|
Description
Below is an article by Michael Scheuer out on Jan. 12 by The Jamestown Foundation. (Dr Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He served as the chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is said to be the anonymous author of 'Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America'. Dr Scheuer is a senior fellow with The Jamestown Foundation. Bracketed explanations and the underlining are by APS):
"Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's latest message is one of the richest, most comprehensive and starkly realistic he has issued since...[March 2003]. This essay considers al-Qaeda's dour recognition of its inability to control...events in Iraq as a small vanguard organization and a non-Iraqi presence in the country.
"On December 29, 2007, bin Laden issued a 56-minute statement that addressed Muslim insurgents in Iraq and built on his earlier message from October 22. The new statement was issued via al-Qaeda's media arm, al-Sahab, and appeared on several Internet sites without pre-publication excerpts on al-Jazeera television. Al-Jazeera's editing of the October 22 audiotape distorted bin Laden's message, incorrectly giving the implication that he was saying 'all is lost' for the mujahideen in Iraq. (Al-Jazeera customarily deletes anything critical of the Saudi regime from bin Laden's messages. This occurred in the case of the Oct. 22 tape and al-Qaeda apparently did not want to take a chance on al-Jazeera's penchant for politically correct editing with its most recent message).
"The latest bin Laden tape is - like its October 22 predecessor - pre-eminently a post-Iraq war tape. In both tapes, bin Laden declares that the...[US] recognizes that its Coalition has been militarily defeated in Iraq and predicts that US and other foreign forces will leave.
"Bin Laden does not provide the date US-led forces will withdraw; he focuses...on working with Islamist [Neo-Salafi] insurgents in Iraq to ensure the Americans and their Arab-government allies cannot build a national unity government that is an 'agent to America', dominated by non-Islamists and ready to permit the US basing rights and access to Iraqi oil.
"Because US-led forces have accepted military defeat, bin Laden argues, Washington and its allies must look for other... |
Looking for additional articles?
Click here
to search our database of over 3 million articles.
|
