In what is surely the least anticipated audio release since the late Pope John Paul II's Gregorian rap LP Abba Pater, Osama Bin Laden's "deputy," Ayman al-Zawahri, has a new tape that's about to pollute the airwaves.
In his last single, Bin Laden channeled Ditech and Ronald Reagan, declaiming both high interest rates and high taxes, making common cause with all of us groaning "under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages." Islam, he averred, was not just attractive because it alone fulfills the will of Allah, but because it's easy on the wallet: ""There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent."
Now, in a "sophisticated 80-minute video," the Professor Griff of al Qaeda is going after a different target:
Al-Zawahri began by condemning the Pakistani military's July assault on Islamic militants who took over the Red Mosque in Islamabad, and he paid tribute to one of the militants' leaders, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who was killed in the fighting.
The siege "revealed the extent of the despicableness, lowliness and treason of Musharraf and his forces, who don't deserve the honor of defending Pakistan, because Pakistan is a Muslim land, whereas the forces of Musharraf are hunting dogs under (President) Bush's crucifix," al-Zawahri said.
"Let the Pakistani army know that the killing of Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his male and female students ... has soaked the history of the Pakistan army in shame and despicableness which can only washed away by retaliation," he said.
Whether this will help or hurt Musharraf is anyone's guess, though the guy is barely hanging on as it is.
