I am quite grateful that Michael Scheuer is no longer leading the CIA’s 'Alec Station' group in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Scheuer's most recent article entitled Analysis of Osama bin Laden's September 7 Video Statement amounts to a nearly irrelevant analysis in my assessment. Readers of this website will know that this is not the first time I have taken Michael Scheuer to task. In the first paragraph alone Scheuer makes errors even a novice intelligence analyst would have recognized in just viewing just the first three minutes of the video.
It is abundantly clear to this analyst that the specific intent of the producers of this Osama bin Laden video is to present the same image of Osama as existed prior to September 11, 2001. Osama’s attire is even the exact same clothing worn in many photo-ops and video productions done well prior to September 11, 2001. View the pre-9/11 Osama imagery HERE and HERE and HERE. Click the article title or “read more” above to continue with this report.
Instead of conveying the woodland camouflage pattern jacket Scheuer is fixated upon, we clearly can see Osama as we have seen him so very many times prior to 9/11 and since. How is it the former leader of the CIA’s ‘Alec Station’ would completely overlook these analytical points? Furthermore, there are enough details available in objective technical analysis of this video to warrant caution in making the assessment that this video evidences an Osama bin Laden who is currently “healthy” and “secure”. Why does Scheuer gloss over the technical aspect in his analysis? Excuse me, he didn’t gloss over a technical analysis, he avoided it entirely.
And with respect to the historical context of bin Laden’s Islamic rhetoric and what Scheuer identifies as the West’s failure to analyze it, well, where’s Michael Scheuer’s analysis of bin Laden’s rhetoric as given to the Western man seen in the middle image linked above? That man is Gwynne Roberts. Gwynne Roberts truly remains, despite the claims of some in media, the first Western television journalist to have a face-to-face interview with Osama bin Laden and he did so after a two-hour drive east of Jalalabad, Afghanistan in late November 1996. 1996 also happens to be the same year during the Clinton Administration that Scheuer took the top slot within ‘Alec Station.’ Most interestingly, Michael Scheuer’s and Gwynne Roberts assessments about Osama, his agenda and Al Qaeda’s relationship with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein are diametrically opposed. My hunch would be that this is due to the fact that Scheuer never shared four hours of “face time” with Osama bin Laden, nor did he interact on a personal level with any of Osama’s emissaries. I think all of you know how I feel about the value of HUMINT (Human Intelligence) when making any assessment.
It’s the ideology, stupid
Gwynne’s MUST READ account of his November 1996 encounter with Osama is without question the essential Osama bin Laden primer. He relates something which has always been the quintessential element in understanding our Islamic enemy.
Osama’s emissary, “Kassem,” told Gwynne in the summer of 1996, “You have to understand the ideology”. That is a direct communication of fact. That is not al-taqiyya. And, with apparent prescience, “Kassem” also said of Osama in 1996,
”If he survives the next few years, he will be the most important example of the jihadic movement, equal to Khomeini. All revolutionary jihadic armies respect him.”
Osama is the equivalent of Khomeini, and now Khamenei. They represent different sects of the same religion. The jihadi armies are described as “revolutionary” and not fundamentalist, or extremist. They are Muslim soldiers in a revolutionary, resurgent and insurgent army which spans the globe. They are Muslim’s. They are Jihadi’s and Jihadi’s practice Islam in its purest, Qur’anic form. This is the message from over ten years ago. It’s the ideology, stupid. Nowhere in Scheuer’s most recent article is there a single mention of Islamic ideology as the driving force behind bin Laden or the global Islamic insurgency.
You can do the analytical comparisons for yourselves, but a here’s a brief look at Osama bin Laden’s message to all of us from that year.
"Terror can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing, to frighten innocent people without justification is a bad thing and should not occur. But to terrorize and frighten oppressors, criminals and thieves is a good thing . . . so the terrorism we take on is a good thing.”
"I confirm that all the youth, and the whole [Islamic] nation, should concentrate their efforts on the Americans and the Zionists, because they are the head of the spear that has been pointed into the [Islamic] nation's heart. Therefore, if someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting his energy on other matters.”
And that about sums it up. It’s about the ideology; it’s about the absolutely consistent context of Osama’s message, the longstanding consistency seen in the imagery and the consistency of the threat despite the calendar date. And in this ‘new’ video the threat is as clear as ever. At 22 through 24 seconds into the video Osama bin Laden emphasizes a crucial point by making the standard Arabic importance notification gesture by raising his right hand and clasping his index finger and thumb together. Regardless of the tone of voice of the speaker, this gesture is the visual equivalent of an exclamation point to the viewer. Osama makes this gesture as he is saying
"...and from (Allah’s) Law is retaliation in kind: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed"
In my assessment, this is yet another consistent and direct threat from Osama bin Laden to "kill" the United States. I find this threat is 100% consistent with the "American Hiroshima" threat. It has been part of the ideological-driven Islamic agenda from the get-go.
SOURCE
It is abundantly clear to this analyst that the specific intent of the producers of this Osama bin Laden video is to present the same image of Osama as existed prior to September 11, 2001. Osama’s attire is even the exact same clothing worn in many photo-ops and video productions done well prior to September 11, 2001. View the pre-9/11 Osama imagery HERE and HERE and HERE. Click the article title or “read more” above to continue with this report.
Instead of conveying the woodland camouflage pattern jacket Scheuer is fixated upon, we clearly can see Osama as we have seen him so very many times prior to 9/11 and since. How is it the former leader of the CIA’s ‘Alec Station’ would completely overlook these analytical points? Furthermore, there are enough details available in objective technical analysis of this video to warrant caution in making the assessment that this video evidences an Osama bin Laden who is currently “healthy” and “secure”. Why does Scheuer gloss over the technical aspect in his analysis? Excuse me, he didn’t gloss over a technical analysis, he avoided it entirely.
And with respect to the historical context of bin Laden’s Islamic rhetoric and what Scheuer identifies as the West’s failure to analyze it, well, where’s Michael Scheuer’s analysis of bin Laden’s rhetoric as given to the Western man seen in the middle image linked above? That man is Gwynne Roberts. Gwynne Roberts truly remains, despite the claims of some in media, the first Western television journalist to have a face-to-face interview with Osama bin Laden and he did so after a two-hour drive east of Jalalabad, Afghanistan in late November 1996. 1996 also happens to be the same year during the Clinton Administration that Scheuer took the top slot within ‘Alec Station.’ Most interestingly, Michael Scheuer’s and Gwynne Roberts assessments about Osama, his agenda and Al Qaeda’s relationship with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein are diametrically opposed. My hunch would be that this is due to the fact that Scheuer never shared four hours of “face time” with Osama bin Laden, nor did he interact on a personal level with any of Osama’s emissaries. I think all of you know how I feel about the value of HUMINT (Human Intelligence) when making any assessment.
It’s the ideology, stupid
Gwynne’s MUST READ account of his November 1996 encounter with Osama is without question the essential Osama bin Laden primer. He relates something which has always been the quintessential element in understanding our Islamic enemy.
Osama’s emissary, “Kassem,” told Gwynne in the summer of 1996, “You have to understand the ideology”. That is a direct communication of fact. That is not al-taqiyya. And, with apparent prescience, “Kassem” also said of Osama in 1996,
”If he survives the next few years, he will be the most important example of the jihadic movement, equal to Khomeini. All revolutionary jihadic armies respect him.”
Osama is the equivalent of Khomeini, and now Khamenei. They represent different sects of the same religion. The jihadi armies are described as “revolutionary” and not fundamentalist, or extremist. They are Muslim soldiers in a revolutionary, resurgent and insurgent army which spans the globe. They are Muslim’s. They are Jihadi’s and Jihadi’s practice Islam in its purest, Qur’anic form. This is the message from over ten years ago. It’s the ideology, stupid. Nowhere in Scheuer’s most recent article is there a single mention of Islamic ideology as the driving force behind bin Laden or the global Islamic insurgency.
You can do the analytical comparisons for yourselves, but a here’s a brief look at Osama bin Laden’s message to all of us from that year.
"Terror can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing, to frighten innocent people without justification is a bad thing and should not occur. But to terrorize and frighten oppressors, criminals and thieves is a good thing . . . so the terrorism we take on is a good thing.”
"I confirm that all the youth, and the whole [Islamic] nation, should concentrate their efforts on the Americans and the Zionists, because they are the head of the spear that has been pointed into the [Islamic] nation's heart. Therefore, if someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting his energy on other matters.”
And that about sums it up. It’s about the ideology; it’s about the absolutely consistent context of Osama’s message, the longstanding consistency seen in the imagery and the consistency of the threat despite the calendar date. And in this ‘new’ video the threat is as clear as ever. At 22 through 24 seconds into the video Osama bin Laden emphasizes a crucial point by making the standard Arabic importance notification gesture by raising his right hand and clasping his index finger and thumb together. Regardless of the tone of voice of the speaker, this gesture is the visual equivalent of an exclamation point to the viewer. Osama makes this gesture as he is saying
"...and from (Allah’s) Law is retaliation in kind: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed"
In my assessment, this is yet another consistent and direct threat from Osama bin Laden to "kill" the United States. I find this threat is 100% consistent with the "American Hiroshima" threat. It has been part of the ideological-driven Islamic agenda from the get-go.
SOURCE
0 comments:
Post a Comment