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I have no interest whatsoever in watching or analyzing the video. However, if I can be convinced it would be for the greater good of The West and/or some of its people whom I like, I can take a look.

In either case, the video’s authenticity is only an issue for us, The West. People see what they want to see, and they hear what they want to hear; so those who want this video to be authentic will see it and treat it as such.

And I do not expect our mainstream media to analyze this accurately. It cuts into their propagandizing.

I, for one, do not want UbL to turn up dead or obsolete. So many people in The West are are so stupid as to think the War on Terrorism is all about UbL. It isn’t. As Fred! (upon whom be peace, victory, the Presidency of the United States, and crushing defeat of his foes, amen) said, the war will continue without and after UbL.

I fear what half-truths and misrepresentations the Left — and various Islamists that use it — will begin to weave if UbL turns up dead. Best to use him as a puppet to prop up the War. After all, Islamists can use him whether he is dead or alive. Consider that Abdullah Azzam’s writings began to be most popular only after he was killed.

Et cetera, et cetera.

And pardon my intrusion, but what does the video have to do with London?

The possibility that the video was a signal to trigger additional attacks. The guys they picked up in Germany, for example, were apparently told to act within a couple of weeks of the eleventh (if the reports are correct).

London is as hot as a powder keg. Between home-grown British thugs and the intensely volatile mix of recent immigrants, it’s simply not a safe place to be at any time. I wouldn’t ride the Underground this week on a bet.

By a puppet, I meant the identity and conception of UbL, not the man himself. Since he has yet to be killed or apprehended, trotting out “We still need to get UbL! Fund the war!” can still work.

Because not everyone realizes the true nature and scope of this war, and we cannot possibly explain it to them.

If UbL did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
Voltaire

Frankly, I think both sides are well served by the legend of Zorro Osama bin Laden. As Muslihoon points out, Americans like a nice neat ending point – the bad guy dies, the movie ends, and we all go home and have ice cream. So, better to keep him alive or the kids will want to leave the theater of war.

As for the Islamists (Muslihoon – Can you recommend a better title for them? Islamic Fundamentialist is just too hard to type without mistakes) I believe that UbL is now a symbolic figure -sort of the perverse and evil shadow of El Cid (who inspired his soldiers to a victory even after his death because his wife strapped his dead body to his horse and sent him into battle to rally them). In short, his death hardly matters to them.

As for the timing of the video – the 5th anniversary of 9/11 was a miserable failure for the terrorists – it went by without a bang. Osama – Dead or not – HAD to put out a video this year to show that the cause is still alive.

I also expect that there will be a major bombing tomorrow simply because when you fail as miserably as they did last anniversary, you HAVE to do something big this year. We’ve already seen two plots disrupted, but I’m sure that – like the cockroachs they are – we didn’t get them all.

However, I don’t believe that UbL directs anything any more, alive or not. You now have a group of philosophical converts acting from his inspiration without much central command or control. We saw this with the anarchist movement around 1900. For approximately 15 years they went around killing Kings and Presidents on the theory that the world would magically get better if all the leaders were dead.

Sadly, the anarchists didn’t disappear until the end of WWI. By then, everyone who wanted a chance to die had already gotten to.

A friend of mine is going for a family visit to Germany sometime this month. My better half is going on business next month (he will visit some family too). To Frankfurt. Bidness trips make him very cranky. Ones where he has to take the boss aside to tell him to make sure any company insurance policies go smoothly for his survivors, if anything goes amiss, makes him downright surly.
Though he says a quick end would be less painful than the long drawn out death he is experiencing behind his desk.

If he’s alive enough for audio but not enough for video, the reason is potentially very interesting. Maybe it’s just easier to record and smuggle audio. Or maybe living in a cave with weak kidneys for a few years has morphed him into a feeble old man. If the latter, there’s a slim chance it could be propaganda for us, if we can nab him.

Think wild-haired, crazy grampa Saddam pulled out of his spider hole with his Doritos and his beanie weanies. He hasn’t proved to be much of a rallying point, has he?

Was it not an anarchist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand? I know he was a Serb nationalist: can one be a nationalist and an anarchist?

Y’all make excellent points.

Lokki: so I assume Militant and Militancy-Friendly Modern Reformist Fundamentalist Terrorist and Terrorism-Friendly Islamist Muslim Radicals would be a bit of a mouthful, eh?

I prefer “Islamist” because Islamism encompasses the militant and not-overtly-militant aspects of the ideological war we are in. It does not behoove us to forget the non-combatants who are just as important in the militants’ networks of terror, crime, and violence. Without the fundraisers in Michigan, how can they blow up Jewish children?

That said, “Muslim radicals” also works, albeit slightly inaccurate. (It suggests that they are on the fringe, which, the case may be made, they may not be. The peaceniks are on the fringe, indeed: they are the true radicals. But whatever.)

But then I am the worst person to ask, dearest sir. I get very persnickety about such issues as terminology and the inclusion and exclusion of aspects of Islamism/terrorism. I could go on for pages and pages and pages.

Muslihoon,

You? persnickety ? No!!!

Just teasin’. I like what you pray for vis-a-vis Fred!

I think this nation is more than ready for a divorced, lady’s man, flirt, and all-’round good ol’ boy – who’s not at all afraid to state that he is these things! – for prez. The fact that his current wife has huge hooters and yards of cleavage is just icing on the cake.

Well, hell. I like all your points, too, M.