The US government has published a new transcript of the full text of the 18-minute Bin Laden tape that Al-Jazeera excerpted last week: Transcript: Translation of Bin Laden's Videotaped Message Washington Post 11/01/04.
Al-Jazeera's English translation is available, too: Full transcript of Bin Ladin's speech 11/01/04. Al-Jazeera's English translation of the shorter version (the excerpts aired last Friday) is also available: Transcript of bin Ladin's speech Al-Jazeera 10/30/04.
Seeing the full text didn't really change my basic understanding of the message's meaning. It sharpens the comparison of Bush to the despots of the Middle East. It crows about the costs of the US war in Iraq and compares it to the failed Soviet war in Afghanistan. And it mentions earlier messages to the American people, to emphasize to Muslims that he has given Americans many chances to repent and force their government to change its ways:
Should a man to be blamed for defending his sanctuary? Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us. This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed repeatedly for years before September 11th. And you can read this, if you wish in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996 or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997 or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998. You can observe it practically, if you wish in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden [sites of terrorist attacks]. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk. The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral.
In other words, Bin Laden is emphasize the supposed hard-heartedness and intractibility of the American people, in order to justify terrorist attacks against American civilian noncombatants.
Given the vacuous rhetoric on the tape spewing from the Bush camp and rattling around the punditocracy, it's well worth noting that those earlier warning in 1996-98 were directed against an America headed by a Democratic president. Changing from Clinton's party to Bush's obviously didn't induce Bin Laden to call of the 9/11 attacks. And it's he won't understand John Kerry's policies as being acceptable to him, either.
Speaking of vacuity, Fox News pushed a story claiming that a more accurate interpretation of the Arabic showed that Bin Laden's message last week was saying that any American states that voted against Bush would be removed from Al Qaeda's target list, thereby making it an obvious pitch for Kerry's election. Not surprisingly - did I mention this was on Fox News? - it seemed to be a quixotic interpretation.
Juan Cole provides some perspective Bin Laden's Audio: Threat to States? 11/02/04. He explains that the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the group that provided Fox's alternative translation, has a definite ideological agenda, one with which Fox is no doubt comfortable:
MEMRI was founded by a retired Israeli colonel from military intelligence, and co-run by Meyrav Wurmser, wife of David Wurmser. David Wurmser is close to the Likud Party in Israel and served in Douglas Feith's "Office of Special Plans" in the Pentagon, where he helped manufacture the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaeda. David Wurmser, who wants to get up American wars against both Iran and Syria, then moved over to Vice President Dick Cheney's rump national security team.
Cole also cites this article dealing with the translation: Did Osama send election threat? by Ramona Smith Philadelphia Daily News 11/02/04.
Bruce Hoffman, director of the Rand Corp.'s Washington office, said bin Laden's main message "was not about...affecting the results of an election," particularly since both Bush and Kerry have vowed to track him down.
In view of that common stance, Hoffman said, it's "a stretch to say that bin Laden is saying how each state should vote."
And which candidate would bin Laden really prefer to win?
Said Hoffman: "Bin Laden is the only one who knows."
On general interpretation of the tape, I thought after seeing this piece by Daniel Benjamin (Osama's Campaign Commercial Slate 10/31/04), that my earlier reading of it was not too far off base. Benjamin writes:
No doubt Bin Laden enjoyed brandishing the threat of another "Manhattan," as he calls 9/11, in our faces, but Americans aren't the primary audience for this tape, however instinctively we imagine that we are. For Bin Laden right now, Muslim viewers are the key targets. He aims to persuade them to recognize his role in the election as a way of bolstering his claim to be the true leader of the umma, the global community of believers. (That helps explain why he showed up in robes instead of fatigues and behind a podium instead of on a desolate mountainside. It's hard to play the role of caliph of 1.2 billion people if everyone knows you're stuck in a cave in Waziristan.)
... When Bin Laden says that our security is in our hands, he is underscoring a point he has made before: By voting for the governments of the last few decades or paying taxes, American citizens are complicit in the offenses of their government and can fairly be targeted for attack. Now, he will say, we're on notice, and he has done all that any sheik could ask of him.
Casuistry in the service of barbarity? Yes, but it is a serious matter. There is evidence that Muslim acceptance of mass casualty terrorist attacks and the targeting of civilians is growing.
Juan Cole also provides some more background on Bin Laden's reference to Lebanon: Towers of Beirut 10/31/04. He also talks about the content of the tape in The Other Shoe Drops: Bin Laden Weighs in 10/30/04. He makes this important observation:
Bin Laden has repeatedly said that one of the reasons he hit the US was over the Israeli attacks on the Palestinians. Bin Laden has cared deeply about Palestine since his youth. His partner in Peshawar at the Office of Services for 6 years when he was funding the Mujahidin was Abdullah Azzam, a prominent Palestinian Muslim fundamentalist. When he came back to Jiddah from Pakistan after the Soviets withdrew, Bin Laden gave a guest sermon at the local mosque in which he bitterly criticized Israeli actions during the first Intifadah. He declared war on the Zionists and the Crusaders, and has constantly complained about the Occupation of the Three Holy Cities, which are Mecca, Medinah and Jerusalem. Because he did not use traditional Palestianian nationalist language, it has been possible for some to miss his commitment to the Palestine issue. The 9/11 report notes that he wanted to move the attack up from September to April of 2001 to punish the Israelis for actions against Palestinians. He thought of himself as attacking the US for backing Israel and Israeli aggression and seems to be annoyed at the success of the Bush administration in painting him as a nihilist.
No comments:
Post a Comment