Shot In The Dark: All Of You Who Think...

November 01, 2004

All Of You Who Think...

...that Bin Laden's message was "aimed at Arabs", rather than at the US elections...

...please account for this:

MEMRI said radical Islamist commentators monitored over the Internet this past weekend also interpreted the key passage of bin Laden's diatribe to mean that any U.S. state that votes to elect Bush on Tuesday will be considered an "enemy" and any state that votes for Kerry has "chosen to make peace with us."

The statement in question is when bin Laden said on the tape: "Your security is up to you, and any state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

That sentence followed a lengthy passage in the video in which bin Laden launches personal attacks on the president.

Yigal Carmon, president of MEMRI, said bin Laden used the Arabic term "ay-wilaya" to refer to a "state" in that sentence.

That term "specifically refers to an American state, like Tennessee," Carmon said, adding that if bin Laden were referring to a "country" he would have used the Arabic word "dawla."

Tell me again how saying "Bin Laden Wants Kerry To Win" is wrong?

Posted by Mitch at November 1, 2004 10:01 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Well, from what I've seen, Bin Laden wants to be at war with the the West - especially the United States.

If the war ends, he won't be able to unite radical islamicist forces to drive western influences out of the Middle East - a goal he seems to beleive that he can accomplish.

Posted by: Jason Goray at November 1, 2004 11:16 AM

Bin Laden does not want war per se. He only wants to defeat the west. If he can do it without the west realizing that there is a war going on, so much the better. UBL is not a martyr -- he is a little old to be in the martyr business. If you are a professional martyr and you reach 50 years of age you have been doing a damn bad job of it. He has no shot of winning militarily. Like all terrorist groups his ideal is to maintain a low level conflict while inflicting enough terror and innocent casualties to get the infidel west to capitulate to his demands and desires. The west's weakness is that it values human life. The terrorist's goal is to kill enough people that the west will lose its collective will.
Given this, Kerry is his man. He doesn't have a will to begin with. He is big on sacrificing innocents in order to avoid a fight.
UBL's big selling point to recruits was that the US is a paper tiger, and will cut and run when casualties mount. Bush proves him wrong. The election of Kerry would prove him right. UBL thinks long term; an Islamic saying goes If you wait 50 years to exact revenge you have acted in haste. 4 years of Kerry would mean 4 years of paper tiger, global summits, a strengthening enemy, and a worse war when it finally must be fought once and for all. For it will be fought, it will takes years, and it will be awful. The sooner and more decisively fought, the better for EVERYONE.

Posted by: chriss at November 1, 2004 11:56 AM