[lbo-talk] the right-wing take on OBL's video: red states in crosshairs

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Nov 1 12:45:31 PST 2004


[living in one of the bluest states, what can I say?]

<http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41211>

GLOBAL JIHAD Bin Laden to states: Don't vote for Bush

Speech mistranslated by most media as threat against foreign countries

Posted: October 31, 2004 9:06 p.m. Eastern

The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired Friday on Al-Jazeera included a specific threat to "each U.S. state," designed to influence the outcome of Tuesday's election, according to the Arabic translators at the prestigious Middle East Media Research Institute.

The U.S. media have mistranslated the words "ay wilaya" (which means "each U.S. state") to mean a "country" or "nation" other than the U.S., says MEMRI, while in reality bin Laden's threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. MEMRI specializes in translating Middle Eastern documents, speeches and the like for Western consumption.

The institute has a video clip of the speech posted on a companion website, MEMRI TV

Translated correctly, bin Laden's speech suggests some knowledge of the U.S. electoral college system. In fact, notes MEMRI, in one section of his speech where he harshly criticizes President Bush, bin Laden states: "Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

The Islamist website Al-Qal'a explained what this sentence meant: "This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [bin Laden] said, 'Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization, Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body, to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and those who fight for us, so that he doesn't treat all American people as if they're the same. This letter will have great implications inside the American society, part of which are connected to the American elections, and part of which are connected to what will come after the elections."

While bin Laden threatened each U.S. state, he also offered an election deal to the American voters - a sort of amnesty for states that don't vote for Bush, similar to the ultimatum he directed toward Europe in April, in which he offered a truce.

The Islamist website Al-Islah explains: "Some people ask 'what's new in this tape?' [The answer is that] this tape is the second of its kind, after the previous tape of the Sheikh [Osama bin Laden], in which he offered a truce to the Europeans a few months ago, and it is a completion of this move, and it brings together the complementary elements of politics and religion, political savvy and force, the sword and justice. The Sheikh reminds the West in this tape of the great Islamic civilization and pure Islamic religion, and of Islamic justice ..."

Analysis of the speech by MEMRI's president, Yigal Carmon, reveals the absence "of common Islamist themes that are relevant to the month of Ramadan, which for fundamentalists like bin Laden is the month of Jihad and martyrdom. Noticeably absent from the Al-Jazeera tape was his usual appearance with a weapon, and more importantly the absence of references to Jihad, martyrdom, the Koran, the Hadith (Islamic tradition), Crusaders, Jews, and the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad on the duty to wage Jihad against the infidels."

Thus, for al-Qaida's followers, bin Laden's speech sends a regressive and defeatist message of surrender, concludes Carmon, as seen in the move from solely using Jihad warfare to a mixed strategy of threats combined with truce offers and election deals.



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