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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mighty_Mezz who wrote (11413)	2/21/2003 11:58:01 AM
From: Mighty_Mezz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

U.S. officials were quick to point out that the bin Laden message directly incriminates Iraq and proves the existence of ties between bin Laden's al-Qaeda and Saddam. U.S. media touted the official line before even hearing the tape, or awaiting a reliable translation. "Undeniably links Iraq with al-Qaeda," says one CNN anchor. And then something happened that neither the U.S. administration nor the media anticipated: bin Laden called Saddam an apostate. The audio message goes on to reveal that bin Laden believes Saddam to be a socialist and declares that "socialists and communists are unbelievers," thereby labeling Saddam an apostate of Islam, an infidel. It is worth mentioning that the government of Iraq is quasi-socialist and secular, and not Islamic. Walid Phares, an Arabic-speaking MSNBC analyst finds that the audio message undermines Saddam's regime: "Osama bin Laden does not care about Saddam, in fact he can't wait till the demise of Saddam; he is trying to position himself to offer Iraqis an alternative ideology -- he calls socialism abhorrent to Islam." The voice alleged to be bin Laden's in the audio message also called on the spilling of Saddam's blood: "His blood is halal." This wording is used to indicate what is permissive or legally allowed for the killing of a usurper or criminal. The audio message also called forth the overthrow of governments supporting the U.S. -- Nigeria, Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. If bin Laden is effectively calling on Muslim Iraqis to overthrow Saddam and that Saddam is irrelevant in the coming war and Iraqis should not fight for him, how then can the U.S. administration use this message to prove Saddam and al-Qaeda are linked? That question left some analysts baffled. thememoryhole.org