Hasn't McCain previously cited Osama's words regarding the central front in the GWOT being in Iraq? If the ramblings from a raving lunatic are good enough to justify staying in Iraq, can he really argue against them NOW?

When you say "rantings of homicidal lunatics," are you talking about al Qaeda or conservatives responding to al Qaeda?

Of course al Qaeda would support McCain. People don't resort to terrorism unless they are too weak militarily to do anything else and the whole point of terror attacks is to try and provoke the stronger state into overreacting and thus alienate the civilian population.

Bush and McCain are exactly what al Qaeda wants. Someone who wins hearts and minds is their worst nightmare.

R. I. G. H. T. . . .

They explicitly support McCain - but it's a bluff ; they secretly want Obama.

If they explicitly supported Obama - it would be because they want Obama.

If they made no sound - that would be because they want Obama too.

If it were proved that they never existed at all, the right-wing loonies -- and the newsies, of course -- would make the point that they WOULD want Obama.

If it doesn't matter what they do -- or even if they exist -- and the newsie talk is They Want Obama no matter what -- well. It must be true if they sayyit on the teebee.

Read between the lines of Colin Powell's reasoning behind his endorsement. The ridiculous claims by McCain supporters that Obama is a terrorist, connected to terrorists, an Arab, a secret Muslim, all boil down to one thing when replayed on al Jazeera, support of terrorists by American Republicans.

I've contended for a long time that the terroists have already scored big by ruining our economics because of the war funding. They also have scored big with the new survellence laws, torture, etc. that makes us more like them than what the United States is supposed to stand for. In previous wars we have fought against what is now imposed on us.
Will they "win"? Of course not, but the toll they are exacting empowers them even more and will weaken us for wome time.

The "WorseThanBush" campaign must be pissed that OBL is late with his Obama endorsement - you know they're ready and waiting for it.

I presume Obama is ready as well, and has a killer response.

Clearly, the thing to do is distract al Qaeda and switch candidates when they're not looking.

Maybe we should start looking at how much "out-country" money the Republicans have been receiving over the years. Oil, gas, precious metals, foreign basket-currencies, offshore investments---hell, we could probably find that the subprime mess was a terrorist attack formulated by the Bush/bin Laden cartel!

Wayne --

Yep. I read one interesting article somewhere that young Osama may have read "The Foundation" trilogy about a group of people who manipulate the future through strategic acts. Al-Qaeda is usually translated as "The Base," but it also translates to "Foundation," so that's an amusing bit of poliscifi geek trivia.

But ultimately what Al-Qaeda did is give the neoconservatives an excuse to do what they wanted to do. War in Afghanistan is the best Al-Qaeda they could have realistically hoped for; but they got Iraq, too, because America loves military incursions to control the flow of oil exactly that much.

Too bad for McAce. I think Obama should hold a brief press conference and state the following:

"That al Qaeda still has an organization "capable" of attacking this great nation only proves that the policies of Bush and McCain of turning a blind eye to the real center of al Qaeda and attacking Iraq has left us with the mess we are in. When we had bin Ladan at Tora Bora, we could have finished the job. Instead we are stuck hearing these lunatics taunt us from caves. Thank you Bush and Mccain."

"Questions?"...

Some people are already glossing over the fact that it was password-protected, and in Arabic, and assuming it is reverse psychology.

Also, some people are ignorant.

I suspect the conservative response will be that this message is an elaborate attempt at reverse psychology -- al Qaeda says it would prefer McCain because it really doesn't want McCain. I suppose anything's possible -- we're talking about the rantings of homicidal lunatics -- but if the goal was to get this message out to an American audience, al Qaeda probably wouldn't have published it in Arabic in a password-protected website.

Unless, of course, they knew the site was compromised and were using it for deliberate misinformation. Its a lot better to vote for President based on a rational assessment of what is good for America rather than trying to pick through al-Qaeda-linked statements to try and figure out which candidate they prefer and just pick the opposite.

Preferring the latter approach makes sense only if:
1) You are extremely confident in your ability to determine which al-Qaeda statements are honest and which are propaganda or misinformation, and
2) You think the al-Qaeda members making the statements have better judgement about what is in al-Qaeda's interest than you do about what is in the US's interests outside of "opposing al-Qaeda's interests".

The continued freedom of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and al-Qaeda's continued presence and ability to operate in Afghanistan (and now Pakistan) is certainly a reason to vote against McCain and a continuation of the failed Bush policy. Except in that it the fact that they have time to state and justify any preference in the US Presidential election highlights the failure of the McCain-supported Bush approach to the "War on Terror", their statement should not be given any weight at all in Presidential selection.

If al Qaeda is putting out the word at this late date that they'd like to see an attack in the U.S., then it sounds as if they've got nothing planned. I hope not, anyway.

As for a stunt to match the Kerry pseudo-endorsement, surely they're clever enough to know that that won't work twice?

Does anyone really think we're going to ever root Al-Qaeda out of the mountain areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan? Short of ethnic cleansing or truly unprecedented levels of social engineering, I think it's impossible. The Russians couldn't even control Afghanistan militarily, and we think we'll be able to stop a small group of (culturally supported) people from planning attacks on US targets from Africa to Alaska? Please. It's a pipe dream inside a pipe bomb to believe that.

So then according to Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, al-Quaida represents real Americans?

This would tend to explain McCain's mysterious Middle Eastern donors:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/06/AR2008080602485.html

I think you're reading way too much into this...of course they'd prefer McCain in the white house, continuing with vigor George Bush's retarded strategy of getting us bogged down in Iraq, while al Qaeda runs free in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Why wouldn't they? And what beautiful recruiting tools both men have and will be!

They're tools, all right.

I think you're reading way too much into this...of course they'd prefer McCain in the white house, continuing with vigor George Bush's retarded strategy of getting us bogged down in Iraq, while al Qaeda runs free in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Why wouldn't they? And what beautiful recruiting tools both men have and will be!

They're tools, all right.

Eric Martin had a good piece on this (which also talked about Russia in a similar vein):

[I]t always strikes me as either disingenuous or ignorant when people like John McCain and Sarah Palin go on about bin Laden treating Iraq as the "Central Front of the War on Terror." Of course he does! Why wouldn't he? But that doesn't mean we have to go along with his designs. We could, for example, decide to fight said war on our terms and at the location of our choosing. Such self-interest might actually work to our advantage.

Lets be honest Al Queda would not openly say they want Mccain this is reverse Psychology. They know most Americans beleieve anythig the liberal media says. What they're actually saying is these stupid Americans will fall for this and we will have a weak spine president in office.

You need to specify who are the "homicidal lunatics" al Qaeda or Bush/McCain. I vote for the latter.
al Qaeda definitely is homicidal but they are winning in smarts over the Bushies comming and going.

Bush has been playing their game in their sandbox from the get go, and has been losing from the get go. But he just keeps on playing and losing and playing and losing and McCain wants to do the same thing.
That is what I call lunatic.