OSAMA BIN WINGNUT?
What to make of Osama Bin Laden sounding less like a radical Salafist in his recent video than the infantile Sean Penn on a hysterical political rant, throwing in an homage to Noam Chomsky and global warming ? Well, government sources are pointing “Azzam the American”, the young Californian convert, Adam Yahiye Gadahn as the origin of the more childish rhetoric that seems to be ripped from the memes of the Lefty Wingnut blogosphere.
In my opinion, that is a stupid interpretation. If it comes from our intelligence agencies, and not some staffer at the White House, all the worse for us.
First of all, such an analysis gives far too much emphasis to the role of Gadahn, a relatively juvenile character. Al Qaida does not lack members with the ability to read English or surf the internet. The radical Islamist-terrorist community have long monitored American websites, particularly those related to military and intelligence circles; one of their favorite theorists appears to be none other than William Lind! Gadahn’s help in video production is a triviality, not a primary concern.
Secondly, the hodgepodge nature of the speech with Bin Laden zooming from Sarkozy to tax rates is indicative of an intentional raising of the noise to signal ratio. Much of this verbiage appears to me to be – well – irrelevant crap. It attracts media attention while distracting observers from two of the more ominous elements present in bin Laden’s speech – his continuing fascination with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the call to embrace Islam. The latter being a religious duty for pious Muslims prior to the unleashing of war and ruin upon an enemy; a call once uttered by the generals of Arab caliphs and Turkish sultans half a millennium ago, before the sacking of infidel cities by Muslim armies.
The Germans just rolled up a major al Qaida cell days before an attack was to take place. Perhaps we should be looking at potential problems just a little bit harder ourselves.
