Home > Latest bin Laden tape: Does it bash conspiracy theories?

Latest bin Laden tape: Does it bash conspiracy theories?

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 10 September 2006
5 comments

Attack-Terrorism USA

The first thought that came to mind when the recent, Aljazeera-released tape of bin Laden (talking to 9/11 planners?) was aired, was: Is this a scam by the Bush administration coming at a convenient date (just prior to the 9/11 anniversary)?..or is it an attempt by al Qaeda to throw bin Laden in Bush’s "wanted dead or alive" face?

I still can’t figure it out.

On Keith Olbermann’s "Countdown" show on MSNBC TV (USA),someone suggested the tape was a fake and a fraud, manufactured by the CIA (or some other agency) to counter the numerous 9/11 conspiracy theories now rampant worldwide.

To which I can only respond "Maybe". Who knows?

All I can say is IF this tape, as were "declared" the 3 that preceded it over the last 3 years, IS genuine, it sure makes the conspiracy stories suspect, does it not?

I’m not at all sure about who to believe anymore. After all there is "purported" evidence that at least 3 of the "claimed" 9/11 terrorists are ALIVE and WELL and living in the Middle East. But....

Is THAT story true?

This whole mess is a conundrum wrapped in a mystery, clothed in a dillema.

Any ideas?

Forum posts

  • This should not leave you with a big question mark! It is completly acceptable for you to be at completse disagreement and hold in contempt this administration and its policies without having to buy into all or any of the garbage flying around out there. I commend you for quesitoning all aspects of these conspiracy theories before promulgating them. Many of them are amusing but dangerous and ALL of us are subject to brainwashing if received information is not scrutinized.

  • My question to you would be: Have you seen the actual airing of the tape or have you just heard that it was air on Al-Jazeera?

    If you have acutally seen the broadcast, then I would ask are you facile in Arabic? And are you aware of the cultural protocols of the peoples of the Near East and/or Islamic societies?

    If you are an Arabic speaker and are familiar with the cultural foundations of Islamic societies of the Near East, then what can you say about the previous "bin Laden" tapes in comparance with this tape?

    As each of these questions are answered leads to other questions as to what is the veracity of this tape versus the others and what are the interpertations to the events and realities that are being presented to us.

    I am not critisizing here, just that there appears to be many questions that need to be answered and/or looked at before any kind of truer understanding is formed.

    — 

    On another site I saw a 4 minute clip of this tape. On yet other sites I have read that it is either 40 minutes in length or 90 minutes in length. So, one, my exposure to this tape is limited. Second, what I am being told about the length seems to be predicated on someone else’s knowledge (or guess) of the length of the broadcast.

    But I can tell you from what I saw of the clip, bin Laden is only clearly present for a few seconds in one scene. There is a lot of martial arts excersizes scenes with men in black masks. There are men in black masks doing push-ups, There are men in black masks showing other men in black masks how to fire a machine gun while fading. Then there is a scene where a group of men walking from the left of the screen to the right, where the faces are not at all clear. The taping of the walking men appears to be from a handheld and not tripod mount. In the beginning of the tape, there are men who are not masked, who walk down a small rocky hill and sit themselves down. You do not hear any dialogue in any of this as the Al-Jazeera commentator’s voice is overdubs whatever these men are saying.

    When the group of men are walking from left to right on the screen, all of them appear to be of similar hight. I read someplace that bin Laden is 6’ 4" inches; clearly not all of these men would be the same height. That is, there doesn’t seem to be one tall person and the rest of less height. It is hard ot believe that all of these men are in the range of 6 feet 4 inches.

    Where the clip ends (as the group of men reach the right on screen,) they appear to be a line of uniformed men holding AK-47’s in present-arms formation. (Who are these uniformed men?)

    All in all, this clip could be a composite of clips made for the war in Afganistan against the Soviet Union. The men on the tape doing martial arts in prepration for fighting hand-to-hand combat under the Muhajadeen.

    It would be of great service if the U.S. networks would air this tape in its entirity.

  • It is obvious to people who pay close attention to these matters that the latest bin Laden "smoking gun" tape is as phony as the first three tapes. All of these tapes are used to show that bin Laden was the "mastermind" of the 911 attacks. They are, in effect, his confession to these crimes. They are iron clad proof of his guilt - absolutely nothing circumstantial about this evidence. We are being told that bin Laden is saying, "I did it!"

    And, yet, with all of this "proof," the FBI still cannot bring itself to charge bin Laden with these 911 crimes. On his wanted poster, bin Laden is specifically charged with involvement in the two embassy bombings in 1998 in Tanzania and Kenya. The poster adds that bin Laden is also a "suspect" in other terrorist attacks around the world. Presumably, one of these other terrorist attacks is 911. But why is bin Laden only a 911 "suspect" when we now have four video tapes in which he purportedly claims responsibility for 911? Why hasn’t the FBI amended its bin Laden wanted poster to include the 911 attacks? Surely, being responsible for the deaths of 2,754 people should be at least as important, if not more so, as being responsible for the deaths of 200+ in the embassy bombings. What is going on here?

    http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

  • My hat is totally off to a guy who can still make "videos", seven years after his death. Does this mean he’s a god?

  • REPLY FROM MICHAEL WRIGHT (9/11 Skeptic of a Different Persuasion)

    First of all, what reason do we have to believe that some of the "alleged" hijackers are alive? Is there someone in the Middle East with the name Mohammed Atta who is alive and says he wasn’t a hijacker? Could there be more than one person in the Middle East bearing the name Mohammed Atta? Is there more than one John Smith in America?

    As for the "controlled demolition" conspiracists, I have some questions.

    1. Is there a single experienced professional in legitimate demolition of buildings who endorses the idea that the WTC towers were brought down by "controlled demolition"?

    2. For all three towers there were about 270 floors. How many charges of dynamite would have to have been installed, by the evil-doers, to bring about this "controlled demolition"?

    3. Don’t forget that all of the explosives would have to have been wired up. How long would it have taken the evil-doers to accomplish this?

    4. How could the evil-doers have accomplished this job without being detected?

    5. Has prominent conspiracist Stephen Jones ever submitted his article for publication by a peer-reviewed journal in physics or civil engineering?

    Is it possible that "controlled demolition" conspiracism is the REAL "inside job" and fabricated by the CIA to distract skeptics from serious truth-seeking? It sure makes great movies !