Pinkie Swear

Osama Bin Laden says he's gonna get us. But if we're nice, then he pinkie swears that he'll be nice too:

Al-Qaida is making preparations to attack the United States again but offering a truce “with fair conditions,” the terrorist group's leader, Osama bin Laden, purportedly says in an audiotape aired Thursday by Arab news network Al-Jazeera.

The tape’s release came days after a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan that was targeting bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and reportedly killed four leading al-Qaida figures, including possibly al-Zawahri’s son-in-law. There was no mention of the attack on the segments that were broadcast.

It was the first purported tape from the al-Qaida leader in more than a year — the longest period without a message since the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings in the United States.

Al-Jazeera said the tape was made in December, and the speaker refers to an alleged comment by President Bush about bombing the Qatar headquarters of Al-Jazeera, which was first reported in the British press on Nov. 22.

He also refers indirectly to the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people and to poll numbers that showed a fall in Bush’s popularity, as occurred in late 2005.

The voice on the tape said he was directing his message to the American people after polls showed that “an overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq but (Bush) opposed that desire.”

So old UBL [The Fox News Version of "Osama"] wants a truce now, does he? Well. He doesn't know who he's messing with! We're the red, white, and frickin' BLUE! We don't truce with nobody!

The fact that we haven't heard from Osama Bin Laden for a year, and that the events that he supposedly refers to are slanted toward American political identity and apparently not toward any of his own followers really makes this tape seem, well, let's just say, "fishy." It's no secret that The Administration likes to stoke the flames of Osama-fear whenever favorability ratings get low, and Bushy did just dip below 40% again.

But to be honest, the media warfare that the US has to put up is complicated beyond simply propagandizing either the American electorate or the rural factions of our enemies. It's much more likely that the US would find a message like this highly desirable to have on the airwaves simply because it creates social message-confusion. The more confusing and contradictory messages that seep through on all sides of this war on terror, the better for the parties that are fighting it.

It's simply not likely that Bin Laden would concede to any kind of "truce." In fact, a truce with who- and how is it crafted? It's almost more difficult to imagine what kind of political mechinations would have to be in place for Bin Laden's so-called truce to even operate. Essentially, entire nations would have to mobilize in unison to bring extremist practitioners under one operative umbrella; and some negotiating party would have to be discovered- and who exactly do you think we're going to send to the mountainous region of Tora Bora? Jimmy Carter? Or to Indonesia, or to Mogadishu, or where ever Bin Laden really is, if he really is anywhere? Whoever we sent, you think their intention is to allow our negotiators to live? Do you think ours would be to let them live?

Not a chance.

And frankly, we all know that Al Qaeda has been itching to attack again. Anybody who doesn't think there's a plot or 10 out there to attack the US again is foolish.

It's not that I don't believe this tape is genuine. It's just that I don't believe the message. What I mean by that is this: if the tape is in fact genuine, then I don't believe the speaker. They have no intention of forging a truce alliance with us, and there's no point in even pretending that they do. But it's also advantageous for that tape to be a plant and psych-ops teams are shrewd enough to get this material out into the world. Hell, it can't be all that hard.

Al Jazeera should do an in-depth investigation into the sources of these tapes. They are known to appear in their mail bins without a return address, etc. But it'd be, of course, very interesting to discover who these things come from. I, honestly, have no speculation as to who that might be. But it's win-win either way: If they're coming from terrorists, we can track down the terrorists. If it's not- then hey, we know that too.

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Updated late at night:
Appended a post Here, with slightly different thoughts.