I believe your analysis is correct -- the tape makes it clear that OBL would much rather deal with Kerry than with Bush. But I noticed something else about the tape. The tone of the statement in this tape seems to be far less belligerent than the tone used in earlier tapes. No longer are we being threatened with fire and blood in the streets. Assam’s recent tape was far more belligerent than this one. It also seems that OBL is suggesting the possibility of a cease fire -- "Your security is in your own hands, and each state that does not harm our security will remain safe." The Madrid option, without the bombs. I frankly think this is a very clever strategy on AQ’s part. It appeals to those who believe that you can negotiate with AQ, thus deepening the gap between them and those who think that military force is the only way to deal with AQ. Knowing that Americans are by nature predisposed to a diplomatic versus a military solution, this strategy may have an impact on the election by reducing the anxieties that might otherwise drive voters towards a Bush reelection.

How did either of you draw your flawed conclusions?

Osama bin Laden specifically said that our security does not lay in the hands of Bush OR Kerry. It lies in our hands.

OBL recognizes that our nation’s policy is guided by the will, or lack thereof, of the American people. Every bomb that drops in a Muslim country has your and my consent.

If we continue to allow such wars to occur, then we are as legitimate targets as the men actually dropping the bombs and firing the rifles.

OBL has simply stated that if we stop attacking the Muslim world, then the Muslim world will stop attacking us.

This has been OBL’s message from the beginning, citing each time the American transgressions throughout the world.

Our reaction to 9/11 should have simliar to an unexpected noise in the middle of the night: surprise, confusion, and then an investigation as to what caused the noise - not a shotgun fired blindly towards the door.

I watched an hour long show on New Zealand where the prime minister hiked through the mountains, visited the town, and climbed mountains. Her security was minimal, if it existed at all. Then, I saw Bush’s motorcade flanked by SUVs, men dressed in black, and rifles held at the ready.

What is the fundamental difference between New Zealand and the United States? Is it that New Zealand is less "good" or "free" than us, and so the terrorist do not want to kill them? Or, is it that the people of New Zealand do not endorse the bombings and invasions of other nations?

"Wake up America, wake up. ... You have a choice..."

"Your security is in your hands."

So, is that the wake-up call that Kerry was wanting? Is everyone focused on the main issue, now? Even Kerry supporters poll that President Bush would do better in the war on terror.

What was that about flu vaccine?

I think it would be telling to watch how the mainstream media treats this bin Laden "October surprise." For example, my hometown rag, the Columbus Dispatch,/i> who have endorsed Bush, a large photo Bush and Schwarzenegger dominates the frontpage, next to a story about voter fraud in Ohio. Not only is the Bin Laden story below the fold, it commands a very small space at the very bottom.

Certainly, Osama’s appearance is not a non-story, is it? Is the Dispatch trying to wish it were a non-story for the benefit of Bush?

I think it would be telling to watch how the mainstream media treats this bin Laden "October surprise." For example, my hometown rag, the Columbus Dispatch, who have endorsed Bush, a large photo Bush and Schwarzenegger dominates the frontpage, next to a story about voter fraud in Ohio. Not only is the Bin Laden story below the fold, it commands a very small space at the very bottom.

Certainly, Osama’s appearance is not a non-story, is it? Is the Dispatch trying to wish it were a non-story for the benefit of Bush?

The Osama story is top billing at the New York Times website, as follows:In Video Message, Bin Laden Issues Warning to U.S.

By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON
Osama bin Laden said that the best way for the U.S. to avoid a repeat of 9/11 was to stop threatening Muslims’ security.

I find it hard to believe any dyed-in-the-wool liberal would not actually sympathize with those bin Laden sentiments. I think this guy has been doing his homework on the meaning of post-modern Liberalism, folks!

Some validation of sorts, to my take on this bin Laden appearance, comes from a liberal poster at another website I frequent. She writes:

"Sorry people, but I think now more than ever that had Florida’s electoral votes been awarded to Gore, we’d have never been attacked on 9/11."

This sentiment, taken in concert with the Times headline, is thus unmistakable. What bin Laden was saying, in essence is this:

"Elect John Kerry, America, and we will not attack you any more. We can be friends, again, America, just like we were when Clinton/Gore were leading your country, and al Qaeda were a mere ’nuisance.’ Return home, return to the 1990s, America, elect John Kerry!"

This Osama guy is very, very clever. He has been studying Liberalism, not just hiding in some cave. So, will it work? Will America take his advise and Return Home to true liberalism via John Kerry and the New York Times?

So, Daniel, let me get this straight: 9/11 was the equivalent of a bump in the dark?

Why, man, WHY are you wasting your genius on us wingnuts here at NLT?

Please, please, please fax that "bump in the night" talking point to the Kerry campaign HQ immediately!

Perhaps they’ll recognize how brilliant it is and use it this weekend. ("9/11--not even a ’nuisance’ like gambling, but more like a funny noise in the dark"--I’m John Kerry and I approve this message)

And on Tuesday, Bush will win 45 states.

On your New Zealand comparison, BTW, I’m tempted to just tell you to go consult an atlas and an encyclopedia, but let me note instead that a year or so ago the leftwing, bodyguard-less foreign minister of Sweden--as neutralist, relativistic, inoffensive, and beamishly socialist country as the developed world has to offer--was stabbed to death in front of other shoppers in a Stockholm department store, and her murder remains unsolved. So what was your point again?

Glad to see you are doing well and posting vibrantly Dan Kubiak. However, you mentioned a few things that shouldn’t slide through.

I sense in your diatribe a desire to bend a little more than the administration is doing so, and to adopt a more concilitory approach to policy in the region. Perhaps this general view has some merit, and some of your statements seem agreeable. Yet, I trust you do not take Osama Bin Laden at his word. You are framing your argument in such a way that Bin Laden is coming off as a principled revolutionary, or that he is merely protecting his own. Do you really think this? What has driven you to this conclusion? Is there really an underlying moral parallel between Bin Laden and Jefferson? Washington? or even a lesser revolutionary like Garibaldi? Doesn’t he remind you more of a Mao or a Lenin? Frankly, I don’t even think he matches up to those brutes, Bin Laden strikes me as more diabolical.

Secondly, you state that Bin Laden won’t attack the US if we don’t attack him, or the MidEast. Yes, Bin Laden has said this. Do you believe him? And, even if it were true, does it matter?

Third, you seem to estimate that American policy is to blame for the current situation. I sharply disagree. America is not the reason for the toil and trouble in the MidEast, the MidEast is reponsible for its predicament, namely its leadership. American policy does not drive and perpetuate Islamic theocracies and tryannies.

You speak of "legitimate targets". I suppose American soldiers would be legitimate targets when invading a sovereign nation by that nation’s soldiers. But so? Are American civlians legitimate? Are Israeli civilians legitimate? Your "shotgun" statement must be a reference to Iraq, but I do not see how American intervention there was blindly motivated or illogically conceived. It seems to me that Iraq was a triumph, and natrual difficulties aside, it will be a great victory over Terror (and tyranny).

I have respect for you Dan, and your views, if these are such, but your New Zealand comment is nonsensical. First, simply because a man needs protection does not make him bad. Second, the prime minister of New Zealand may be a good man, and may run New Zealand well, but he exercises no power in the world. The President is the most powerful man in the world, which naturally will bring enemies, scorn, and crankpots. America has enemies, but that does not make America bad. (In a lot of cases, it makes our enemies bad.) The security is protecting the President from the bad people, not protecting a bad man from good people. That is why I do not find your argument compelling.

If we stop attacking Muslim countries, they will stop attacking us? What?Exactly whom in the Muslim world were we attacking on 10 September 2001?

Peace through appeasement sounds peachy, but history and the vast will of the American people loudly disagree.

In response to the person quoted in Comment 7, I cannot believe that anyone is actually blind enough to believe that if we elect John Kerry, Bin Laden will simply stop trying to attack the United States. Bush was not the reason we were attacked on 9/11 - that was being planned since the mid-1990s. If Florida had gone the other way in 2000, we still would have been attacked, and would have had a much less capable leader to defend us when it occurred. This is partisan blather at its worst.

The best response to this kind of argument is here, in my opinion.



https://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001053.html


And seriously, folks, the real question is whether or not Bush has been incompetent, not whether a barbarian like bin Laden thinks he has been incompetent. If we start rejecting claims based on who makes them, not on their truth, then we’ve really lost our bearings, IMHO.

For the record, they did capture the man who stabbed Anna Lindh (Sweden’s foreign minister), although he was sent to a psych hospital instead of jail. It’s the killing of the prime minister, Olof Palme, in 1986, that hasn’t been solved yet.

Thanks for correcting me about Lindh’s killer having been captured, swede wannabe.

Brett, if you look at Daniel’s post, which is what started all this, he’s not making an argument about Bush’s competence.

Instead, Daniel is parroting Bin Laden’s lie that we have been "attacking the Muslim world" and that 9/11 and all that’s followed from it has been caused by our "transgressions"--and Daniel apparently believes we have the power to make it all stop by somehow converting ourselves into New Zealand.

Maybe misguided and misinformed Western defeatists like Daniel are parroting Bin Laden, or maybe he’s parroting them (it certainly is amazing how many of Michael Moore’s distinctive talking points OBL seems able to regurgitate).

But the rest of us, thank God, are not inside that particular sick little feedback loop, and that is why we will brush all the defeatists aside and give Bush 4 more years on Tuesday, and why this country will use those years to carry on with a many-faceted war (using both military and nonmilitary means) in whose successful prosecution lies both our best hope for our own safety and the Muslim world’s best hope for change in the direction of freedom and democracy.

Annoy the terrorists. Confound the defeatists. Re-elect Bush.

Regarding Bush’s alleged incompetence, this post makes some good points. If this is incompetence, we should desire it in more presidents.