Osama’s Latest Hit

As you’ve probably already heard in alternately fevered and hushed tones from your local newscaster, Osama bin Laden has graced the world with a new diatribe. As with the other tapes and videos, there are significant doubts as to the veracity of this tape or its origins, of which you will hear next to nothing in the States. The Washington Post has the full transcript in Osama bin Laden Urges Attacks on the U.S.

Thanks For Listening In Again Folks!… on Plastic says the tape came from al-Jazeera, who “identified the voice on the tape as bin Laden’s and stated as supporting evidence that the tape was delivered to the Arab television network in the same manner as previous, authentic bin Laden statements”.

In the message, bin Laden mentions “the infidel regimes in all Arab countries, including Iraq”, which should blow a hole in the bin Laden/Hussein connection (you’ll see later that it does not, primarily through careful media suppression). He also speaks of “[American soldiers] … fighting for the capitalist and interest hoarders (ph), and weapons and oil merchants, including the criminal gang at the White House”, which is pretty much something I could have written, which makes me immediately suspicious of the tape itself. He then blathers on with strategic guidance for Iraqi soldiers (trenches are good, apparently) and a whole bunch of supposedly uplifiting stuff before signing off.

It’s rather amazing that no one in the US media is taking the administration to task for not having caught this guy. They went on a $50 billion manhunt and flattened a country and here he is again, exhorting people to rise up. Or maybe he isn’t.

Swiss won’t verify ‘bin Laden’ tape on Swissinfo notes that the institue that has analyzed the last few missives from bin Laden has “no intention of analysing the latest tape”. They mention that “United States officials say the recording, … is ‘probably’ the voice of Osama bin Laden”, but that the “ US said a similar recording … was also genuine, despite analysis … [that] … concluded that it was faked.”

They have since concluded that because of the “poor quality of that recording coupled with the limited number of voice examples … no one can say with certainty whether the November recording (Bin Laden tape ‘faked’, or similar ones, are definitely the voice of bin Laden, as some US officials have claimed.”

However, just the mention of bin Laden being alive and the existence of a tape, real or faked, is enough to lend credence to the higher terror level announced recently.

“Previous terrorist attacks such as 9/11 and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole have been preceded by a message from bin Laden. As opposed to the usual general chatter intercepted by American intelligence, these communications apparently all specifically relate to the use of a radiological, chemical or biological attack in New York and Washington, D.C., possibly on Jewish synagogues or other low-security civilian targets such as apartment buildings and hotels.”

But this is so vague, no? I mean, the word “apparently” is thrown in there to indicate that the source is either unknown or not nameable (national security interests or what-have-you) and the rest could be easily put together as a potential threat by any 8 year old who’s caught more than a glimpse of CNN in the last year.

Remember, these are the same people that lie to you day after day that are telling you that there’s now, seriously, an elevated threat. Go out and buy duct tape and plastic, as if that will help you feel better about living in an America that’s seemingly attempting to become exactly what Orwell foretold. This isn’t about safety, it’s about engendering fear.

Think also that if most of the people in the administration and past ones like it (Cheney, Bush I, II, etc. etc.) weren’t so heavily invested in war companies and selling biologicals and chemicals as fast as they can, we’d have a lot less to worry about. Note how they keep talking about the suitcase nukes that might be smuggled out of crumbling Russia, all the while selling their own weapons while you’re distracted by the commies. As it stands, though, there is that kind of material out there, but who knows where it is? The perfect atmosphere to sow irrational fear.

Osama Rallies Muslims, Condemns Hussein on AlterNet juxtaposes the recent alerts and dire warnings with items in the news that might be unpleasant to the administration. By now you’ve all heard that:

“Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge went so far as to tell people to load up on plastic sheeting and duct tape so as to bar their windows from chemical attack, but the administration he calls home made sure to tell people to live their lives normally and continue shopping.”

However, he see through this ruse as the crying of ‘Wolf’ one too many times. “Let there be one important piece of legislation, or one highly embarrassing turn of events for the administration, and the word goes forth that the sky is falling.” Every time a bill needs to be pushed through, some national forest needs to be opened up to logging or drilling or a new tax cut for only Bush’s friends and neighbors needs to go through, all of a sudden, here comes Osama again and look out for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and buy plastic and sheet your house in like a bubble boy, but for God’s sake don’t pay attention to what the power elite are doing to your lives, your rights and your future. It’s the pinnacle of short-term thinking to believe that the American populace can be scared into stimulating the economy by shopping. Boosting the economy through fascism has never worked over any length of time. That won’t stop some people from trying though.

“We have been dealing with this politically manufactured low-grade hysteria for many months now. Most Americans have reached a suspended state of disbelief about it all, and won’t be taking these warnings seriously unless they see Osama bin Laden on their doorstep in a black cassock with scythe in hand. Bush and Ashcroft will soon run out of colors on the warning chart if this keeps up; the shade after red likely exists somewhere in the fourth dimension, visible only to ultraconservative war-hawks and media talking heads.”

He goes on document the discovery of the tape, with the story broken by Colin Powell, in which “he claimed bin Laden was clearly establishing a connection between himself and Hussein on the tape, beyond all question.” If you’ve read the transcript, you’ll realize that Hussein was mentioned once and that was to say he should be toppled from power by an Islamic uprising. So that’s a bald-faced lie. And an insulting one, because the administration is counting on you being too stupid or lazy to check his facts.

It gets worse.

MSNBC reported the contents of the transcript fairly accurately, but only for about 20 minutes. After that, the mention that bin Laden wanted Hussein killed was removed from the web site. This, combined with Powell’s praise, earlier this week, for a “British intelligence dossier that contained cut-and-pasted pages and pages of an essay … written by a postgraduate student from California … [and] was offered as an up-to-the-minute assessment of Iraqi weapons capabilities…” destroys any credibility the administration has on the “question of whether Saddam Hussein has ties to al Qaeda terrorism”.

The next day, MSNBC continued their cleanup of their site by removing even more information in an article that originally quoted a government source criticizing Powell’s handling of the matter. So Pitt asks the obvious question (and one that’s been asked here before) “How often is the data being manipulated by the corporate-owned media?”

Doesn’t it piss you off to be lied to by your President, by your Secretary of State, by those charged with shining the light of truth (the media)? They’ve decided to attack Iraq and they try again and again to convince, with clumsy lie after clumsy lie, that you should let them do it. All the while, they pretend they haven’t lied a thousand times before.

They act as if you still owe them your trust. You don’t.

An interview with Kurt Vonnegut on AlterNet, entitled Kurt Vonnegut Vs. the !*!@ points out that the (somewhat obvious) problem is that what we have “in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka ‘Christians’, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or ‘PPs.’” He expands on PPs in the interview, noting that it’s a “medical diagnosis” that is a remarkably good fit for the behavior evinced by the cabal in charge of the US government. It’s not that they don’t care — it’s that they are incapable of caring. So we’re treated to, in a nutshell, this:

“Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!”

When asked about peace demonstrations and peace marches, he’s equally cynical: “Then [Vietnam] as now, TV did not like anti-war protesters, nor any other sort of protesters, unless they rioted.” Not that it doesn’t mean anything. Demonstrating for peace means something to you. But the way the world is organized today, it’s unlikely to mean anything to anyone who doesn’t already share your opinions. The people you’re trying to reach are carefully bracketed off, administered to by O’Reilly, who teaches them which things to be outraged by (and which things their taxes should fund — military = good; poor people = bad), and soothed by Nascar and Britney Spears, who teach them which things to buy.

If you’ve made it this far and still believe in the administration’s interpretation of the ‘bin Laden’ tape, then scoot on over to The White House and read some genuine letters to the President from America’s children.