Here is the text of the bin Laden video transcript.
Now, read them and compare for yourself how much of what he said could have scripted from blogs like, Think Progress (who is complaining about the comparisons) and DailyKos as well as others.
Perhaps instead of complaining about being compared to bin Laden and people, rightly so, pointing out how their scripts are the same, they should ask themselves: WHY does bin Laden sound so much likes them, or WHY do they sound so much like bin Laden?
That is the important question.
Lets compare shall we?
Bin Laden on war crimes, mentioning Rumsfeld:
"In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the White House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up for the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation."
"And so Kennedy was killed, and al-Qaida wasn’t present at that time, but rather, those corporations were the primary beneficiary from his killing. And the war continued after that for approximately one decade. But after it became clear to you that it was an unjust and unnecessary war, you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, Rumsfeld. And even more incredible than that is that Bush picked him as secretary of defense in his first term after picking Cheney as his vice president, Powell as secretary of state and Armitage as Powell's deputy, despite their horrific and blood history of murdering humans. So that was clear signal that his administration - the administration of the generals- didn't have as its main concern the serving of humanity, but rather, was interested in bringing about new massacres. Yet in spite of that, you permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you - with your full knowledge and consent- to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan."”
The Jurist:
JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, says that although Donald Rumsfeld is resigning as US Secretary of Defense, steps should be and will be taken to hold him accountable for breaches of international law and even war crimes sanctioned in Iraq and Guantanamo during his tenure ...
Bin Laden takes Democrats to task for not keeping their promises to him:
"People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of the tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning. On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there, which has led to the vast majority of you being afflicted with disappointment."
"And here is the gist of the matter, so one should pause, think and reflect: why have the Democrats failed to stop this war, despite them being the majority?"
Nancy Pelosi:
“We are gathered here tonight in a ‘Candlelight Call to Action.’ As we stand here with our call to action, on the Senate floor the Republicans are impeding the opportunity for the voices of the American people to be heard by denying a vote against the President’s policy in Iraq. That is why we are here – to send a message to the American people that the reason it is impossible to put the legislation on the President’s desk over and over again is because over and over again the Republicans in the United States Senate say ‘No’ to the American people. They will not allow a vote on bringing the troops home.
Tom Paine:
For the first time in American history, Americans have gone to the polls in wartime and rejected that war. Not only that, but they’ve done so overwhelmingly. Just as the election of 1932 was a seismic repudiation of the failed economic policies of the Hoover Republicans, the election of 2006 was a landslide against the Bush Republicans and their criminally misguided war against Iraq.
Amid pre-election polls showing that voters oppose “staying the course” by margins of as much as three to one, the American people have issued a sweeping mandate to the U.S. government: Get out of Iraq.
Daily Kos also takes the Democratic "leaders" to task on Iraq, just yesterday:
So where are the two "front runner" candidates on Iraq? Have they conquered their fear and actually said something of substance regarding the pre-emptive capitulation bill?
Well, there's certainly nothing at Obama's blog, which tells us that Obama was a popular dinner guest at some supporter's house, that his wife was interviewed by Glamour, and that a lot of regular people really, really, like Barack. Banality, I have found your home base.
Well, what about his press release section? Well, I find out that Obama calls for a "return to national unity", that some of his advisors travelled to Iowa for "policy discussions", that he's against "special interests", and that he's announced a whole gaggle of special-interest "steering committees". Oh, and he wants a return to a "sense of possibility".
Well, you'd think the guy who needs to make ground on Hillary would show a little aggressiveness on the premier issue of our age, but I'm sure his same-ol', same-ol' consultants are focus group testing possible responses.
But what about Hillary, who could earn some brownie points for finally leading on a key issue shared by not just the Democratic Party primary electorate, but by ALL Americans?
Well, nothing on her blog about Iraq. We have video about what a wonderful time some HIllary supporter had with her after winning some "spend some time with Hillary" contest. But did they have dinner together like Obama and the winner of his campaign's contest? We get a ton of posts about how Hillary's two decades in Washington mean she's the person to bring change to that misbegotten town, all the while pretending to ignore the irony.
On her press section, it's mostly a bunch of people endorsing Hillary. Oh, and a statement about the latest toy recall. Because that's apparently more important than anything having to do with Iraq.
So it's Friday, and the two front-runners are still refusing to lead.
Nancy Pelosi, bin Laden, Paine and Kos all ignore the TRUE mandate shown by CNN after the 2006 elections.
Iraq was #4, not #1 as they claim and continue to lie about.
Bin Laden on Media:
"And for your information media, during the first years of the war, lost its credibility and manifested itself as a tool of the colonialist empires, and its condition has often been worse than the condition of the media of the dictatorial regimes which march in the caravan of the single leader."
Daily Kos:
For the past 100 years, the media has been predominantly controlled by right wing corporations. Many towns and cities have television stations, radio stations, and newspapers in which conservative voices and propaganda are the only voices allowed to be heard or seen while any leftist, progressive, or liberal voice is silenced or marginalized by its sparcity.
The biggest problems lies with four networks, three major cable news outlets (Fox, CNN, MSNBC/CNBC), two news gatekeepers (AP, Reuters), several national newspapers (NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today) and several internet news filters (Yahoo, MSN, AOL) that systematically cancel important news, provide cover for right wing politicians, and shift the Overton window several places to the right of center. In a nation where the overwhelming majority of people are progressive to liberal, George W Bush, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon never would have become President if it wasn't for the collective bias and negligence of these media outlets.
Think Progress whines about American's preferring to listen to "Right Wing Radio".
The Center for American Progress and Free Press today released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives.
The new report — entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” — raises serious questions about whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public radio airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans.
While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, right-wing talk reigns supreme on America’s airwaves.
I discussed the fall of liberal radio as the conservative radio shows flourish, with Melanie Morgan of KFSO radio, a popular conservative radio host, in an exclusive interview for Wake up America and the Washington Times, and here is what she had to say:
SD: Well you have seen for yourself what is going on. Now about your radio station, you see Air America and Jane Fonda’s new radio station, the far left and I am talking the far left, not just the liberal left, they have these radio stations and they seem to go down, yet the conservative radio stations like yourself, Rush Limbaugh and quite a few others keep going up, what do you see as the reason for this?
Melanie: I think that the liberal radio stations, first of all, don’t understand some of the basics of broadcasting, many of the people that are hosts are not professional broadcasters, they don’t understand that you just can’t cram a lot of liberal dogma down somebody’s throat and expect people to respond, there is an element of entertainment in talk radio that is very important, you also have to be able to back up your assertions with facts, we do that on a daily basis on our radio program KFSO in San Francisco, of course Rush and Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Laura Ingram and all the rest understand that you have to be funny, you have to be entertaining, and you have to be bright, it has to be a combination that is fueling our ratings and we watched with amusement as the Jane Fonda network crashed in flames and Air America has gone bankrupt, so I think that a combination of being ground in the basics of broadcasting plus being positive about our country and our freedom and our way of life is a message that most of America responds to.
Perhaps Think Progress should worry more about liberal talk radios failure to be entertaining than trying to promote some right wing conspiracy theory...they might just not sound so insane then.
Bin Laden mentions "civil war":
"And thus, what is called the civil war came into being and matters worsened at his hands before getting out of his control and him becoming like the one who plows and sows the sea: he harvests nothing but failure."
Harry "Baghdad" Reid:
Declaring that he believes the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to try to bring the war back up for debate on the Senate floor.
The Nevada Democrat said he has been "somewhat gingerly approaching this.... No longer. There is a civil war going on in Iraq.
Reid seems to think HE is the expert on the term "Civil War":
Iraqi police forces ``are more interested in igniting rather than ending a civil war'' and that violence hasn't subsided
Daily Kos:
One other point that has been making the sensible foreign policy rounds is the idea that just like colds go away after 10 days all by themselves, civil wars tend to burn themselves out after some time and if we can hang on long enough, gee, we'll be winners by default and George W Bush's wild gamble could be considered a success in posterity.
Actual Criteria for a Civil War:
Some civil wars are categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is a possible outcome of the conflict. An insurgency, whether successful or not, is likely to be classified as a civil war by some historians if, and only if, organized armies fight conventional battles.
Military Definition of Civil War:
“A war between factions of the same country; there are five criteria for international recognition of this status: the contestants must control territory, have a functioning government, enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed forces, and engage in major military operations.”
NATO on what is NOT Civil War:
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Glossary of Terms and Definitions (Organisation Du Traite De L'Atlantique Nord Glossaire De Terms Et Definitions) NATO does provide a reference for what is not classified as a civil war. The manual states that 'civil disturbance' is defined as "group acts of violence and disorder prejudicial to public law and order"
Sectarian Violence, not to be mistaken for Civil War:
Sectarian violence or sectarian strife is violence inspired by sectarianism, that is, between different sects of one particular mode of thought, not necessarily religious (e.g. conflicts between the nationalists and communists in China in the early 20th century are largely constructed by Chinese nationals of the time as sectarian). Some of the possible inputs for sectarian violence include power struggles, political climate, social climate, cultural climate, and economic landscape.
"At this point in Iraq there are still Sunnis and Kurds and Shiite who want to have stability, and they are trying to put down the insurgents. Now it is also purely possible that at some point they will give up. Then it is a civil war," Donald Kagan, a history professor from Yale University who's written extensively about war.
Another Democratic talking point bites the dust.
Bin Laden:
"This war was entirely unnecessary, as testified to by your own reports. And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war, but the leader of Texas doesn't like those who give advice. The entire world came out in unprecedented demonstrations to warn against waging the war and describe its true nature in eloquent terms like "no to spilling red blood for black oil," yet he paid them no heed. It is time for humankind to know that talk of the rights of man and freedom are lies produced by the White House and its allies in Europe to deceive humans, take control of their destinies and subjugate them. "
"So in answer to the question about the causes of the Democrats' failure to stop the war, I say: they are the same reasons which led to the failure of former president Kennedy to stop the Vietnam war. Those with real power and influence are those with the most capital. And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they presidential or congressional, there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment - and there isn't any- in the Democrats' failure to stop the war. And you're the ones who have the saying which goes, "Money talks." And I tell you: after the failure of your representatives in the Democratic Party to implement your desire to stop the war, you can still carry anti-war placards and spread out in the streets of major cities, then go back to your homes, but that will be of no use and will lead to the prolonging of the war."
Proving what we have said dozens of times, they watch our media, our reports, they listen to our politicians when they made idiotic statements public and they are emboldened by them, they watch our news of the anti-war protesters and most importantly, the point which started this whole post..... THEY ARE SPEAKING FROM THE SAME SCRIPT AS THE DEMOCRATS ARE.
There is no denying that... go read the rest of bin Ladens transcript and just take key words, as I did, put them in the search engine and watch the blogs, the media, and the Democratic politicians, and their supporters, URL's, pop up, dozens at a time.
The same script.
So instead of whining and moaning about being compared to bin Laden, maybe, just maybe, these far left politicians and pundits should ask themselves... WHY is your message matching bin Laden's...word for word in some cases?
Why does he sound like you, why do you sound like him?
David Brooks, a columnists for the New York Times says:
DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: No, ludicrous. I mean, on one hand, he's a malevolent guy who killed 3,000 Americans. But you read this thing, and it's like he's been sitting around reading lefty blogs, and he's one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom the page, you know, Noam Chomsky and all this stuff.
Perhaps Think Progress should quit whining about being compared to bin Laden and realize, these people are right.
They DO sound like bin Laden. They DO speak the same "lingo". They DO both speak and act like they hate America.
They DO read off the same script.
More comparisons between Olbermann and Laden from Stop the ACLU.
Tracked back by:
The Intrinsic Value of Silence - bin Laden's New Tape from Stormwarning's Counterterrorism...
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