OK, so if this will help Bush more then Kerry (which, at this point, I tend to believe), the obvious question is: Is that the reason Osama released it? :dubious:
Well, CNN is reporting, as I type this, that people prefer Bush to Kerry on the issue of fighting terror 53 to 37. According to you, Bush has a lock on the election!!
I don’t think that Osama really cares who is president. He only cares about his power to influence the world, and this video, whether for Kerry or Bushs favor, will influence the election thus proving Osamas power.
Has Osama said anything specifically about Iraq?
I haven’t heard anything yet.
Yeah…My guess is that even Osama himself doesn’t really know how it is going to play out. And, to be honest, he probably doesn’t care just as long as he gets some credit for influencing the elections one way or the other…It is a power-trip thing. And, given that the two candidates are basically tied and that one will end up winning on Tuesday (presumably), Osama will be able to claim that he decided the election whichever way it goes…And it will be difficult to disprove that claim.
No…But when I wrote what I did, I was thinking of the line in one of the Airplane movies where Shatner says, “But wait…That’s exactly what they’re expecting us to do!” (which of course would make perfect sense in his Star Trek persona where he is trying to outwit an enemy but makes no sense in the context of when he says it…which is of course the joke).
Simulpost with Muad’Dib!
…which is the bottom line, and well said.
Well, just have him post that in this forum, and we’ll rip it to pieces and explain which logical fallacy he’s using. That’ll show him!
Not in so many words John but read this article right quick
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20041029154209990018
Osama bin Laden, reading a statement to the American people in a new videotape aired Friday, directly admitted for the first time that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks
No surprises. They both say pretty much what you’d expect.
Thanks for the link.
Osama is speaking direclty to me-- I need to go take a shower.
I have to say that the west is accused a lot of not understanding the middle eastern but OBL has the west don’t pat.
I agree with the AQ expert I just saw on BBC. He says that OBL doesn’t care who leads America. Either way he’ll go on about his job of terrorising and recruiting in his holy war one way or the other. The timing will ensure that this tape and his message will get the widest audience possible. The seeds of fear and dissent will hopefully be planted in the US population and the Muslim world will se that he is still there fighting the good fight :dubious:
He was definitely trying to look more statesman like. No cave, gun or combat clothes. Well dressed in what looked like a well lit studio. He’s trying to give the impression of being on top of his shit.
A divided America, Europe and NATO is all good for OBL.
Unfortunately the public egged on my the sensationalist press and belligerent talking heads will go apeshit about this one way or the other. People will see this from a pro-Kerry POV or a pro-Bush POV.
What should happen is that all right thinking people be they politicians, anchormen, Dem, Rep, left wing, right wing or anything else turn their back on the extremist cunt and with one voice reject everything he says as meaningless to them. Then vote in who they want for their own reasons and then go kill the motherfucker and all his terrorist buddies.
Apparently, the US ambassador to Qatar tried to keep Al Jazzy from airing the tape. Not sure whether that really means Bush is all excited about this. In fact, his statement on MSNBC was actually sort of scared when he lamely asked that Kerry not use the tape against him in the election (I’m sooooo sure his surrogates will play by the same rules, right? Right?)
It hurts Bush, here’s why:
Everyone agrees that if Bush had delivered OBL’s head on a plate right before the election it would have been the ultimate “October Surprise”, winning lots of votes for the “wartime” president.
So … if instead getting OBL’s head on a plate, we get his doleful mug on videotape taunting us … that’s somehow supposed to help Bush too?
Uh huh … right … .
All this is is evidence of Bush’s failure. It doesn’t matter what OBL says. He’s a terrorist. He’ll make up whatever lie he thought would help his cause.
The important thing is that he’s still alive and free, not dead or in jail.
As I think I said a while ago about the Madrid bombings, I’m not sure they care which way it influences the elections. They only care about showing off that they can make us jump AND influence elections. It’s basically a way of throwing their weight around and showing the world that they matter more than anything else people might vote on.
Just heard both Bush’s and Kerry’s responses. I was impressed. Both showed a lot of class and basically said “We’re all Americans, and we all agree that he’s the enemy”.
minty: Bush will use it to remind voters of the threats we face from people who hate our freedom
Considering how recently his own Secretary of Defense was downplaying the bin Laden threat, though, I don’t see how Bush can play that card without coming across as a flip-flopper:
So when we can’t find the guy and don’t hear from him for a while, he’s “hiding and running and trying to survive” and possibly even dead, and his fate doesn’t really make a difference to the problem of international terrorism? But when we hear from him, all of a sudden he’s terribly dangerous again? Which is it?
Based on this article, I’d have to agree with you.
For those who don’t want to register, Bush’s comments included “Let me make this very clear. Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I’m sure Senator Kerry agrees with this.”
John Kerry said, “Democrat, Republican, there’s no such thing. There’s just America and we are all united in hunting down and capturing or killing those who conducted that raid and we always knew that that was Osama bin Laden.”
Possibly the only sour note is that Kerry did criticize GWB’s handling of the war on terror. I think he is justified in his criticism, and it would be hypocritical to stop doing that now. In his defense, the article doesn’t make clear if he said those things today before the contents of the tape had been disclosed.
I wonder if this tape might have a totally unexpected effect on the country. Reading what the two candidates said, in the context of what is possibly the most bitter, partisan election since the Civil War, perhaps this tape might remind us that we Americans are more united than not. It’s not much, but it has to be beneficial to remember that there is someone out there that we all hate more than that misguided chucklehead of a coworker with his constant shilling for (pick one) Bush/Kerry.
But that’s just for those voters who have this as their determining factor. You might feel this way but like Kerry’s economic plan better. For single-issue 9/11 voters, they were in Bush’s camp before.