The Lion, The Sheikh, and the Warzone.

I'm following up Tolkein with C.S. Lewis. The common thread here is of course fantasy.

Which brings us right to the next topic: A new video of Osama Bin Laden with the funny introduction "From Osama to Obama." It's pretty short and basically just says that the 'underwear bomber' should convey the message that unless there is peace in Palestine, there will be none for America.
After looking alot at Bin Laden videos how do I know this is him? The voice sounds like a different person to me, a bit younger. There is only audio and no visual. It doesn't really sound like the voice in this video where Bin Laden's picture freezes when he talks about contemporary issues, which then again sounds different to this one.

Probably the strangest one of all is this one where he makes references to the 9/11 attacks. A german magazine found however that the Pentagon's translation of this video was not only inaccurate, but "manipulative" as explained in this article in english. The Bush administration also claimed the video was simply found in a house in Jalalabad. A bin Laden expert believes it to be bogus as well.

Of course the question of imposters was raised with the 2002 video here. And alot of people from Karzai to the FBI think he is dead here and also here and most importantly from the top American bin Laden expert here! It doesn't end there, Angelo M. Codevilla, professor, Foreign Service officer and senate intelligence expert says elvis is more alive the bin Laden. And you have U.S. Congressmen claiming that at Tora Bora the Bush Administration let him get away on purpose.

And then lets go way back, way back before all the hype and the wars....just as we were about to take that step into the wardrobe if you will...someone, not just someone, but a decorated intelligence veteran was saying this about Osama Bin Laden.

And of course even the FBI themselves don't specifically accuse Bin Laden of masterminding 9/11 as you can see here on their Most Wanted page. Rex Tomb, the FBI's Chief of Investigative Publicity said "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."

And even Dick Cheney admitted in 2006 that "We never made the case or argued the case that somehow Osama Bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11." Click here to hear the audio clip.

Wow. Somehow I had a different impression.

Many of these points are also covered in this excellent article or this one and throughout the web.

But in 2007 they were still talking about the Lion, the Sheikh...

If President Obama means to use the new Bin Laden video in his upcoming State of the Union speech as some have suggested, I would be surprised since the adminstration has not confirmed the authenticity of the tape.

In any case my favorite Bin Laden video is this one.