TV Channel Airs New Bin Laden Video

Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel has aired a new videotape showing Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden's top deputy is shown claiming the September 11 attacks as a "great victory".

Al-Jazeera has showed a series of clips from what appears to be new videotapes from the al-Qaida network. In one, bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, kneel side-by-side.

An Al-Jazeera official says the tape was received a few days ago at its headquarters in Doha, Qatar. It is not clear when the tapes were made or how the station, known for airing bin Laden statements, received it.

Al-Jazeera also show a man identified as one of the September 11 hijackers speaking to the camera in a style similar to the video-tapes in which Palestinian suicide bombers deliver last testaments.

An Al-Jazeera subtitle identified the man only as Alghamdi. The FBI has said both a Hamza Alghamdi and a Ahmed Alghamdi were among the 19 hijackers.

"Those 19 brothers who went out and worked and sacrificed their lives for God, God granted this victory that we enjoy today," Zawahri said in the other tape.

"The great victory that was achieved was because of God's help and not because of our efficiency or cunning," Zawahri said.

When I saw the still on MSNBC my first thought was that the background was faked. Then when they said that OBL didn't do any speaking I thought maybe just he was pasted in.

Its also been reported that Mullah Omar has a statement printed in an Arab paper (al-Hayat I think).

They're trying to rally the Arab street in anticipation of the failure of the Powell mission.

And why are they waiting days to show the whole video? To not give us a chance to analyze it before something big happens?

Osama = Hari Seldon?

A couple of weeks ago I asked a friend of mine, Russian writer and Afghan war veteran Vladimir Grigoriev to find out if "The Foundation", a 1951 sci-fi bestseller by Isaac Asimov, a well-known American author and scientist, was translated and published in Arabic, and if so, under what title? Yesterday, I learned that my friend contacted his former professor Olga Frolova, currently the Chair of the Arab Philology Department, School of Oriental Languages, St. Petersburg State University, and she confirmed that the book was published in Arabic as "Al Qaeda", the title matching the name of the international terrorist network founded and headed by Osama bin Laden. (The Western media usually translates "Al Qaeda" back as "The Base", as if a base of terrorists were been referred to.)
This peculiar coincidence would be of little interest if not for abundant parallels between the plot of Asimov's book and the events unfolding now. The central character of "The Foundation" named Seldon, the pioneer of a new scientific discipline called "psychohistory", predicts that the Galactic Empire is about to fall. While the process of disintegration cannot not be stopped, Seldon decides to send an expedition to a remote place on the outskirts of the Galaxy and establish The Foundation, which is to become the nucleus of the next Empire. Even though the Old Empire tries to destroy The Foundation with its superior military might, Seldon's plan eventually works despite many predicted difficulties and occasional random hiccups. Seldon does not live long enough to see the triumph of his cause, but he leaves videotaped messages at a machine timed to broadcast them to his followers and instruct them at the turning points of The Foundation's history, as his forecasts are coming true.
I think the public would be relieved to realize that the internationally feared Terrorist No. 1 is trying to mimic a scenario from his favorite science fiction novel. I also believe that the study of "The Foundation" (along with its sequels and prequels) can help the decision makers around the globe to better understand what they're up against and what the ultimate objectives of Osama bin Laden are, much in the same way a study of "Mein Kampf" would have benefited Adolf Hitler's counterparts a great deal if they bothered to read the book and paid attention to what it said.

Ummm...read the link. It's not my theory. It's a theory that someone came up with that I posted here because it's relevant. I'm not completely buying it, but I find it interesting and somewhat compelling.

As someone who has read Foundation as well as the rest of the books in the series several times, I fail to see the parallel between Hari Seldon's plan and the madness of the Al-Quaeda.

It doesn't really matter if you see the parallel. The Beatles song "Helter Skelter" doesn't compel me to to out and start chopping people up, but in the world of Charles Manson it does. I think the theory, if valid, supplies a tremendous insight into the way OBL thought/thinks.

The story was that the pilots knew all along what they were up to, while the others just knew that they were going to get their 70 virgins.

But if this guy in the new video, who apparently wasn't one of the pilots, and apparently was one of the terrorists on the plane that crashed in PA, says something on the video that indicates that he knew at least some of the plan, then maybe this theory is incorrect.

Not that it really matters what they knew or not.

And Fred the background is the WTC as it was being hit.

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