So, I’m headed into work yesterday morning, and I stop by the George Mason University Law School — where I unintentionally impersonate a law student every morning — to hit their vending machine for my morning Diet Coke with Lime. On the way out I pass the security guards’ office, where there’s a television playing, and the news is on. I happen to glance at it and I see this.
I don’t even have to hear the news. In two seconds I knew just what was probably going on. Al Quaeda issued another videotaped message warning westerners that there’s more to come after the London bombings, if our governments don’t stop doing what they’re doing.
Sure enough, that turns out to be the message.
Rather than casting his jihad as an inevitable clash of civilizations, he frames acts of terrorism as justified by the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and offers to end attacks on the West if a full withdrawal is made from "Muslim lands."
"Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring you more destruction, God willing,” Zawahiri said, addressing the British people.
"As for you Americans, what you have seen in New York and Washington, what losses you see in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the media blackout, are merely the losses of the initial clashes," he said. "If you go on with the same policy of aggression against Muslims, you will see, God willing, things that will make you forget the horrors of Vietnam and Afghanistan."
"To the people of the crusader coalition … our blessed Sheikh Osama has offered you a truce so that you leave Muslim land. As he said you will not dream of security until we live it as a reality in Palestine,” he said. "Our message to you is clear, strong and final: There will be no salvation until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and resources and end support for infidel [Arab] rulers."
This guy, by the way, is considered one of the architects of the 9/11 attacks, and we still don’t know where the bloody hell he is. Why don’t we know where he is? Why is he on our televisions? Probably because we’re not looking all that hard, as we’re currently bogged down in Iraq.
But, back to the message itself. I’ve said it before and I’ll stay it again, because it bears repeating until more Americans get it. It’s our policies, not our way of life, our system of government, or even Britney Spears navel, that are the root cause of terrorism. It’s been that way for decades, but Americans don’t believe it, even when they hear it from the terrorists themselves. Mere words dont’ seem to make the matter clear to us and our allies. So, it is any wonder that bombs are used from time to time, to emphasize the point?
