Bin Alive All Along? The White House
confirmed today that intelligence experts believe the recently released audiotape purported to be of Osama bin Laden is authentic. Sorry, I find that conclusion difficult to accept. An audiotape just isn't bin Laden's style. He demonstrated time and again that he's a megalomaniac camera hog. Were he alive, his ego would have dictated that his dramatic reemergence be documented on videotape. And can there be any doubt that a recent video of bin Laden giving a pep talk to his homicidal cult would inspire and motivate his crazed lemmings more than an audiotape?
And now comes word from blogger
Jeff Cooper (via
InstaPundit) of an NPR interview with Egyptian political scientist Mamoun Fandy. In the interview, Fandy, who has met and interviewed bin Laden, says the voice on the audiotape is not bin Laden. The Fandy interview can be heard in RealAudio on the
NPR website.
