Duke Professor Skeptical of bin Laden Tape

[MakeItSo]

From an ABC affiliate station in Durham, NC:

A Duke professor says he is doubtful about Thursday's audiotape from Osama bin Laden.

Bruce Lawrence has just published ?Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, a book translating bin Laden's writing. He is skeptical of Thursday's message.

<snip>

He thinks bin Laden is dead and has doubts about the tape. Lawrence recently analyzed more than 20 complete speeches and interviews of the al Qaida leader for his book. He says the new message is missing several key elements.


http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=local&id=3828678

[RevCheesehead]

1. Yup. Another distraction.

What
Are
They
Hiding
???

[mom cat]

10. Trying to scare us into buying bushco's wiretaps..Oh protect us, father

Bush! They always use fear when something importsnt is happening...this time it is Alito. Don't let them distract us from the most important issue on the table at this minute...Alito and the fate of the third branch of government.

[KoKo]

2. Excellent....I wonder if this will get picked up all over...

or hushed.

[glitch]

7. eternal optimist, you are. :) nt

[KoKo]

15. Kick...for those of us who have "questions" about

legitimacy of binLaden tape..

[bullimiami]

3. cia or nsa engineer + digital editing = new bin laden tape.

a little plant at al jazeera and 'bing' just what the bosses ordered.

then the cia comes out and verifies that the 'voice' is bin ladens....

maybe they should have had mr lawrence help with the production.


Total Information Awareness

[boobooday]

4. Also a little fishy . . .

The fact that OBL's statement sounds like it came straight from the laptop of Karl Rove.

[xchrom]

5. if he were dead -- wouldn't that make him a martyr

to those who would follow him?

i'm one of those who is more likely to believe he is dead, btw.

however, how is he more effective to al queda, dead or alive?

[K-W]

11. He is more powerful alive.

So what if he becomes a martyr to the small number of radicals that actually carry out terror. Osama's power comes from his ability to speak to the world and his financial workings, both of which terminate upon his death. It might motivate some increased activity in the short run, but in the long run it would probably lead to an end to the movement we called al-queda that existed mainly because he funded and promoted it.

If he is dead I don't neccessarily think his assosciates would trumpet it. He is a powerful symbol as a living breathing monster to the west and as a personality in the moslem world.

[txindy]

20. It's not his effectiveness to AQ that drives his listed status.

He's worth much more to the cabal alive and 'hiding'.

[libnnc]

6. kicky-poo-a-roonie

I'm certainly no Dookie, (they pounded UNCG in basketball last week :-( ), but this is worth considering.

[Jara sang]

18. Hi-didilly Ho Neighboreeno!

[Gman]

8. Exactly why I'm very skeptical

There were no references to the Koran, Allah or Mohammed. Previous to the November 2004 message, OBL always invoked these. OBL never used to mention American politics either. It was always messages aimed at the Islamic faithful, if not radical faithful.

The message is very uncharacteristic of OBL.

[Carni]

9. Yes, I thought the same thing

His previous messages sounded nothing like the crap we've been hearing from him since 911--I would like to read the text of his blatherings from back when Clinton was in office and then compare the two!

[libhill]

25. It was probably

a prepared script. Any time the Repukes get in trouble, they trot out USAma and ALciaDUH. The best enemies money can buy.

[Generator]

12. Thank you!

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool Generator and the majority of DU.

I'm so sick of being terrorized, propagandized, and lied to I could spit.

[MissWaverly]

13. I heard that a linguist said it was written in English

and then translated into Arabic, it doesn't follow arabic language patterns

like we might say the book is on the table, but if it was a telephone directory, we would
say the phone book is on the table. Also they said there was a reference to God, where
Bin Laden always uses the word Allah.

[ObaMania]

14. I believe it.

Hell, I've been skeptical of the past five!

[SmokingJacket]

16. I'm with him.

I think he's been dead a while. That last video tape was fake too.

[stickdog]

17. Rovama Being Laden (nt)

[txindy]

19. Oh, golly. Stay off of small planes. Don't open packages.

Beware of white powdery substances in envelopes mailed to you. The truth is hazardous these days. Just whatever you do, Professor Lawrence, DON'T STOP SPEAKING OUT! :applause:

[libhill]

30. He's probably

going to be found dead somewhere, with one of those suspicious type written "suicide notes".

[dalaigh lllama]

21. Well, that story is gone now

I tried to Google the story, too, after I had tried your link and it said "page not found" but couldn't find anything on this topic.

Hope the professor isn't gone, too...:tinfoilhat:

[SeveneightyWhoa]

22. Well, the whole site is down.

Not just the story.

Don't get too tinfoily. Yet.

[dalaigh lllama]

27. Whew!

Slappity slap. Thanks, I needed that. Late at night after musing on "Just what wouldn't they do", I get a little tinfoily. Calming down now. :hangover:

[maddezmom]

23. here's another link

http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-692036.html

[dalaigh lllama]

28. Thanks

Very interesting read.

[Emit]

24. This part from the article is interesting

"More likely, Lawrence said, Pakistani operatives brought out the tape to distract attention from the failure of their intelligence on Zawahri."

Especially since I just read this editorial from a Pakistan Times website today:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\01\21\story_21-1-2006_pg3_1

Saturday, January 21, 2006

EDITORIAL: What does OBL want to achieve?

(...) Secondly, the tape was prepared at least one month ago — in December according to Al Jazeera — or more. This means that the offer of truce has nothing to do with the recent American missile attack in Bajaur aimed at OBL’s right hand man, Ayman Al Zawahri. It is not a sign of weakness.

~snip~

(...) the United States has, as expected, rejected the truce offered by OBL, saying that the US government does not negotiate or deal with “terrorists”. Since this is standard US policy and well known, it is difficult to believe that Al Qaeda did not anticipate this response. Why then would OBL deem fit to offer a truce? The classical Islamic tradition of warfare is to offer a truce to the adversary before an armed conflict. This was meant to give the adversary a chance to avoid a conflict. If the other side accepted it, there would be no war; if it rejected the offer, the Muslim armies would have a reason to fight. The tradition is a crude reflection of today’s legal-technical concept of jus ad bellum (the reason for war) under the United Nations Security Council resolution mandating the use of force.

~snip~

It needn’t be pointed out that if such attacks are indeed mounted and are executed successfully, the entire hue of the conflict is likely to change. US efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq will suffer a major setback and a wounded America could react in ways that could destabilise a large part of the world, or at least the arc of crisis that runs from the Middle East to Central and West Asia and Iran.

OBL has informed the US that Iraq has become a gravitational point for recruiting and preparing the mujahideen. Most experts have said that the US venture in Iraq has been a misadventure. Most are also agreed that the White House should rest content with minimum results and get out of that country. Normally, this might have sufficed to score a victory over the Bush White House. But Al Qaeda seems to be preparing for another round. And that may come about if it attacks the US on US soil. *

[seabeyond]

29. i am thinking if someone calls uncle. you win. being a female

i guess i just dont get it. call a truce. make a document outlining the acceptable behavior. yada yada yada. i thought that is how you won battle. when otherside was worn down they cry uncle, we put up the rules and say we won

[Toots]

26. The link doesn't work, says page can not be found

I would have liked to read what this fellow had to say. I heard one person say there was no mention of Allah and Bin Ladin usually ends every sentence with "praise be to Allah"