Bin Laden Video Not Seen as Smoking Gun by All

The whole world may have watched the videotape of Osama bin Laden released by the U.S. last week. But different viewers saw it through very different eyes. In some Middle Eastern and other Muslim countries, the tape was viewed not so much as the “smoking gun” for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that President Bush proclaimed it to be, but as possible evidence of further American chicanery. (Compiled by Gale Holland. Translation by Kamal Abu-Shamsieh.)

BAHRAIN

If indeed Bin Laden committed gruesome acts against innocent [American] people [on Sept. 11], he certainly deserves to be bombed out of existence, which I must say the American government is well on the way to doing, not only to him but to the rest of the people in Afghanistan. However, what if he is not? Plus, if the American government was so anxious to show us this tape that they just happened to stumble upon while doing their cleansing job in Afghanistan, why hasn’t it shown us the real evidence that gave them the right in the first place to start bombing all those innocent people two months ago ....Why were we not shown that evidence when this tape has been shown to everyone under the sun--indeed, every Tom, Dick and Harry has seen this tape, discussed it and read about it? ... Why are you leaving us to defend and pray for [Bin Laden] when you know he is guilty? Show us your proof, and we will defend America indeed. We might as well pray for you, but, for now, I believe it is a fabricated tape. You only need to watch the man who is playing Bin Laden’s role and see how nervous he is.

--By Nabeel Saeed, Gulf Daily News

EGYPT

It matters little, in this light, whether America has legal evidence to incriminate Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.... The real roots of the problem, which affect the existence and the future of the Arab world, are to be sought in a different question altogether: What drove thousands of Arab young men to go and die in this mousetrap of their own free will?

--By Salama Ahmed Salama in Al Ahram Weekly

ENGLAND

Regardless of the many questionable facts about the Bin Laden tape, which the U.S. aired last week, there is enough evidence that the tape is authentic ....[But] American politicians are wrong if they think that proving guilt means winning the political and media opinion battle against Bin Laden. The guest of Bin Laden carried the message that most Saudi nationals are happy to see what happened in America.

--By Abdel Wahab Al Afandi in Al Quds al Arabi (a London-based Arabic newspaper)

IRAN

The White House was not clear about how it obtained the tape, which makes a lot of observers feel uneasy about its authenticity, especially when it is common knowledge that new technology [makes] it is possible to doctor tapes ....The White House is hoping to prove to the Muslims that Bin Laden is a terrorist and deserves to be killed, but what he said on the tape will gain him more support among the Muslim masses. He related events that took place at the early stages of the Islamic era, when Muslims fought and vanquished the vastly superior armies of the infidels. This message was not meant only for his Al Qaeda supporters; it was meant for the Islamic ummah and will have a huge audience, especially now that the usurper regime of Tel Aviv, with the full support of its American masters, is murdering Palestinian children in the occupied territories. So, finding (or doctoring) this tape is no great success for Washington.

--Unsigned editorial in the Iran News

IRAQ

The United States said at the start of the [war] that it had evidence enough to indict Bin Laden and his organization for the events [of Sept. 11]. If this was true, the search for additional evidence is unjustified, especially since America considered the [earlier] evidence as irrefutable and launched [its] aggression based on this claim. America ... really had no evidence, and its aggression [in Afghanistan] is an indictment of it because it has attacked an innocent people without any justification.

--Unsigned editorial in Al Thawra, Iraq’s ruling Baath Party newspaper

JORDAN

The videotape... did not change existing opinions. Those who condemned Bin Laden did not need further evidence to condemn him and those who defended Bin Laden rejected the tape.... There are several legitimate questions on the minds of the people. Were Bin Laden and his guests speaking to the camera, or was it a hidden camera? Was the conversation taped by a professional or an amateur camera person? When did the recording take place and where? And under what circumstances was the tape obtained? The interest of the U.S. in airing this tape worldwide to incriminate Bin Laden and link him to the attacks in New York and D.C. is proof that the U.S. went to war lacking any evidence against Bin Laden.

--By Fahed El-Fanek in Alra’i

KUWAIT

No human being since the beginning of humanity has been able to see the real face of evil. However, the Sept. 11 attacks and events have shown everyone all over the world the face of evil, and how he could appear on the television screen, on a tape, exchanging laughs and jokes ....Now do you know evil?

--By Fouad al-Hashem in Al Watan

“It was clear to us yesterday, like before, that Bin Laden is clearly responsible for the [Sept. 11 attacks.]. Even though his picture was not clear enough, his voice ... was very clear .... Bin Laden continued [on the tape] to narrate the events, which indicate that he is fully responsible for what happened. Bin Laden is definitely involved in this crime.”

--By Abdul-Latif al-Duaij in Al Qabas

LEBANON

The U.S. seemed to set much store in the ‘secret’ videotape of Bin Laden that was discovered in a house in Jalalabad. It presented the tape to the Islamic world as compelling evidence against him, which might persuade it of its supposed hero’s guilt and make it stop sympathizing with him and reduce its hostility toward America.

But the tape came belatedly, after the U.S. had won its war and getting Bin Laden ‘dead or alive’ was only a matter of time. Accordingly, the tape was of little consequence in altering Arab and Islamic public perceptions of the U.S. and its policies in the region.... Arab and Islamic public antipathy toward Washington is not related primarily to Bin Laden or the Taliban, but to Palestine and what is happening there. And the last two weeks have restored a climate of hostility and anger toward Washington in this context, which perhaps exceeds that which predated Sept. 11.... Bin Laden is but a minor footnote in the long saga of Palestine.

--By Jamal Khashoggi in the Daily Star

MALAYSIA

The evidence against Bin Laden on the tape is not as damning as Washington promised, and even the two government translators working on the translation could not agree on parts of the dialogue. ... Furthermore, if the tape is really so incriminating, why was it so conveniently found by U.S. forces after all the persistent bombing and wreckage?

Indeed, an Al Qaeda training manual discovered in recent days shows that such inadvertent carelessness is unlikely because operatives were instructed to be very careful [in such matters]. The only answer from an American source is that Bin Laden no longer feels he has anything to lose by admitting his complicity.

Few of the events since Sept. 11 are black and white or cut and dried. There have, so far, been more twists and surprises than any Hollywood scriptwriter could have dreamed up .... People should now be less likely to fall for crude stereotypes, cultural presumptions and simplistic generalizations.

--Unsigned article in The Star

QATAR

If the United States was confident of the ‘proof’ contained in the videotape, then the tape should have first appeared in a court of law and not on the television screen.

--Unsigned article in Al Sharq

SAUDI ARABIA

From a poll of readers:

“Do you think that the Osama bin Laden videotape is doctored and fake?”

Yes: 1,506 (37%) No: 2,505 (62%)

--Arab News

TURKEY

Those who see the tapes ... should be shocked by how Bin Laden and his associates keep on using the name of Allah when they speak about their murders. This is not Islam; this is not humanity.

While from the very first day we pointed the finger at Bin Laden, there were some writers in Turkey who went so far as to claim that [the Sept. 11 attacks] were an American plot and had nothing to do with Bin Laden or the Taliban. There were even political parties that entertained similar ideas. They said the Americans were creating alibis. They even said American right-wing extremists were to blame. They simply shut their eyes to the realities and to the fact that the Taliban had transformed Afghanistan into a major terrorist base.

Now those writers should be very embarrassed since it is clear that the Sept. 11 attacks were the work of Bin Laden and his people, who dominated the Taliban and even Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has committed a crime against humanity and, above that, against Islam.

--By Ilnur Cevik in Turkish Daily News