Two Speeches: Michael Chertoff and Osama Bin Laden Deliver Speeches to the American People

"Burning Living Beings is forbidden in our religion."--Osama Bin Laden

On September 5, 2007, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

According to Secretary Chertoff, not only foreign terrorists like Osama Bin Laden threaten our country, but also homegrown terrorists.

It even turns out that our satellites are being used by the Department of Homeland Security to protect our people from both natural disasters and terrorists who may be operating in our country. I think it's a great idea, but the Democrats are against it. The Democrats claim they are protecting my civil liberties, but I think the Democrats are protecting the terrorists and putting my life and liberty at risk.

The psychopathic lunatic Osama Bin Laden followed with a bizarre video speech on September 7, 2007. The video speech sported a creepy title reminiscent of Karl Adolf Eichmann: "The Solution." To us, Osama sounds delusional, and his grasp of history appears shallow, one sided, and ignorant; but many Muslims follow this charismatic leader. He is a formidable, persuasive enemy. We thought Hitler was a "nut case" too, but many Germans
followed this charismatic mass-murderer. [See SITE Institute transcript of OBL's 9-7-07 speech and a video link at the Counterterrorism Blog.]

This denizen of a cave or a mud hut instructed Americans to abandon Christianity and capitalism and embrace Islam. He accused the U.S. of genocide. He raved about global warming and globalism. He said that Americans should liberate themselves from the shackles of capitalism and globalism because it is fueling wars. What should we call Osama's half baked ideology, Islammunism?

He compared President Bush to Leonid Brezhnev and claimed that the American "empire" is about to collapse like the USSR's did. Osama even opined that corporate interests killed John F. Kennedy because Kennedy considered pulling out of the Vietnam War.

Osama actually claimed, not very sincerely, that "the morality and the culture of the holocaust is your culture, not our culture. In fact, burning living beings is forbidden in our religion."

Even the CIA at its most cunning could never cook up anything as bizarre and Swiftian as Osama's farcial claim that "burning living beings is forbidden in our religion."

Osama tells us to read the anti-semite Noam Chomsky, and he seems to have familiarized himself with the rants of the historical fabricator and former Professor of Ethnic Cleansing Ward Churchill when he claims:

"The genocide of peoples and their holocausts took place at your hands: only a few specimens of Red Indians were spared, and just a few days ago the Japanese observed the 62nd anniversary of the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by your nuclear weapons."

I had to keep checking my computer to make sure that I wasn't reading Mein Kampf by C.U. Boulder's Professor of Ethnic Cleansing Ben "Wansee" Whitmer or Security Minister on MIM.

And no wonder! Some analysts think that much of Osama's latest juvenilia was composed by that twenty-something misfit, the American traitor and terrorist Adam Gadahn.

Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda warns:

"Osama's call to the Americans to convert to Islam is indicative of an al Qaeda attack on US targets. Before the Prophet (Mohammad) attacked his enemies he urged his opponents to embrace Islam."

"Osama is presenting Koranic injunctions before planning to attack."

Saudi Professor Khalid Al-Dakhil warns:

"There was a US report warning of a possible attack, then came this. The whole message is focused on the United States ... this suggests that there is a threat."

"The more important thing is the message that leaving Iraq, which appears more likely now, will not solve the problem."

Amr El-Choubaki, an expert on Islamic movements claims:

"There's nothing new there, except for... when he called on the US to convert to Islam. In my opinion that's different from his earlier statements that contained a political dimension, references to oppression, and contained language that was broader than direct religious creedal language."

"I think it suggests a return to a closed and impossible understanding of religion."

"I think when there's impossible talk floated it reflects a crisis in discourse... It's clear his influence within the al Qaeda organisation... is now limited, so the impossible discourse comes to the forefront because it costs nothing. No one's going to ask him how he plans to convert the US, and with what means. But when he talks about specific objectives, that he'll attack this area, or that the US will withdraw from Iraq in a month... there people will expect results. So it's clear he's not capable of achieving anything possible, so he's switched to impossible discourse, which no one can call him out on."

M.J. Gohel, of the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London, mocks Osama's masquerade and describes the wording and sentiments of his speech as "those of a rebellious young western-born individual and not the head of al Qaeda."

Gohel thinks that sawdust is leaking from Osama's costume. Gohel speculates that the young American traitor Adam Gadahn [see also Gadhan] is heavily involved in scripting Osama's theatrical, amateur, and vain makeover, which is not at all the carefully nurtured holy warrior masquerade Osama had previously cultivated:

"There is a very theatrical and amateur feel about this particular message, and I suspect that Adam Gadhan, the California-born head of As-Sahab, al-Qa'ida's media arm, has played a major role in scripting and production of this video, and also orchestrating its release."

"Bin Laden dyeing his hair and beard, whilst hiding out somewhere in Pakistan, is really bizarre because it makes him, a man who claims he wants to be a martyr, look vain and ridiculous as he seems to have the time and priority to do a major makeover before appearing on camera. It does not fit with the image he has so carefully nurtured, the masquerade of his being a holy warrior devoid of normal human traits."

"He seems to have undergone changes in both his physical appearance and his personality."

"It is truly odd that bin Laden speaks about "the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes..." because the wording and sentiments are those of a rebellious young western-born individual and not the head of al Qaeda."

"Because video tapes featuring bin Laden speaking to camera are so rare, the release of this particular tape could herald a major attack, though remarkably this message contains none of his usual open threats against the United States."

"If it is indeed bin Laden then he is exhibiting a very different personality trait and shift from previous messages."

Mohamed El-Sayed Said, Deputy Director of the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo observes:

"The message is much more threatening this time. It's confident, it uses iconic language that suggests, 'I'm commissioned to wage an unending war against you, and the only way to get peace is to convert to Islam.'
It's very clear that he took care to give the impression that's he's at ease, that he's on the offensive and he controls the situation, that's he not a fugitive, he's very comfortable ... He's saying 'Now I can show you mercy or not.'"

"He's in a state of battle, a state of constant, unending war until he Islamises the world ... So they're not talking about Iraq, they're talking about the world."

Fares Bin Houzam, an independent researcher on Al Qaeda, comments:

"This is just a message to his followers and foes that he exists and that he is still the leader of al Qaeda."

"I am 100 percent sure that this man has no power to plan (for al Qaeda). He is just giving signals to his followers around the world." [See the same story on Reuters, here.]

A commenter on FOX NEWS feels that Osama is giving some signal to his collaborators.

Former CIA official and expert on Bin Laden Michael Scheuer offered these observations in "Analysis of Osama bin Laden's September 7 Video Statement" (9-11-07):

The commentators mentioned above and many other pundits—both right and left on the political spectrum—have described bin Laden's speech as something new and a blatant attempt to remain relevant in the contemporary world. That is incorrect. Bin Laden has talked previously on numerous occasions about the negative factors of capitalism and the inequities and fragility of the U.S. economy; many of his post-9/11 speeches featured his bleed-America-to-bankruptcy scheme, as did several of his interviews before 9/11.

In addition, al-Zawahiri and Azzam al-Amriki (the U.S. citizen Adam Gadahn) have repeatedly spoken in detail about these themes [3]. Indeed, al-Zawahiri's extensive February 2005 essay, entitled "The Freeing of Humanity and Homelands Under the Banner of the Quran," marked the start of al-Qaeda's now well-developed campaign of trying to support and deepen already existing anti-Americanism among non-Muslim groups—such as anti-Globalists, environmentalists, nuclear disarmament activists, anti-U.S. Europeans and other "oppressed people." These two men also have focused on the imperfect state of black-white race relations in the United States and championed the Islamic ideas of Malcolm X, and bin Laden—possibly for the first time—hit on this theme in his September 7 statement. "It is severer than what the slaves used to suffer at your hands centuries ago," bin Laden said in regard to conditions for white and especially black U.S. soldiers in Iraq, "and it is as if some of them have gone from one slavery to another more severe and harmful, even if it be in the fancy dress of the Defense Department's financial enticements" [4].

Western officials and journalists have also concluded that there is no "overt threat" in bin Laden's new message. Unless these experts truly believe that at some point in time bin Laden is going to explicitly state the time and location of an attack, it is hard to understand how they came to that conclusion. If Americans do not convert to Islam, said bin Laden—and he probably is not expecting many takers—our duty "is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you." That seems a clear threat. Moreover, bin Laden's prolonged discussion of his conversion offer is also clearly threatening in that it is an action demanded by the Prophet Muhammad of Muslims before they attack their enemy. As for another pre-attack requirement—multiple warnings—al-Zawahiri and Gadahn have fired a great number of warnings at the United States this year. [full text]