Fausta's blog

Faustam fortuna adiuvat
The official blog of Fausta's Blog Talk Radio show.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Ohhhsama has DVD, cable and American books,
claims he's alive, and squeaks from a rat hole (MEMRI translation here, transcript here)

Dr. Sanity asks, Is anyone surprised that Osama has picked up the main talking points of the Left and their MSM media outlets? Osama must have a DVD player and cable in his cave, since picking up leftist talking points seems to be an old habit of his.

Osama not only has cable and DVD, he even had time to read William Blum's book Rogue State, and Osama's concerned with the ever-present bunch of widows and orphans
it would be useful for you to read the book "Rogue State," which states in its introduction: "If I were president, I would stop the attacks on the United States: First I would give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that American interference in the nations of the world has ended once and for all."
Since Osama's endorsing the book, Blum obviously doesn't need my adding an Amazon link, so go ahead, knock yourself out and find it on your own. The widows and orphans are waiting.

While everybody is abuzz with Osama's tape, Gates of Vienna links to this article by Thomas Joscelyn on terrorist group GIA
THE GIA'S HISTORY is especially notable because both bin Laden and Saddam took an early interest in the group. Bin Laden's "Arab Afghans" were among the first leaders of the GIA in the early 1990s. His patronage proved especially beneficial as hundreds of former veterans from the war in Afghanistan were redeployed to Algeria to swell the GIA's ranks. By some accounts, bin Laden is said to have personally arranged for the financing and necessary travel documents to be provided to upwards of 1,000 "Arab Afghans" who returned or relocated to Algerian soil.

But bin Laden did not just finance the building of the GIA with money from his own pockets. He also received help from Saddam Hussein: At least one former CIA official has confirmed that some of the money bin Laden funneled to the GIA came from Saddam's Iraq.

In a USA Today article from December 2001, Stanley Bedlington, a senior analyst in the CIA's counterterrorism center until he retired in 1994, explained, "We were convinced that money from Iraq was going to bin Laden, who was then sending it to places that Iraq wanted it to go." He added, "There certainly is no doubt that Saddam Hussein had pretty strong ties to bin Laden while he was in Sudan, whether it was directly or through (Sudanese) intermediaries. We traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." [emphasis added]

Later, in an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Bedlington elaborated on the relationship. "Osama bin Laden had established contact with the GIA," Bedlington explained, "Saddam was using bin Laden to ship funds to his own contacts through the GIA."

The GIA's leadership had a falling out with the core of al Qaeda in the mid-1990s. Out of that schism, the GSPC was born. Under the guidance of both bin Laden and Zawahiri, an emir named Hassan Hattab broke from the GIA and reconstituted al Qaeda's Algerian affiliate as the GSPC.
But then, there are some folks out there that won't believe there are links between Osama and Saddam even if they had photo albums of them attending birthdays, weddings, and class reunions together.

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