Thursday, April 15, 2004
Divide and Rule returns
Osama Bin Laden has played what I am sure he thinks is one of his trump cards -- the presumed ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe.
Two Arab TV channels have broadcast an audiotape said to be from Osama Bin Laden in which he offers Europe a truce if it "stops attacking Muslims". But in the tape, aired by al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera satellite channels, the voice said the initiative would not be extended to the US.
The voice on the tape said that "the door is open" for about three months to forge a truce, although this could be extended. The speaker used the Arabic phrase "mubadarat sulh", which can be translated as reconciliation initiative. The initiative itself would then begin when "the last soldier" leaves "our countries", it added.
Everyone knows that post Iraq, most Europeans are fed up with the policies of the current U.S. administration. So, we have Bin Laden using an old European colonialist trick (Bengal pre-1905, for example) against the Europeans themselves. Though Britain, Spain and the EC have all rejected the offer as ridiculous, I do hope the European public aren't stupid enough to buy this nonsense from OBL. I fear however that OBL's trump may work to the extent that it might reinforce the idea a lot of Europeans nurse that they are being targetted by Al-Qaeda only because their governments support the Bush administration.
Two Arab TV channels have broadcast an audiotape said to be from Osama Bin Laden in which he offers Europe a truce if it "stops attacking Muslims". But in the tape, aired by al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera satellite channels, the voice said the initiative would not be extended to the US.
The voice on the tape said that "the door is open" for about three months to forge a truce, although this could be extended. The speaker used the Arabic phrase "mubadarat sulh", which can be translated as reconciliation initiative. The initiative itself would then begin when "the last soldier" leaves "our countries", it added.
Everyone knows that post Iraq, most Europeans are fed up with the policies of the current U.S. administration. So, we have Bin Laden using an old European colonialist trick (Bengal pre-1905, for example) against the Europeans themselves. Though Britain, Spain and the EC have all rejected the offer as ridiculous, I do hope the European public aren't stupid enough to buy this nonsense from OBL. I fear however that OBL's trump may work to the extent that it might reinforce the idea a lot of Europeans nurse that they are being targetted by Al-Qaeda only because their governments support the Bush administration.
