Osama bin Laden is back
asiatimes: It's all about the voice
Just a slow, composed, husky voice out of a telephone line recorded on a scratched tape (not digital; a mere cassette). No video. Just a voice - capable of sending the markets into a tailspin and the networks into hysteria, spiking the oil bourses in London and New York, resetting the global agenda, unleashing armies of US intelligence analysts scrambling to confirm if the voice is real or fake.
You had totally vanished from the face of the Earth for more than a year. You are the most wanted man in the world. You re-enter the global stage just with your voice, a mere whisper. The simplicity of it. What politician would not dream of such power?
Osama bin Laden, master media manipulator turned global politician, is back. Talk about astonishing timing. Only a few days ago in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajur a US Central Intelligence Agency drone delivered punishment from heaven toward what should have been al-Qaeda's No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, but turned out to be villagers, including children, and also reportedly some al-Qaeda militants.
Cue to a tape moving hand-to-hand undetected from the tribal areas - it could be South Waziristan in Pakistan, it could be Kunar in Afghanistan - to Al-Jazeera's office in Peshawar and then to the network's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. There's no reason to doubt Al-Jazeera's assessment that the tape was recorded last month. It didn't have to sit very long to reach the limelight.
Bin Laden may have never read James Joyce, but he is applying to perfection the Dubliner's motto: silence, exile, cunning. Against the awesome US military machine, al-Qaeda's weapons of choice since September 11, 2001, have been subterfuge, evasion and deception.
But the Bush administration - and US public opinion - will have only themselves to blame if they confuse the messenger's tactics with the message. Whatever the tactics, bin Laden is always on message - and should be taken at his word.
Bin Laden is now explicitly offering a truce to the United States: "We do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to. We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war."
The chances of the Bush administration ("we don't negotiate with terrorists, we put them out of business") accepting the offer are as slim as the chances of Vice President Dick Cheney rejecting oil as an expendable commodity.
So, according to bin Laden, Zawahiri and al-Qaeda's "Allah bans us from lying" reasoning, they have fulfilled their duty. The enemy has been warned. This means bin Laden's threat of a renewed al-Qaeda attack inside the US is not pure imaging - or a weapon of rhetorical destruction. Then, after the fact, a tape - audio or video - will inevitably follow, florid Arabic elaborating once again that "you never listen to what we're saying". Read more
db: Robert Fisk wrote earlier "The Bin Laden offer, almost certainly, is intended to be rejected. He wants Bush and Blair to refuse it. Then, after the next attack, will come the next audio tape. See what happens when you reject our ceasefire? We warned you."
Just a slow, composed, husky voice out of a telephone line recorded on a scratched tape (not digital; a mere cassette). No video. Just a voice - capable of sending the markets into a tailspin and the networks into hysteria, spiking the oil bourses in London and New York, resetting the global agenda, unleashing armies of US intelligence analysts scrambling to confirm if the voice is real or fake.
You had totally vanished from the face of the Earth for more than a year. You are the most wanted man in the world. You re-enter the global stage just with your voice, a mere whisper. The simplicity of it. What politician would not dream of such power?
Osama bin Laden, master media manipulator turned global politician, is back. Talk about astonishing timing. Only a few days ago in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajur a US Central Intelligence Agency drone delivered punishment from heaven toward what should have been al-Qaeda's No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, but turned out to be villagers, including children, and also reportedly some al-Qaeda militants.
Cue to a tape moving hand-to-hand undetected from the tribal areas - it could be South Waziristan in Pakistan, it could be Kunar in Afghanistan - to Al-Jazeera's office in Peshawar and then to the network's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. There's no reason to doubt Al-Jazeera's assessment that the tape was recorded last month. It didn't have to sit very long to reach the limelight.
Bin Laden may have never read James Joyce, but he is applying to perfection the Dubliner's motto: silence, exile, cunning. Against the awesome US military machine, al-Qaeda's weapons of choice since September 11, 2001, have been subterfuge, evasion and deception.
But the Bush administration - and US public opinion - will have only themselves to blame if they confuse the messenger's tactics with the message. Whatever the tactics, bin Laden is always on message - and should be taken at his word.
Bin Laden is now explicitly offering a truce to the United States: "We do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to. We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war."
The chances of the Bush administration ("we don't negotiate with terrorists, we put them out of business") accepting the offer are as slim as the chances of Vice President Dick Cheney rejecting oil as an expendable commodity.
So, according to bin Laden, Zawahiri and al-Qaeda's "Allah bans us from lying" reasoning, they have fulfilled their duty. The enemy has been warned. This means bin Laden's threat of a renewed al-Qaeda attack inside the US is not pure imaging - or a weapon of rhetorical destruction. Then, after the fact, a tape - audio or video - will inevitably follow, florid Arabic elaborating once again that "you never listen to what we're saying". Read more
db: Robert Fisk wrote earlier "The Bin Laden offer, almost certainly, is intended to be rejected. He wants Bush and Blair to refuse it. Then, after the next attack, will come the next audio tape. See what happens when you reject our ceasefire? We warned you."
posted by exoplanet at 9:35 PM
<< Home