October surprise: Latest bin Laden tape confirms effectiveness of Bush War on Terror

(Washington, D.C.): According to yesterday’s New York Post, there was considerably more to the videotape featuring Osama bin Laden that al-Jazeera broadcast on the eve of the U.S. presidential election. It could hardly be an accident that what was left on the cutting room floor when the satellite network that serves at the moment as the principal mouthpiece for enemy propaganda edited the 18-minute original was a testament by bin Laden to the efficacy of the war George W. Bush unleashed against al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11.

The Post reported:

Osama bin Laden’s newest tape may have thrust him to the forefront of the presidential election, but what was not seen was the cave dwelling terror lord talking about the setbacks al Qaeda has faced in recent months.

Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape – of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday – bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.

On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military’s unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border. (Emphasis added throughout.)

If this report is correct, the tape would arguably have been the biggest pre-election surprise of all (apart, that is, short of actually capturing or killing the al Qaeda kingpin): The American electorate would have received confirmation from bin Laden himself that Senator Kerry’s charges that the Bush campaign against the 9/11 perpetrators has been incompetently conducted and hampered by operations against Iraq are unfounded. They might reasonably have concluded that it is, instead, Mr. Kerry whose competence to lead the Nation in this war is open to serious question.

One thing should certainly come as no surprise: Neither al-Jazeera nor most of its American media counterparts have any interest in acquainting their audiences with facts the Kerry campaign might find inconvenient. Even in a race already marked by an extraordinary willingness on the part of the United States’ “mainstream” media (in particular, the New York Times and CBS News) to intervene directly in a presidential campaign on behalf of one of the contenders, such a refusal to provide the public other than that which al-Jazeera wishes them to know is as insidious as it is irresponsible.