It is a little too much to believe. The transcript of Osama bin Laden’s latest video includes this:
Burning living beings is forbidden in our religion, even if they be small like the ant, so what of man?!
So taking passenger jets fully loaded with fuel and passengers, then turning them into missiles at tall buildings, also filled with people, and starting fires that undoubtedly burned some people to death is okay? He continues, however:
The holocaust of the Jews was carried out by your brethren in the middle of Europe, but had it been closer to our countries, most of the Jews would have been saved by taking refuge with us. And my proof for that is in what your brothers, the Spanish, did when they set up the horrible courts of the Inquisition to try Muslims and Jews, when the Jews only found safe shelter by taking refuge in our countries. And that is why the Jewish community in Morocco today is one of the largest communities in the world. They are alive with us and we have not incinerated them. . . .
He also blames corporations for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After pointing to numerous imperial massacres, he accepts blame for the 9/11 attacks:
Then you claim to be innocent! This innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th – were I to claim such a thing.
He also offers ample fodder for neoconservatives who accuse peace activists of supporting terrorism and for bigots who link Islam to terrorism. This transcript recalls the tit-for-tat exchange following 9/11, where bin Laden would release a video inflaming “American” citizens, thus supporting Bush, and Bush would, in turn, do something outrageous, inflaming Muslims, who would join up with al-Qaeda.
Nothing good can come of this.