New Bin Laden tape...nothing new

Al Jazeera, which filmed the tape, decided it did not have the right conditions of quality to show, but CNN’s Director, Eason Jordan, stated, rightly, that any news about Osama Bin Laden is of public interest. CNN broadcast the tape on Thursday.

Full of religious exclamations, the discourse denies involvement in terrorism but admits that terrorist acts were incited.

Predictably, there are sentences like “We shall work to continue this battle, God willing, until the final victory or until we meet God”. (We will fight on to the death).

Rejecting accusations of involvement with terrorism, Bin Laden says “The United States have made many accusations against us and against other Moslems all over the world. Their accusation that we committed acts of terrorism has no foundation”. However, he went on to claim “If inciting people to commit terrorist acts is terrorism, if killing those who murder our children is terrorism, then let history bear witness that we are terrorists”.

Calling the anthrax letter attacks in the USA as “a punishment from God” and “an answer to the prayers of the oppressed mothers in the Lebanon and in Palestine”, Bin Laden again threatened the United States.

“I can assure you that freedom and human rights in the United States are condemned”.

Osama Bin Laden’s excuse that he was not responsible for any terrorist activity is like a person claiming “I didn’t kill my neighbour. I told my brother to kill him”. Nothing new.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru