I know that title is going to start pushing peoples buttons... But I find it VERY amusing... that one of the things that came out in the recent music video of Bin Laden (where he too suffered from a Costume Malfunction and a bit of boob came through the video.. I mean after all he is the moral destroyer of youth along with Janet Jackson!)

but seriously... When he apparently brought up quotes from Noam Chomsky.. I had to laugh. That is the FUNNIEST thing i have heard. That right there makes me very suspicious about the nature of this so called Osama footage...

I honestly believe that this was a (CIA) constructed piece of propaganda.. that was BADLY done.. because of the nature of the information.

I mean.. it does sound like it was pulled from a Liberal website. I mean.. come on.. Noam CHomskY?

I like Noam Chomsky... but to have OSama Bin Laden start quoting him.. just seems a bit too.. (oh.. Hugo Chavez ) to me... sigh..

But the information IS correct.. BE AFRAID of the MIC... seriously.. actually I believe we are already doomed in that dept...

Economic inertia. The velocity is greed and the inertia has numerous lobbyists sustaining it on purpose. To cite my favorite example > Exxon made 75 billion in profits (the biggest corporate profit on record) over two years and they still got additional tax cuts and rebates...This is not going to be an enducement for them to get us off using oil. Their profits cause inertia or resistence to changing that.

So to with cost plus, no-bid, pad as you go/pay as you go defense contracts and their lobbyist ...um...minions. An apt term for a lobbyist.

With democracy for sale (as it has become in government corridors)and tax cuts for the wealthy as an agenda, lobbyists rule.

Who knew that meant ...literally?

The only thing we know for sure is that Bush is a megalomaniac mass murderer. He used a false flag operation against his own country as a reason to murder 1 million Irakis, and displace 4 million more. The real mass murderer needs to be convicted and sentenced to life in prison, along with all his co-conspirators.

PJD:
thanks for the link
read like obl was posting on cd
ken

mr. d___You are one of the apparently few people that know two planeloads of Saudi`s were allowed to leave the country after 9-11 when there was a no-fly for everyone else. Doesn`t it seem a little strange there were no suspected persons in that group when we have picked all kinds of people off the streets in Afganistan and Iraq and thrown them in prisons around the world with little reason or none to hold them? What if the ones flying the planes into buildings had been Iraqi, would there have been a different reaction? One also has to wonder how it was known so quickly that the guilty were nearly all Saudi.

Check the FBI's "Most Wanted" list.

Osama's not on it! Know why? There's no "hard evidence" that he was behind the 9/11 attacks on the United States!

Recall the only statement by him that was categorized as "real" by the FBI right after 9/ll. He said he had nothing to do with it!

Do the hard reseach and you will know what the deep insider's in our intelligence community know. Osama bin Laden is a stooge of the United States. Period.

I don't care if OBL or a CIA stooge or Santa Claus wrote the speech, A correct analysis is a correct analysis!

I assume everyone has read a text of the speech. It was a concise analysis of the forces behind the sorrows of US empire. It covers everything - a forthright analysis of US empire, the global capitalist project behind it, and the political-economic forces behind it, the profound blood-soaked hypocracy and callous fuck-you! nearly all USAns gave the world in electing Bush again and the global consequences of all this, including global warming catastrope. All this, spite of our most intelligent people like Noam Chomsky warning against it. OBL or his surrogate covered it all.

Logic dictates that a good idea is a good idea and the source of the idea is immaterial. Here's another person's take on the speech:

http://www.counterpunch.org/dickinson09112007.html

I think OBL is dead and the tapes that are being aired are old or are of imposters. Bush and his Injustice Society need a boogeyman out there to cloak their crime wave in protectionism.

To mirt59:
A small reminder and corrective, if I may: not all of the nearly three thousand people who died in WTC 1 and 2 on 9/11/01 were citizens of the United States; there were many foreigners among the dead.

The only way to beat corporations is to become a larger, richer, more powerful corporation. Incorporate We the People.

The latest bin laden video is a forgery. Less than 4 minutes of the 26 minute long video are animated footage. The rest is still frame shots. The mention of current events in the audio track occurs only during the still frame segments. The rest of the video is edited together from previous recordings. Bin Laden is most probably already dead.

Assuming Bin Laden is not dead or a CIA hologram or still on their payroll, it would be a good idea to understand the "enemy" we have created through decades of Big Oil and pro-Israeli policy. Osama is a symbolic figurehead, but he represents issues that actually exist. His 1997 interivew, although wrapped in fundamentalism, is not exactly the irrational ravings of a madman. We have done terrible things to the Muslim world and now they are resisting. And of course, our actions since that time have only sustained Bin Laden's views which are shared by much of the world.

New bumper sticker. We are making enemies faster than we can kill them.

Bin Laden interview:

http://www.anusha.com/osamaint.htm

We know the bin Laden family was allowed to leave the US when NO commercial flights were being allowed. With this support for the family how do we know that anybody is really looking for OBL? How do we know that he isn't sitting in some plush bin Laden apartment laughing his ass off right now? Its as good a guess as any.

bligh, sounding a bit defensive. maybe the lapsed practitioners of imperialism in europe have learned about the cost (and immorality) of colonisation and resource theft.

as for obl: never met the guy but he seems to be compicit in some criminal activity to me. however, an arguement can be made that paying taxes is abetting criminal behavior. the military/industrial juggernaut isn't financing itself.

interesting to note that as we wage war on a concept we have a convenient face to identify it with.

to clarify: the obl representation shown in the media seems involved in criminal behavior. i'm not sure the guy is still alive and releasing tapes though.

bligh: There are several possibilities. Certainly an enemy of Bush (assuming he's still not working for the CIA) does not automatically make one a friend of progressives. Evils come in multiple flavors.

The other possibility is that he's a manufactured gremlin. I've wondered also whether some business deal went sour with Bush Sr., Carlyle, BCCI, etc. and Bin Laden attacked America as a way of getting back at the Bush's. The Bush Dynasty, as "wonderful" as they've been to America, evidently had some personal enemies.

In any case, the title of this article is too hot for me, no good for the movement either.

bligh-
The tape in which 'Bin Laden' claimed "we thought that perhaps the floors above the airliners impact point would collapse but didn't know that the whole buildings would come down" is highly questionable. The image is very fuzzy and its authenticity is suspect. It was released December 13, 2001 after Bin Laden denied involvement in 3 previous videos released after September 11. See the link:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a121301murkyvideo
Besides, after only 4 years of imprisonment and torture we got Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to admit planning the entire September 11 attack A to Z so it couldn't have been Bin Laden anyway.

As far as Bin Ladin's guilt for 9/11, when he claimed on one of his early tapes something to the effect that "we thought that perhaps the floors above the airliners impact point would collapse but didn't know that the whole buildings would come down" sounds pretty much like he was taking credit to me.

His views on what he wants to happen to us have been voiced many times. Destruction of the "infidels" or conversion to Islam. No thanks on both counts.

One can be against Bush without excusing or celebrating this piece of crap.

I also love being lectured by smug Europeans on "imperialism" when they practically invented the concept and practiced it well into MY lifetime.

I am one that's really sick and tired of people blaming Bush and claiming that he's lost the terror war. Fairness in posting comments requires one to give solid evidence in support of each claim. I am of the conviction that Mr Bush has beaten Osama Bin Ladin hands down. Consider the following:

The despicable Osama terrorized New York, destroyed a couple of buildings that caused the death of about 3,000 people.

The corporate puppet Bush has so far destroyed two countries and has caused the death of about one million people.

You be the judge. Who is a more efficient terrorist? Bush is damn good in terror wars and has beaten Osama hands down. So, the next time you listen to Bush talking about terror, be all ears since he's the Numero Uno authority on the subject.

RichM related Bin Laden's 3 announced grievances against the US government: that the US has installed corrupt governments in Arab lands; that it has helped to rob the Palestinians of their land & natural rights; & that it has perpetrated mass murder in Iraq.

One other of Bin Laden's announced grievances, and I believe his first, was the presence of US military bases in the Middle East. Like the Roman Empire's Legions scattered about from England over Europe and down through the Middle East, the US Empire has its scattered over the known world - the known world being a bit larger now than the Romans knew.

Seems a bit tacky to give OBL a nod on the anniversary of 9/11.

The rationale for 9/11 was reasonable from his point of view, but he still plotted to kill thousands of innocent Americans and succeeded.

Let's not hold him up as a sanity check on Bush.

While it's true that Bush as Commander in Chief is responsible for all the innocent deaths of Iraqis at the hands of US forces and so is a killer of innocent people on a scale that OBL could only dream about -- still, they are both scoundrels of the highest order.

Nope, not aimed at you. (Mostly aimed at bligh.)

Actually, I thought you made a good point here: By that logic, "If Hitler believed in the importance of a strong military, we should have no military. If Hitler believed little blond children were precious, we should despise them. If Hitler was a vegetarian and teetotaler, we should all become alcoholic carnivores. If Hitler loved dogs, we should all torture them."

I do not necessarily believe that bin Laden is correct on his assessments, opinions on the USA culture, and his perception of reality. However, the United States Government sure played into the hands of bin Laden while validating his opinions of the USA. Bin Laden, as well as most people in the world, do not like USA hegemony and imperialistic practices - as if Americans want to be the Mongols or the Romans.

Honestly, the Third World, including most citizens of Europe and their heads of State, are tired of USA meddling in their affairs. In general, the Third World is tired of you funding military-coups against elected officials and replacing them with dictators (i.e Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet, Reza Pahlavi etc. - remember THAT "inconvenient truth" Americans).

Americans do well to remember that not only the lesson that You Reap What You Sow, but that most people worldwide do not believe the USA wants every nation in the world to be Democracies - although George W. Bush says this all the time. Obviously, the line that "USA wants to spread Democracy throughout the world" or one such as "Democracy is the ONLY form of Government that ensures peace" is something that USA wants as many Americans to learn as possible and this manufactured-spoon-fed-over-and- over-again-information simply is not true. The USA does not just stand for Democracy alone. The USA respects ALL forms of Government throughout the world as long as the nation in question bends to the whims of the USA and helps the USA out economically in some way. Any other relations between the USA and other nations are either ignored or invaded. See if a USA politician would dare make this claim.

All the money that the USA puts into its defense (why is your Department of Defense called by this name? In truth, your Department of Defense should be called the Department of Offense), I wonder if the USA is worried about a future economic collapse as a possible consequence for the choice made of investing most of their national funds into "defense." What plan is created to help deal with this situation should it happen? After all, at the present time ANTHING is possible and a financial collapse would not be the first time for the USA either.

I've read OBL's speech and its fairly predictable. He borrows talking points from domestic opponents of the current policy to try to "reach out".
Remember when Michael Moore got all upset b/c Chris Matthews said one of OBL's last speeches "sounded alot like Michael's Moore rhetoric?" Moore's reply being
"OBL doesn't sound like me, I don't support VIOLENCE!" Al-Qaida has been trying the divide and conquer tactic on the US for years, just less than a year ago zawahiri called on racial minorities in the US to support al-qaida.
The big hoot is that they don't seem to know just how much Americans hate them and that their 'endorsement' doesn't do much to help the Left.

Bush is a megalomaniacal mass murderer.

Bin Laden is a fundimentalist zealot who is willing to murder in his resistance to empre he sees as an enemy of his religious nationalism.

Both are dangerous criminals but Bush is more dangerous because of his access to the vast machinery of destruction of the US.

RichM,

I do not know whether your disparaging comments were aimed at me, but in case they were I would point out that I was arguing that even conceding that bin Laden was a mass murderer he was still reasonable and relatively harmless in comparison with the monsters in the Bush/Cheney criminal gang. It is impossible to defend bin Laden, and pointless to do so, as the greater crimes of Bush and Cheney, and certainly some past US administrations, stand on their own, regardless of whether bin Laden is a megalomaniacal mass murderer or not.

I'd encourage people to search Google News for the term "bin laden", for today's results only. It's interesting. You'll get about 8-9,000 hits. But if you search ["bin laden" authentic] or ["bin laden" genuine"] you get under 200 -- at least that was the case this morning.

Dyed beared aside, just why are we to assume that these tapes are genuine? And why has the MSM (mainstream media) largely even refused to use the word "authentic" or "genuine" in its articles, not even raising the possibility that it may or may not be genuine?

http://paulbramscher.blogspot.com/2007/09/bin-laden-orthodoxy.html

Here's the conclusion in my essay:
"So Bin Laden, clearly, has become a matter of orthodoxy, beyond question, beyond doubt. A sort of devil incarnate, to balance the Bush Christ. Good and evil have never been so simple, eh?"

bligh,

Your worries about bin Laden's forcing your daughter and your wife to wear burkas and forcelly converting us all to Islam sound themselves a tad bit forced, if I may say so.

You don't have to twist yourself to that extent to disagree with the author of the above article or with bin Laden.

By the by, take a look at the FBI's most wanted postings on its Web site: you will notice that the FBI is not seeking ObL for the attacks of 9/11! It has not charged him for them for lack of evidence. How do ya like them apples?

Osama Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the bombing of the marine barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in 1995.
That is the only incident in which OBL has confirmed his involvement. For that incident alone, he is guilty of murder and should be prosecuted. It's is shameful that he is used as a patsy for every terrorist incident that occurs worldwide.
There is no evidence that Osama Bin Laden was involved in the USS Cole Bombing in 2000, the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, or the London train bombings in 2005.
Although his intention to stop US inflouence in Muslim holy lands is justifiable, his methodology is not. Murder cannot ever be justified especially for religious or political gain. The moment that OBL involved himself in violence and murder (Dhahran 1995) he lost his honor.
The reason that people are starting to sympathize with OBL is that America has morphed into it's own enemy. Our humanity and freedom is what we were admired for worldwide. We used to be the world's protector.
Not anymore. We are terrorizing the world with our 'regime changes' that blight the entire country. We are threatening to use nuclear weapons and actively pursuing new WMD in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and SALT. We torture, imprison, eavesdrop, beguile, and lie. We bring false evidence and deception to the UN trick and infouence to war. We openly attack nations that haven't threatened or attacked anyone. There is no nation on the planet more aggressive and cruel.
This is America now. This is our face.
What separates us from the terrorists? How can we accuse Osama of being a threat to world peace now? How can we show the world that we are humane and rational?
OBL isn't right because he uses violence to resolve issues. He isn't right, he's just like us.

I've yet to see conclusive evidence that Bin Laden is any more or less responsible for the WTC attack than Bush and Cheney. Bush and Bin Laden are for too connected but it seems that the later has more brains.

Any loudmouth American who blusters indignantly about OBL being a "mass murderer" should consider that for many decades now, the US government has committed crimes far more terrible than Bin Laden ever dreamed of. It has murdered vastly more people, and in fact, played a central role in putting Bin Laden himself into his current line of work. Furthermore, OBL's 3 announced grievances against the US government are all quite valid: that it has installed corrupt governments in Arab lands; that it has helped to rob the Palestinians of their land & natural rights; & that it has perpetrated mass murder in Iraq.

The typical loudmouth American bases his impressions of history (and who is "evil" & who's not) on the US media. Does anyone really wish to claim, in this day & age, that anything the US media says can be taken at face value?

And it is so predictable that the right wing echo chamber will try to spin bin Laden's criticisms to argue that "If bin Laden said it, it cannot be true. If bin Laden is against America, then America must be right." By that logic, "If Hitler believed in the importance of a strong military, we should have no military. If Hitler believed little blond children were precious, we should despise them. If Hitler was a vegetarian and teetotaler, we should all become alcoholic carnivores. If Hitler loved dogs, we should all torture them."

NOTE 1: We of the free world are virtually never allowed to see/hear what Bin Laden actually has to say. He's not going to convince anybody to join Islam. NOTE 2: Everything Bin Laden says begins with his own brand of Bible-fascism and hatred, and concludes with something like, "Until the West and the U.S. change policies XYZ, we will continue to struggle...." So the choice is: How long do we want to suffer before we force ourselves to begin to understand the realities underneath his point of view, deranged as it is---for his views, like Bin Laden's misguided support, are an attempt by a region of the world to speak and resist another century of naked colonization. The U.S. cheered and aided this same man when he shot at Russian communists. Has the U.S. helped to rape the Middle East? (It came next after the Native Americas.) Try computing the amount of money poured into the Middle East, in the process of extracting its wealth, by all the industrial powers in the past 150 years. Then explain how those countries could possibly be poor today. In the silence I realize that it's WE who have to complete that sentence: UNTIL WE remove the reasons that ANYbody could listen to an Osama, we are pouring people's blood down a bottomless hole. So give me, so far at least, KUCINICH: whatever his flaws, the only person so far who has imagined an AGGRESSIVE DEPARTMENT OF PEACE, as a way that presumes and builds on the humanity of all people; as a real way to build ourselves a road out of BushCo's eternal Christian-Capitalist Hell. I'll write Kucinich's name across any other candidate's on the ballot and take the consequences. I would march to (or on) Washinton DC to hear him speak. No other candidate even remotely speaks to/for me. Osama is a criminal produced by our own imperial crimes, not a bogeyman---Write off his statements as those of a demon to be utterly ignored, and we produce more intense versions of him. We lose our chance to learn our way into the larger human reality "over there," of which he is a deranged cartoon...and so nothing we do can "work" with the peoples so desperate that they (like us with Bush) gave him the time of day....THE MILITARY---VIOLENCE, INC., UNDER ANY FLAG---CANNOT SOLVE THIS

It does not matter if Bin Laden or Eisenhower is the one to say that the size of the military is driving foreign policy and domestic policy. We should NOT to get too passionate when we hear the name Bin Laden because it is being used to cloud our judgement by our own government.

It is time for a Department of Peace (DoP) that can present solutions to the same problems that the DoD tries to solve. If DoP had presented a solution for the Iraq situation, we would have saved close to a Trillion dollars in taxes, saved thousands of lives and limbs.

Exactly how do we "know" that bin Laden is a "megalomaniacal nass murderer"? Has anyone seen proof? If so, I really would like to see it as well.

We don't really need a UBL to tell us that the World's Greatest Debter Nation has been behaving badly. Just look behind your TV and MSM rag to see what the entire world knows. Our unconditional support for AIPEC and the never ending crimes against humanity, mostly Palestineans, is a case in point. I myself wrote to Senators Clinton and Lieberman many times to stop cheering Sharon and jeering Arafat - the last time I all but accused those two Republicans of treason on the evening of September 10th, 2001. I think you all know what the dawn brought.
It's not a question of if UBL is right or not. It's a question of if WE are wrong or not. If we are in error then we can stand up and fix our own behavior. Never mind that we will earn the title of 'terrorist' by standing up to the JudeoCorporate war machine - we need not accept the opinion of others and life is short anyway. When America stops misbehaving then the termoil will stop.

bligh,

I think you should cut Bogart some slack. We all know that bin Laden is a megalomaniacal mass murderer, but I would have to agree with Bogart that bin Laden appears reasonable compared to the Bush/Cheney criminal gang and their enablers in Congress, if not compared to past administrations under the sway of the military industrial complex. That seems obvious, as the criminal gang is trying to impose a fascist dictatorship on the US and its vassal states, the gang has attempted the robbery of trillions of dollars of resources and has wasted trillions of US tax dollars that could have gone for beneficial purposes, the gang has taken and continues to threaten many more lives than bin Laden ever could, and the gang even threatens human survival itself. And I would bet the great majority of people in the world would agree.

For all I know, OBL could be a CIA-constructed hologram.

But you're in big trouble, fella, for daring to suggest that OBL may have a point.

Here in The Greatest Country in the World, we don't hold with giving the devil his due!

I agree with the authors renewed look at Eisenhower's warning of the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex. For too long these leaders have operated in the shadows- against the common good of the people.

I do take exception, though, to his attributing rational ideas to that son of a bitch Bin Laden. If that guy had his way my wife and daughter would be in a Burka, or we would all be dead for declining his "invitation" to join Islam. Screw him.