Decoding Osama's Latest Message
By GAMAL NKRUMAH
The world, or the Western media to be precise, is all in a tizzy, obsessed over stark warnings issued by the United States and Britain concerning the increased terrorist threat posed by Al-Qaeda and its leader the Saudi national Osama Bin Laden. The claim, substantiated by omniscient Western intelligence -- spooks who we know never err -- is that Bin Laden recently exhorted Islamist militants to launch attacks on targets in Europe.
But what did Bin Laden exhort in his latest missive? "If governments spent on relief only one per cent of what is spent on war, they would change the face of the world of poor people," Bin Laden said in a poignant message to the Muslims of the world. "What governments spend on relief work is secondary to what they spend on war."
Sounds eerily like the Dalai Lama. "People with hearts should move quickly to stave off disaster," he pontificated papally with Christlike compassion.
In sharp contrast with the Western media blackout, Bin Laden's speech has attracted both attention and admiration in the Muslim world. Bin-Laden's main thrust in his latest offering is that transparency is needed above all in the international politics of climate change. Up to a point, Bin Laden has a far more subtle intelligence than that of his detractors, many of his critics in the Arab world grudgingly concede.
