Re: They said that's why they aired the Bin Laden tapes, because it proves for the first time Bin Laden's ultimate culpability.
Haha! That's what your Western cast of mind infers from the Bin Laden videos... Try to watch them as an Arab fellow. So far, bin Laden has praised the hijackers, he lauded them, he congratulated them, he said he totally supported their attacks BUT never intimated that he masterminded the 911 attacks! (except in the doctored Pentagon video)
Now, you may want to ask, why isn't bin Laden more EXPLICIT/STRAIGHTFORWARD about his alleged innocence? Well, I'm afraid bin Laden just doesn't give a toss about Western public opinion --he just doesn't care about what the Yanks and the Euros think of him... He only cares about his "natural" audience, that is, the Arab world. And he knows that his popularity would incur a dramatic drop-off if he, somehow, acknowlegded that he had nothing to do with 911. Hence his PR strategy all along: ambiguous denial towards the West and 911 hero/martyr towards the Arab audience. (tip: Bin Laden wears a Palestinian kaffiyeh to boost his popularity)
Anyway, as I suspected, there's more coming in the Al-Jazeera pipeline... The Qatari network calls the shots: if the US crosses the line then... bang! another bin-laden video pops up!
Gus |
