Elections, Media Insanity and Al Qaeda
Elections, Media Insanity and Al Qaeda
By Daniel G. Jennings
I never thought I'd feel almost glad to see the resurfacing of America's number enemy Al Qaeda mastermind Osama Bin Laden but I am.
Our media had gotten so caught up in the insane hype surrounding the presidential election that they'd basically begun ignoring the real big story: the War on Terror and more importantly the terrorists' war on us. Only Bin Laden's return could distract the reporters, editors, commentators and cameras from the presidential campaign.
A day before Arab language news channel Al Jazeera began broadcasting what is apparently a new video from Bin Laden, reports surfaced that ABC news had in its possession an Al Qaeda tape featuring a truly frightening individual Azzam the America. Azzam the America, apparently a US citizen or somebody who's spent a great deal of time in the US tells Americans in English that Al Qaeda will soon commit a terrorist atrocity in America worse than Sept. 11. Azzam wears a mask and sunglasses he looks like something out of a comic book, a super villain issuing a threat and he's absolutely chilling.
Is this stuff for real? I think it is, Azzam sounds like an American, from his accent. More importantly, he's acting like an American. His dramatics are the kind of thing that a suburban kid raised on Marvel Comics, GI Joe Cartoons and James Bond movies would resort to. He's acting out his childhood fantasy of being Darth Vader, a masked destroyer capable of avenging himself on a society he hates.
My guess is that Azzam is here in the United States or traveling here to carry out some sort of terrorist attack. Al Qaeda made and released this video so that there will be no doubt they are responsible for the next terrorist atrocity on our shores. They know Azzam will probably be captured or killing during the attack and they want us to identify him or his body. That way there will be no doubt who is responsible for slaughter, so Arab politicians can't blame the Jews or the US government or some rival terror group can't claim responsibility.
The appearance of the Bin Laden video at this time is to remind the world that he and Al Qaeda are still out there and active right before an attack. That way nobody can say it wasn't Bin Laden, because Bin Laden is dead or missing in action. Bin Laden wouldn't come out and say, "I'm still in the fight," unless he was still fighting.
My guess is that Bin Laden wants to make sure the public knows that he is out there and probably responsible for the next big terrorist attack. What that attack will be I don't know but I'm certain Bin Laden does.
The media's coverage of this story has been disgusting and disturbing. ABC tried to keep the Azzam tape under wraps in order to get an exclusive until the Drudge Report exposed its behavior. Major media outlets like CNN and Fox tried to ignore the Azzam Story or downplay until the existence of the tape had spread throughout the internet. Why this happened I don't know but I have my suspicions, CNN, Fox etc. didn't want to acknowledge the fact that ABC had scooped them on the story. So they tried to pretend the story didn't exist until it went away.
Instead of focusing on the chilling Azzam tape the media focused on the illness of Yassir Arafat, who really doesn't matter in the least and on the manufactured issue of the missing explosives in Iraq. This issue was created by the Kerry campaign and its allies in the media, particularly the New York Times to hurt Bush. Ask yourself would Kerry have been able to prepare major speeches on it unless he had seen the story several days in advance?
Only the Internet stopped this, the Big Media tried to downplay the Azzam story, the web reported on it forcing other media outlets to cover it. How did Drudge and company find out about Azzam before ABC was willing to report on it. Simple the terrorists told them, Al Qaeda wanted the American people to see this tape. ABC wouldn't show it to them, so Al Qaeda sent Matt Drudge an e-mail about what ABC had.
That's a truly disturbing development, major media outlets those self proclaimed champions of the public good, had a major story that could impact all Americans. Yet they buried it because it didn't fit in with their plans and distracted from their single minded election coverage.
So what will happen next? I don't know, but I have a horrible feeling that will involve the deaths of a lot of innocent Americans.