New bin Laden audio message out…
It’s a message from bin Laden to America.
In his message bin Laden refers to Mearsheimer and Walt’s “The Israel Lobby”. It is an interesting turn when al Qaeda is starting to use the work of western academics to justify its views. This is yet another example of it doing so.
It isn’t an anniversary tape. I suspect it has been used because al Qaeda has no more martyrdom videos to use in marking the anniversary. Also, its media capacity to make more tapes (on the scale of anniversary videos) has been seriously damaged of late. See my earlier post on al Qaeda running out of videos for details on this.
A new tape from bin Laden around the time of the anniversary is sure to have an impact and compensate for no more anniversary videos.
The fact that it isn’t translated despite being a message for America/Americans also suggests a serious degradation of media capacity. There was no rush for this. There was a “leak” that a message was coming and then it was pulled off the forums. Its release was delayed, yet still no English.
Bin Laden’s focus on Israel is interesting. I would have thought he’d be more focused on the campaign in Afghanistan given the issues this is causing Obama.
More analysis to follow.
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09/15/2009 at 6:47 amBin Laden’s Reading List for Americans - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com