New Osama bin Laden Video - Is this a joke?
September 10, 2007

It has been claimed that this is the first appearance of Osama bin Laden (in a new video) since 2004, although his voice has apparently been heard on a tape more recently. As most will clearly see at a glance, his beard shows no sign of grey hairs anymore (the result of dye we are told), and seems to be more curly/bushy than before. There are of course other facial differences, like the position of his ears, mouth and eyebrows, and if I am not mistaken, his nose looks like it belongs to a boxer who has been on the receiving end of far too many punches! Talking of boxers, can anyone else see a resemblance to Rocky Balboa?

Despite looking nothing like Osama bin Laden, many have accepted this video as real. The question of whether he was dead or alive no longer seems to worry Louis Caprioli of the risk management firm Geos, and former head of the French intelligence agency DST's anti-terrorism operations, who said "Now we have proof that he's alive, surprising a lot of experts who thought he was dead". The only surprising thing is how easy some people are to be fooled. Will Caprioli still believe this when future photos of bin Laden show a guy in a red suit and a white beard?

The video made no reference to any new attacks, and even though the government has kept everyone in constant fear since 9/11, there have been no further attacks on the US mainland. So what is the purpose of this video?

Perhaps a recent interview on Fox News between Chris Wallace and White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend, might help? When asked if the video is genuine, Townsend replies "Well, for sure, the intelligence community, having looked at it, believes it is bin Laden." (Intelligence community, who are they?). And the beard? "...the intelligence community will do a technical analysis to evaluate. Obviously, we're still going through that now.... we will obviously action any information that we find from that. But as you can understand, the particulars of the technical analysis are not something we're going to reveal."

Wallace asked if there was any evidence of Al Qaeda having "cells" in the US. Townsend replied "I believe that they've tried. I believe they're trying. We look every day to see if there are connections between Al Qaeda operatives overseas and here in the United States,"

Townsend was asked to respond to criticism that the US was not safer than it was before 9/11 and that efforts to try and prevent terrorism lacked urgency, "We have taken a number of measures.....when we talk about the progress that we've made, there's no question that that progress, the progress we've made to secure this country, is what's responsible for stopping the next attack. Does that not mean - the president has said it - we're safer but not yet safe? There are additional measures that we need to take, and we work at that every single day, but that's not to suggest that we haven't made progress."
To summarize, Townsend basically hopes that people will believe this is a video from bin Laden, and the message seems to be telling the American people: The bad guy is still here, there is still a danger, we must not give up on Iraq because this would be a victory to Al Qaeda, spying on the public will help to prevent terrorist attacks, criticism of the Bush administration's "war on terror" is "irresponsible" and "Al Qaeda views the United States as a more difficult target to attack."
Once again "bin Laden" has provided a video that has potentially more benefit to Bush than Al Qaeda, and of course arrives with impeccable timing. As for Townsend's comments about the United States being a "more difficult target to attack", maybe she has forgotten how easily the 9/11 attack took place, or was she suggesting it was more difficult for "real" terrorists to attack the US?
Some have said that bin Laden is no longer a threat and that these messages should be ignored. I agree, these ridiculous videos should be ignored, and the people who make them should be ashamed that the rest of us will be foolish enough to believe them!