Osama gives a history lesson
Here’s American History 101, the 60s according to Osama:
In the Vietnam War, the leaders of the white House claimed at the time that it was a necessary and crucial war, and during it, Rumsfeld and his aides murdered two million villagers. And when Kennedy took over the Presidency and deviated from the general line of policy drawn up from the White House and wanted to stop this unjust war, that angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefitting from the continuation. And so Kennedy was killled….
Osama has Donald Rumsfeld as a major villain of the pre-JFK Vietnam War although Rumsfeld was a mere twenty-something aide to two relatively obscure midwestern Congressmen at that time. He only started his own political career as a Congressman from Illinois in January of 1963. And prior to 1965, the year the first American combat troops were ordered to Vietnam by Kennedy’s successor Johnson, our involvement there was limited to financial aid and military training of South Vietnamese troops.
But Osama seems to think that JFK was elected President on some sort of anti-Vietnam War platform after Rumsfeld and his aides did all this Vietnam villager killing. and that Kennedy was then killed because of his antiwar activity.
I’ve often lamented present day ignorance of history in general, and of the second half of the Vietnam War in particular, but this is ridiculous. Osama needs to get some new researchers; I think his present ones might be mixing up their Kennedys, mistaking Bobby’s 1968 antiwar Presidential campaign for JFK’s 1960 one.
But perhaps Osama and his aides don’t need to do their homework. Perhaps Osama knows that one can claim almost anything these days and get away with it. And there’s nothing better for The Cause than to say “yada yada yada VIETNAM yada yada yada VIETNAM yada yada yada….”
History is just a constructed reality anyway, right? A bunch of competing narratives, and if it suits him to make the Democratic JFK the martyred antiwar hero of the Vietnam era, the better to appeal to antiwar Democrats today, so be it. But I don’t think that even most Americans who are ignorant of history are quite that ignorant.
Thanks for noting this aspect of OBL’s speech. Administration and MSM comments highlighting supposed “rambling” show that they are missing a chance to understand the character of what we are up against here: what OBL’s people understand about us, and what they do not. The speech sounds, and is, strange, but I’m sure every word was carefully calculated.
‘I think his present ones might be mixing up their Kennedys, mistaking Bobby’s 1968 antiwar Presidential campaign for JFK’s 1960 one.”
Actually, one of the loopier, but popular, JFK assassination conspiracy theories was that JFK had decided to pull out of Vietnam in late 1963, and that LBJ and the CIA had him assassinated to stop the pull out. Truthers had nothing on JFK assassination conspiracy loons.
In the case of The Cause ™, it’s more like competing ninnies.
Also, L’Shana Tova to you. Have a good New Year and keep writing!
Has anyone considered that maybe, this speech was actually written by an American traitor? Adam Gadahn, for instance?
The knowledge of American politics, and the references, sound more like an American, not like ol’ binny who was apparently more worried about the “tragedy” of Al-Andalus, and getting American soldiers off sacred Saudi soil.
Even educated people commonly believed that Kennedy was killed by the CIA because he was too dovish on Vietnam. There’s even a Youtube clip showing that secret service people didn’t get onto the back of Kennedy’s car to protect him because they knew what was going to happen. (There are special platforms for them with handles for them to hold onto).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY02Qkuc_f8
The identification of Rumsfeld may simply be a confusion of him with McNamara who many wouldn’t remember, so Rumsfeld’s name is used. Rumsfeld became Ford’s Secretary of Defense and Ford figures in the conspiracy theory, he was the last surviving member of the Warren commission and altered a document in the report.
http://www.jfklancer.com/Ford-Rankin.html
Bin Laden does go on to say that picking Rumsfeld was “incredible”. So it’s clear that his history is mistaken or deliberately wrong. It’s clear that his point is to appeal to the world view that was promoted back in the sixties depicting the war a consequence of a conspiracy just as is being done today. (Gulf of Tonkin Incident then, forged uranium sale document and trutherism today)
The frequent mention of corporations is to appeal to those who think of themselves as above believing in conspiracy theory. It’s not a conspiracy per se they reason, just a matter of overwhelming influence in the hands of the powerful few.
It does appear that the will of the people is thwarted, especially when dubious polling techniques are used to promote various notions. The complex nature of what people want is simplified and manipulated to paint a false picture.
DC: that’s interesting about Rumsfeld and McNamara. Funny, I always thought they resembled each other a bit—the wire-rim glasses and the slicked-back hairdo. Maybe to Osama, all white-businessmen-who-later-became-Defense-Secretary look alike.
It’s comforting to think that Osama (or whoever) is feeding American liberals a bunch of bull that will appeal to them, but there’s also the possibility that the Islamists really believe all that stuff themselves. These are people who take the Protocols of the Elders of Zion seriously. To them, everything is a conspiracy.
“…but there’s also the possibility that the Islamists really believe all that stuff themselves.”
I don’t think it’s just a possibility Trimegistus. After all, if so many Americans believe that stuff even though they should know better, simply by virtue of living here; there’s no reaon to doubt the Islamo-Fascists would believe it absent any first-hand knowledge of our country/culture.
Neo says:
“they [Rumsfeld and McNamara] resembled each other a bit–the wire-rim glasses and the slicked-back hairdo.
Maybe to Osama, all white-businessmen-who-later-became-Defense-Secretary look alike.”
More on Rumsfeld McNamara similarity–
McNamara was one of the Whiz kids, these were veterans who went to work as executives for Ford Motors,.
about the Whiz Kids, Wiki says:
“The group was part of a management science operation within the Army Air Force known as Statistical Control, organized to coordinate all the operational and logistical information required to manage the waging of war.”
also
“they have been criticized for starting the trend of managing by numbers and building corporate bureaucracies, making Top Management a closed environment surrounded with an elitist staff ignorant of the realities of operations and markets, who have only known them by the books or by reports.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiz_Kids
Rumsfeld was Gerald Ford’s Secretary of Defense. Although Gerald Ford was from Michigan, the home of Ford motors, his name wasn’t really Ford, he changed his name.
Wiki has an article on conspiracy theory. It goes into its role in history and the psychology of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#General_arguments_against_conspiracism
heh, I bet Osama would outscore my 21-year-old niece on the US History CLEP test!
I agree, Neo. No one could ever be quite so ignorant as to believe that is the history. And, I imagine, no one would expect Osama to be savy about such things. So why bring it up? You simplify your opponents.
Correct history or mythology matters little to the dead of 9/11 and all the others killed or maimed by these evil people. They need to be found and rendered harmless and then we can have all those political science grad students looking at the words and writing theses, but first matters first. It is one of the amazing failures of Clinton et al and later Bush et al, that leaves these deadly loonies hanging around their caves or otherwise.
Osama himself is not a big problem to wary about, but ideology he expounded is. In every radical mosque the same ideas are repeated in daily basis, in every European capital city and in many US cities too. When the West will surmount enough political will to put an end to this outrage?
Why we are dependent of foreign oil:
This was explained to me in all seriousness by a fifty-five year old massage therapist. It’s because of the widespread use of the auto and there was a conspiracy that resulted in this widespread desire for autos. People used to ride nice clean electric trolleys, but they were replaced with dirty buses by a conspiracy of oil and auto companies.
You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_335.html
Arguing with him was futile. Of course I would never mention the name Rumsfeld to him, he would take that as a signal to rant about the war and from there it would be tales of germ warfare against the Indians and so on from which there would be no escape until he was done.
Sometimes these massage therapy sessions were like entering a Twilight Zone portal into my childhood, life turned into a recurring bad dream with intermittent periods of waking up only to be pulled back in over and over until time was up. He did play the right sort of music to set a relaxing mood though, at least he got that right.
Of course, if his comments are any indicator, correct history seems to matter little to Donald, as well.
Has anyone considered that maybe, this speech was actually written by an American traitor? Adam Gadahn, for instance?
I think it could have been. Either that, or Osama has been living in a basement in Falls Church, Virginia reading Daily Kos and antiwar.com.
The most interesting thing about this speech is the press’ reaction. For whatever reason, the speech obviously focused on the American left. The press is embarrased by the references to Lefty heroes like Chomsky and Scheuer, they’re disappointed by the lack of real blood, threats and fear in the text and his beard looks funny. With this tape, Osama is losing his friends in the press. Even CNN is making fun of him.
Effective media relations are essential to any terrorist organization. Osama (or Osama the brand) jumped the shark with this one.
mary
Yes, I agree, Osama’s jumped the shark! (I’d love to see his face photoshopped on the body of the Fonz, in that infamous shark-jumping episode.)
Alive and unconquered, Osama would have been a hero. Dead, he would have been a martyr. Maybe this is the best way to deal with him; alive, but as a feeble clown with an obviously dyed beard, begging the American Left for help and mouthing speeches written for him by a pudgy Southern California ex-hippy.
Hi there…Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Thursday . Sofia Vergara