A new audiotape from al Qaeda’s “# 2” is out, and apparently it’s just brimming with fun stuff:
(CNN) — In a message released Monday, al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader called on Muslims to unite under Taliban leader Mullah Omar, stop trying to form secular governments and instead follow strict Islamic Sharia law.
The message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top aide to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, appeared on an Islamist Web site.
If anyone was still wondering whether Osama’s still chortling in a comfy cave someplace (are they?), this little request for obeisance to a mere mortal will probably shake their faith. It looks to me as if the media will have to come up with a new title for al-Zawahiri.
I suggest any or all of: rudderless, leaderless, and confused — since calling on Muslims to unite under the Taliban is about the fastest way I can think of to toss the entire al Qaeda “movement” under the wheels of the bus.
If there was one place the international community agreed, it was that the Taliban’s worldview was not going to cut it. But wait! There’s more!
Calling the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, allied with the United States, “traitors,” al-Zawahiri warned that the United States “is about to depart and abandon them, just as it abandoned their like in Vietnam.”
Advocating a pull-out? You’re abandoning them like you did the Vietnamese. (Thanks, we’ve heard that.)
And that doesn’t seem to support this:
Al-Zawahiri also took aim at Democrats, directing a part of his message to them.
“The people chose you due to your opposition to Bush’s policy in Iraq, but it appears that you are marching with him to the same abyss, and it appears that you will take part with him in the defeat and certain failure, with God’s permission,” he said.
“And the American people shall discover that you are all one side of the same coin of tyranny, criminality and failure.”
Not out yet? You’re going over the cliff. (We’ve heard that too.)
But we’ve never heard it about the same guys at the same time. Those two paragraphs, in fact, strike me as an odd, mutually exclusive, and (probably) inadvertant rebuttal to the GOP’s contention that the Democrats (most recently, Obama) are al Qaeda’s best friends.
Evidently, the new view is that the Democrats are damned if America pulls back, and damned if she doesn’t. I’m guessing the Democratic leadership won’t be sad to lose a friend they didn’t have in the first place.
Truly, a very interesting little speech. Something has definitely, radically changed.