Comments on: On the Frequency of Fake bin Laden Messages

By: allan

allan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:24:00 +0000

> What’s more, it doesn’t make sense for his followers to fake messages from him.
Adam, that’s not quite right. The followers are the ones who have the strongest incentive not to *question* messages from him. That is, as soon as the channel becomes perceived as corrupted, they lose. Think of it as key revocation.
So you can imagine many third parties putting messages on the channel, so to speak, and the informed followers of Bin Laden having to decide whether the message was damaging enough to cast aspersions on all other previous and future messages.

By: PHB

PHB — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:27:08 +0000

Why does the ‘remember personal info’ option never work? Oh well.
Just took a look at the Guardian piece on the ‘Foundation’ theory. It is way off base because Bin Laden is not the ideological authority in Al Qaeda, that is Al Zawahiri. Bin Laden is simply the money. Al Zawahiri became leader of Islamic Jihad after he was instrumental in the assassination of Sadat. Al Qaeda today is de-facto the merger of Bin Laden’s mujahadein. with the remnants of Islamic Jihad. Zawahiri is not a subordinate to Bin Laden as the press likes to portray him, he is considered a peer.

By: PHB

PHB — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:11:47 +0000

I think that it is entirely likely that Al Qaeda might want to fake Bin Laden messages, particularly if they have lost contact with him, he is ill or dead.
There are also cranks who impersonate serial killers for kicks. Excluding heads of state, there is no bigger serial killer around than Bin Laden.
I don’t give any credibility to the ‘foundation’ theory. Ted Kyzinsky, the unabomber issued similar loonygrams and we can be pretty sure he was not an Azimov fan.
But the more direct reason is probably that if they claim the message is genuine they are going to get the Rathergate treatment from the likes of Little Green Footballs and similar blogs that dispute any and every factual statement that is politically inconvenient for their party.

By: rob sama

rob sama — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:31:50 +0000

David Molnar: I do not. Interesting.

By: beri

beri — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:02:23 +0000

Right on, Student! You get an A+.

By: David Molnar

David Molnar — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:15:49 +0000

rob sama:
Do you remember the briefly floated theory that bin Ladin is an Asimov fan and consciously modeling his messages on Hari Seldon’s missives in _Foundation_ et al.?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,779530,00.html

By: Student

Student — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:59:13 +0000

I might be paranoid, but considering the fact that Osama bin Ladin have been used as a pretext to start a couple of wars that are going rather badly…
A lot of people have economical and political interest in continuing the Terrorist/Al’queda scare. It’s hard to imagine any better way to keep the scare going than to release a “bin ladin” tape every few months just to remind the world that the scary terrorists are out there.
My personal guess is that Osama is long since dead and that a number of groups are using his name to spread their messages. Some of those groups want to spread their ideas in the middle east, other groups want to scare the western world. Therefor the interesting mixture of messages supposedly coming from Osama himself.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:10:05 +0000

Richard,
That’s a very interesting question. I’d thought the messages were sort of ‘self-authenticating,’ but that’s obviously not the case.

By: Richard Veryard

Richard Veryard — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:09:07 +0000

Under what circumstances would a responsible journalist be willing to vouch for the authenticity of these messages?

By: Iang

Iang — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:04:11 +0000

Presumably it is SOPs to call into question all real messages from OBL, so as to shut down the channel. In conflict, the ever-present game is about shutting down ones opponent’s media channel to the poeple, and making sure that “our side’s” channel to the masses is open for our message. Once we see the press not playing our game, by for example analysing OBL messages and not dissing them, we know that “our side” has lost the battle to bend the will of the media to our side. Same thing happens in commerce, it is not a personal or political slight against OBL.