Josh's Weblog: Ayman al-Zawahiri Warns Us Again

Ayman al-Zawahiri Warns Us Again

Just ten days after a previous warning, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda serial beheader, posted another saber-rattling via videotape on Al Jazeera today. He claims to be issuing the message to commemorate the anniversary of the internment of terrorists and enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Your new crusade will end, God willing, with the same defeat as its predecessors, but only after you have suffered tens of thousands of dead and the destruction of your economy,” Zawahiri said.

Zawahiri styles himself a Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (“Saladin” to most of us), the famous general that defeated the crusaders and retook Jerusalem. Perhaps he forgets that the reaction to Saladin was the massive third crusade, although Saladin was able to hold King Richard I back at the Levantine coast.

If Zawahiri expects that he is reprising the role of Saladin and that Bush represents Richard the Lion-Heart he needs to look a little better. Zawahiri has not retaken anything. He has engaged in cowardly attacks designed more to sway public opinion than to dislodge any perceived invader.

Zawahiri… warned the West: “Your real safety lies in treating the Muslim nation on the basis of respect and ceasing aggression (against it).”

Now that is particularly rich. In my opinion flying missiles full of innocents smashing into the buildings of the Port Authority of New York is hardly an act deserving respect, and responding to it with force is hardly aggression.

Removing dictators and employing free elections has the sound of respect, however. While it's not perfect, it's a heck of a lot better than the old system.

(I used the “Saladin” to refresh my memory of Saladin while writing this article.)

Josh Poulson

Posted Sunday, Feb 20 2005 05:02 PM