Airstrip One

Doubts on the video

Apart from the first point, I think that the rest of this is rubbish. The point on the Arabic video was quite simple, it was a home video not intended for distribution and taken of Arabs, not locals. And on the lack of culpability, I think that this is a sophists point. The existence of Al Qaeda made this event possible, so its continued existence (and the continued liberty of its organisers) is a threat to the United States. However the first point is telling, I was always doubtful about the authenticity of the letters. Anyway I got this through an e-mail list:

A contradiction exists between Bin Ladin's "new video" and the letters of the hijackers. The new video claims to have "proof" that Bin Ladin did the attack, OK, but why does it say that he thought the hijackers did not know they were about to commit suicide? Did not the letters "uncovered" by the FBI from the "hijackers" luggage shortly after the WTC attack claim that they knew they were about to commit suicide? Therefore we have a contradiction, Bin Laden "claims" (on this new "video") that the hijackers did NOT know they were about to commit suicide, yet earlier a few weeks ago when the hijackers luggage was "discovered", letters were found which said the hijackers KNEW that they were going to commit suicide on the planes, why such a big discrepancy? Obviously the lies have reached such a point where they have got clumsy. Also, why was an ARABIC "video" found in Jalalabad where the people don't speak Arabic? If it was for distribution around the Arabic world then they'd at least find much more of these tapes, right? Another thing, this seems to me to be an attempt to further demonise Bin Ladin by saying that he "tricks" people to commit suicide, thus making more people in the Muslim world oppose him and some of the just causes he stands for. More more thing, if the people then explain this contradiction away as "lack of knowledge due to the cells being seperate", then how can Bin Ladin be blamed for organising this if he did not know what they were doing? Think about it, if these "terrorist" cells really don't know what each other is doing, then how can we blame Osama for the attacks? So, if the people explain the contradiction between Bin Ladin's video and the letters of the "hijackers" as due to the fact that these cells don't know what each other cell is doing, then we CANNOT blame Osama for "conceiving, organising and carrying out the attacks."