U.S. intelligence experts are busy analyzing the video message arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden sent to coincide with the sixth anniversary of his Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the American people.
But while the experts explore for hidden meanings in bin Laden's message, there are enough of his ideas out in the open for us to get the gist of it.
For one thing, in choosing to crawl out from under his rock for the first time in about three years to deliver his statement, Bin Laden was clearly timing his video to influence U.S. public opinion on the eve of Gen. David Petraeus's report to Congress on the surge response.
Without knowing in advance what the general would say, however, bin Laden could only boast – wrongly – that the latest U.S. strategy was not working. Furthermore, he hinted, he plans to initiate his own surge to kick the forces of “the Great Satan” out of Iraq.
Despite being forced to live in hiding while being hunted relentlessly by the U.S. and kept from mounting another attack on the scale of 9/11 for the past six years, bin Laden somehow believes he has the upper hand. He wants the world to know that he will defeat America in Iraq just as the mujahedin defeated the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
