Even A Caveman…

The list of Osama bin Laden’s greatest video hits continues this week with a new release. The invisible one appears to be able to get access to the latest news and current events and latest Muslim fashions. It is no longer shocking that he is able to film and release these tapes, what is shocking is that he is able to release these tapes on cue. You ever notice that whenever we are at a point when the Neo-Con agenda is being questioned or a report is due, that we are graced with the presence of the bearded one.

His last appearance was right before the 2004 election, giving Mr. Bush and company the final push in a close election. There are those who believe that these are more than coincidences and that possibly these tapes are the products of some nefarious secret body of government designed to silence any dissension in the “war on terror”. While I am not in a position to gauge the validity of this theory there are some troublesome signs in the latest offering as pointed out by the Independent.


In a banner ad for the video, the al-Qai'da leader, now aged 50, looked fit, with a full beard of dark black hair, rather than his usual grey-streaked beard. Instead of the customary combat jacket, he was wearing Arabic robes.

"It does look oddly as if he is wearing a false beard," Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism official, said. "If we go back to the tape three years ago, he had a very white beard. This looks like a phoney beard that has been passed on."

The al-Qai'da leader has not appeared in a video message in almost three years and has not put out a new audio message for more than a year. His last video broadcast was days before the 2004 presidential vote.[1]

So not only does bin Laden seem to be suddenly interested in liberal causes in America, he is also getting younger and dressing better. Living in caves does seem to have its advantages, which is strange since he is suppose to be the most hunted man on the planet. The sad truth about the theory is that we will never know; the same people who may have created the video are the ones who are authenticating the video. Isn’t it sad that there has been so much disillusionment with the government that these theories even seem plausible?

I wonder what will be next for bin Laden hyping the Super Bowl or maybe doing a halftime video with Paris Hilton. The sad truth is that the majority of people in America have allowed their fears and prejudices to be played upon by a highly organized group of people who want to keep us in war mode for the foreseeable future. As long as we are in war mode nothing the government does is too extreme, they are after all protecting you from the terrorists. What these people have learned is that if you can create a war without end (the war on drugs) suspension of liberties and habeas corpus rights will not be challenged.

Bush has so much as said that he has unlimited power under the War Powers Act. Not only does the war mentality stifle internal debate, it also allows for war profiteering to go unchallenged as well. I found it interesting that bin Laden was associated with every cause that the Neo-Cons have railed against for years. What they have done with this video is linked the head of terrorism with anyone who would espouse the ideas of freedom, global warming, and corporate criminal behavior. So basically anyone who is progressive is now also a minion of Al Qaeda and bin Laden. Talk about silencing the opposition, who in their right mind would want to be connected to terrorism?

Where is the skeptical media? Where are the questions of why with the 9/11 anniversary coming up this video mysteriously arrives? As usual there is silence from the MSM and they wonder why their public standing is so low. I would be curious to know why no one has questioned the authenticity of the video when the intelligence community got it before the Al Qaeda website could even post it. This seems strange to me, coupled with the fact of bin Laden’s appearance being markedly different one could wonder about its origin.

One thing is for sure though; even a man supposedly living in a cave in the middle of nowhere can recognize that the state of America is deteriorating.

The al-Qaeda leader's first video message for three years featured a bizarre rant against America, with references to global warming, "insane taxes", the US mortgage market meltdown and rising interest rates.[2]

[1] http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2941864.ece
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/09/wladen109.xml

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They Call This Success?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — On the eve of his Camp David meeting with President Bush, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan painted a bleak picture of life in his country, saying that security had worsened and that the United States and its allies were no closer to catching Osama bin Laden than they were a few years ago.

“The security situation in Afghanistan over the past two years has definitely deteriorated,” Mr. Karzai said on the CNN program “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer,” in an interview that was taped Saturday in Kabul. It was broadcast Sunday while Mr. Karzai was en route to Camp David for a two-day meeting with President Bush.

“The Afghan people have suffered,” Mr. Karzai said. “Terrorists have killed our schoolchildren. They have burned our schools. They have killed international helpers.”[1]

Since 9/11 this administration and its apologists have held up Afghanistan as a success in the “war on terror.” While I and others have considered there definition of success dubious at best, it seems that even the President of Afghanistan can no longer continue the charade. Afghanistan has not been a success. It may have had the potential to be successfully prosecuted, but as we all know there were bigger fish to fry.

You see while Afghanistan was the base of operations for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, it really didn’t provide any strategic value. The country is rural and mountainous and other than bumper opium crops really has no industry to speak of. The majority of people are poor, uneducated and have been in the throes of war since the Soviet invasion of 1979. Their white market economy is crap and so the rural farmers harvest opium to make money on the black market.

The President of Afghanistan is actually just the mayor of Kabul, this is about how far his influence extends. The countryside is still being ruled by chieftains and war lords as it has been since the days of Genghis Khan, who have an uneasy relationship with the central government. In what has become the norm for this administration the reconstruction efforts have been underfunded and misdirected. The central government does not have the means to expand poverty services to help the average Afghani; as a result the government of Mr. Karzai is having a difficult time engaging the people in building the nation. Mr. Karzai has made numerous trips to Washington to beg for more support for the rebuilding process and each time he has been given a pat on the head and placated with photo ops.

Add to this, the continual buildup of civilian casualties not by the Taliban, but by the US military and the situation in Afghanistan can hardly be termed a success. The Taliban and Bin Laden continue to play cat and mouse on the Afghan/Pakistani border with each side claiming that he is not on their side.

If this is how the neo-cons do nation building, what hope do we have for Iraq? It is time we either concentrate on the original job at hand or expect a resurgence of the people this whole war was suppose to be about. Despite their thinking to the contrary this administration must realize that the people of the world who are struggling have little use for rhetoric and photo-ops, they need and expect real solutions to the problems they are confronting. I believe that if this administration had completed the mission in Afghanistan not only would the Taliban be just a memory, but also Al Qaeda as we knew it at the time.

Once again, Mr. Karzai is forced to come to Washington with hat in hand to beg for more support for his war ravaged people and again he will be presented with little more than lip service and a chance for the President to get more photo-ops for his “war on terror” portfolio. As with all of their misadventures the architects of neo-conservatism have failed to know or understand the history of Afghanistan and how that history plays out today. The Afghani people are fiercely independent and do not have a history of a centralized form of government. They have been a confederation of tribal leaders and war lords who through the use of the loya jirgah[2]pledged loyalty to one ruler in an amalgamation of semi-autonomous kingdoms. Their loyalty to the central government is loose at best and is dependent on that leader being able to deliver what he promises; Mr. Karzai has been long on promises and short on delivery. This lose amalgamation could unravel at anytime, leaving Afghanistan once again open to the Taliban or some other group of similar ilk.

If this is success, what does failure look like? Do we really want to know?

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/world/asia/06karzai.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loya_jirga

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