Osama Bin Ladin video released

i'm waiting for the DVD

I now have a mental image of Osama Bin Laden in Technotronic's "Pump Up The Jam" video.

What hath MTV wrought?

Dan Perry, I wonder if soon the original singer (speaker?) will come forth.

OSAMA RAPS ON IT I HEAR

There was ten tons of stuff about it on the C4 news today, including a clip of a US newsreader describing the video as the 'Smoking Tongue'. Made me fair fall off my cushion, it did.

It R being nice of Bin LAden to include all incriminating evidence on one extremely clear video tape! even nicer of him to leave it just "lying around". HMMMMMMMMMM.

i think he particularly is a bastard for saying not all of the hijackers knew it was a suicide mission. what a twunt.

I don't believe this tape is real. At all.

I know what you mean. There was a sort of Roswell incident feel to the footage.

I understand the relative 'gee, CONVENIENT' factor of it all, but on the flip I should note that this is precisely the result of decades of being uneasy/suspicious regarding government justifications. Quite rightly too -- but there is a downside that arguably now when something *does* turn up and happens to be real that it'll not be accepted.

Let me give a comparison point that's perhaps useful. Consider the Wannsee Conference, as it's sometimes called, which is the gathering of high Nazi officials in, I believe, 1942 or a bit earlier to plan out the 'final solution.' Top secret on the one hand, but records were made (and who's to say they wouldn't have videotaped it if the technology was available?). I can't claim expertise, but I don't doubt this conference and its proceedings have been attacked by Holocaust revisionists as false, distorted, maybe even planted evidence. Obviously I'm not saying anyone who suspects this new videotape to be on the same ethical level of Holocaust revisionists -- perish the thought!

Conspiracy theory of any stripe needs precious little to feed on -- even if it's true.

Do any of you out there get The Royal Canadian Air Farce? I would much see this man as they portrayed him in hiding as a figure skater& a trapeze artist in the circus. Yep that's him!

― Gale Deslongchamps, Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

so the guyz a billionaire and he can't afford wallpaper and chairs - what a cheap fucker !

Totally with DG on this one. Though it seems so badly forged that perhaps is real.Not, the CIA wants us to believe it is so bad that it is true.

if i was forging this i would date it before (= proof incontrovertible) not after (= endless arguments whether he's saying "I did this hurrah" or "Look at the brilliant thing we did hurrah", where we = the Jihad as a whole)

i don't believe it either. i think there are more important things that should be getting the kind of coverage this tape is.

Osama has sent hundreds of people to their death for his cause but never thought of going himself, how can he not be a complete twunt?

Even if you do believe it shows THEE Osama bin Laden talkin' trash (as I do), I think you could reasonably conclude that the tape proves only that Osama has claimed responsibility for 9/11, but not that he is responsible for 9/11. You could play devil's advocate and say, well, he might just be jealously laying claim to something he had nothing to do with because he thinks that if it takes a noble lie to jumpstart his Islamic revolution, well, Osama is willing to lie his ass off if that's what it takes.

"The tape is real." "The tape is fake." What conditions would have to hold in order for us to prove either statement? Quite a lot, I think. Perhaps more than anyone is humanly capable of doing.

Did you see the glee on his face? Man, it's clear that in Bin Laden's eyes, 9/11 is a joke.

Maybe it's one of the 10 lookalikes! A-ha!

If life were more like Street Fighter II, Chun Li would at this very moment be unleashing a Spinning Star Kick on Nick for that painful painful joke.

I rather like Mark S's take, and I'm feeling a touch frustrated that glib responses are still being used here to dismiss the whole thing,though I've double checked just now and Mike, who probably has the greatest claim from any of us about how to judge the whole thing, has brought some blessed perspective to this all. To echo his point, not as strongly -- automatic ruling out *or* acceptance of the tape is not what I am asking for nor expecting nor hoping anyone else is doing. I admit, though, my main concern here is the ruling out part of the debate.

I think I've made it clear on this board over time that the death of thousands worldwide is dishearteningly sickening and that the culpability of the US gov't is obvious. But I do *not* find this an excuse to dismiss the validity the tape out of hand (I apologize if I am misreading motives behind responses here, but I trust you see where I'm coming from).

Let me pitch an alternate scenario: let's say the plot was uncovered by the gov't before it was carried out, that the twenty suspects -- regardless of who recruited them, etc. -- were arrested and the initial details of the plan exposed. Why do I get the uncomfortable feeling that a fair amount of the reaction worldwide from governments on down would have been that this was all a set-up, a phony, a sham precisely because it was exposed by the US, that it was all created as an elaborate conspiracy in order to advance US interests by creating a mock threat, etc.? Yet while this debate would have played out, thousands of people, families here, families there, families all over the world, would not be suffering the loss and the obliteration that is now inescapable.

Maura is right that there are other things to watch as well, very right. But we cannot ignore this tape now that it is there, and now that it is there, we cannot afford to take it as yet another opportunity to regrind axes again and again and AGAIN. We need more before drawing conclusions in the end, and like Mike said, I rather doubt anyone here has the ability to do that.

Sorry - and a google search has revealed that it's not even original. I should have guessed really.

Cheer up; at least you get some major anime panty-flash action before the boot connects with your head.

I'm not all that fond of Japanese women's underwear.

B-b-but Chun Li is Chinese! C'mon Nick, where's the ANIME-LUV?

Sorry - I'm not very familiar with anime, Street Fighter II, Japan or China. What I do know is I don't like the things I have seen on Tarrant on TV.

Well, I can understand that; a lot of anime/manga out there is absolutely horrible (including, now that I'm thinking about it, the Streetfighter II one). The videogame is absolute class, though.

As far as the actual topic of this thread is concerned, it will shock and amaze people to learn that I agree with Ned.

RESPECT IS DUE: to mr mark lawson, for the most twistiest mark s-type having-it-both- ways conspiracy-interpretation viz:

ObL did *indeed* make the tape, but stuffed it full of deliberately bogus elements, knowing that the US govt wd leap on it, and miss all the things he'd inserted which "prove" its bogosity. The louder they protest its authenticity (ie the US genuinely found it in some cave, and didn't doctor it), the less convincing such protests seem to those who have spotted the oddities and anomalies.

it will shock and amaze people to learn that I agree with Ned

GET OUT OF MY HEAD. And let me into yours, baby.