On December 12, 2001 the Pentagon released a videotape (and translation) allegedly showing Al Q'aida leader Osama bin Laden in conversation with other Arab potentates. Controversy rages about its authenticity and content. We already posted a comment on it by an Iraqi writer, but what follows is an official comment, inasmuch as it comes from the editor-in-chief of the official organ of the Baath party, rather like a signed column by the editor of Pravda in Soviet days. It also is well written.

Lead Editorial by the newspaper's director and editor-in-chief, Sami Mahdi.

TWO days before Eid al-Fitr, on 15 December 2001, the United States aired a 40-minute videotape of poor quality, filmed with an ordinary camcorder, that showed Osama bin Laden telling a Muslim man of religion the details of the plan of the September attacks in New York and Washington and expressing his happiness about what took place.

According to what official American sources claim, this video cassette was found in a house in the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and was given to the Pentagon by an unknown person. The American President Bush has described this tape as a document that convicts Bin Laden on the grounds that in it he acknowledges his role in the attacks.

In fact, however, this videotape convicts Bush and his administration and not Bin Laden. It is a fake, a counterfeit, in the view of many independent expert specialists in picture touch ups. In this age of ours, the age of advanced digital technology, it is possible to play lots of games. The experts confirm that to fake a videotape of Bin Laden would be a simple matter for all the professional specialists. America with its intelligence apparatus has no lack of such people, in fact it has dozens of them, if not hundreds.

Experts remind us of how an American information company produced a video for an American insurance firm in which they put the head of former American President Clinton on the body of an actor and used him as a comic figure.

Day before yesterday I received an e-mail from someone who told me how he was able, together with a student of higher education in Australia, to fabricate in just two hours a video in which they distorted an address given by Bush and added words to it that changed its meaning. The writer says that he was astounded at how quickly he and his partner succeeded in fabricating this video tape. He adds: imagine how easy it would be for the Hollywood professionals to do that and more.

To fake a tape such as that shown by the Bush Administration and claimed to be a document that seals Bin Laden's conviction is, in fact, possible, indeed it is quite easy. America with its intelligence apparatus has the expertise and the professional experts able to fake this tape and others like it. Why not, since American Administrations and their intelligence apparatus are undeterred by any legal or moral restraint from faking, counterfeiting, and lying?! They have a history of such things that is so dark as to be pitch-black.

Why not, since the Bush Administration already stands condemned for not presenting any convincing legal proof that would convict Bin Laden and the organization al-Qa`idah for planning and executing the attacks of 11 September?!

One wonders whom the Bush Administration wants to convince by this fake videotape. Does it want to convince the world that the US was right in accusing Bin Laden and in committing the crimes it has committed in Afghanistan. The world knows its nature and the history of its crimes.

It would appear that there is no point in discussing the truth or falsehood of the videotape that the Bush Administration faked to convict Bin Laden, now that they have destroyed Afghanistan, removed the Taliban from power, killed thousands of mujahideen and thousands of civilians, displaced millions of the sons and daughters of the Afghan people, placed thousands on lists of men wanted by the American military tribunal, arrested thousands of Arabs and Muslims in America, Canada, and the major European countries on trumped up doubts and suspicions, closed down dozens of associations, institutions, and Arab and Islamic banks in America and Europe, and listed dozens of organizations that are fighting for freedom -- including organizations of the Palestinian resistance -- as "terrorist organizations."

We say, it would it would appear that there is no point in discussing, now that the Bush Administration and its friends have committed all those violations, excesses, and crimes against laws, documents, norms, and moral values. But this confirms a dangerous fact about the American Administration and the noisy methods it uses to make up and publicize tendentious charges, which it builds upon and uses as a basis for igniting wars, with no firm legal proof, but built on suppositions and doubts that the US itself has manufactured, publicized, and treated as if they were palpable facts, and without even letting the accused establish their innocence and defend themselves -- as has been true in the case of Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan.

The Bush Administration committed its violations, excesses, and crimes against Arabs and Muslims before it had any convincing legal proof. It rushed the world into bringing down America's "punishment" on Afghanistan before the world was allowed to establish the truth of the charges and the extent of the involvement of the accused in what was attributed to them.

In all that, the United States used noisy terrorist methods in accordance with the principle "whoever is not with America is against America." Washington even broadened the scope of its charges to embrace many other countries and dozens of organizations, institutions, and banks, and tens of thousands of persons on this basis, and allowed itself at the same time to declare a "protracted Crusader war" against the Arabs and Muslims.

If we look at America's list of "terrorists" we find that it includes names that were classified as enemies many years before the events of 11 September. America had condemned them before there was anything to condemn them for. American regulations were issued against them based on doubts and suspicions made up by America and it intelligence organizations. The accused are all of them among those who reject and resist the policy of arrogance, aggression, and domination practiced by the American Administration. The accusations are tendentious and false, with no proof to back them up.

All that they are based on is the fact that the Zionist Bush Administration believes that the time now is ripe for clearing its accounts with these groups, and getting rid of them, and that it must hurry up before too much time elapses and the emotional impact of the September events dissipates, and the world starts to judge what took place and what is taking place rationally.

American Administrations commit crimes regardless of laws, norms, and morals. They are not concerned afterwards for the families of the victims, for those walking in their funerals, and crying at memorial services. It is the arrogance of these Administrations that allows them to treat international institutions, countries, governments, nations, and peoples with contempt -- and also the fact that those who have the courage to stand up to them are still so very few.

Related items on this website:

 Issues and Opinions: The Alleged Video Tape: what America gains and loses from it

 Letter from Arabist Eric Mueller about these articles

 Articles in Saudi newspaper ash-Sharq al-Awsat