Osama's Latest Recording Misses the Top 40

Over at the Belgravia Dispatch, Gregory Djerejian has a good take on Osama's latest recorded message...

...when I hear the word "truce" emit from UBL's lips (or, perhaps, whatever impersonator is doing a stand-in on his behalf), I conclude that we are winning the battle against al-Qaeda. Mind you, I'm not speaking about Iraq, necessarily, or perhaps certain al-Qaeda inspired spin-offs, or the GWOT generally. But the battle against the main, original al-Qaeda group that existed and grew in strength and terrorized in Dar es Saalam and Nairobi and in the port of Aden with the attack on the USS Cole--largely with impunity, it should be said, through the 1990s and into 2001--well, it has taken some real body blows these past four years.

Ultimately, however, one is left thinking what a sad life bin Laden leads trafficking in human misery, or, of late, reduced to threatening mass carnage via episodic videotapes basically dumped in front of Al-Jazeera's offices. So I guess I disagree somewhat with Muhammad Salah, Cairo bureau chief for the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, who says to the NYT: "The fact that he was able to record the message, deliver it and broadcast is in itself a victory for him". Well, yeah, maybe. But that's really defining victory down quite a damn lot, isn't it? It increasingly smells of desperation, of a man espying a tightening noose.

As Djerejian notes, we can't underestimate bin Laden. But it's heartening that we continue to take the fight to him, and his best response to us recently has been via recorded messages -- and they're not accompishing their goal, as per his last message just before the 2004 election. Let's hope it stays that way, until he ends up in a bodybag or a jail cell, preferably soon.