The Spiked (UK) is calling out Ayman al-Zawahri, lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, for plagiarism.

There’s nothing remotely original in his statement about the London attacks. Instead he has ripped off sentiments already expressed by scaremongering politicians and in handwringing newspaper editorials here in Britain since the 7/7 attacks. He’s only doing what al-Qaeda bosses have consistently done since 9/11: taking the West’s own fear and loathing and throwing it back at us in a supposedly scary, finger-wagging statement to camera.

Al-Zawahri also says that the war in Iraq is a war for oil, and demands that the West stop this ‘robbing of our oil and resources’. Since when has al-Qaeda been interested in economics? This argument is taken verbatim from the anti-war movement in the West, which has been chanting the mantra ‘It’s all about oil!’ for the past two years as a quick, easy (and some might say lazy) way of denouncing the war. Now al-Zawahri is milking this simplistic but wildly popular slogan for all its worth.

This doesn’t only suggest that al-Zawahri has not got an original thought in his head – it also reveals an essential truth about al-Qaeda. They feed off our fears.

Spiked further points out that all Al-Zawahri has had to do is read it back what leftist apologists have been saying in a scary, shouty Middle Eastern voice, like a James Bond villain circa 1980.

Further reading: Why We Appease

UPDATE: Take the Eamonn Fitzgerald challenge: 3 statements. 2 by British leftist politicians and one by al-Zawahri. Try to see if you can pick out the terrorist. (It’s harder than you think).

technorati: al-Zawahri al-Qaeda appeasement

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 4th, 2005 at 12:13 pm by Insider and is filed under War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.