Once again is this the reason for the rise in gold? Maybe someone behind the curtain knows something. OT as none of this really can effect the price of gold and it is Friday:
January 20, 2006
Bin Laden Returns
Truce or consequences…
by Justin Raimondo
They said he was dead, or so debilitated and "on the run" that we would never hear from him again: they said he was cowering in a cave somewhere, without operational control of al-Qaeda and with no hope of ever affecting the world in the way he did on 9/11 and its immediate aftermath. All of this, however, turned out to be wishful thinking – the main content of U.S. policymakers' pronouncements, these days – in view of Osama bin Laden's latest audiotape, released by al-Jazeera on Tuesday.
Several English versions of the text are floating around – see here, here, and here – but I'm going to go with the BBC version, if only because it flows more easily. In any case, the big news is that bin Laden is offering the West a truce – and if you think that is good news, then think again. For this can only mean he is preparing a new blow against us – and is close to delivering it. Standing just behind this peace offer is an explicit threat, one that he clearly intends to follow through on.
As usual, the al-Qaeda leader doesn't pussyfoot around, and instead comes right to the point:
"My message to you is about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way to end it. I had not intended to speak to you about this issue, because, for us, this issue is already decided: diamonds cut diamonds.
"Praise be to God, our conditions are always improving, becoming better, while yours are the opposite.
"However, what prompted me to speak are the repeated fallacies of your President Bush in his comment on the outcome of U.S. opinion polls, which indicated that the overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of the forces from Iraq, but he objected to this desire and said that the withdrawal of troops would send the wrong message to the enemy. Bush said: It is better to fight them on their ground than they fighting us on our ground.
"In my response to these fallacies, I say: The war in Iraq is raging and operations in Afghanistan are on the rise in our favor, praise be to God. The Pentagon figures indicate the rise in the number of your dead and wounded, let alone the huge material losses."
The War Party must be jumping out of their socks with joy: at last they have seeming confirmation that, as President Bush put it the other day, critics of the Iraq war are giving "comfort to our adversaries." Yet this means much less than they imagine. Bush's entire Iraq project has brought so much comfort to our enemies that it has led anti-terrorist expert Michael Scheuer to describe the U.S. as bin Laden's "indispensable ally." The al-Qaeda leader is here indulging in a round of gloating, and – in view of the deterioration of the American occupation into a welter of internecine violence veering into civil war – he has ample reason to.
But gloating is not the primary purpose for breaking his year-long silence. It is, instead, to deliver a warning:
"To go back to where I started, I say that the results of the poll satisfy sane people and that Bush's objection to them is false.
"Reality testifies that the war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq, as he claims. In fact, Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment. … On the other hand, the mujahideen, praise be to God, have managed to breach all the security measures adopted by the unjust nations of the coalition time and again. The evidence for this are the bombings you have seen in the capitals of the most important European countries of this aggressive coalition.
"As for the delay in carrying out similar operations in America, this was not due to the failure to breach your security measures. Operations are in preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once the preparations are finished, God willing."
Bin Laden is right: instead of being pinned down in Iraq, the worldwide Islamic insurgency, of which al-Qaeda is the spearhead, has spread far and wide: to Europe, to South Asia, and – he says – has even infiltrated the American homeland. Given the utterly abysmal state of our defenses against another terrorist strike – as evidenced by the recent fulminations of the 9/11 Commission – is there anyone who really doubts OBL is telling the truth about this? We had better believe that "operations are in preparation." In the absence of such elementary precautions as inspecting all cargo coming into the U.S., we can't afford to assume this is an idle boast.
Bin Laden mocks the clueless Bush, who believes that "we're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them over here," by clearly implying that they are already over here and have been for some time. That ought to send a chill down your spine. The "preparations" he talks about may be just about finished: at least, that is how it seems to me. If you examine bin Laden's past pronouncements, and the public statements of al-Qaeda, a clear pattern emerges: there is a warning, followed by an attack – and a claim of responsibility. Bin Laden's public persona is very consistent: he says what he intends to do, then he does it. We have no reason to disbelieve him, or to assume he'll break the pattern this time.
Another pattern of behavior is that he always offers his enemies a way out: in the past, he has said that a change in U.S. foreign policy would have to mean a corresponding change on his part. His spokesman, Zawahiri, offered the Europeans a truce after the Madrid and London bombings; this was treated with contempt by every Western government and virtually everyone else, yet there is no reason to disbelieve him on this point, either. Indeed, he is quite explicit about what a truce would mean in a section of his message that was not broadcast by al-Jazeera, but was included in the Arabic transcription posted on their Web site:
"If I were president, I would stop the attacks on the United States: First, I would apologize to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that American interference in the nations of the world has ended."
While this may not be enough to spark a "bin Laden for president" boom in the U.S., it confirms what analysts such as Scheuer have long said: that al-Qaeda launched its global insurgency in order to secure certain specific and strictly limited goals, the primary one of which is to rid the Middle East of Western military and political dominance. By announcing that the U.S. would henceforth not be interfering in the affairs of other nations, we would effectively bring the insurgency to an end – and the threat of terrorism against the U.S. homeland would cease. This bin Laden pledges, on his word as a Muslim. It would be foolish to believe he doesn't take such a vow seriously, or utter it in all sincerity – just as it would be equally foolish to disdain his threats as baseless boasting.
Of course, according to the demonological view of bin Laden, which depicts him as an irrational monster entirely without any strategic sense – or even any genuinely religious conviction – he is not capable of sincerity. The offer of a truce had barely been uttered before it was rejected by the U.S. government, which announced that it doesn't "negotiate with terrorists." We negotiated with Stalin, with Hitler, with despots of every size, shape, and hue – and yet to do so with bin Laden, even if indirectly, is impermissible.
However, bin Laden is not asking to negotiate: what he wants is a change – a turnabout – in U.S. policy in the Middle East. This, in his view, is not negotiable: it is the whole rationale behind his jihad. The jihad will end, he says, if and when Americans realize
"That it is better not to fight the Muslims on their land and for them not to fight us on our land. We do not object to a long-term truce with you on the basis of fair conditions that we respect. We are a nation to which God has disallowed treachery and lying. In this truce, both parties will enjoy security and stability, and we will build Iraq and Afghanistan which were destroyed by the war. There is no defect in this solution other than preventing the flow of hundreds of billions to the influential people and war merchants in America, who supported Bush's election campaign with billions of dollars."
Nice of him to pledge to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, especially since the Bush administration has recently announced that no more reconstruction funds for the former will be forthcoming. While limousine liberals of the Arianna Huffington variety may lament that we are not following though on our alleged "responsibility" to lavish the Iraqis with a chicken in every pot and free medical care for all, it's odd that these very same people decry the multi-trillion-dollar bill we are in the process of running up. As for me – a penny-pinching libertarian – I'm all too glad to take Osama up on his generous offer: better him than the long-suffering American taxpayers, who have already had it up to here with Dubya's abortive efforts at "nation-building."
antiwar.com
I do not want gold to go up over something written above but with the forces we have worldwide pulling the levers once again IMO gold may do better but maybe gold or silverstocks may be a bit of insurance.
|
