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| Osama loosing support |
| 2006-04-24 |
| In his latest address to his followers, Osama bin-Laden warned of a “long war” in the fight against western interests thus admitting for the first time that his administration’s initial promises of a quick and decisive conflict had been overly optimistic. “A lot of us feel this is a very promising development,” observed one al-Qaeda official who spoke on the condition that he not be beheaded, “but there is still cause for concern when he says things like the Crusaders are, ‘destroying houses over the heads of our kinfolk and children,’ which suggests he doesn’t realize that just about all the killing is Muslim on Muslim.” “It’s like he’s living in a cave or something.” Many supporters also feel that bin-Laden continues to fall back on tired old arguments such as “they hate our totalitarianism, they hate our theocracy and the lack of freedoms we enjoy.” Some supporters blame members of bin-Laden’s administration, particularly the neo-Imams such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, who appears to be having trouble navigating the many complex challenges facing al-Qaeda. “I don’t care if you’re a multinational insurance company, banking institution, or terrorist organization,” observed one management consultant, “you have to be prepared to deal with things like floating exchange rates, database compatibilities and random air strikes from Predator drones.” One assistant branch manager in the Berlin office pointed out that turnover in particular has been a big problem. “Like many organizations, we lost a lot of good people on 9-11,” he noted. “Mohammed Atta? He was your go-to guy if you wanted a job done and done well. Particularly if you only needed it done once. And then there was Fayez al-Hamadi. Now there was a guy you could bring into a situation to shake things up. He was a real bomb thrower, that guy.” “No, seriously, he threw bombs.” “Sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what trigger the left hand is pulling,” noted one al-Qaeda intern working in the Oman office. “We figure one of these days one of our own guys is going to get mixed up and set off a suicide vest right here in the office killing us all, ha ha. That’s a joke making the email rounds.” Bin-Laden has been having a bad time of it lately including al-Qaeda’s incompetent handling of the earthquake in Pakistan and the resulting plunge in his poll numbers, and reports that al-Zawahiri had waited days before bothering to personally tell bin-Laden that he had accidentally missed shooting a lawyer. As calls for a change in leadership have mounted, bin-Laden has attempted to appease his critics by making some staff changes including the demotion of Musab al Zarqawi in Iraq. Some have said all they are doing is “rearranging the deck chairs on the USS Cole,” while others believe the moves represent real change. Regardless, the general consensus is that more staff shakeups are coming. One way or another. J. |
| Posted by:DarthVader |