope, no...PRAY that is not the case but this has happened before.

[Ziroc]

I wish they would not give this devil ANY air time. As Chewy said, who KNOWS what signals could be in the video.

Of course, Al Jazeera "The Peninsula-- Terrorist News Network" got it first, and aired it proudly.

[Grojlach]

Here's a partial transcript - note that Osama also mentions his reasons for the 9/11 attacks and responds to Bush's "they hate our freedom" claims; oh, and he thanks Bush for sitting around for 7 minutes reading to kids when the WTC was hit.

This was up on Drudge report, in any case - so be wary of crappy, distorted translations.

BIN LADEN TRANSCRIPT
FRI OCT 29 2004 17:45:46 ET

Newsreader: A new message from Bin Laden to the American people about the reasons and resulats of the 9/11 attacks.

Newsreader 2: The head of AL Qaeda says the continuation of us policy will lead to the repetition of what happened.

Male presenter: The head of AL Qaeda organization directed a message to the American people and this video and audio apearence in this tape which Jezeera required for the first time for two years. In the beginning of his message, he spoke about the reasons why they chose the US to execute 9/11..

OBL: You American people, my speech to you is the best way to avoid another conflict about the war and its reasons and results. I am telling you security is an important pillar of human life. And free people don't let go of their security contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. He should tell us why we didn't hit Sweden for instance. Its known that those who hate freedom don't have dignified souls.like the 19 who were blessed. But we fought you because we are free people, we don't sleep on our oppression. We want to regain the freedom of our Muslim nation as you spill our security, we spill your security.

Female presenter: Bin Laden spoke for the first time about the main reasons he thought of executing Sept 11 attacks, confirming that the Israeli operation in Lebanon was the first incident where he thought of it.

OBL: I am so surprised by you. Although we are in the fourth year after the events of sept 11, Bush is still practicing distortion and misleading on you, and obscuring the main reasons and therefore the reasons are still existing to repeat what happened before. I will tell you the reasons behind theses incidents.

I will be honest with you on the moment when the decision was taken to understand. We never thought of hitting the towers. But after we were so fed up, and we saw the oppression of the American Israeli coalition on our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind and the incidents that really touched me directly goes back to 1982 and the following incidents. When the US permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon with the assistance of the 6th fleet. In these hard moments, it occurred to me so many meanings I cant explain but it resulted in a general feeling of rejecting oppression and gave me a hard determination to punish the oppressors. While I was looking at the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it came to my mind to punish the oppressor the same way and destroy towers in the US to get a taste of what they tasted, and quit killing our children and women.

Male presenter: Bin Laden considered in his message that the results of Sept 11 were successful in his opinion and as a reason of that, he said that the similarity between the administration of Bush the father and the arab regimes said Bush learned so much from them during his visits.

OBL: We didn't find difficulty dealing with Bush and his administration due to the similarity of his regime and the regims in our countries. Whish half of them are ruled by military and the other half by sons of kings and presidents and our experience with them is long. Both parties are arrogant and stubborn and the greediness and taking money without right and that similarity appeared during the visits of Bush to the region while people from our side were impressed by the US and hoped that these visits would influence our countries. Here he is being influenced by these regimes, Royal and military. And was feeling jealous they were staying for decades in power stealing the nations finances without anybody overseeing them. So he transferred the oppression of freedom and tyranny to his son and they call it th e Patriot Law to fight terrorism. He was bright in putting his sons as governors in states and he didn't forget to transfer his experience from the rulers of our region to Florida to falsify elections to benefit from it in critical times.

Female Presenter: Bin Laden considered the way Bush dealt with the first moments of Sept. 11, giving a good chance to the executors of Sept. 11 to complete it.

OBL: We agreed with Mohamed Atta, god bless him, to execute the whole operation in 20 minutes. Before Bush and his administration would pay attention and we never thought that the high commander of the US armies would leave 50 thousand of his citizens in both towers to face the horrors by themselves when they most needed him because it seemed to distract his attention from listening to the girl telling him about her goat butting was more important than paying attention to airplanes butting the towers which gave us three times the time to execute the operation thank god.

Male presenter: the final part of the message is that the security of the Americans depends on the policy that they execute despite the winner of the elections.

OBL: Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your hands. Each state that doenst mess with our security has automatically secured their security.

Female Presenter: In Bin Laden's message he approached other points. He pointed to the contradiction which considers oppression and killing of innocents a legal act. They formed an international law as bush the father did with the children of iraq according to bin laden. Bin Laden pointed to the millions of pounds of explosives dropped on Iraqi children as bush his son had done, as he said to remove an old agent and install a new agent to help instealing the oil of iraq. And bin laden said the events of 9/11 came as an answer to this oppression and said that if the answer to this oppression is considered bad terror, then we need to do it. And he stressed that he wants to deliver this message to the Americans in words and in deeds since the 9/11 events. He reminded Americans of a few warning messages through various news media like Time Magazine and CNN and other Arab and correspondents since 1996. He warned them of the conswquences of their countries policies. He talked abou t the damage Sept 11 caused the US economy and that it cost close to a trillion dollars. He talked about President Bush and that the emergency law requires more money.

[ 10-30-2004, 03:31 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Djinn Raffo]

Originally posted by Grojlach: Here's a partial transcript - note that Osama also mentions his reasons for the 9/11 attacks and responds to Bush's "they hate our freedom" claims; oh, and he thanks Bush for sitting around for 7 minutes reading to kids when the WTC was hit.

Let's hope that with this video of Bin Laden admitting his guilt in the 9/11 attacks the predominantly arab (but not exclusively) tin-foil hat brigade zionist conspiracy theorists put their theories about the attacks to rest.