bin Laden videotape...
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape/" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape/</a>
<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40746,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40746,00.html</a>
Quote from transcript:
"We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors; I was the most optimistic of them all.
"Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This was all that we had hoped for."
Any of you prudent, well-thought-out types who've spent three months sitting on your hands and calling for "evidence" and "not rushing to judgement" like to comment now?
I hope someone kills this gloating, warped cocksucker.
Comments
Now we have the proof. There should be no complaining about this anymore.
The Taliban's horrible blunder was that they allowed some murder suicide cult to set foreign policy for them. bin Ladens horrible blunder was thinking the US would do anything short of wiping him out and also thinking the "Arab Street" would join his side and that they would be able to do anything against us even if they wanted to.
WTF were these people thinking?
I know I know they're "crazy" but I still don't get it.
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Scott H. ]</p>
btw, bin Laden's guilt was evident from that original Al Jazeera videotape, released shortly after 9-11 where he more or less admitted that he (al Qaeda) was responsible for the attacks. The Bush administration wasted no time in going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan; there was no hanging around, and military preparations were under way whilst the dust was still settling over Manhattan.
But evidence or otherwise, I am sure 'relieved' that we got it right, re. bin Laden. If it had been another party responsible, and we had ignored them, then that would have been a very major oops. There is everything right in being prudent and meticulous in drawing up a case; any lawyer will tell you that, rather than resorting to the initial knee-jerking response in our blind but understandable anger. Making an embarrassing and expensive international blunder in the name of 'yahooism' is really not in our best interest.
[quote]I don't think this needs a new thread but we have video evidence that bin Laden planned it from his own mouth.
<a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20011213/us/afghan_bin_laden_tape_6.html" target="_blank">http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20011213/us/afghan_bin_laden_tape_6.html</a>
But that will not be enough to shut the mouths of those who condone terrorism as a legitimate means to an end. I hope they catch him and throw him in the general prison population somewhere. After the inmates have their fun with him they should publicly execute the SOB. <hr></blockquote>
and then
[quote]Here is the Transcript for those who want to read it.
<a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011213/us/bin_laden_tape_text_2.html" target="_blank">http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011213/us/bin_laden_tape_text_2.html</a>
Bastard! <hr></blockquote>
and last of all
[quote]Or here as well for the government copy in PDF Format.
<a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/d20011213ubl.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/d20011213ubl.pdf</a> <hr></blockquote>
And there were a few of them out there too.
For starters the tape was made in November. Plenty of time to get wind of all of our commentaries about OBL and his plot.
Secondly, it just doesn't read like a normal conversation. It's almost like he calculated everything he would say to mirror our news commentary.
He said something to the effect of "given my experience in this area (how many other buildings have been rammed by jets?) I new the fuel would melt the metal structure and bring the floors above down, blah blah."
That to me is a dead giveaway it was staged in a way. You can call this asshole want you want, but my guess is he didn't know squat about jet fuel fires, or about the structural workings of the WTC. He listened to our news, found out what enraged us the most, and then just repeated it back for effect.
And all the stuff about muslims in Holland sounded like a load too. Basically he just repeated everything we had theororized about to be defiant, etc. Personally I don't give a damn about the tape. The ****er deserves to die whether we have a tape or not.
<strong>Yes, I know. I'm just hoping that perhaps this video - hearing it all from the horse's mouth, so to speak - may serve to unify us a bit more and pull in those who were never quite convinced.
And there were a few of them out there too.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Except for the ones who feel that America deserves it for being such a great place to live while the rest of the world lives in squalor.
You will never get everyone, even those who live in the US, to fully get behind us in this. I gave up on trying in the couple of weeks after the WTC were destroyed. My opinion of bleeding heart wackos has taken an even bigger hit due to this (I never thought that would be possible.)
<strong>He said something to the effect of "given my experience in this area (how many other buildings have been rammed by jets?) I new the fuel would melt the metal structure and bring the floors above down, blah blah." </strong><hr></blockquote>
His "experience" is in construction and buildings. He knows what fire will do to a steel structure.
I think that if it is real, which I am pretty certain that it is, it has the ring of formality for several reasons:
1. OBL takes himself to be some sort of 'annointed one' and talks in a cadence that someone with such a pretentious attitude might adopt. He is pretentious, deluded and sounds like it.
2. it is a formal, diplomatic kind of environment where ge is talking with an other 'important' figure. Also it had something of the Press Conference about it; he seemed to be partly performing for the camera.
3. Muslim's talk with this kind of formality, particularly in environments when 'politeness' is called for, such as when visiting at someone else's hood -as seemed to be the case with this tape.
If the rest of the Islamic world can view this tape and see it as the reality that it probably is, unstead of the "Wag The Dog" that many of them will be looking for, they should be sickened.... I know I am.
As for "Wag The Dog"... there was something about that movie that I kinda thought was pretty irresponsible at the time and now I know it. Sure it worked with the mediated nature of our reality and our perceptions, and made fun of it. And such an insight should always be taken into account by any artist or producer of media or REpresentations.
But, it also cynically presented a world where there is only falsity. I know the mediated stance, I understand that there are only interpretations, hermeneutics etc, and I have even read Baudrillard: but Baudrillard is an idiot who's extreme cynicism and position vis-a-vis "Hyperreality" and the lack of "reality", has allowed him to say the most outlandish and and idiotic things (see his remarks on the Gulf war)
Anyway, my 2c.
<a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011214/ts/attack_videotape_world_dc_1.html" target="_blank">http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011214/ts/attack_videotape_world_dc_1.html</a>
Except that the fourth group wasn't short a pilot-it was short an enforcer. So the question still begs an answer; why did this "alleged hijacker" know what the plan was, when the other "enforcers" didn't. One more elemnet in the chain of circumstantial evidnece that a good lawyer can attack to create doubt. Although, in the current climate-assuming this board is representative of public opinion-it may not matter; Moussaoui was probaly as good as dead the minute he was indicted.
<strong>More on the world reaction to the tapes. Heck, the US made it all up. Or we should get over it and focus on the new Isreali terrorism against Arabs. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> So much for proof, people beleive what they want to beleive. They ask for evidence, you give it to them and then they accuse you of doctoring it.
<a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011214/ts/attack_videotape_world_dc_1.html" target="_blank">http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011214/ts/attack_videota pe_world_dc_1.html</a></strong><hr></blockquote>
Osama himself could go up to these simpleton's and tell them he did it himself.. they would claim it wasn't really him.. it was a US trick!
They need to take their Anti-US glasses off once in awhile.
On the other hand, the thought has passed my mind: why would they leave such damning evidence for the US and allied forces to so conveniently and easily find? Since the intelligence services described the plot as being "so well-planned that it evaded all detection", why would they make such a stupid amateurish blunder?
But I'm pretty convinced of its authenticity in the end. It would be nothing short of a phenomenal fake, and I would actually think that it would be easier to fake a good quality film than that crappy one. I think the reason it was left was that the idiot who made the tape kept it and left it, not the Al Qaeda leadership.