Osama Videotapes and Audiotapes, are They Real?

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1521

The Osama Videotapes and Audiotapes, are They Real? The Mainstream Media and Bush Don't Seem to Care.
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 01/30/2008
by Kristina Borjesson

(Borjesson's most recent BuzzFlash commentary on the questionable authenticity and origin of many "terrorist tapes" "leaked by the White House, CIA and Pengaton was, "Does The Hormuz Videotape Literally Produced by the Pentagon Mean Cue Up the War with Iran?" This is another commentary in an going series about the lack of the mainstream media's interest into exploring what are real terrorist threats and what is psy-ops propaganda produced by our own government.)

On Monday, in the Al Qaeda section of his State of the Union address, President Bush cited an unauthenticated December 2007 audiotape, purportedly a message from Osama bin Laden, as evidence that the surge of US troops in Iraq was having the desired effect. “Last month, Osama bin Laden released a tape in which he railed against Iraqi tribal leaders who have turned on al Qaeda and admitted that coalition forces are growing stronger in Iraq….Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt. Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated.” The president’s words were met with a virtually unanimous standing ovation, long applause, and hoots of approval, including what sounded like one loud signature Marine Corps Hoorah!

Four days earlier, in their article “Attacks Imperil U.S.-Backed Militias in Iraq,” New York Times reporters Solomon Moore and Richard A. Oppel Jr. mentioned the same unauthenticated videotape. “American-backed Sunni militias who have fought Sunni extremists to a standstill in some of Iraq’s bloodiest battlegrounds are being hit with a wave of assassinations and bomb attacks,” they reported, “at least 100 predominantly Sunni militiamen…have been killed in the past month.” Further down in their article they add, “American and Iraqi officials blame al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for most of the killings, which spiked after the December 29 release of an audio recording in which Osama bin Laden called the volunteer tribesmen ‘traitors’ and ‘infidels’.”

So, according to President Bush the unauthenticated audiotape shows al Qaeda on the run thanks to the surge. But according to the New York Times, the same unauthenticated tape shows al Qaeda on the offense—and a bloody one at that.

The awful truth is, it doesn’t matter if the tapes are real. They are having a real effect, thanks to reporters and government leaders who treat them as genuine even though they can’t prove it.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Kristina Borjesson is an award-winning investigative reporter and media critic. Her books, INTO THE BUZZSAW: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press and FEET TO THE FIRE: The Media After 9/11, Top Journalists Speak Out, both won the Independent Publishers Award for Best Book in the Current Events category. INTO THE BUZZSAW also won the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism. This editorial is the fourth in an ongoing series examining press and government use of unauthenticated material in reportage and official announcements related to the War on Terrorism.