CAIRO, Egypt – Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader lashed out at President-elect Barack Obama in a new audio message Tuesday, accusing him of not doing anything to stop Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to an intelligence monitoring center.
The recording purportedly by Ayman al-Zawahiri was al-Qaida's first comments on the Gaza crisis since Israel launched its offensive against the Islamic militants of Hamas on Dec. 27.
In the comments, which were posted on a militant Web site and obtained by the SITE Monitoring Service, al-Zawahiri described Israel's actions in Gaza as a "crusade against Islam and Muslims" and called it "Obama's gift to Israel" before he takes office later this month.
(...)
The audio message was accompanied by a still photograph of the al-Qaida leader sitting with a gun in his lap.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_al_qaida_tape_gaza;_ylt=Amno.2sn_Cm1r2MNi3TFQ2sEtbAFThis was business as usual from Al-Q. The video (which isn't really a video, but a still image with voiceover) was found by SITE, who has been known to find most of the video's that has appeared since 2001. At 'militant web sites'. It is clearly the Al-Queda 2.0 we see developing, they're pretty WYSIWYG by now. It seems there will always be a 'militant website' to find videos on, despite the enormous effort to hunt down the terrorists world wide, byte by byte. As one ponders about the efficient webdesign brigade and their immaculate abilities in Dreamweaver and Photoshop, it is striking how they always manage to screw up the videos. If it has sound, you can bet it hasn't a moving picture. If it has a moving picture, it always looks like a bad grainy holiday movie from the 80's, and more than likely has no sound, no. More than often we get a dull grainy still picture of the Men of Men, a caveshot, with a mumbling audio track full of static noise. It's ridiculous.
They can grab video to a pc, put on subtitles, feisty music and revolutionary slogans, convert to mpg, connect that computer to the internet and upload by ftp, sftp or whatever terrorists use these days, and make a web page to display it - but make a video which actually let's us enjoy in technicolor Bin Ladens yellow face and the sound of his voice at the same time? Nah. In the age where videocameras comes the size of a deck of cards, and where every store all over the world is capable to deliver them cheap, Al-Queda is going for retro style. They use VHS, or even older equipment, and records the sound on old Memorex cassettes on a flea bitten tape recorder from the 70's. C30, C60, C90 - go!
It's a picture that's adjusted to seek our minds, of how we should think about the worlds terror org no. 1. How come?
And now they target Democrats, as they really have done since 2004, when Bin Laden himself descended from the Kashmir alps to address the American people just a week before the election. It was a timely reminder of the close vicinity of Evil in a dire time for Bush, and it had the intended effect. Kerry lost. And now it's Obama who is blamed for Israels war.
Despite the fact that Israel starts a war every two years, and Obama wasn't around the last time or the time before, this is his 'gift to Israel'. Snif. They never gave Bush that much of a credit in 2006, even though he could've mistakenly said it out loud by accident. Oh, oops - but he did? Bush and Blair, with their accidental-international conversation on open mike on the CNN during the invasion of Lebanon, managed to tell Israel to get Syria before they had to intervene. That was just after Bush had greeted Blair with "- Yo, Blair!", which again was only a year after Blair had betrayed him by leaking the very damaging document the
Downing Street Memo. Which was published only two years after the more infamous 'Lie the Iraqi war in' document was published. By the same government. By the same man, actually. I don't know if he signed with the same pen, but you never know, it's a small world.
Of course it's perfectly natural to bleed your heart in front of a supposedly dead mike belonging to a major newscaster, after all his father was screwed the same way in the film '
Spin' in the 90's, and everybody knows Bush' mind is screwed too. He's nuts, screwed up, and don't remember anything because he was secretly drunk all the time. Perfectly understandable. I usually don't mind people greeting each other with Yo either, and after all the level of international diplomatique has descended steadily since 2001 and are now just out of the cave mouth. So it fits, strangely, with the grainy terrorist image mumbling at ya from your mediaplayer. But it never mumbles bad words about Bush when he's supposedly in a fix where mumbling could harm him. No, then the mumbling stills to a whisper. Only when the words makes him stronger, deflects some awkward domestic situation or attack a Democrat, does Al Queda 2.0 boot up their computers and flick on the switches, take out that 1980's VHS tape just in from the cavefront, shake their heads at Uncle Zawahiri's poor taste in tech, grab one screenshot from the video and well, do their thing, you know. Nerd stuff. And Yo can probably be uttered in a frosty manner and who am I to tell whether it actually means something malignant. After all, with the rate of decline we're seeing in multilateral relations, future wars may be declared with a Yo and accepted with "Raaah!", there's no telling. And Al Queda, maybe they just was busy somewhere else during the Lebanon invasion? Buying more Gatorade, maybe. You could tell that the liquid bombs plot would require some further planning, so maybe they just couldn't find the time to read in a tape, maybe the cam was out of batteries, maybe the antique shop they used to get film had shut down - there can be many reasons, so let's not the absence of a caveshot and mumbled audio in any way point to Bush, that would be unfair and cruel. The fact that the bomb plot helped Republicans have their people elected to Congress should not at all affect how you view these gentlemen, because these violent, horrifying terror-things happens, and then it is just too tempting to not use it in politics. The Brits said the cell wasn't really hatched yet, their agent inside the cell had told them to wait. But could they?? No, of course not. So close to the anniversary of September the 11th it was gonna play big. A year later Benazir Bhutto was shot, bombed and bit to death by a snake at the same time, in Pakistan. There were also lasers involved, according to the media. Bhutto was a liberating force in Pakistan and was close to the US. Democrats. With the history of the Democrat party in mind, you'd think it would hurt them extra to see her shot down like a dog. S'cuse, bombed.
And while we're in the neighbourhood, there's the recent Mumbai terror attack, which in reality was a commando raid, with modern arms and professionally trained people. Did it harm the Democrats? Yes, it did and it also harmed the environment. Because the week after, the huge event called Live Earth was supposed to kick off in Mumbai; several days with music and environmental politics. Al Gore was supposed to speak there, so was representatives from the IPCC. And many environmental orgs would have joined in, you know how those people are. One sniff of fresh air in sight and they'll be all over the place. Especially if Roger Waters was gonna play, and Bon Jovi and many others. But no, because the whole event was cancelled because no one wanted to sing while people die.
"Joint Official Statement from Live Earth Founder Kevin Wall, The Office of the Honorable Al Gore and Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chairman IPCC regarding Live Earth India
Everyone involved with Live Earth India, from our U.S.- and India-based staff, artists and crew to our India-based broadcast, production, non-profit and marketing communications partners, is stunned and saddened by the tragic events of the past few days in our host city Mumbai. We always felt very welcomed and safe as we spent more time on the ground in Mumbai to finalize plans for Live Earth India, scheduled for December 7.
Due to circumstances far beyond our control, we are saddened to announce that Live Earth India has been cancelled. We will continue to work for solutions to the climate crisis for the good of the people of India and around the world. But for now, our thoughts and our prayers are with the victims of this terrible attack, with the bereaved, with the people of Mumbai and with everyone in India."
http://liveearth.org/2008/11/joint-official-statement-from-live-earth-the-office-of-the-honorable-al-gore-regarding-live-earth-india/It's getting late here, so I'm going to bed now.
Good night!
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