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In an increasingly dangerous world, even after the first terrorist attack on America, John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America's intelligence operations by 6 billion dollars. Cuts so deep they would have weakened America's defenses. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm. Wolves ad

Osama bin Laden proved today that he is still very much alive. His speech implored America to adopt the foreign policy of Sweden, a nation bin Laden singled out for congratulations in not having merited an attack by al Qaeda. His deal to the United States was simple: leave us alone and maybe we'll leave you alone (Hat tip to Belmont Club.), at least until we decide it is time to punish you again for your many injustices to us.

Bin Laden declared that he began to plot an attack on the World Trade Center in 1982, when the United States helped Israel in Lebanon. Many will take him as referring here to the plot of 9/11, forgetting that the first plan of attack on the twin towers culminated in the bombing of 1993.

His ridicule of George Bush shows he has access to a DVD player and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. He takes special delight, as does Moore, in needling Bush for letting a child finish the reading of a storybook, after first being told of the attack on the World Trade Center.

Plainly, by releasing this tape right before the U.S. elections, Osama bin Laden hoped to influence the American electorate. He vainly -- and preposterously -- wishes to be seen in the same sympathetic light in which he sees himself. He also desperately wants to undermine America's trust in Bush. Listening to Kerry's initial response to his message -- the repeating of the charge that Bush had passed up the chance to get him in Tora Bora -- bin Laden had reason to think he had succeeded. Yet tonight, it is no less plain that he has once again failed to take America's measure.

Labels: al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden