Hardly a Surprise

1 November 2004



Usama bin Laden’s Video Message Has Little to Do with America’s Election

Usama bin Laden turned up on videotape right before the US election, and the American media responded with all the thoughtfulness and dispassionate analysis of Daffy Duck in a burning building. Messrs. Bush and Kerry both ignored him, as best they could. Mostly, they blustered that UBL, as the State Department calls him, won’t affect America’s election. That’s wrong on two levels. First, he already has, and second, he doesn’t really care about Tuesday’s election.

The tape, which aired originally on Al-Jazeera, has all the production value of a high school Audio-Video club project – plan background, audible sound (but hardly THX quality) and UBL, who put on a fresh robe for the occasion. As a speaker, he looks dull and his features and gestures appear to be those of a man who really shouldn’t deliver the morning news. Far too tense. All of which means, he’s not hiding in a dark cave somewhere. The man is getting help – lots of it. And that means the war on terror hasn’t really even begun.

The timing of the tape was a clear sign of impotence, however. Al-Qaeda struck against the US more than 3 years ago. It hasn’t been able to muster a Molotov cocktail in North America since. While the paranoid worried that he might strike the US as he did Spain, just prior to an election, he couldn’t. So, he sent a threatening video instead. For the record, Al-Qaeda hasn’t hit America in 3 years because it can’t. Tom Ridge can move his Crayola Threat level to mauve or burnt umber, but there is not immediate threat to the homeland because it is too hard logistically to pull it off. Why bomb Americans in Florida when Al-Qaeda can bomb them in Falluja?

That said, his ramble made it clear that his agenda hasn’t changed. All infidels must leave the Muslim lands, and all Muslim leaders must buy into his version of the new Caliphate (and of course, death to Israel is expected). He doesn’t care who the American president is, and frankly, it is only American narcissism that posits otherwise. Until non-Muslims accept second-class status in a world run by the Koran’s misinterpreters like UBL, the war goes on as far he’s concerned. And knee-jerk reaction here says that the war ends when American tourists can buy bacon-cheeseburgers during Ramadan on their way to a beer fest in Mecca. They are equally implausible.

UBL’s tape was not directed to America or the west. It was directed to impressionable Muslims. He knows that after the US votes, Falluja is going to be a major battle. Thousands will die, and in his own view, this is a good opportunity to recruit more poor kids to die in his cause. So long as he has lambs to slaughter, he doesn’t care who the president is. His ego will be satisfied with more martyrs and nothing else.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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