Al Qaeda’s top leader released his second audiotape in a week. In his latest tape, Osama bin Laden blamed “the industrial countries, particularly the great ones” for global warming and the world’s financial crisis, and said nations should drop the dollar as a currency.
Like the audiotape released on Jan. 24, bin Laden’s latest tape was released directly to Al Jazeera and not through As Sahab, al Qaeda’s propaganda outlet.
Bin Laden said that climate change is a “fact” and was caused by “industrial countries.”
“Talking about climate change is not intellectual luxury; it is an actual fact,” bin Laden said. “All the industrial countries, particularly the great ones, are responsible for global warming. The majority of them, however, signed the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to end the emission of harmful gases. Bush Junior, however, and the Congress before him, rejected this pact to appease the giant corporations.”
Bin Laden then blamed the “giant corporations” for the financial crisis and said world leaders support their actions.
“They themselves are standing behind speculations, monopoly, and the soaring living costs for people,” bin Laden said. “They are also behind globalization and its tragic repercussions. Whenever the perpetrators fall due to their evils deeds, the heads of states rush to rescue them using public funds.”
Bin Laden cited leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky, who he said “was correct when he indicated a resemblance between the American policies and those of the mafia gangs. Those are the real terrorists.”
Bin Laden mentioned Chomsky in a previous audiotape released in September 2009, where he praised the author and recommended his book.
Finally, bin Laden suggested that the world should renounce the dollar to “”liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America and its corporations,” despite the “grave repercussions and huge impact” of doing so. “Regardless of what will be said about the repercussions of this decision, the repercussions of remaining their slaves are far greater and more dangerous.”
Al Qaeda often attempts to latch onto populist causes to use them to attack the United States and the West. In his last tape, bin Laden again embraced the Palestinians’ fight against Israel as al Qaeda’s struggle, a message that is often repeated by Ayman al Zawahiri. Bin Laden previously mentioned global warming in the September 2009 audiotape.
30 Comments
Tune is next week for Osama’s message about “green jobs” for bombers!
A Saudi aristocrat from an oil family. A terrorist who has launched attacks on oil tankers, pipelines, and refineries including the tanker Limburg, causing untold ecological damage to the Gulf of Aden.
Yes Osama, climate change is real, and you are part of the problem. The day you die will be as much a victory for the Earth itself as it is for basic human decency.
Somethings up. The direct releases are kind of odd, the volume over the last two weeks is very odd.
Did they have foreknowledge of the Shinwari switch? Are they authorizing raids? Are the UAV strikes getting closer to home? Is this media blitz related to the Pakistani Army retreat? Did it dawn on al-Q that As Sahab might be compromised to US intel (it is)? Did they just want the wider-faster media reach of al Jazerra? Did they just get a new tape recorder installed in the cave?
Should we be expecting more such media releases from the 14th century?
PLENTY
QUESTIONS,
R
I wonder what he’s going to comment on next? NBC’s Thursday night programming or the harmful effects of trans-fats. This guy is struggling to stay relevant. The best thing we can do is to reduce the price on his head down to a penny, as Friedman (I believe) has suggested.
I had never before believed in climate change, even as a fellow Tennesseean named Gore warned. But since Bin Laden said it, I now believe!
Looking forward to his next missive concerning our health care debacle.
This has gotten into the realm of farce. You really can’t tell the difference anymore between the left and the jihadists.
So is the world wide Caliph going to institute limits on fossil fuel use?
On a side note, this opens up a great business idea. Carbon offsets for murder bombings.
All that fire, explosions, maiming and such contribute greatly to global warming, so prior to any detonation of nail bombs in fruit markets, buses, or hotels, a jihadist group must buy an offset.
This could be say the planting of a tree in Yemen or Waziristan, or the chopping off of the head of a non-Muslim person, thereby using the carbon of that infidel.
Yes, beyond the realm of farce indeed, when in American politics we are comparing each other to terrorists. But who is really throwing the rhetorical bombs, anyway?
To release the audio via Al Shabaab means you have to transport it to Somalia perhaps via Yemen (I’m pretty sure they keep it off the net … they worry about the NSA). Perhaps this is an indication that they’ve lost that transportation route or no longer trust it. Given the loss of multiple people associated with the Somali/Yemen connection last year perhaps they’re justified.
Another less farcical view would be AQ really looking for Western radical environmentalists (“greens”) and would like to convert them in place the be Green (i.e. Muslim) and use them in attacks. I have no idea how this would would work out but it seems very unlikely given most greens are left of center and not religious but then again he just needs a few people somewhere in the West.
The flip side is he’s just made life a lot more difficult for Muslim greens in the West but perhaps he’s making the appeal to Developing World Muslim radical environmentalists though the lack of any theology in the release makes this seem less likely. Just another reason to hate the West then radicalize them.
One the upside I could see the CIA running a sting with white western radical ecoterrorists trying to get closer to AQ.
Lets not go equating the Left with bin Laden now. I’m not even sure if this IS bin Laden anymore. He’s kinda like the Wizard of Oz at this point.
The people these guys are addressing have nothing to do with “the Left”, they are trying to talk to the textile workers et al in Pakistan who truely are under the whip of the local big corporations, which happen to be owned by the feudal leadership over there….
Global Bombings to Check Global warming!
This Dude is going to go places.
Well i’m glad he cleared that up, I hope he can spread the word on the chilean sea bass crisis. I also heard he only eats dolphin safe tuna.
Unbelievable. I really don’t know where to begin. I give the guy credit for trying. After all, there are plenty of nut jobs out there who will believe anything these people say. Actually, I think the more ludicrous the charge the more mileage they seem to get out of it. So why not. The sad part is that this truly brings to light the whole reason behind the Global Warming (or more currently “Climate Change” ) charade , and that is to financially ham-string the U.S. with some absurd global Tax. What a sham. Wake up people.
Daveed Garenstein-Ross suggested that bin Laden’s last statement was geared toward a Muslim audience, despite the fact that it was titled “From Osama to Obama.”
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/bin_laden_says_clima.php
While I think Garenstein-Ross had a good point, today’s release makes it pretty clear to me that bin Laden is actually addressing Westerners. Bin Laden is clearly attempting to exploit divisions within the United States and Europe, and between the United States and Europe.
Bin Laden’s rant against Western capitalists suggests that AQ has seen a significant decline in money and new recruits since the global recession. (Apparently, he has not seen the UN/World Bank reports crediting globalization and free market capitalism for the rise of over a billion people in third world countries out of poverty during the last two decades.) No doubt he is also upset about the decline in his family’s fortune as well with the tumble in the world financial markets. Ironically, if the world did go “green” and use dramatically less oil, the fortunes of his family and much of the Muslim world would plummet. Such is the inanity of bin Laden’s “logic”.
After claiming that the West was “stealing” Arab oil, (i.e. the price per barrel was too low), bin Laden struck the World Trade Center where the world price of oil is set. Should we now anticipate attacks against the NYSE and investment bankers like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley? President Obama might consider tempering his populist, anti-Wall Street/banker rhetoric given that it helps to legitimize such acts of terrorism.
This spoof of climate science may be of interest:
http://climaterealists.com/?id=4960
This comment,
Another less farcical view would be AQ really looking for Western radical environmentalists (“greens”) and would like to convert them in place the be Green (i.e. Muslim) and use them in attacks.
Is very much on target I fear.
“I wonder what he’s going to comment on next? NBC’s Thursday night programming or the harmful effects of trans-fats. This guy is struggling to stay relevant.”
Bin Laden is hardly the first to try to use “global warming” or “climate change” for their personal advantage nor will he be the last. He will use fools whereever he can find them. Some of the eco-terrorists do not have any real plan, they just seek chaos. Chaos in the west is OK in Bin Laden’s book. There have been some pretty strange bedfellows in terror in the past. Look at the links between the IRA and South American terrorists.
Heres what i think it boils down to; any global problems Osama can blame on the west he will! The next thing he will say is the cheeseburger was a CIA creation to weaken and cripple the health of the world.
Mark,
You must get the facts right: and the CIA has purposefully created the cheeseburger as a means of irritating the anti-American French, and their desire for culinery dominance.
They want Louisiana back and the destruction of Starbucks as a supposed cafe!
I wonder if OBL recycles.
I wonder if OBL recycles
Nice! Still lauging
Osama Bin Laden is a dead man talking
I don’t believe it’s him for a second.
When technology is advancing forward, how come Osama demoted from videotapes to audio?
The timing of the last two tapes is very interesting.
First a comment about Christmas in Detroit, then a comment about Copenhagen. Almost a reverse time line. But also, on the heals of a secret taliban meeting in the Maldives, where climate change is very relevant to their “man-on-the-street” vision of the world.
OBL is probably not in the Af/Pak region anymore, with health on the fall, and medical treatment always a possibility, he still needs to be informed, but not mobile. A nice warm climate like the Maldives would be a great winter retreat. But also, one of the smaller islands off Yemen, where pirate attacks could occur around him, and if there is one island NOT visited by pirates, that is a good place to start looking.
A 3 week turnaround on tapes hitting the media suggests a sea-route, AND a delay in news reaching him…. or he just has been in a hospital for the past few weeks.
Its surprising how many people here believe that this is a dead man talking.
The last line in small print in this al-J report says:
“The Obama administration dismissed bin Laden’s comments on the earlier tape and said intelligence analysts had not confirmed that the voice was that of bin Laden.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/20101277383676587.html
If still true, THIS is news.
Never mind the technology that these cavemen use, where is our technology to prove or disprove this voice?
Al-J claims to authenticate the recording, but i din’t know by what science.
“I wonder if OBL recycles.”
I think HE has bin recycled
I didn’t know the AQ library had works by Chomsky.
Hilarity aside, has anyone been tracking the climate change movement, the global warming movement, and other environmentalists? It’s turning in to a serious stress-point in some areas, with large scale protests and many arrests. One example is the protest at the Copenhagen Summit.
While bin Laden’s call to semi-solidarity is more than somewhat ridiculus, I just want to point out that he is declaring “solidarity” to a large group of people who share with him, if not concerns with the environment, then anger at many governments and large businesses. I consider this to be a minor threat, because that’s another good back door into radicalism in the West, and especially in America.
Also, I’m not against the climate change movement. I’m against the violent elements that are sometimes involved.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6954510.ece
I think this is actualy a Saturday Night Live skit. Next week he will tell us about the evils of childhood obesity. How ironic, the great powers and corporations use of fossil fuel is the source of Wahabi wealth that created him and sustains him. If only we could stop using arab oil, his life blood.