PrintSeptember 10, 2007
Osama tape fake after all?
Is it an OsamaBot? Or a clever audio forgery?
Blogger George Maschke at Boomantribune.com has spotted an intriguing bit of cutting and splicing in the latest video purported to be from Osama Bin Laden. The only evidence that the video is authentic is that Osama's presumed voice refers to recent events. But as Maschke writes,
"All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen!"
Odd, isn't it? Maybe Osama has joined the worms in some cave after all, as many of us suspected. And maybe a voice-alike is doing the audio. Otherwise, why freeze the tape just at the most crucial bit of evidence?
Maschke believes that
"The audio track does appear to be in the voice of a single speaker. What I suspect was done is that an older, unreleased video was dubbed over for this release, with the video frozen when the audio track departed from that of the original video."
Well, no wonder Osama looks years younger in this tape. He's discovered the secret of eternal youth! It's like the 1989 movie A Weekend at Bernie's! Osama might be a little bit gaga, but with some help from his friends he looks like the real, live thing. Al Qaida even has its own "media production company," according to CNN. Anybody with cheap video software could produce this fake.
One of Osama's sons could have been used to do a voice-over, in a particularly goulish bit of terrorist showbiz --- but that's what these characters do anyway. What's the reason to have a young boy cut off some unfortunate man's head, except for terrorist showbiz?
And if Osama is alive, why freeze the video just at that point?
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com/
