Clicking on banner ads keeps JWR alive
Jewish World Review Dec. 17, 2001 / 2 Teves, 5762

Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports

Caught on tape

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- The Osama bin Laden videotape released by the Pentagon is a cross between "Wayne's World" and a low-budget docudrama on Hitler's final days, with a focus on the Nazi toady inner-circle.

One of the many reasons the administration didn't release the tape as soon as intelligence officials got their mitts on it, a U.S. official told me, was that intelligence types thought: "It's almost too good. People were a little worried: 'Is it real?'"

No lie.

At one point OBL discloses, "Abdallah Azzam (a Palestinian jihadist who died in 1989), Allah bless his soul, told me not to record anything." Officials aren't sure what that means because the comment follows a gap in the taping -- and there's bin Laden, having discussed not recording anything, mugging for a video camera and saying things no smart psychopath would want the world to witness. The man doesn't lack an ego.

"We asked each of them to go to America" said bin Laden, making it clear he orchestrated what he calls "the day of the events." OBL used his hands to explain how "we calculated in advance the number of casualties" likely to die in the attacks on the World Trade Center, and how floors of the building might topple.

Worse, OBL clearly enjoyed the carnage and seemed to get a chuckle out of the fact that not all the "brothers" knew about the details of their suicide mission until "just before they boarded the planes." He smiled as he recalled what fun it was to be listening to news of the attacks on the radio, while his henchmen watched television in another room.

"They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building, so I said to them: Be patient," OBL reminisced. Go figure why he stuck to the radio as others watched the telly. But then there are lots of things in this session that come across as, well, odd.

Call it Freudian, but apparently Osama and his buds, when they're not applauding the death of American civilians, apparently spend a lot of time dreaming or talking about dreaming about planes crashing into buildings. A man off-camera tells of his dream of two planes hitting a building, another knows someone who had a vision about a plane crashing into a building. The unidentified, obsequious sheikh told of three people he knew who dreamed of planes hitting buildings.

Do these phallic "plane-attacks-big-buildings" dreams suggest that those in OBL's circle have issues with their mothers? Or their fathers?

Or is this the dreams one dreams when the big shots get four wives and the grunts get none?

Said one U.S. official: "My guess is that after the events of Sept. 11, a lot of these guys who were claiming mystical abilities were saying, 'I knew this all along.' Or, 'Now it is all clear to me that Allah was telling me.' They're all now claiming to have dreamed it." With their swapping tales of dreams and visions, OBL and his buddies do not exude the aura of warriors. They're more like old ladies talking about various sheikhs and their sermons, and who sends greetings to whom and how difficult their travel was, but how comfortable their accommodations are.

Far from the anguish and death they've left in their wake, they seem banal, out-of-touch, primitive. They are so snug in their evil world, they don't even realize how decrepit and vile they might appear to the rest of the world, if the rest of the world were to see how they talk without a script. If Hitler is watching from Hell, surely he is glad there were no video cameras in Nazi Germany.


Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.


Up


12/14/01 Know when to hold 'em
12/10/01 Old friends
12/06/01 I read the news today, oh boy
12/03/01 It's not cricket
11/28/01 Admissions and omissions
11/26/01 Guns and abayas
11/21/01 Depraved minds think alike
11/19/01 Guilty, a la carte
11/14/01 Interpreting the entrails of Election 2000
11/12/01 Life and liberty
11/09/01 Safety is as safety does
11/07/01 More hot air on global warming
11/05/01 Bumped Pakistani's molehill
11/01/01 Freedom snuffed out
10/29/01 Give war a chance
10/26/01 Airline bill needs liftoff
10/22/01 The Riordan Principle
10/19/01 Before America gets tired of the war on terrorism
10/17/01 Patriot games
10/15/01 I was a 'McCainiac,' and I have seen the light
10/12/01 University of Censorship's fall semester
10/11/01 Poor little rich boy, Osama
10/07/01 Don't feed Israel to the beast
10/05/01: bin Laden is not our Frankenstein monster
10/04/01: Where no man has gone before
09/26/01: Who's bloodthirsty?
09/26/01: What's to understand?
09/20/01: Barbara Lee's line in the sand
09/14/01: You gotta love this country
09/13/01: ENTER TERROR
09/11/01: You can't clone ethics
09/06/01: NOW's goal: equal rights for women without equal responsibility
08/30/01: What's love got to do with it?
08/24/01: A clean, well-lighted place for junkies
08/20/01: Bush should stand up for justice
08/08/01: Don't give Peace (Dept). a chance
08/03/01: Lose a kid, pass a law
08/01/01: Welcome to France, killers
07/30/01: Why it's easy being green (in Europe)
07/26/01: If disabled means expendable
07/23/01: Condit should not resign
07/18/01: Feinstein should learn her limit
07/16/01: A drought of common sense
07/13/01: The catalog has no clothes
07/05/01: It's Bush against the planet
07/03/01: The man who would be guv
06/29/01: Wheeled, wired and free
06/27/01: O, fearful new world
06/25/01: End HMO horrors
06/21/01: Either they're dishonest or clueless
06/18/01: Freedom is a puff of smoke
06/15/01: In praise of going heavy: Yes, you can take it all
06/13/01: McVeigh: 'Unbowed' maybe, but dead for sure
06/11/01: Gumby strikes back
06/08/01: Los Angeles' last white mayor?
06/07/01: Kids will be kids, media will be media
06/04/01: Draw a line in the sand
05/30/01: Just don't call him a moderate
05/29/01: Operation: Beat up on civil rights
05/24/01: Of puppies, kittens and huge credit-card debts
05/22/01: Bush needs an energy tinkerbell
05/18/01: Divided we stand, united they fall
05/16/01: Big Bench backs might over right
05/15/01: Close SUV loophole
05/11/01: Kill the test, welcome failure
05/09/01: DA mayor's disappointing legacy
05/07/01: If it ain't broken ...
05/03/01: They shoot civilians, don't they?
04/30/01: Executions are not for prime time
04/12/01: White House and the green myth
04/10/01: The perjurer as celeb
04/04/01: Bush bashers don't know squat
04/02/01: Drugging our oldsters
03/30/01: Robert Lee Massie exercises his death wish
03/28/01: Cheney's nuclear reactor
03/26/01: Where California and Mexico meet
03/16/01: Boy's sentence was no accident
03/14/01: Soft money, hard reform
03/12/01: Banks, big credit lines and consumer bankruptcy
03/09/01: Free speech dies in Berkeley
03/02/01: When rats have rights
02/28/01: Move a frog, go to jail?
02/26/01: They knew they'd get away with it
02/20/01: How Dems define tax fairness
02/16/01: The jackpot casino Carmel tribe?
02/14/01: You can fight school success
02/12/01: Hannibal -- with guts this time
02/08/01: A family of jailbirds
02/05/01: Reality's most demeaning TV moments
02/01/01: Justice for the non-Rich
01/26/01: Hail to the chiefs of D.C. opinion
01/24/01: A day of mud and monuments
01/22/01: Diversity, division, de-lovely D.C.
01/19/01: Parties agree: Give back the money
01/17/01: Get tough with the oil companies, or forget pumping more Alaskan crude
01/15/01: Mineta better pray that no attending confirmation senator has ever driven to San Jose during rush hour
01/12/01: Europeans should look in the mirror
01/10/01: Dems' reasons for dissin' Dubya's picks
01/08/01: Jerry, curb your guru
01/03/01: A foe of Hitler and friend of Keating
12/28/00: Nice people think nice thoughts
12/26/00: The Clinton years: Epilogue
12/21/00: 'Tis the season to free nonviolent drug offenders 12/18/00: A golden opportunity is squandered
12/15/00: You can take the 24 years, good son
12/13/00: Court of law vs. court of public opinion
12/08/00: A salvo in the war on the war on drugs
12/06/00: Don't cry, Butterfly: Big trees make great decks
12/04/00: Florida: Don't do as Romans did
11/30/00: Special City's hotel parking ticket
11/27/00: No means yes, yes means more than yes
11/22/00: The bench, the ballot and fairness
11/20/00: Mendocino, how green is your ballot?

© 2000, Creators Syndicate