“Praise Allah, for soon every American city shall be plagued with disaster and hardship,” al-Zawahiri said in the video, which includes several minutes of footage of young, masked al-Qaeda militants casually sipping beverages as they thumb through the latest issues of Time and U.S. News And World Report. “The infidels have brought this pain and destruction upon themselves through their arrogance and callousness. Soon, the United States will watch in horror as its bridges crumble, its desperate citizens suffer in want of medicine and paying employment, and its once vast riches are reduced to naught. The righteous warriors among our ranks must now unite, get comfortable, and look on from afar at the calamity unfolding in the West.”
“We vow that we will not cease sitting around and laughing it up until America is reduced to rubble,” he continued.
Al-Zawahiri, who is seen in the video reclining back in his chair, putting his feet up, and flipping on CNN, later shouts “Allahu Akbar!” when a story is aired about the decade-long trend of stagnant wages among American workers.
Reader Interactions
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Baud
We fight them over there so we don’t have to raise the minimum wage over here.
ranchandsyrup
Everclear?
Today made me want to drink some everclear and swim out past the breakers.
Davis X. Machina
To be fair, only roughly 45% of the electorate reliably vote Republican.
Self-destruction in the service of The Cause isn’t quite a majority taste.
Mustang Bobby
Sounds like the Taliban version of Duck Dynasty.
DougJ
@ranchandsyrup:
I really like that song. I think it’s the best song about California outside the Zevon cannon.
DougJ
@Mustang Bobby:
They have the same kind of beards.
ranchandsyrup
@DougJ: I like that song too but not a huge everclear fan.
Yes to Zevon’s California songs.
I’m partial to Unfair by Pavement when pressed as to my fave California Song. 2nd place would be California Stars written by Guthrie. Billy Bragg and Wilco performed a nice version.
pacem appellant
@DougJ: Mates of State’s cover of California is a pretty rad song about my state. And I’ll even say “the 101” when I sing along, it’s that’s good.
Hunter Gathers
So what happens when the 1% runs out of shit to steal?
ranchandsyrup
@Hunter Gathers: can’t remember where I saw the quote (paraphrasing): The good thing about the oligarchy is that it only lasts a short time until the kleptocracy kicks in.
Mike in NC
So in other words, al-Qaida has decided to adopt the 2012 Republican platform.
Fort Geek
Over at Literally Unbelievable there are plenty of rubes caught (yet again) by that bad old Onion and the Al Queda story.
fun, fun, fun.
chopper
@pacem appellant:
eye 5 by jawbreaker.
chopper
@Mike in NC:
AH HAH HAH
Bill Arnold
@Hunter Gathers:
The %0.1 percent steals from the test of the %1. Etc.
Reminds me of the old comic Rush Limbaugh Eats Everything Or maybe the short story “The Savage Mouth” by Sakyo Komatsu.
Suffern ACE
I know that there are seagull managers, who come in late, shit over everything and try to take ownership of everything is working, denying credit where credit is do. al-Zawahiri is kind of a seagull terrorist here. Our Oligarchs worked much harder than he did to earn those MBA so that they could work for consultants that made the decisions to destroy the American working and middle classes. Let’s give some credit where credit is due.
Trollhattan
@Hunter Gathers:
Invent Son-of-Bitcoins, sell them to the rubes and then steal them?
Davis X. Machina
@Hunter Gathers: They just coast. Collect rents — because wages are for losers. Marrying each other — and screwing the help. Staying rich is far less work than getting rich.
Once that marginal dollar’s marginal propensity to be consumed hits zero, then you go all steady state, just puttin’ the ‘ancien’ in ancien regime .
Roger Moore
@Hunter Gathers:
When the 99% has nothing left to steal, they’ll still have each other.
jeffreyw
@Hunter Gathers: There can be only one. I hope to get a job selling peanuts in the stands.
chopper
@DougJ:
best overall song about CA is ‘travelers’ by j church. can’t find a youtube link tho.
jl
This makes the GOP ‘objectively’ pro-jihad, right?
Or maybe corporate and cable news is government counter programming designed to drive the terrorists insane?
danimal
So, if I understand it correctly, there is a possibility the GOP will notice AQ terrorists laughing at our national economic inequality and decide to pursue policies to decrease inequality as a way to stick it to the terrorists.
Or, alternatively, the GOP is objectively pro-terrorist and will continue on in its ways.
We report, you decide.
danimal
@danimal: @jl: Damn you, jl! Even got in an implied Fox reference. And in fewer words.
Bill E Pilgrim
OT but priceless:
I can’t imagine what makes people think that David Gregory is a shallow Republican leg humper. As this video clearly demonstrates, that’s a bad rap.
Luthe
@DougJ: My two favorites are a bit LA specific: “Los Angeles is Burning” by Bad Religion and “Under the Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
jl
@Bill E Pilgrim: Why not make that dancin’ Dave video an intro for his talky show? That would juice the ratings for a few weeks. Maybe not for the whole show, but at least for the intro. They could charge more for the first few commercials.
Ash Can
OK, let’s see a show of hands here. How many here had to mouse over the link to the article to be able to tell for sure that this excerpt was satire?
::raises hand::
Villago Delenda Est
Well, we were warned about morans in our midst, and did nothing about it.
Ash Can
@Bill E Pilgrim: As someone elsewhere (I forget where) remarked, some psychologist is going to make bank off the geniuses at NBC, just to tell the network brass that Dave’s an idiot and his show sucks livestock anus.
jl
Speaking of watching the world die, there is an interesting string of posts at Talkingpointsmemo today on the effect of right wing nut media (mostly Fox News) on weak minded older adults and elderly. Some sobering stories.
Citizen_X
Sink With California/Youth Brigade. “And actually we’re from Canada!”
kindness
the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.
So this story starts with The Onion. Jumps to BJ. All it needs is one more underground internet hit and it goes to Fox as real news. Just like all the rest of Fox’s real news.
MattF
I expect this item will appear on Newsmax any minute now.
Poopyman
@Ash Can: I didn’t even mouse over it, I totally believed it was real. And, obviously, for obvious reasons.
Kudos for The Onion for managing to juuuust stay ahead of reality since The Republican Majority. If you had told me what today’s reality was back in the ’90s I would have been sure you were on crappy drugs.
burnspbesq
It’s funny. However, al-Zawahiri really did want to kill as many Americans as possible, and was righteously made dead as a result.
It is at least theoretically possible that he made it into Heaven, and is hanging out with Molly Ivins and Steve Gilliard, listening to the John Coltrane – Jimi Hendrix Band. But I doubt it.
D58826
What will we do without the Onion!!!
Bill Arnold
@jl:
Those stories are sad. I’ve told my father that if he started watching Fox News regularly, that his TV would start malfunctioning and eventually break. Not sure that he understood that I was not joking, that this would actually happen.
burnspbesq
Y’all are kidding yourselves. This is the best song about life in California.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADmUT7dCDi8
JustRuss
@Bill E Pilgrim: Nice. This is just money:
MTP in a nutshell.
bago
Bin Laden literally wrote a manifesto where he said he would trap America in endless Middle Eastern conflicts and watch us pay. And we did.
TG Chicago
@DougJ: The Dead Kennedys might have a word to say about that. Well, one English word and two German ones.
Arclite
@Hunter Gathers:
They start making skin lamps out of us? Apropos her last name was Koch.
D58826
@Ash Can: I was torn between the Onion and some wise guy at AQ reading from the GOP script describing the country under Obama. On the other hand I was suitable skeptical about the rtock concert at the Bundy ranch, even though that seems to be for ‘real’.
danielx
@MattF:
Newsmax, Red State, the Corner…hey, it’s out there! Somebody has to report on this, otherwise how will the puke funnel be primed? How will the mighty Wurlitzer be tuned? How will wingnut welfare recipients justify their existence? Michelle Malkin needs her ragegasm this month! Ann Coulter needs a facelift!
mclaren
I think the quotes got a little garbled.
The actual person talking was a Western banker, and the monologue went like this:
The monetary terrorists running America’s banks are the real danger. They’re the ones who are trying to destroy this country.
Arclite
The Onion story is funny but sad because it’s true. America is a completely different country than it was 10 years ago, never mind 30 (if you watched Moyers interviewing Krugman). There are a lot of big problems, and we aren’t making any headway at all in addressing them. Quite the opposite, for every positive development like the ACA, we have several negative ones like Citizens United and the NSA wiretapping (not the revelation, but the actual data collection).
Mnemosyne
@Arclite:
Since we were knee-deep in invading Iraq 10 years ago, I would hope we’re a completely different country. I don’t think 2004 was quite the halcyon time you seem to be remembering.
TG Chicago
@burnspbesq: al-Zawahiri is still alive (at least, that’s the best guess). Maybe you’re thinking of al-Zarqawi.
Another Holocene Human
You made me load TPM in my browser. You bastards.
Ecks
@pacem appellant: California Dreaming?
Mowgli
“Los Angelinos” by William Joel, Esq.
warren
Los Angeles by X
“The idle riiiiiich”