Palmetto Pundit: Bin Laden Offering Truce

Aljazeera has posted a portion of an audio tape on their web site. The voice claims to be that of Osama Bin Laden offering America a long-term truce.

The text of the letter:

"This message is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end those wars," it began.

"It was not my intention to talk to you about this, because those wars are definitely going our way.

"But what triggered my desire to talk to you is the continuous deliberate misinformation given by your President [George] Bush, when it comes to polls made in your home country which reveal that the majority of your people are willing to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

"We know that the majority of your people want this war to end and opinion polls show the Americans do not want to fight the Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their [US] land.

"But Bush does not want this and claims that it is better to fight his enemies on their land rather than on American land.

"Bush tried to ignore the polls that demanded that he end the war in Iraq.

"We are getting increasingly stronger while your situation is getting from bad to worse," he told the US, referring to poor US troop morale and the huge economic losses inflicted by the war.

"The war in Iraq is raging and the operations in Afghanistan are increasing."

"In response to the substance of the polls in the US, which indicate that Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land, we do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to.

"We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war.

"There is no problem in this solution, but it will prevent hundreds of billions from going to influential people and war lords in America - those who supported Bush's electoral campaign - and from this, we can understand Bush and his gang's insistence on continuing the war."

Addressing Americans again, he said: "If your desire for peace, stability and reconciliation was true, here we have given you the answer to your call."

Assuming for a moment that the majority of this audio translation was not taken directly from Howard Dean’s talking points and that Osama bin Laden is indeed still alive; an honest assessment can lead to only one conclusion: We are winning and bin Laden knows it!

Here’s my take on the true meaning behind the words on the audio tape:

Bin Laden is attempting a rope-a-dope, but forgot to bring the rope. He is offering a truce, but in reality he needs time to regroup because he is running out of resources. Up to this point, he has been able to move around undetected and depend on his underlings to stir up trouble. The strategy has worked for some time, but he is slowly but surely running out of underlings.

The wake up call came the moment the unmanned Predator Drone dropped an uninvited guest into the Al Qaeda Dinner Party last week, killing some high-ranking members of his organization. If I were to venture a guess, I’d say he was close enough to the impact to smell the smoke and hear the explosion. The message delivered on the tip of that missile was clear: the noose is tightening!

Bin Laden knows his only hope is to appeal to the anti-war crowd in hopes of gaining some support and sympathy. He wanted to face the paper tiger after 9/11, but got a raging bull instead. He is hoping we accept the truce so that he can save face and declare a victory for the jihad, but in reality, he knows his days are numbered.

He wants us to admit defeat and lose our will before he runs out of places to hide; and he will run out of places to hide sooner or later. Most likely sooner!

He claims his side is winning because he knows that is exactly what our media is reporting. He knows the only way he wins this war is by breaking our will and he knows the media has long been his biggest ally in that regard.

When the world’s most notorious terrorist starts quoting polling data in an attempt to broker a truce, I can’t help but think there’s not much left in the tank. I’m not discounting the threat or even saying that the threat does not still exist, but there seems to be ample evidence that the threat is diminishing at an increasingly rapid rate.

Tags: Bin Laden, War on Terror, Osama bin Laden, truce, Al Jazeera