For all of the angst from Western journalists about restricitng the press, seems the Bush administration got this one right as well.

Excellent observation. Welcome to FR.

BTW, why does Binny wear western camo gear?

Seems a strange way to hold one's hand...

I don't even want to contemplate the deeper meaning of Bert looking over his shoulder in other pictures. It's just disturbingly close to Nostradamus' quatrain about Elmo and the goat's groom. ~8+O

Thanks for the welcome - lurked forever...

I don't know why he would wear anything 'western'. He hates the west. If I had time I would see if he is wearing the same camo in each picture.

Seems the camo in this pic looks a lot like a topo of lakes. Especially his left side.

arkady

Thread from November 9th, posted by TheOtherOne, showing pics from October and November with ring/watch differences. Also in the last pic he's positioned his right hand so that his ring finger is sticking up alone as if to prominently display the ring that was not there in October.

Thread is here

His secret message to the Taliban:

"You knuckleheads--stop running and start fighting. At the rate this war is going the Rangers will knocking on my door in a matter of days!"

I don't know why he would wear anything 'western'. He hates the west.

It's a parasitic thing.

BTTT

Thanks for the link. An article in the Gaurdian about this interview says this:

"Even inviting a journalist to see him - as American planes and spy satellites traversed the skies looking for him - was a considerable risk. But bin Laden was willing to take chances to get his message across."

Read the article. This photo op was planned out weeks in advance. I am sure that the whole event was content rich.

arkady

If the terrorists can pull off hijacking 4 airliners I doubt that they are going to solely rely on MSNBC to send them Bin Laden's image. I think showing his videos lets the world know what kind of man we're dealing with.
And what message does this send to potential young terrorists? That his message is so strong that it is banned by the US? Doesn't that make them more angry?
Like skinhead propoganda, the best thing to do with his message is have it see the light of day.

Hi dighton - Interesting article. I understand that they need the West while rejecting it, but does OBL need a western style fatigue jacket? I don't know.

Fatigues are linked to war. He has declared war on the West. Perhaps his wearing western fatigues is just a blunt threat that he will use the riches of the West against her?

He has already done it with our planes. He has reportedly used our markets to his advantage. Perhaps he has done it with western lab equipment in producing WMD? What will he use next?

Just thinking out loud.

In the best of all worlds the video wouldn't be aired or banned. Journalists would show restraint and ignore it.

I personally doubt that the way he holds his fingers would be used to communicate with al Qaeda cells. First of all, news networks typically splice their rebroadcasts a bit, any complex finger gesture patterns could very easily be broken.

If it's true that cells use the Internet to communicate, they can pack 1000x more information in a 1000x more secure way through that method rather then relying on silly finger gestures.

It's kind of moot to try and censor CNN or other media news images, not least because of the WWW. Those who want to see videos of bin ladens interviews, can find them, even if CNN isn't running them 24/7.

People like Mohammed Atta are understood to have been Internet-savvy.

What would be funny, is if CNN or FOX retouched bin Laden's finger gestures, and aired a "Pack your bags and go home"-signal to his cells in the U.S.