I Got Those Dead bin Laden Audiotapin' Blues

Meghan McCain
Mark Lynch

"Let’s face it—America is obsessed with breasts. " - Meghan McCain

Osama bin Laden, whom many say is actually dead, released an audiotape today to al Jazeera. Not letting an opportunity pass by, he claims credit for the half-baked plan that his group in Yemen thought of, to take the chemicals from a previous bomber who had them in his shoe, and move the source to the person's underwear. Same low technology, different placement, so if the bomber is caught fooling around in his underpants, he will look like he's just doing something inappropriate with his right hand.
"America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly.

"Therefore, with God's will, our attacks on you will continue as long as you continue to support Israel," bin Laden said.

"If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words we wouldn't have carried them to you by planes."

As Mark Lynch point out in the link above, and I have mentioned before, it's a bit ironic for the dead bin Laden to speak about Palestine because al Qaeda has no presence in Gaza, Hamas is against any other organization that would threaten its hold. They already had a gunfight with an al Qaeda person who came from Yemen and snuck in through the tunnels, took refuge in a mosque, and ended up surrounded and killed by Hamas forces.

Since al Qaeda is about to be ousted from Afghanistan, and possibly Pakistan, this message is like going back to your roots and trying to mobilize sympathizers through saying something very basic: "Azzam Tamimi, a political analyst and the author of "Hamas the Unwritten Chapters", said that bin Laden was simply using the Palestinian issue in an attempt to mobilise Muslims against the US.

"I would say that al-Qaeda has not been able to set foot in many places in the Muslim world despite its rhetoric," he told Al Jazeera.


"In Palestine they failed miserably and that is why I understand this message as a return to the older strategy of waging war against America and the world order in the skies.


"It is very difficult to compete with an organisation like Hamas in Palestine."

Since the current bottleneck to sitting down and hammering out a Palestinian state seems to lie with Mahmoud Abbaas and Fatah, would bin Laden then threaten and bomb Fatah? You have to wonder what Mr Abbas is getting from the status quo here, is it that he is mentally incapable of moving forward, or is it his ego, imagined prestige, or money flowing in from other Muslim groups to support his lifestyle? George Mitchell just came back from trying to prod Fatah into sitting down at the table right now, even though Israel is still building on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The response, from the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat: "The American side wants to resume negotiations now without a complete halt to settlements," Erakat told reporters after the three-hour meeting.


"We want to resume negotiations on the basis of defining the borders of the Palestinian state on all Palestinian lands occupied since 1967 including east Jerusalem, and a complete halt to all settlement activities,"

"I think the validity of this tape should be subjected to scrutiny because we haven't heard from Mr Bin Laden for quite some time."

For over 40 years, whenever conservative Muslims refer to Christians having a bad influence on Islam, they are referring to the US and modern technology, the rise of secular culture. The response to being dragged into the 21st century, is to try and create a simpler time and life, to go back to how life was lived at the time of the prophet, with guidelines on how to live from the Koran. Extreme interpretations of this desire resulted in groups like al Qaeda.

We have similar Luddite groups in America, largely associated with evangelical Christianity, who are obsessed with spreading the way of life from the Bible, and what they interpret to be the traditional ways from an older, simpler time. Both cultures have histories of many groups springing up trying to live in the  traditional ways, some have been harmless, some eccentric, and others have been considered dangerous, especially when led by a charismatic, mentally deranged figurehead like Jim Jones, Juhayman, bin Laden, and  Sun Moon...

For some reason the charismatic figures are able to negate the emphasis on peaceful living and attention on spiritual nurturing of the soul, so that it becomes ok to hoard guns  and explosives, to either force your beliefs on others or go out in a blaze of glory like they did in Waco, and Juhayman did at Mecca. OK, the CIA helped create al Qaeda and supported bin Laden when he was fighting against our new best friend Russia, so we bought into the madness and it turned around and bit us in the ass...

There may never be an accepted resolution between a monotheistic state and a secular one that attempts separation of church and state, The answer to those who resist changes and live in a fantasy of their own making will be the behavior of their children, who now spend up to seven hours per day locked into the Internet and must have a cell phone to text and tweet while listening to hip hop and Islamic or gangster rap music. The only constant is change, and our children will redefine their own beliefs as they make fun of ours, create the next world while we get older and sit around having tea parties fueled by medical marijuana and viagra...