Dead Man Talking

I agree with Charles Johnson, Osama Bin Dead for a while now:

"The SITE Institute says a new video is coming from Osama bin Laden, but I expect more old footage recut to look new."

It isn't even especially necessary that the resulting footage be all that convincing, as long as it permits manipulation of the enemy's (that would be us) political and economic decision-making process.

Strategy basicly comes down to positional condition and alignment, both actual and relative to one another. What is the actual state of my position and how does that compare to my opponent's position? Two other important questions are: what is the cost/benefit calculation for improving my actual condition? versus, what is the cost/benefit result from spending that effort/money to degrade the opposition's actual position? The rules of basic economics always apply; why else do you think Yasser Arafat and his Fatah gang were such enthusiastic kidnapping/extortionists?

al Qaeda's principal strategy of tearing down everyone's position to match their own is what will eventually defeat them, I think. We're seeing inklings of this in Iraq now and I expect this effect to spread to other jihadist dominated areas. The trick will be to convince people of the jihadi intention before they can decimate a region.