| Submit your comments on this article |
| Fifth Column |
| Robert Fisk gets Osama hat tip |
| 2004-11-02 |
| From Tim Blair... THE NAUGHTY SHE-GOAT Al-Jazeera has released a complete translation of Osama bin Laden's latest video. In it, the cave-hopping beardo lists his trusted journalistic contacts: This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th. And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998. You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk. The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at The White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?Congratulations, Robert! At least one person on this planet considers you to be neutral; too bad he's a psychopath. More from your friend: So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying, "Like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth ... "" ... with her stunning hindquarters raised tantalisingly towards the village chieftain." Also in Osama's speech: a telling pop-culture reference to "black gold". |
| Posted by:dennisw |
| #9 Surprise! Hey, I told ya the guy was dead. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-11-02 4:28:35 PM |
| #8 Maybe Michael Moore wrote it for him. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-02 4:19:16 PM |
| #7 This script could not have been written by the same man who spoke eloquently of people's reactions to "the strong horse" and "the weak horse", the man who taunted DefSec William Perry in a direct letter. This tape is jokey, adolescent, rambling, irrelevant. Can't be from Osama. It's as if Victor Davis Hanson suddenly started using the language and tropes of Seinfeld or Dr Phil. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-02 4:07:08 PM |
| #6 This phrase could have been lifted from a Rock the Vote ad: "And it all shows that the real loser is ... you" The only thing missing is the epithet, "DUDE!!!" Also bizarre is the sudden interest in economics and economic warfare, with "bankruptcy" a central trope. Huh? We've never seen the slightest attention devoted by any jihadist to economics. They have no economic program, and any delight at causing economic damage could not even begin to compete with the rapture that comes from slaughtering people and knocking down iconic symbols of the west. Osama's not an accountant. He doesn't read Krugman's column. Since when is the apocalyptic struggle between the House of Faith and the House of Unbelief all about ledger balances? This thing was definitely not written by a true jihadist, let alone Osama. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-02 3:22:55 PM |
| #5 lex has put his finger squarely on what's wrong about this thing. Waay too many vernacular and idiomatic references. OBL is known for his arcance religious references in elaborate prose, not his hipness nor his interest in current events and name-dropping. I would love to hear the unvarnished version of the various intel agencies' analysis. Surely some people are in serious head-scratching mode, if not something much more outspoken. It stinks of an elaborate sham. How I dunno. Why is obvious. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-11-02 2:30:46 PM |
| #4 I don't believe for a second that this was prepared by an arab, let alone by Osama. This one stinks even more than Rathergate. As Tim B points out, there are "telling pop culture reference[s]" scattered throughout this piece: "Black gold"? "playing on the same team"? This paragraph, especially, is so banal and lifeless that I cannot believe Osama wrote it: "It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced." This doesn't sound at all like Osama the Terrible. Or for that matter, any jihadist. Do jihadists really make distinctions between yoru average $30B corporation and "mega-corporations"? The participial modifier (administration-linked) also sounds distinctly western. In any case, Osama's prose used to be considered elegant and classical, by arab standards; why does he suddenly sound like your averagea US editorial writer? "And it all shows that the real loser is ... you" This is the most suspect of all. When did Osama discover the smart-ass US college student's trope of using ellipses? |
| Posted by: lex 2004-11-02 2:18:17 PM |
| #3 Vermin like Fisk, Pilger, and MOAB Vagina-Bomb (Charlotte Raven of Al Guardian) have sown the wind, let them reap the whirlwind. Gideon-Phoenix NOW! |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-11-02 11:13:31 AM |
| #2 Nah. For most of Fisk's fans, props from Osama are a plus. |
| Posted by: docob 2004-11-02 10:13:10 AM |
| #1 Any chance this could be "Beat-me" Bob's downfall? |
| Posted by: Steve from Relto 2004-11-02 9:58:55 AM |