September 10, 2007
www.antiwar.com
Bin Laden's latest video throws new light on a murky subject
Justin Raimondo
Six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the entity known as al-Qaeda remains largely a mystery: its intent, its ideology, its leadership, and its inner workings are all largely unknown to the American people. Experts study them and interpret the arcane meanings of their utterances in light of Koranic verses. The president of the United States and his allies aver that they hate us because we're so free, so prosperous, so utterly fabulous – yet still al-Qaeda is, at least in the popular mind, an army of shadows, in the sense that they don't seem quite real. The one major military operation undertaken by them, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, is practically the only evidence we have of their existence as an organized network, and, in recent years, it has become fashionable to describe Osama bin Laden as a purely symbolic figure, one who inspires actions by others but is in no position to direct the action.
Now, however, we have a new video featuring the terrorist leader, released just a few days ago, and, with it, a new evaluation of al-Qaeda and its leader as being much more active, and organized, than previously thought. This piece in the Washington Post portrays a revived organization that didn't take all that long to recover from the blows directed against it in Afghanistan and is today prospering under the leadership of a new layer of experienced and hardened cadre who have replaced those captured and killed. Now we are being told that al-Qaeda is more than just a symbolic entity, that the network that murdered almost 3,000 Americans on that bloody day six years ago is reestablishing itself, and that this reconstituted incarnation of pure evil is rearing its head once again to wreak destruction in new ways.
The message: be afraid, be very afraid.
The all-pervasive atmosphere of fear that spread, like a poisonous fog, from one end of the civilized world to the other in the wake of the 9/11 attacks is reasserting itself, and this new jolt of terror couldn't have come at a better time for our rulers – as they ratchet up the war propaganda and get ready to strike at Iran, Syria, and anyone else who dares defy them. This new assault on our reason – and that's what it is, make no mistake about it – comes at a plastic juncture in our political life, when Americans are getting ready to change their leadership and it looks like the other party might get a chance in power. The plasticity of this moment is further emphasized by the long-touted "report" of Gen. David Petraeus, the War Party's messiah, who is primed to tell us we're on the verge of "victory" in Iraq, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. The massive antiwar sentiment that allowed the Democrats to take Capitol Hill is stalled, and the War Party – in spite of being discredited by its lies and its crimes – is back, with a vengeance.
At this dramatic turning point, bin Laden reappears with a half-hour long tape, the transcript of which can be found here, and there is something very odd about it, in that it reads like a political polemic that might have been written by an American. It cites Noam Chomsky, as well as the Koran, and excoriates "the neoconservatives" by name, including Richard Perle. There are two mentions of the neocons, and the first is very strange.
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punditman says: Many questions remain surrounding the symbiotic relationship between al-Qaeda and the neo conservative cabal in Washington, both of whom benefit from permanent war.
