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« Now That Would've Been a Great Campaign Slogan | Main | Proof of WMD » October 29, 2004Osama Live3:27 p.m: If Al Jazeera's new Osama bin Laden tape is real, and recent, and if on that tape bin Laden, mastermind of the murder of 3,000 American civilians on a bright September morning three years ago, discusses the possibility of another attack on the U.S. on the scale of September 11, it will remind voters of the most important issue in this election year - defeating Islamist terrorism - and John Kerry will have just lost the election. Especially if Osama espouses policy recommendations for the United States, or criticisms of President Bush's actions post-9/11, that even faintly echo those of Sen. Kerry. Memo to Osama bin Laden: We are not Spain. We are Americans. We are not cowed by attacks. We do not run from threats. We run toward them to confront them. And then we win. Comments
Oh yeah, and here's another quote from the video. You seriously think this automatically means Kerry will lose? Honestly, I can't believe that the people who are backing Bush in this election don't even care that Bin Laden has not even been a priority since 9/11. If we would have gone after him as we should have, he wouldn't be around to even make this video. Ridiculous. "Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened." Posted by: Bill Knobbs at October 29, 2004 3:47 PMI don't know how anybody can reach any conclusions on how this will affect the voters. I certainly don't plan on it. The tape hurts Kerry, not Bush. No one would expect Osama to say nice things about Bush - Bush declared war on all that Osama holds dear. Osama can not possibly desire four more years of the U.S. killing al Qaeda terrorists and planting democracies in the Middle East. So, he brings out a tape designed to beg the American people to, in effect, call off the dogs. But Americans don't like to be told to call off the dogs. We are not Spaniards. We will not react to this veiled threat by running away from it. I suspect it will cause some undecided voters to say, "well, i don't know if I like Bush or kerry, but Osama clearly hates Bush, so screw Osama, I'm voting for Bush." Posted by: Bill at October 29, 2004 4:00 PMToo bad Bush dropped the ball and didn't capture or kill OBL at Tora Bora when we had him cornered and instead outourced the job to Afghan warlords -- perhaps then we wouldn't have OBL around to threaten us. And a lot of good the Iraqi occupation has done in that regard! It has been the greatest recruiting tool that OBL could have ever hoped for.
The tape hurts Kerry, not Bush. Indeed. OBL no doubt understands we aren't Spain. So, in the final analysis, this tape will probably help Bush. And, it was released with the knowledge that it would probably help Bush. So, what does that tell you? Posted by: The Lonewacko Blog at October 29, 2004 4:55 PMSo, Tom, you never answered this question from a previous thread: --You're right, we didn't go after Madagascar, we went into Morocco, didn't we, other than the Doolittle Raid - 30 Seconds Over Tokyo was the movie, right? Again, once we get OBL, it's over?---
Even tho he voted NO on the coalition of his wet dreams w/UN approval in 1991. Posted by: Sandy P at October 29, 2004 5:13 PMLonewacko, you are assuming OBL understands us. But he thought we would fold after 9/11, the way we had after so many previous terror attacks. He misunderstimated GWB. He misunderestimated America. He was wrong then, and there's no reason to think 3 more years in a cave has enlightened him about America, Americans or GWB. Posted by: Bill at October 29, 2004 5:20 PMAll the lefties whining about OBL apparently still being alive need to get over their terror of him personally. The war against terrorists is bigger than one man, and it's much more important to disrupt their training, cut down their funding, clear out their bases of operation, and transform the society that breeds them. We've been doing that. The survival of a figurehead doesn't mean we've failed, or dropped the ball, or gotten distracted. OBL isn't the one who would carry out an attack; the attackers would be the grunts who have died by the hundreds in Afghanistan and Iraq. Posted by: Robert Crawford at October 29, 2004 5:41 PMWhat was OBL wrong about? That we would essentially give up the attack on him and instead focus the bulk of our brave military on a misadventure in Iraq that will likely keep us tied down for years and which serves to increase the ranks of Al Qaeda. All the while OBL sits back in relative comfort somewhere making tapes in which he threatens us right before our presidential election. What a rousing sucess Bush has been. Posted by: TomJ at October 29, 2004 5:45 PMMy, my, my, how quickly 1993, 96, 98 and 2000 are forgotten. Posted by: Sandy P at October 29, 2004 5:50 PMWhat's even better is if he's in Iran. Guess it's a good thing Iran is inbetween our armed forces. Gee, I wonder how that could have happened? Posted by: Sandy P at October 29, 2004 5:53 PMWhat's even better is if he's in Iran. Guess it's a good thing Iran is inbetween our armed forces. Gee, I wonder how that could have happened? Posted by: Sandy P at October 29, 2004 5:54 PMAl Qaeda being strengthened by Iraqi occupation: "The occupation of Iraq has helped al-Qaeda recruit more members, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies...the network has reconstituted itself after losing its Afghan base ... the group has 18,000 potential operatives and is present in more than 60 countries." The institute says the war in Iraq has focused the energies and resources of al-Qaeda and its followers, while diluting those of the global counter-terrorism coalition." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3746205.stm President Bush on winning the war on terror: February 12, 2004: “Listen, I'm going to tell you something…We're going to win the war on terror.” August 31, 2004: “I don't think you can win [the war on terror].” - President Bush, Today Show. I bet OBL is shaking in his boots. Posted by: at October 29, 2004 5:55 PMSo now he's whining about Lebanon???? Posted by: Sandy P at October 29, 2004 5:58 PMSandy, as I recall there were two atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that might constitute direct attacks by the US on the Japanese mainland during WWII. And the German forces were actually occupying North Africa. There were no terrorist between Iraq and Al Qaeda, so our invasion of Iraq really was comparable to the US attacking Madagascar in WWII. Thanks for making that point for me. Posted by: at October 29, 2004 6:14 PMAhhh, Tom, again that little timeline messes you up. Besides, those North Atlantic U-boat attacks were just nuisances. So, we had a few Germans slip into FLA and a couple of U-Boats off the East Coast. We could learn to live w/that, there was no need to attack Germany, they didn't attack us, after all. Should have gone right for the heart. Germany was just a diversion from the real enemy. Posted by: Sandy P. at October 29, 2004 6:24 PMThanks for making my point. Posted by: Sandy P at October 29, 2004 6:24 PMGermany actually declared war on us Sandy. Posted by: TomJ at October 29, 2004 6:32 PM---"...we are all united in hunting down and capturing or killing those who conducted that raid and we always knew that that was Osama bin Laden."-- So, killing 3000 people and causing hundreds of billions of $ is a "raid" to Senator Kerry? A nuisance??? Well, what can one expect when 9/11 didn't affect him????
Not by choice, Tom. We didn't have to go after him 1st. He was a nuisance. He said it, Japan acted. Posted by: Sandy P at October 29, 2004 10:47 PMIMHO, OBL isn't the big mastermind that everyone wants to make him out to be. He is the money man. Kerry can sit around and play Monday morning quarterback all he wants because I believe we all realize that hindsight is always 20/20. Just reading OBL's statements sounds like a DNC talking points memo. Honestly, who do you think OBL wants to see elected? Posted by: Darrell at October 30, 2004 12:58 AMOsama not a mastermind? Osama really wants Bush to win? When I read posts like these I grow more and more convinced that most people do not understand the enemy we face. Here is what Osama hopes to accomplish with an 18 minute video tape. He is attempting to mobilize the 'intellectual elite,' 'security moms,' and 'stoned slackers' in the United States and pacifists and jihadists world wide. A Kerry victory will benefit all of the above. Listen to the tape carefully. He wants all of the above to 'understand' why he ordered the mass murder of over 50,000 multinational office workers. He enters the world stage with Bush, Kerry, and Arafat 3 days before the election in the United States like an equal. These are his demands. Stop persecuting Islamic fascists and the 'minutemen' and 'freedom fighters' in Iraq. Elect John Kerry president in America. Overthrow the immoral monarchies suppressing the Islamist revolution in Saudi Arabia. If all the above demands are met he will stop the killings. I am a lifelong Democrat who will vote for Bush on Nov. 2. I will do so because Bush and/or the NeoCons that advise him understand the enemy we face. Posted by: Abakan at October 30, 2004 3:47 AMI made the 'not a mastermind' comment because he has yet to show that he actually planned anything. Everywhere he has gone, he has been a fighter and a bag man. The two fatwahs that were issued in the 90's were not written by him. All of the attacks carried out on US soil were planned and executed by others. He may have come up with a 'let's do something big' plan, but as far as being the ultimate mastermind, the 'nuts and bolts' planning, no. I'm not saying we don't need to hunt him down, but he has been semi-effectively neutralized in the fact that he can no longer push hordes of money as he did in the past. Posted by: Darrell at October 30, 2004 4:32 AMNot only did Germany declare war on our country in WWII (See http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/gerdec41.htm), but Germany had also invaded and conquered Austria, Czecholslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Poland, the Soviet Union, Greece, and Yugoslavia among others, and it had enacted the worst program of organized genocide in history. If you want to continue to compare the world terror that Nazism represented at the outset of WWII to the paltry threat of Saddam's Iraq in 2003, then that's your problem, but let me suggest that the analogy is not working too well for you. Posted by: TomJ at October 30, 2004 4:33 PMRegarding Spain, there is no evidence that the Spanish people voted out Aznar's pro-war party because of the Madrid attack. The war had been unpopular from the beginning anyway. Any effect resulting from the attack was due to the government's response to it, not the attack itself. The people felt that the government had tried to deceive them by letting it be thought that ETA, rather than Al-Q'aeda, was responsible. They voted against the government for what they saw as misleading behaviour, not because they were scared into it by the terrorists. It would be equally disturbing if people voted FOR an incumbent, just because they didn't want to appear to be giving in to terrorists. Terrorism should play no part in elections, and it is wrong to suggest that the Spanish people allowed it to. Just because they disagreed with their government's way of handling the terrorist threat, doesn't mean they're weak appeasers. Posted by: Amy at October 31, 2004 12:22 PMI have a gut feeling that Osama favors the Bush administration and appeared at this time as a reminder that he is still around and the work is unfinished. One thing he has demonstrated that he is good at (witness the Soviet Union in Afghanistan), is waging a sustained conflict that drains his opponent over time and wears away at its support and infrastructure at home. This could happen to us in Iraq, perhaps more so if a continued Bush administration expands the effort beyond Iraq to its neighbors. In addition, a "global test" before going in might have revealed how vulnerable we are economically with so much of our production and financial infrastructure now positioned overseas. The man is no fool and is not bargaining for a truce. Posted by: SemiPundit at November 1, 2004 1:36 PMPost a comment
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