Osama bin Laden Raises Possibility of Truce with U.S. in al-Jazeera Tape
According to the BBC, al-Jazeera, the Arabic TV station, has broadcast a lengthy speech from a tape that it claims was made by the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. In it, bin Laden proposes a "long-term truce" with the U.S. on the basis of "fair conditions". The Bush administration immediately rejected the offer, according to the Voice of America, after confirming that the voice on the tape was indeed that of bin Laden."We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," Bush spokesperson Scott McClellan stated flatly.
Comparison of the full transcript of bin Laden's statement with the Voice of America article reveals a possible discrepancy in the Bush administration's interpretation of bin Laden's offer with what he may have intended, if his statements are taken at face value. The Voice of America article contains the following:
"U.S. intelligence officials say the voice heard on an audiotape aired Thursday on Arab television is indeed that of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. In the taped message, he threatens more attacks on the United States, but says there can be a truce in the war on terror if U.S. forces pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq."
According to the transcript, bin Laden does not make any direct statement linking the truce to U.S. forces unilaterally withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq. The only direct reference he makes to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is when he refers to U.S. public opinion polls "which indicated that the overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of the forces from Iraq". He refers to Afghanistan and Iraq in relation to the truce in what appear to be deliberately vague terms:
"We do not object to a long-term truce with you on the basis of fair conditions that we respect.
"We are a nation, for which God has disallowed treachery and lying.
"In this truce, both parties will enjoy security and stability and we will build Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by the war. . . .
If you have a genuine will to achieve security and peace, we have already answered you."
Bin Laden's current truce offer is not the first but one of a number of peace overtures that typically accompany his statements. While intelligence experts conclude that it is a sign of weakness and that its intent is to weaken public support for the Bush administration's conduct of its "war on terrorism", these interpretations fail to explain how it advances al-Qaeda's objectives for bin Laden to express interest in a truce.
While bin Laden's speech lends itself to a variety of interpretations, it does not specifically state that al-Qaeda intends to single-handedly rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, it does not state that the U.S. must unilaterally withdraw from these regions, but rather that the U.S. must stop fighting Muslims "on our land". If these statements are taken at face value, bin Laden's lack of specificity might well be construed to justify the commencement of truce negotiations to determine what "conditions", if any, the parties might find mutually acceptable.
If the Bush administration does not see fit to enter into such negotiations, which apparently it does not, members of the international community and global civil society skilled in nonviolent conflict resolution have every reason to take up this challenge, as outlined in "Time for Multilateral Negotiations with the al Qaeda Movement". Security analysts agree, particularly in the light of post-9/11 attacks on Madrid and London, that the globalized al Qaeda movement and its autonomous members worldwide now operating in more than 70 countries continue to possess the capacity to inflict wide-scale damage in future attacks on the U.S. mainland and major cities abroad.
If truce negotiations offer any possibilities, however remote and improbable, of preventing such attacks and future loss of life, what reason could there be to reject them out of hand? In light of the fact that civil society constituents have been told by their governments that their military forces cannot protect them against the terrorist attacks they acknowledge are on their way, is it not in global civil society's interest to start truce talks through their own rapidly increasing conflict-resolving NGOs and umbrella groups, such as the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict and the European Centre for Conflict Prevention? Now that U.S. military force has proved counter-productive, by increasing rather than reducing the number of terrorists and their supporters in the world, is it not in the interest of global civil society to start worldwide multilateral truce talks with the members, supporters and representatives of the al Qaeda movement who are willing to come to the negotiating table to identify the root causes of all forms of terrorism and what can be done to eradicate them nonviolently?
Comparison of the full transcript of bin Laden's statement with the Voice of America article reveals a possible discrepancy in the Bush administration's interpretation of bin Laden's offer with what he may have intended, if his statements are taken at face value. The Voice of America article contains the following:
"U.S. intelligence officials say the voice heard on an audiotape aired Thursday on Arab television is indeed that of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. In the taped message, he threatens more attacks on the United States, but says there can be a truce in the war on terror if U.S. forces pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq."
According to the transcript, bin Laden does not make any direct statement linking the truce to U.S. forces unilaterally withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq. The only direct reference he makes to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is when he refers to U.S. public opinion polls "which indicated that the overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of the forces from Iraq". He refers to Afghanistan and Iraq in relation to the truce in what appear to be deliberately vague terms:
"We do not object to a long-term truce with you on the basis of fair conditions that we respect.
"We are a nation, for which God has disallowed treachery and lying.
"In this truce, both parties will enjoy security and stability and we will build Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by the war. . . .
If you have a genuine will to achieve security and peace, we have already answered you."
Bin Laden's current truce offer is not the first but one of a number of peace overtures that typically accompany his statements. While intelligence experts conclude that it is a sign of weakness and that its intent is to weaken public support for the Bush administration's conduct of its "war on terrorism", these interpretations fail to explain how it advances al-Qaeda's objectives for bin Laden to express interest in a truce.
While bin Laden's speech lends itself to a variety of interpretations, it does not specifically state that al-Qaeda intends to single-handedly rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, it does not state that the U.S. must unilaterally withdraw from these regions, but rather that the U.S. must stop fighting Muslims "on our land". If these statements are taken at face value, bin Laden's lack of specificity might well be construed to justify the commencement of truce negotiations to determine what "conditions", if any, the parties might find mutually acceptable.
If the Bush administration does not see fit to enter into such negotiations, which apparently it does not, members of the international community and global civil society skilled in nonviolent conflict resolution have every reason to take up this challenge, as outlined in "Time for Multilateral Negotiations with the al Qaeda Movement". Security analysts agree, particularly in the light of post-9/11 attacks on Madrid and London, that the globalized al Qaeda movement and its autonomous members worldwide now operating in more than 70 countries continue to possess the capacity to inflict wide-scale damage in future attacks on the U.S. mainland and major cities abroad.
If truce negotiations offer any possibilities, however remote and improbable, of preventing such attacks and future loss of life, what reason could there be to reject them out of hand? In light of the fact that civil society constituents have been told by their governments that their military forces cannot protect them against the terrorist attacks they acknowledge are on their way, is it not in global civil society's interest to start truce talks through their own rapidly increasing conflict-resolving NGOs and umbrella groups, such as the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict and the European Centre for Conflict Prevention? Now that U.S. military force has proved counter-productive, by increasing rather than reducing the number of terrorists and their supporters in the world, is it not in the interest of global civil society to start worldwide multilateral truce talks with the members, supporters and representatives of the al Qaeda movement who are willing to come to the negotiating table to identify the root causes of all forms of terrorism and what can be done to eradicate them nonviolently?
posted by the Third Force Network at 4:57 PM
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