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10 Years of Translated Bin Laden Messages Leaked
DragonFire1024 lets us know that Wikileaks has obtained 10 years of messages and interviews by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. The documents were translated and the messages and interviews were authenticated by the US CIA. "The nearly three hundred page, 'official use only' packet from 2004, translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a division of the CIA, includes interviews with bin Laden from various news agencies and also includes messages he sent directly to the US from the periods of 1994 to 2004. One message includes bin Laden's denial of having anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania."
Wow, if the source is credible that's pretty damning. For those who don't like to RTFA:
One message includes bin Laden's denial of having anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.
"Following the latest explosions in the United States, some Americans are pointing the finger at me, but I deny that because I have not done it. The United States has always accused me of these incidents which have been caused by its enemies. Reiterating once again, I say that I have not done it, and the perpetrators have carried this out because of their own interest," said bin Laden on September 16, 2001, just five days after the attacks.
To me the timing of that message seems far more relevant to 9/11 than a vague message 4 months prior that he could "make life miserable for the United States", "If the Taleban allowed". It seems that in as much as we've had to deal with manufactured evidence to serve the cause of the Bush administration regarding the Iraq war now it's clear that the CIA has also withheld critical counter-evidence that the American people and its allies should have been aware of. Could this message have been too sensitive to release? Well, they seemed to release other messages and video around the time of the event that helped make the case and build support for war..
What are you talking about? What evidence? Bin Laden initially claiming that he didn't do it? You do know that he later claimed responsibility, right?
Re-releasing statements that we all heard on television back in 2001 does not change anything. It merely presents a clear retrospective of the events. Obviously, the documents prior to 2001 are of greater interest. Especially the fatwas (religious opinions) where he called for attacks on US civilians and military targets in an attempt to force the US to remove its resources from the Gulf region.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The summary makes it sound like Wikileaks has some kind of mole in the CIA who handed them documents in a shadowy meeting on a grassy knoll... Wikileaks only "obtained" the documents in the sense that "obtained" means "read about in a blog." The documents were first published a couple days ago on Steven Aftergood's excellent newsletter, Secrecy News.
"On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program "Monitor", two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation to be not only inaccurate, but also manipulative saying "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic" and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original Arabic. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.