Bin Laden Criticizes U.S. for Inaction on Global Warming (SLNYT)

January 29, 2010 9:54 AM

Al Jazeera releases a new (as of yet unauthenticated) tape in which the terrorist leader accuses the US and other large nations of inaction. Osama suggests boycotting the American dollar and quotes Noam Chomsky.

from the article:
“Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,” Mr. bin Laden was quoted as saying in a report on Al Jazeera’s English-language Web site. “All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis.”

The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately confirmed, and Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, did not say how it had obtained the message.

posted by ®@ (74 comments total)

Something about this....just seems....off.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:57 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm going to take the controversial position here.

I think bin Laden is a handsome man. There, I said it.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:58 AM on January 29, 2010 [13 favorites]

The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately confirmed, and Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, did not say how it had obtained the message.

hmm. so why not wait until the authenticity of the tape has been confirmed before making this an fpp, then?
posted by saulgoodman at 9:58 AM on January 29, 2010

Inconvenient truth.
posted by gman at 9:59 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Great, so now bin Laden is Naomi Klein.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:02 AM on January 29, 2010 [8 favorites]

hmm. so why not wait until the authenticity of the tape has been confirmed before making this an fpp, then?

I care not to speculate.
posted by carsonb at 10:02 AM on January 29, 2010

I've been releasing tapes accusing the U.S. and other large nations of inaction for decades.
posted by philip-random at 10:03 AM on January 29, 2010 [11 favorites]

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH FUEL IT TAKES TO FLY A 747 INTO A BUILDING? MAYBE OSAMA BIN LADEN SHOULD CUT BACK ON HIS OWN ENERGY CONSUMPTION BEFORE TELLING THE REST OF US WHAT TO DO! HYPOCRITE!
posted by jckll at 10:03 AM on January 29, 2010 [55 favorites]

Has Al-Qaida membership really fallen off this much?
posted by highwayman at 10:07 AM on January 29, 2010

I think bin Laden is a handsome man. There, I said it.

Yeah, I saw a picture of him on the Daily Show the other night, and without the beard he'd look very distinguished. A little like Ahmadinejad I imagine, who can be very attractive when he's not angrily railing against whichever scapegoat he wants to target that week.
posted by muddgirl at 10:07 AM on January 29, 2010

Osama believes in climate change? Hoo boy...The wingnuts and deniers are gonna be all over this one.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:07 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Did anyone else think SLNYT meant Single Link Not You Tube for like twenty seconds?
posted by edbles at 10:08 AM on January 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

"I invite you to embrace Islam," he says at the end of his new diatribe. "There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent."

Seriously, the real bin Laden is dead, and this guy is just some sort of actor lookalike working in psy-ops, right?
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:08 AM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

What.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 10:09 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Osama believes in climate change? Hoo boy...The wingnuts and deniers are gonna be all over this one.

To be fair, he also believes in a judgmental deity who's outraged with America's tolerance for moral decay.
posted by EarBucket at 10:10 AM on January 29, 2010 [15 favorites]

anotherpanacea: "Seriously, the real bin Laden is dead, and this guy is just some sort of actor lookalike working in psy-ops, right?"

Emmanuel Goldstein never dies.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:13 AM on January 29, 2010 [17 favorites]

Dude is so last decade.
posted by Artw at 10:13 AM on January 29, 2010

Considering his whole Al Queda thing is financed by Saudi Oil Dollars, he seems to be cutting off his nose (funding) to spite his face (enemies). Or maybe... he knows his enemies will react by doing the opposite of what he says he wants, ensuring continued growth in Arabian Oil sales.

Or maybe the Real Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years (from kidney failure, not war) and the Designated Osama for this year is more of a tree-hugger than last year's...
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:15 AM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Spray your aerosol in the air, like you just don't care. Communism is red. Terrorism is green. We can't let them win.
posted by o0o0o at 10:15 AM on January 29, 2010

I heard Osama uses, like, three air conditioners to cool his underground lair. On MAX setting, too.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:15 AM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I can't wait to see the Drudge link about how much bin Laden pays for electricity every month.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:16 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

The spin I'd like to see on this: Even if you've been living in a cave for the last eight years, you can easily find enough evidence to be convinced of the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

The spin I bet we'll actually see: CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION = AL QAEDA SUPPORT!!!!1! NEVAR FORGET !!! !11!
posted by gompa at 10:19 AM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

And in a rare moment of sentimental candor (as of yet unauthenticated) Obama said he agrees with the late-night talk show hosts that the inarticulate but feisty rhetoric of George Bush provided much better material for his denouncements.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:23 AM on January 29, 2010

Obama? Osama.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:24 AM on January 29, 2010

"There are no taxes..."

OBL is a Teabagger! There, I said it.
posted by R. Mutt at 10:24 AM on January 29, 2010

I want to know where he stands on the Leno/Conan controversy before I start examining these other statements.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 10:25 AM on January 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Well, if bin Laden is so concerned about climate change, why doesn't he go live in a cave or something? Oh wait...
posted by gyc at 10:25 AM on January 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

I want to know how he feels about the leno/coco debacle.
posted by mpbx at 10:26 AM on January 29, 2010

Dude is the end boss of all trolls. If you don't rage against the things he says, you'll rage against the people who rage against him. He's a one man GRAR machine.
posted by cimbrog at 10:29 AM on January 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

I've gotten used to agreeing ( on certain points) with the world's most wanted terrorist. I don't think that says so much about me as about the state of the US.

For the record, I don't even think this is Bin Laden's voice. He's probably dead.
posted by Liquidwolf at 10:39 AM on January 29, 2010

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
posted by pianomover at 10:50 AM on January 29, 2010

Osama believes in climate change? Hoo boy...The wingnuts and deniers are gonna be all over patting themselves on the back for fabricating this one.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:51 AM on January 29, 2010

Good to see that his republican CIA handlers have been replaced with environmentally conscious CIA handlers.
posted by mullingitover at 10:51 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

He's also announced he will appear nude in PETA's upcoming campaign and plans to join the popular Facebook group I Flip My Pillow Over to Get to the Cold Side.
posted by sallybrown at 10:53 AM on January 29, 2010

I'm going to take the controversial position here.

I think bin Laden is a handsome man. There, I said it.

I don't know if I'd call that controversial, but irrelevant and frivolous, yeah.
posted by Xezlec at 10:54 AM on January 29, 2010

What we really need is for somebody to code an Osama rant machine, where you take maybe thirty seconds of video and add your own subtitles:

"Well, I don't know about this iPad. Sure, Apple's a mobile company, but only a revenue: you can buy five Nokias for the cost of one iPhone, you know? On the one hand, it seems like a Kindle killer, given the starting price point, and even though that's WITHOUT 3G, I'd rather use wifi hotspots than be permanently gridded. On the other hand, the whole point to e-ink is to offer an alternative to the backlight on a monitor and give your eyes some rest. Plus the battery life is insane on a Kindle! In any case, I think we can all acknowledge that competition is good and this is a direct result the Great Satan Micro$oft losing their monopolists position. Death to America!"

posted by anotherpanacea at 10:54 AM on January 29, 2010 [8 favorites]

(It's quite likely that there would be many typos in my fictional Bin Laden Rant Generator.)
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:55 AM on January 29, 2010

If he's such an evil mastermind why tapes? Why not streaming HD. And he needs to drop these things on Tuesday so he can get better numbers from Soundscan and possibly get into the iTunes Music Store Tuesday email blast.
posted by birdherder at 10:57 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Damnit Bin Laden. You're supposed to deny that global warming exists so we can tell conservatives they believe the same things as terrorists.

We could have beaten them at their own game.
posted by Allan Gordon at 11:04 AM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Finally I see that oil is actually the weapon of mass destruction we've been seeking. Hmm.
posted by effluvia at 11:07 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

I want to know where he stands on the Leno/Conan controversy before I start examining these other statements.

For some reason I was really honestly expecting Obama to mention this during the State of the Union.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:08 AM on January 29, 2010

I don't know if I'd call that controversial, but irrelevant and frivolous, yeah.

Bin Laden's sex appeal was actually described in great detail in Appendix 32B of the 9/11 Commission Report, before being redacted by the CIA.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:12 AM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Or maybe the Real Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years (from kidney failure, not war) and the Designated Osama for this year is more of a tree-hugger than last year's...

I am not the Dread Pirate Bin Laden. The real Bin Laden has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.
posted by JaredSeth at 11:18 AM on January 29, 2010 [7 favorites]

Finally I see that oil is actually the weapon of mass destruction we've been seeking. Hmm.
posted by effluvia at 2:07 PM on January 29 [+] [!]

You cracked the code.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 11:19 AM on January 29, 2010

American policy is to quote the American dollar and boycott Chomsky.
posted by mrhappy at 11:29 AM on January 29, 2010

Can we please just get this over with by pumping Afghanistan full of free pornography, viagra, celebrity gossip, and lol cats?
posted by jeffburdges at 11:45 AM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hey, I got a tape too. Here's a transcript:

"I love raisins. I like them in cakes, I like them in cereal, I like them in trail mix. Every time someone puts raisins on otherwise perfectly good food is a small victory for me.
posted by qvantamon at 11:55 AM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Ah. That was supposed to be "signed Osama Bin Laden." Now it's ambiguous on whether it's a tape from Osama or from me. And people will put raisins in my food. Bleh.
posted by qvantamon at 12:28 PM on January 29, 2010

So... do you think he'd stop encouraging people to blow people up, if they gave him his own talk show?!
posted by markkraft at 12:37 PM on January 29, 2010

jeffburdges: "Can we please just get this over with by pumping Afghanistan full of free pornography, viagra, celebrity gossip, and lol cats?"

What can I tell you? It's a primate thing.
posted by Joe Beese at 12:37 PM on January 29, 2010

Unconvincing green rhetoric, promises of tax cuts and a creepy religious agenda - he's moved into line with the British Conservatives.
posted by WPW at 12:50 PM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

So are the guys in the Pentagon making these tapes just taunting us to doubt their authenticity now? Is it some kind of dare among themselves who can make the most obviously fake tape?
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 12:51 PM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is how it always happens; a big star who has had their moment in the limelight sees it fading and grabs onto whatever hip trend people are watching in an effort to stay relevant. The next thing you know, he's going to be getting Botox and signing up for celebrity reality shows hoping to keep in the public consciousness.

The real irony is that in a couple of years, after he's more or less forgotten, some up and coming zealot will take some of his old tapes, remix them into a funky new style and catapult him back onto the front page. But, of course, at that point, he'll be too bitter and angry about being used and thrown away, he'll seem completely out of touch, and everyone will be thinking "I can't believe I used to listen to this guy, his stuff seems really cliche now..."
posted by quin at 1:03 PM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility For Devastating Personal Attack On Illinois Man
posted by homunculus at 1:16 PM on January 29, 2010

Even a stopped clock.
posted by box at 1:18 PM on January 29, 2010

Fire up our Psy Ops and make a videotape...from Bin Laden...saying that all the jihadis need to take time to lay low...wait for further instructions...repeat a new message every three months reaffirming the same...
posted by zerobyproxy at 1:33 PM on January 29, 2010

Bin Laden has never existed except in the fevered imaginations of the NSA and CIA operatives who invented him after watching every James Bond movie twice.

Seriously. I don't believe the guy is real. I'm sure there was a real guy by that name. But the character we know from TeeVee is obviously a complete fantasy.

I'm sure these tapes are produced at Langley.
posted by fourcheesemac at 1:53 PM on January 29, 2010

At this point, I'm pretty certain the Bin Laden is a paid correspondent for Fox News.

Has anyone ever seen OBL and Glenn Beck together? How about Ann Coulter?
posted by bonehead at 2:04 PM on January 29, 2010

Seriously. I don't believe the guy is real. I'm sure there was a real guy by that name. But the character we know from TeeVee is obviously a complete fantasy.

Man, this Andrew W.K. stuff gets more and more elaborate all the time.
posted by Amanojaku at 2:20 PM on January 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

and quotes Noam Chomsky

About A-bar movement in topicalization? Or violations of the binding principles?
posted by cogneuro at 3:43 PM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Rush Limbaugh is predictably overjoyed.
posted by ErikaB at 3:57 PM on January 29, 2010

OK, that's pretty weird.
posted by effugas at 4:13 PM on January 29, 2010

Any second now Osama is going to start linking to kittens and puppies.
posted by srboisvert at 4:29 PM on January 29, 2010

"If he's such an evil mastermind why tapes? Why not streaming HD. And he needs to drop these things on Tuesday so he can get better numbers from Soundscan and possibly get into the iTunes Music Store Tuesday email blast."

Audio tapes are what he knows, and Osama's probably terrified that the NSA will trace any direct connection to the outside world back to him. He probably doesn't have a computer or phones or anything. I bet he lives in a little shack somewhere and never leaves, and a small group of young hardcore faithful types do all the shopping and relay his orders and all that stuff for him. The young guys probably use the net and read papers, then tell him about what's going on in the world. Maybe they get him a book once in a while when he's bored. He's like Al Qaida's shut-in grandpa at this point.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:29 PM on January 29, 2010

Is it 1st of April in Qatar?
posted by ersatz at 4:38 PM on January 29, 2010

Osama is right. What should happen in U.S. is exactly what liberals have been working very hard to achieve. Sharia law in the U.S. There is no reason why we should allow women to even speak in public, much less doing such infidel things as run for political office or get in front of television cameras.
posted by CountSpatula at 5:04 PM on January 29, 2010

Seriously. I don't believe the guy is real. I'm sure there was a real guy by that name. But the character we know from TeeVee is obviously a complete fantasy.

This exactly. If the real Osama bin Laden died in 2002 then all of his pronouncements since then have obviously been fakes. And if the real Osama bin Laden has been cowering alive in a hole since 2002, speaking to no one outside his inner circle but occasionally dictating newspaper editorials, all his pronouncements since then have obviously been irrelevant.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:32 AM on January 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Bin Laden has been including CounterPunch-type talking points into his US targeted propaganda for several years now. I think the theory goes that this is the result of an American death metal zine writer (!) turned Al-Qaeda English language propaganda consultant named... Adam Pearlman (!).
posted by dgaicun at 2:58 AM on January 30, 2010

I tried to track down the transcript of that audio tape. The AP stories said it was posted on Al-Jazeera, but when I checked their Web site, I could find no transcript. No reference to a transcript -- just what their story said was on the tape.

The one newspaper's actual Web site that provided a link to the alleged transcript -- the Washington Examiner -- sent me to scribd.com, but when I read the transcript it didn't match what all the stories were claiming. A notation at the bottom seemed to indicate that it was dated 2007.

Today, when I checked scribd.com, the transcript had been pulled. So has the link at the Examiner. All reference to it has pretty much vanished, and instead of a locally written story they now have the AP story posted.

This whole thing stinks of hoax to me.
posted by Seabird at 4:56 PM on January 30, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'll bet it's that pesky O'Keefe kid again.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:26 PM on January 30, 2010

Just wow, people. Unless dialysis machines can be made to run in caves in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden is long dead.
posted by jimfl at 6:28 PM on January 30, 2010

You've likely seen this if you care, but the New York Times Magazine has a piece on Hammani, the source of some of this weird leftism in Bin Laden's rhetoric.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:46 AM on January 31, 2010

but the New York Times Magazine has a piece on Hammani, the source of some of this weird leftism in Bin Laden's rhetoric.

No, as indicated above that's believed to be Adam Gadahn. The New York Times article does not indicate Omar Hammami is believed to be the source of any bin Laden rhetoric. (In fact, it indicates Hammami isn't very politically engaged, outside of narrow Jihadist concerns).
posted by dgaicun at 10:37 PM on January 31, 2010

Anti-American, fan of Chomsky: this guy's got some things right.
posted by Jeremy Banks at 12:01 AM on February 1, 2010