According to CNN:
In the video, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2, castigated Obama’s foreign policy stances on Afghanistan and Israel and ridiculed the president-elect’s worldview. Al-Zawahiri compared Obama unfavorably to the late Malcolm X, an African-American militant who adopted Islam.
Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden are believed to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Al-Zawahiri can be heard saying, “In you and in Colin Powell, [Condoleezza] Rice and your likes, the words of Malcolm X (may Allah have mercy on him) concerning ‘house Negroes’ are confirmed.”
Interesting use of terms, and it made me wonder. We don’t really know who these folks are, just what we see on videotapes. I propose we shoot Ralph Nader and see if these tapes stop.
Justin
lol. He called him a House Negro. Who know AQ was down with Malcolm! They probably got Spike Lee’s Malcolm X from Netflix and couldn’t resist writing that. I guess they don’t think having Rev. Wright for a preacher makes Obama a militant black man.
Genine
That is wrong.
Funny…
but wrong.
4tehlulz
Political correctness has gone too far. Even terrorists can’t drop an n-bomb anymore.
Bulworth
"I propose we shoot Ralph Nader and see if these tapes stop."
Damn, that is some funny shit.
drumwolf
So how will the US right wing react? You know, the "BUT BARACK HUSSEIN O(B/S)AMA IS A SECRET MUSLIM!!!111" folks.
Personally, I wouldn’t bet on them acknowledging it at all — they seem to be pretty good at dismissing anything that’s inconvenient to their ideological party line.
Comrade Stuck
I vote for Al-Zawahri to take up the GOP mantle as the NYT wingnut replacement for Bloody Bill Kristol. He could also be considered a running mate for Sarah Serendipity in 2012, as their rhetoric have striking similarities.
Will
Is it acceptable to acknowledge that Bin Laden is probably dead?
Seriously, if he were alive by now we would have gotten some sort of tape addressing current events – such as the tape under discussion. But instead of discussing a tape by Bin Laden on the subject of Obama we’re discussing a tape by Zawahiri.
Sorry, I know he’s the most wanted man in the world, but at some point someone should have been able to get a video camera to him, and then the tape back to the world. That that hasn’t happened indicates to me that OBL is dead.
Dave
Wow is that funny. You should win at least two bandwidth-throttled internet tubes for that one.
Ming
I deny snorting uncontrollably at your insensitive and ill-considered remark about Nader.
Bob In Pacifica
That’s hilarious.
But maybe a little truth. False flag ops are all over the place.
If anyone now can find Mae Brussell’s 1970s essay on the Symbionese Liberation Army it’ll send a chill up your spine.
Then again, could Joe Lieberman have been a deep cover Democratic operative sent to sink both the Bush regime and McCain’s Presidential campaign?
Okay, I’ll put down the crackpipe and walk away from the computer.
Brachiator
This is one of the few times where I wonder whether the CIA or some other group is trying to … "assist…" Al Qaeda. Previously, their anti-US or anti-Western rants don’t demonstrate any strong grasp of Western social or political thinking, and are typically delusionally focused on a fantasy that some medieval brand of Islam will overwhelm the entire world.
But this "house Negro" stuff reminds me of the kind of Rovian attempts to paint Obama as an effete country club elitist. It’s the kind of thing that someone who is a lifetime member of the National Review set might come up with after he or she joined the State Department or one of the intelligence services, but it is also weirdly about 30 years behind even being remotely relevant to American thinking.
I could easily imagine some American intelligence goon coming up with a Malcom X reference, especially since this kind of moron wouldn’t be up on the fact that Malcom had renounced the majority of his strident nihilistic world view in the last period of his life.
This also, sadly, reminds me of some of the attempts to demonize Haiti’s Aristide as a pro-communist Castro puppet, which clearly had CIA fingers all over it.
In short, this supposed Al Qaeda tape reeks bad, and the stink points back here, not to the Middle East.
linda
"I propose we shoot Ralph Nader and see if these tapes stop."
or, perhaps it’s the pentagon playing with their toys:
"Gentlemen! We have called you together to inform you that we are going to overthrow the United States government." So begins a statement being delivered by Gen. Carl W. Steiner, former Commander-in-chief, U.S. Special Operations Command.
At least the voice sounds amazingly like him.
But it is not Steiner. It is the result of voice "morphing" technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
By taking just a 10-minute digital recording of Steiner’s voice, scientist George Papcun is able, in near real time, to clone speech patterns and develop an accurate facsimile. Steiner was so impressed, he asked for a copy of the tape.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm
Zifnab
@Comrade Stuck:
They edited back some of the tape. I think I found the rest of it.
Comrade Stuck
Sounds like Al Zawahiri has come out four square against Affirmative Action. Maybe he’d like to expound in a speech at the next C-Pac meeting.
OriGuy
The AP report says, ‘Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house negroes."’ al-Zawahri may not have read Malcolm X but I’ll bet the translator did. Not surprising, actually, as he was the most famous American Muslim. Until Obama, of course.
Tsulagi
Works for me. Especially if you can step into a way-back machine and take him out in 2000.
jake 4 that 1
Uh … Yeah. Either something got lost in translation or the Afghanistan had another record-setting pot and poppy crop.
The Moar You Know
Lord, yes. Every bullshit detector in my brain went off on hearing this on my drive in to work. The phrasing, even in the original Arabic, is way to "American" for me to believe that this could be authentic.
Cassidy
AQ reads National Review?
Cassidy
A lot of these guys are American trained. It is inevitable that they’d pick up on our mannerisms. Secondly, most of us military folk are happy about the election.
Cassidy
A lot of these guys are American trained. It is inevitable that they’d pick up on our mannerisms. Secondly, most of us military folk are happy about the election.
PK
They are closet republicans!
Zifnab
@Tsulagi:
Ralph Nader did not spoil the 2000 election. Stop being a ‘tard. Ditch Ralph and you just have Katherine Harris "lose" a few thousand more Gore votes. The SCOTUS still denies the recount. Al Gore still loses Florida.
Stolen elections don’t get any less stolen because you get rid of a few bystanders. And Gore – the author of "An Inconvenient Truth" and the bastion of the modern Green Movement – lost votes to a third party shlub on the Green Party ticket. Maybe it was kinda-sorta his own damn fault a little bit too.
David
"I propose we shoot Ralph Nader and see if these tapes stop."
Yes, that is funny.
But, ya know….I’m thinking there’s something a good deal more twisted than Nader-ism behind this.
Maybe something truly unhinged.
Think NRO’s Chief Buffoon, K-Jo Lopez, whose "logic" regularly defies all known tests of cognitive cohesiveness and orientation.
A thorough audit of her audiotaping equipment might be revealing.
Tsulagi
@Zifnab: You still got your luv on for the Ralph, don’t ya Zif? You betcha.
jake 4 that 1
@Cassidy: Heh. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kathryn Jean Lopez is Al-Zawahirikiri in drag.
Has anyone ever seen them in the same room?
Brick Oven Bill
Maybe someone can explain to me why it is the United States’ strategic interest to pour more blood and treasure into Afghanistan. There is no oil in Afghanistan and I don’t think our increased presence will make the Afghanis act like the Waltons.
I know we want them to like us, but they don’t.
Dan
Thanks Bush for screwing up the world!!! Brilliant, our wonderful little puppet idiot…. how many days do we have left with you?
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Brachiator:
I’ve always suspected that Bin Laden was the embodiment of Emmanual Goldstein.
And indeed, we may never know. But Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Comrade Kevin
@Bob In Pacifica:
I think I probably have a copy of that somewhere, was it in The Realist?
TenguPhule
As opposed to Iraq?
Because we had fucking support for Afghanistan. And if real money had been spent FIXING the damn place, it would be back on its feet by now.
JohnRJ08
Ironically, if Obama went to visit Al-Zawahiri at his house, he would have his head sawed off. Better to be the "House Negro" and president of the most powerful nation on Earth, I think. Al Qaeda is about as inclusive as the right-wing of the Republican Party.
jenniebee
@Zifnab:
Maybe so, but without Nader, Gore would have easily picked up New Mexico instead.
My problem with Nader, and with Unrepentant-Naderitis is that Nader’s 2000 campaign was based on the supposition that there was no meaningful difference between the Republican and Democratic candidate in 2000.
Was Al Gore a corporate-interest pol clone whose government would have focused on protecting corporate profits and property to the detriment of the public good? I think it’s hard to argue today that that was, in fact, the case. Was George Bush no worse for the country than Gore, even in the broad scheme of things? Personally, I can’t even ask that question without feeling like I need a stiff drink.
Tsulagi
@Cassidy:
Don’t know about most, but yeah, even some in the officer corps are too.
I work in a little part of the defense industry. Talked to one active colonel since the election. Asswipe (actually he’s a good guy) said he voted for McCain, but was relieved he lost. Especially if McCain goes down sometime within the next four years. Said he couldn’t imagine any scenarios with Palin as CIC and president that would go well.
jenniebee
@Brick Oven Bill:
Jesus H. Fucking Christ, didn’t you get the memo? You are never, never, never supposed to admit that the purpose of invading middle eastern countries was to secure their oil production for our use.
Brick Oven Bill
I, for one, am willing to sit down and negotiate without pre-conditions with Al Qaeda. I will tell them that they can have whatever they can take in Eurasia, and that Islam will be banned in the Americas via the RICO Statutes.
We will welcome all Apostates with open arms, and humanely and respectfully repatriate Muslims choosing to maintain their allegiance to Mohammed to one of the 57 Islamic States at our cost.
Then we leave them alone, and they leave us alone. Oceans make for good neighbors.
Nick
HAHA! The tone of this article, not to mention the mere publication of this story attest to this crazy misunderstanding about radical Islamists and their perception of our society. Two crazy themes that have surfaced in the media over the last year:
1. This obsession that the media has with "who Al Qaeda wants to be president". Who cares? What is their criteria? A president who will reverse allegedly oppressive, imperialistic policies that are also anti-Islamic, which will satisfy their complaints and temper the rage that fuels them in the first place towards us? Or a weak president who they can bully and intimidate to further their cause of destroying our society?
2. Even if they had a hard and fast opinion about who they would like to be our president, why should we believe what they say? If you remember, they attacked our country and killed thousands of our citizens, with no discretion for gender, age, faith, etc. And by all accounts, they desire to do this again and again. Why should we lend creedence to a statement about their intentions. They are in every sense of the word, our mortal enemies.
The media is really stupid sometimes.
Tom65
Amazing. AQ can get a video tape out of the mountains of Pakistan, but Chief Editor Korir can’t get a simple audio tape out of Norway. Go figure.
TheHatOnMyCat
There are no circumstances in which I can think that suggestions to shoot a presidential candidate are okay on a blog.
Seriously, if I were you, I’d take that down, and the comments in which it is embedded.
It isn’t funny and it isn’t acceptable AFAIC.
No matter who you are talking about, or why.
Krista
Maybe someone can explain to me why it is the United States’ strategic interest to pour more blood and treasure into Afghanistan.
1. Maybe because of him?
2. Maybe because your NATO allies, outraged on your behalf after 9/11, decided to join you in Afghanistan to defeat Al-Qaeda. You then decided to take off to Iraq, leaving your allies to get their asses shot off. It really would be rather polite of you to go back and help us finish the job, seeing as we’re sort of fighting on your behalf.
3. Maybe because it’ll finally send a message to the world that you’ve got your fucking priorities straightened out.
scarshapedstar
My ex-girlfriend voted for me as the Georgia Soil & Water Conservation Commisioner. I am aware of all internet death threats against myself, ironic and otherwise, and demand they be ceased and desisted forthwith.
Texcentric
It’s truly amazing how many people want to particpate in being part of a spin machine. grow up! this is a message from fanatics who would like nothing better then to keep on keepin on.
President(elect) Obama is going to smoke em out, and smoke and sassafrass their little hinnies. with or without your "support". Please don’t call yourself an American though, k? Your just a visitor to the grand experiment, watching from the sidelines and chirping like a little babie chicken who can’t figure a damn thing out. Because you’re still blind!
You are the past. The cia planted this or helped create it?
what a waste of a life ! wake up before the whole parade passes you by!
Ash Can
Re BOB at #32, wow. Is LSD coming back into fashion?
garyb50
This must be the October Surprise.
Mnemosyne
The Afghanistan oil pipeline.
You’re welcome.
metricpenny
I believe there was an error in the translation.
I think it should be "White House Negroes".
Tsulagi
@Krista:
Geez, I can’t see Canada from my window to verify, but it seems at least some testy Brie-loving, gay marrying, socialist Canucks to the north get what our Freedom Fries patriots don’t.
;)
brantl
Shooting him seems a little extreme, I suggest the Richard Pryor/"Mudbone" approach, tape his mouth shut, then, right after Bin Laden speaks, see if the tapes been cut off…….
Brick Oven Bill
Nice try, no credit, Mnemosyne. North America does not have 3% of the world’s petroleum resources, it has over 60%, when you count the oil shale. The Democratic Party, until this week, had been blocking domestic oil shale development. This policy was in place to keep oil prices, and oil company profits, high.
Do not believe what these politicians tell you. Why do you think hedge fund managers still pay a tax rate of 15%?
Shall thinks it can produce shale oil at $30/bbl, light, sweet crude, by the way. I think it can be produced for less.
Two world: Dar al-Islam and us. That is the best and most peaceful way forward for all involved.
jcambro
Al Qaeda insulted Barack Obama? Insulted "The One?!?" Using racist language?!
Maybe NOW liberals will get mad! Perhaps now they’ll want to fight the war on terrorism -But In a non-Bush like, non-war like, non-profiling, non-detaining, non-interrogating, non-eavesdropping, non-belligerent, non-patriotic, non-terrorist fund seizing, non-unpopular, non-male aggressive, more eco-friendly kind of way….that involves talking and tolerance and mutual respect…..and….
(Sigh)
Nevermind.
IU1995
I’m black and I couldn’t even get offended by this. It’s too funny to make me mad. I FELL OUT when I saw this mess and couldn’t wait to get my sister on the phone so that we could laugh like some common fools!
What in the world does he know about "house negroes"? This mess didn’t come from no Al Qaeda. This was ghost written by Ken Blackwell, Michael Steele or that little cross-eyed black republican that gets on MSNBC all the time.
As David Allen Grier would say "ain’t this a b*tch"!
Billy rageguy
Wow, they are attacking racism with racism!
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/3200/Malcolm-X/House-and-field-negro
nell
I do not believe this tape is from a cave somewhere in Afghanistan. The news media should have authenticated the
tape before releasing it. "house negro" is not offensive to me. Just think, worse words are repeate everday before and after the election. So news media, if this tape is true, next time let the CIA, FBI and the National Intelligence Agency handle this crap. Seems strange to me, all last week, the news media could not understand why a tape was not released, now one is? Something smells mighty fishy!
brantl
@Brick Oven Bill:
You really think oil shale is commercially viable? Really? You need to learn a bit about oil shale, then.
joe from Lowell
Better nuke Ralph Nader from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
(I used to admire that man).
toujoursdan
Oil Shale is not only NOT economically viable (needing lots of water in the arid west being just one hurdle) but it would be environmentally disastrous, releasing huge amounts of toxins and greenhouse gases into the environment.
droog
"AL QAEDA RELEASES NEGATIVE AD, PLAYS RACE CARD"
Meanwhile:
"GUN, RELIGION-CLINGING TALIBAN FIGHTERS STILL ‘BITTER’ OVER OBAMA’S PRIMARY CAMPAIGN GAFFE"
I love this piece; it’s like Christmas came early. First Hillary, then McCain, now AlQaeda. One by one he drives them all crazy. At this rate global warming will start blogging about Obama’s fake birth certificate.
david
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2, is a coward who talks tough, but is too afraid of being captured or killed to participate in attacks against Americans anyway. He blasphemously misinterprets the teachings of the Koran, and should be made to pay for being an infidel.
He knows the truth, that in Paridise there are 77 virgins waiting, but they are pre-pubescent boys. Thats because al Qaeda’s is full of homosexuals who couldn’t get any action here on earth, so they’ve got to make up this tripe about the afterlife.
If this guy is al Qaeda’s No. 2, then their organization is weaker than I had suspected, and I will never respect or acknowledge this Ayman al-Zawahiri as anything more than a gay, ignorant, bigoted, racist blasphemer who should be put out of his misery.
You see that birthmark on his forehead? It is a target for a .223 round. Don’t listen to him, because if the way to paradise really was by martyring yourself, why haven’t any of the al Qaeda high ups followed through with these suicide bombings? Because they are cowards, and I laugh at their meaningless threats. Come and get me if you’re so bad. I’ll make you wish you had chosen to go on to paradise…
AnneLaurie
Saint Ralph has *always* wanted to be elevated to the status of Martyr, so it would make him happy, too. I therefore see no downside to this experiment.
Years Too Late
Nah.
It just sounds American because it was written by that Heavy Metal Kid–Adam Azzam or whatever his name is.
They let him write the addresses to Americas because they think he knows our lingo.
vietvet61
When the libs gain power we all better look out because Al Qaeda will launch everything they have against us. Obama and all his ilk will stand on their high horse trying to apease our enemies and it looks like the USA the way we know it will soon disapear.
Tattoosydney
@Krista:
What are you? Some kind of trouble making furriner?
KatsAlot
Isn’t there a lot of natural gas in Afghanistan? Since this is one of the "new" alternatives to oil, it just makes sense we’d step it up there. Too bad there’s nothing we want in Africa – maybe we could help some of those folks.
I do think we’d hear from Osama Bin Laden if he were alive or able . . .