Is Al Qaeda the New UN?

Five years have gone by, and Al Qaeda has failed to mount another significant attack in the United States. Its terror attacks in other parts of the West have been notably less lethal than 9-11, and more and more of their operations are being stopped before they can be carried out. Most of the operations they do manage to carry out are in Islamic countries and kill mainly Muslims.

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.