But they’re not giving up yet. According to the Washington Times:
Al Qaeda yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks with threats of more assaults as the world remembered the day in solemn observances and some expressions of resentment over the U.S. response to the attacks.
“We have repeatedly warned you and offered a truce with you. Now we have all the legal and rational justification to continue to fight you until your power is destroyed or you give in and surrender,” al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri said in one of three videos the group released yesterday.
Don’t you think that Zawahiri would rather have marked the fifth anniversary of 9-11 with a major attack on the West, preferably the United States? Instead we get yet another Al Qaeda propaganda video.
It could be a slogan on a terror-camp T-shirt: “September 11th Came And Went And All I Got Was This Lousy Video”.
Al Qaeda is starting to sound like the UN, issuing warnings in the face of events they disapprove of. Next thing you know they will be expressing Grave Concern, or Studying the Situation. They may even consider sanctions against the infidels, or convene a special commission to look into our offensive behavior.
OK, we’ve been warned, Ayman. We hear you. This is our, what, 14th warning? When do you finally ground us and take the car keys away?
Seriously, we all know they’re trying to mount another big attack on us, and one of these days they almost certainly will succeed. But, after five years, if this is the best they can do…
Al-Zawahiri has more to say:
“The days are pregnant and giving birth to new events,” he said and warned that Persian Gulf countries and Israel would be al Qaeda’s next targets. He accused the governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia of supporting Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
If the days are pregnant, they’re like Penelope in “The Bed Sitting Room”: five years pregnant, and not looking to whelp any time soon.
By the way — do you notice that Ayman al-Zawahiri tapes his videos in front of bookshelves filled with ornate impressive-looking books, just like Henry Kissinger or the experts at CNN? Maybe they’re the same books.
Or maybe, like the TV studios in the West, Al Jazeerah has a standard prop for academic interviews, a fake shelf of books on a rollaway platform. No books there, just a batch of hollow fakes with gilt Arabic script printed on the spines.
Because that’s the way Al Qaeda is beginning to look: a hollow media event, staged solely for the cameras.
4 comments:
Someday, Al Qaeda will get the bomb, and they will use it.
That's something the UN will never do. Although if they nuke Israel, you can be sure the UN General Assembly will pass a resolution blaming Jews for their own destruction.
The attack on the US embassy in Syria might be their "fifth anniversary" event. Pretty weak.
Also, there's an excellent chance that UBL (OBL? whatever) is dead, or very close to it. How could AQ otherwise have failed to issue the greatest taunt to the US on the anniversary of 9-11 - a video featuring the mastermind of the attacks?
I'm beginning to think that the remaining al-Qaeda leadership are all dead and have been quietly replaced with expensive, Saudi-funded, life-sized animatronix 'dolls' (having stolen the technology from Disney?) set up in front of a blue screen, with the 'tent', 'bookshelf', or 'whatnot', added during post-production EFX.
I'd love to see the Zarqawi-esque screw-up out-takes from these 'death to the infidels' diatribes:
-the Zawahiri robot's beard catches fire during an overly-vehement speech, or his mecho-mouth starts repeating the same phrase-bytes in an audio-software glitch (e.g.: "Allahu ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-...bar-bar, ...bar-bar."), ad absurdum.
Let them do their worst.
Then they'll see our best.
Imperialistic Islam's fatal flaw: monomaniacal seriousness.
As some physiologist once noted, it takes more energy to frown than to smile.
And, thus, these grave fools expend their most fundamental resource in scowling, blustering, grimacing, growling, and frowning.
While we light-footedly laugh and recharge the wellsprings of being at their ludicrous expense.
When it comes to levity, Islam is lame.
What I think is notable is that almost noone was expecting a big attack on the anniversary - remember Sept 11, 2002? We all thought something big was coming. Some of that is just complacency, but I wonder how much traction the Dems can really get with their claim that we are "less safe" now.
When about 6 months had passed from the 9/11/2001, it occurred to me that we were crossing a psychological threshhold - if there had been immediate subsequent attacks, it might have cemented national unity and resolve. But the extended period of "phony war" made a new strategy available to the Dems - after a certain point, they could claim that any subsequent attack was proof that Bush was bungling, whereas no attacks would prove he was over-reacting.
Since the war in Iraq, they have changed focus to "if he hadn't wasted all our treasure and goodwill, and created more terrorism by his misbegotten campaign against a non-threateningt Saddam, we could have arrested UBL, which would have effectively ended terrorism; therefore we are less safe now". I don't know how far a position so convoluted (and so contrary to common sense) can penetrate.
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