Been There, Done That

It’s always the same thing. Drudge and CNN and all American media outlets light up with urgent graphics and sirens, all warning that Osama bin Laden has just released an audio tape that will soon be broadcast on Al Jazeera (because no patriotic American news gathering organization would themselves play bin Laden’s message).

Then Al Jazeera plays bin Laden’s tape – and the tape always threatens more attacks, a la the “mushroom clouds” conjured up by Cheney, Rice, et al – and it gets replayed by American media outlets (never, mind you at any length). The basic message is: FEAR, FEAR, FEAR! It’s always the same to the point where we’re sick of it.

Next, in about an hour or so, the CIA comes out and confirms that, yep, it’s really bin Laden talking on the tape. This CIA verification always happens so fast that you wonder how it happens. Does the CIA have some bin Laden voice verification machine that can instantly pick his voice out? Do they know because they had the tape way before al Jazeera did, or what? Anyway, it’s bin Laden. A slam dunk.

This time, CIA-verified bin Laden supposedly says his Qaeda cells in the States have been preparing for an attack, one that we will soon see. He also offers a “truce” without laying out any terms. Huh? What? Does anybody speak Arabic around here?

(In response, Bush says we don’t negotiate with terrorists. This despite the fact that we are releasing women prisoners today in Iraq in hopes of securing the release of reporter Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped by, uh … terrorists).

If bin Laden is really the threat to us that the Bushies say he is, then why are we allowing him access to our nation’s publicly owned airwaves to give coded messages to his cadres, spread fear and al Qaeda propaganda, etc?

After all, when the government wants to suppress news, it can do so. Look no further than the yearlong hold the N.Y. Times put on the illegal wiretapping story that confirmed Bush’s status as an American tyrant who boastfully blows off the U.S. Constitution. Bush made the Times complicit in covering-up a constitutional crisis for a year. But bin Laden gets free reign to say what he wants, with all the attendant media hype of a presidential address.

The whole choreographed routine makes one wonder if the fanatical followers of Bush and bin Laden aren’t operating from the same playbook.