Think Progress

In 2004 videotape, Bin Laden explained his strategy against U.S. — ‘bleed until bankruptcy.’

obl.gifOver on the Wonk Room, Matt Duss recalls this line from Osama bin Laden’s surprise late-October 2004 videotaped address:

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahedin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan with Allah’s permission… And it all shows that the real loser is… you. It’s the American people and their economy.

The CIA judged that Bin Laden’s videotaped message was an effort by al Qaeda to deliver four more years for President Bush, thus helping them recruit a new generation of terrorists.



65 Responses to “In 2004 videotape, Bin Laden explained his strategy against U.S. — ‘bleed until bankruptcy.’”

  1. Above the Clouds says:

    bin Laden has the same strategy as the Republicans?


  2. upside99 says:

    Above the Clouds Says:

    bin Laden has the same strategy as the Republicans?

    Except all bin Laden had to do was buy a few airline tickets; the Repugs have spent 7 1/2 years, trillions of US tax dollars and thousands of lives to help him out.

    Who is the smartest guy in THAT room?


  3. ralph the wonder llama says:

    Heckuva job, Bushie!


  4. Jim Wolf359 says:

    Mission Accomplished it looks like. Who knew OBL had tha same economic advisors as the Chimp in Chief?
    Off topic: Will someone please tell Bill Clinton to STFU!!


  5. Anacher Forester says:

    I’ve believed this for years. It’s the same strategy that worked for bin Laden when he fought the Soviets.

    -AF
    Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud


  6. Bushie says:

    Yep, just about every item on bin Ladens destroy the USofA list has been accomplished, even though he made us do it for him. As ralph the wonder llama Says:

    Heckuva job, Bushie!


  7. Crusty Old Bastard says:

    “It’s the Economy, stupid.” Even Allah knows that!


  8. katy says:

    yep.

    and someone who’s been broadcasting this for years is randi rhodes…

    and today she was playing audio of gw in 02, i think, announcing his plan to have freddie and fannie make the american dream easier for ANYone, even if you CAN”T aford it, especially minorities…

    you gotta find it.

    the plan began very early…


  9. StratRat says:

    Sooo, Osama Been Forgotten needs Bush just as much as Bush needs Osama. What a lovely pair of delusional nutjobs. They both deserve each other.

    Why drag the planet into their homosexual love fest? leave us alone!!!!


  10. Keith H. says:

    george ! Look ! . . it’s your brother ! He’s still alliiiivve !!!



  11. Fred says:

    I read this here the other day and it seems appropriate:

    You should be able to find Bin laden now by going to the cave where the champange is being delivered.


  12. BillinChicago says:

    Yes, George W. Bush is practically a card-carrying member of Al Qaeda’s “financial jihad” against the U.S. Surely, Bin Laden must be satisfied with the way the War on Terror is going so far.

    And of course, Bush refuses to lift a figner against (or even acknowledge) the real engine driving the ideology of Al Qaeda:

    http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

    Nope, they’re his bestest oil buddies in the Middle East, so they get off scot-free, no matter how many Americans they murder.


  13. bs says:

    I’ve believed this for years. It’s the same strategy that worked for bin Laden when he fought the Soviets.

    im right with you……and let’s not forget who side was america on during that civil war? osama bin laden.

    folks dont be scared of bin laden that is not the boogey man.

    its the zionists.



  14. Mr. Evil says:

    How convenient. Whenever the neocons want to steal some more money they just trot out their favorite CIA trained black op poster boy, Osama bin Laden. This “bailout” is just another scam to get as much free money as possible before the election. They have no conscience and are not only obsessed with money, they worship it. And they have a few hundred million people mesmerized into providing it for them. How convenient.


  15. tokin librul says:

    In 2004 videotape, Bin Laden explained his strategy against U.S. — ‘bleed until bankruptcy.’»

    all the more amazing since, according to Benazir Bhutto, talking to David Frost, only a week before her assassination, she’d talked to the guy who’s assassinated Obama in Tora Bora in late 2001/early 2002…
    Go figger


  16. Buckie Boy says:

    Played the War Mongers like the suckers they are….knuckle-dragging idiots bought what he sold like three year olds at a candy store.


  17. bs says:

    assassinated Obama in Tora Bora in late 2001/early 2002…

    and supposedly who was that? not the american military.


  18. Zooey says:

    Bin Laden’s plan worked brilliantly.

    We destroyed ourselves.


  19. tokin librul says:

    ##bs Says:

    assassinated Obama in Tora Bora in late 2001/early 2002…

    and supposedly who was that? not the american military.
    September 25th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

    Prob’ly the Paki ISI, but we’ll never know, cuz he was killed to, by USers, iirc…


  20. Fred says:

    tokin librul Says:

    Assasinated who?

    That doesn’t mean anything anyway. Even if he’s dead he still played it well and it worked out just as he said it would.

    Pathetic incompetence on the part of the bush administration.


  21. nygenxer says:

    …and don’t forget his stated goal of $100 per barrel oil.

    Mission accomplished.


  22. bs says:

    #19

    obama should have been screaming that from the get go. just another politician on his knees with the zionists dictating his moves. what a farce. so this nov. go and vote for the lesser of two evils.


  23. tokin librul says:

    bs:
    I linked to the vid, at #23.


  24. IBTunion4obama says:

    The biggest lie and disaster in foreign policy, ever, 3 trillion dollars worth.


  25. bs says:

    Prob’ly the Paki ISI, but we’ll never know, cuz he was killed to, by USers, iirc…

    do you believe that?


  26. tokin librul says:

    nygenxer Says:
    …and don’t forget his stated goal of $100 per barrel oil.
    Mission accomplished.
    September 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    Afaik, the goal was $144/bbl, reached in July, ‘08…
    Mission MORE Accomplished…


  27. bs says:

    tokin librul Says:

    sweet, thanks. have to check that out


  28. tokin librul says:

    bs Says:
    Prob’ly the Paki ISI, but we’ll never know, cuz he was killed to, by USers, iirc…

    do you believe that?

    I believe Benazir Bhutto. She was on her way home to take over pakistan when she met w/Frost.

    I linked the vid @23

    I believe i shall now have another drink, and a joint, too…


  29. Fred says:

    Post #23

    tokin librul Says:
    ——————————————————————————–

    In 2004 videotape, Bin Laden explained his strategy against U.S. — ‘bleed until bankruptcy.’»

    all the more amazing since, according to Benazir Bhutto, talking to David Frost, only a week before her assassination, she’d talked to the guy who’s assassinated Obama in Tora Bora in late 2001/early 2002…
    Go figger

    huh?


  30. bs says:

    Today’s banking crisis is the THIRD trillion dollar plus US-caused financial meltdown in the last twenty years.

    Each one of these crises came into being through the same basic mechanism…the fraudulent over-valuing of financial assets by Wall Street – with a “wink and a nod” (and sometimes a lot more) from the White House and Congress.

    The fraudulently valued assets stimulate the economy, impart the illusion of health and then, inevitably, the fraud goes too far and the whole house of card comes painfully crashing back to earth.

    The three trillion dollar plus frauds were:

    Fraud #1: The so-called “Savings and Loan Crisis” of the late 80s

    Fraud #2: The so-called “Tech Bubble” of the late 90s

    Fraud #3: The so-called “Credit Crisis” of today

    *** How the scam works

    The mechanism of these frauds is simplicity itself…

    …Take a shaky financial asset and blow up its value and then sell as much of it as you can.

    In the “Savings and Loan Crisis,” the instrument was junk bonds.

    In the “Tech Bubble” it was Internet stocks.

    In the “Credit Crisis” it was individual mortgages collected into pools and then re-sold to investors.

    In each case, normal, well established “bread and butter”
    financial principles were consciously thrown away by Wall Street with no hint of protest from federal regulators.

    ***The “Savings and Loan Crisis” dissected

    Junk bonds caused the Saving and Loan crisis which resulted in the US taking over the assets of hundreds of banks and selling them back over time to the marketplace
    at fire sale prices.

    Junk bonds, which caused the “Savings and Loan Crisis” were shaky bonds that were pumped up by deliberate misrepresentation and what I call “staged dealing.”

    Bonds get their value from two things: the amount of interest they pay and how safe they are.

    “Junk” bonds have to pay higher interest because they are less safe. Therefore, until the “Savings and Loan Crisis,” savings and loan banks banks were not allowed by law to buy them and call them assets.

    Reagan/Bush changed all this and then a group of Wall Street fraudsters used the new loophole to kick off an orgy of junk bond creation and junk bond selling to banks and insurance companies.

    The crooks would deal the junk bonds back and forth amongst themselves thereby establishing their “value”
    and then they’d sell them to outsiders. The bonds then became “assets” which could be borrowed against and leveraged to buy even more bonds.

    When the bonds failed, the banks failed and in stepped the US government to “fix” the problem that it created at the cost of at least one trillion dollars to US tax payers.

    Deja vu, eh?

    ***The “Tech Bubble” dissected

    The instrument of fraud in the “Tech Bubble” was Internet stocks, start ups in particular.

    A stock gets its value from the underlying company’s sales, its growth and its overall prospects for the future.

    Pre-tech bubble, companies used to have to prove themselves by being in existence for several years before they could be sold on major exchanges. That standard was thrown away during the tech bubble.

    To pump of their values, the companies engaged in “staged dealing” just like the junk bond crooks.

    Company #1 would “sell” 20 million dollars in banner ads to Company #2 which would in turn “sell” 20 million in banner ads to Company #1.

    In fact, nobody sold anybody anything. Company #2 ran ads for Company #1 and billed it for them. Company #1 ran ads for Company #2 and billed for an equal amount.

    These should have been called media trades not sales, but Wall Street was happy to claim them as legitimate cash sales and then use the sales numbers to fraudulently value these companies – many of them totally worthless – in the hundreds of millions and sometimes even the billions.

    ***The “Credit Crisis” dissected

    By now, you see how the scheme works.

    It’s not complicated at all.

    You take near worthless pieces of paper (junk bonds, stock of start up Internet companies, etc.) and declare them to be good as gold.

    Then you create as many junk bonds and Internet start up stocks as you get and sell them as fast as you can.

    In the case of our current crisis, the instrument of fraud was so-called sub-prime mortgages.

    Previously, sub-prime mortgages had very little trading value.
    Only people in the sub-prime industry itself dealt in them and for good reason. They’re tricky to value and packed with financial peril.

    But Wall Street changed all that.

    Wall Street said: “If we take LOTS of these mortgages and assemble them into large pools and then slice and dice the pools in various ways, we can sell the slices to banks and other investors as AAA paper.”

    It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

    If the underlying pieces of paper are garbage, how does assembling a whole bunch of garbage into one place make it “better?”

    It doesn’t, of course, and this is a principle even a three year old child can understand.

    But greed and the need to pump up a shaky economy for propaganda purposes are two very strong motivators.

    Banks created these mortgage pools, sold them to each other, and they by virtue of these “staged sales” declared them valuable.

    Do you recognize the pattern now?

    If you do, then you are now smarter than all the assembled j@ck@sses who do financial reporting because they apparently can’t – or won’t.

    This is the THIRD trillion-dollar plus fraud driven financial meltdown in twenty years and apparently no one in the financial
    news media can see how it happened.

    ***But there’s more…

    Junk bonds were mass manufactured as fast as the crooks could invent them. Ditto for Internet stocks.

    But how did hundreds of billions of dollars worth of “toxic”
    mortgages suddenly come into being?

    Why did the mortgage industry change its lending standards so radically and so suddenly to make their creation possible?

    And why did real estate lending regulators in all 50 states – because real estate lending is a STATE-level issue not a federal
    - go along with it?

    Here’s where it gets very interesting…

    The fact is state-level lending regulators were VERY concerned about what was going on. They have been for years.

    And they not only expressed their concern clearly, they also took SERIOUS concerted legal action to stop lenders from making bad real estate loans to their citizens.

    (Most of the sub-prime loans in the news so much today were designed to screw the people who borrowed the money and can rightly be called “predatory” loans.)

    Guess who stopped the states from enforcing their own time-proven real estate lending laws and thus created the raw material that made the current “Credit Crisis” possible?

    *** The trillion dollar plus question

    If you’re a US taxpayer, you’re going to pay for this fraud so you might as well know who did it to you.

    His initials are GB.

    You know him well.

    But perhaps more interesting is the name of the person who single-handedly rallied first state attorneys general and then fellow governors to fight the creation of these loans and who in the process became Public Enemy #1 to the Bush Administration…

    His initials are ES.

    If you follow “silly” US political scandals, you’ll recognize his name instantly when you hear it.

    And you will *finally* understand why he was quickly and permanently assassinated politically earlier this year.

    Had ES been allowed to “live,” he would have been in position to remind everyone every day of who made the current meltdown possible.

    Instead, he was silenced very effectively. Not with a bullet in the back of the head, but the net effect was just the same.

    So effective was his assassination that no one can even mention his name in connection with today’s crisis without risking ridicule, or worse.

    Last note:

    The crisis this fraud has created is *exponentially* bigger than the S & L and Tech Bubble combined.

    It’s not going to be resolved by a quick “patch up” and will likely have the same impact on the current generation that the depression of the 1930s had on its parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

    On that cheerful note, here’s the big story everyone missed this year and now you’ll finally know what REALLY happened and why:

    http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/291.html


  31. bs says:

    #36

    i beat ya on the joint, have a drink for me!!! a stiff one that is.


  32. Zooey says:

    If the US had killed bin Laden, the Chimperor would have paraded his rotting corpse up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.

    Otherwise, he’s the perfect boogieman.


  33. helenahandbasket says:

    OT: McCain may be helping to blow up the bailout deal.

    McCain’s behavior is like a drunk driver interfering with EMTs trying to save the life of a passenger in the car he just wrecked.


  34. Fred says:

    bs Says:
    His initials are ES.

    Why so clandesine? We supposed to figure it out from that?


  35. hussein toasterhead says:

    tokin librul Says:

    ##bs Says:

    assassinated Obama in Tora Bora in late 2001/early 2002…

    and supposedly who was that? not the american military.
    September 25th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

    Prob’ly the Paki ISI, but we’ll never know, cuz he was killed to, by USers, iirc…
    September 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    ________

    First of all, Barack Hussein Obama is still very much alive. I believe the person BS is referring to is named Usama.

    Second, “Paki” is a racial slur. “Pakistani” is the term you’re looking for.

    Third, Usama bin Laden is still very much alive. There is no evidence that he died at Tora Bora, according to Steve Coll.


  36. hussein toasterhead says:

    Fred Says:

    bs Says:
    His initials are ES.

    Why so clandesine? We supposed to figure it out from that?
    September 25th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

    Hint: He got caught in a hotel with a HO.


  37. tokin librul says:

    IIRC, each of these derivatives and other financial instruments represents a measure of debt.

    On Thom Hartmann’s show the other day, he said there were A THOUSAND TRILLION DOLLARS worth of derivative paper floating on the markets at any given time.

    This should scare the living shit out of any sentient being, given that, at any given time, there’s only about SIXTY TRILLION DOLLARS worth of GDP in the WHOLE FARKING WORLD…

    That is, debt exceeds collateral supporting it by a factor of a little more than 160 times.

    Just kill yourselves now, and spare the Elites the mess of having to take you out themselves…


  38. Fred says:

    Toasterhead, I think we are talking to a blank wall.


  39. Fred says:

    Oh, Eliot…..man, gonna have to get a decoder ring.


  40. tokin librul says:

    Sorry ’bout the “obama” slip…
    as for Osama, I believe Bhutto.
    She was in a position to know.
    And she was assassinated, probably by the ISI working with the CIA, as they have for years…which gives her last revelations a certain, je ne ces pas qua…


  41. Marie says:

    Hasn’t this been said here before? Our enemies do not have to go to war with us, they only need to terrorize us into fear, and our government will spend us into bankrupty. Mission accomplished.


  42. CitizenX says:

    That is the purpose of terrorism. They cannot win militarily but they can drain the treasury and the will of the people to support the government.

    It is not rocket science and it was the first mistake of the bush crime family in not understanding that.


  43. citizen_pain says:

    Osama did us all a great favor.

    Bu$h, the incompetent bumbling fool, and the deeply paranoid and disturbed Cheney, got played like silly putty by a guy that lived in caves.

    Now, the US is an tremendous economic turmoil, bogged down in a war of two fronts, and as divided as we have been since the Vietnam.

    End result? Not a victory for the terrorists, but a victory for America because finally we are moving past the last few decades of petulant partisanship. Troubled times in our history usually produce great men, men who are there at the right time and the right moment to move our nation forward.

    I believe the O man is that guy, and he would have never even been a blip on the radar had these particular circumstances not ever happened.

    In a sense, we can thank Little Georgie and the cave dweller. If it weren’t for them, it would be business as usual.


  44. Crusty Old Bastard says:

    bs,

    Your dissertation was interesting but the scheme has been around much longer and in many different forms than just what your “ES” discloses. Most of us know it as a Ponzi or pyramid scheme. A prime example is our credit crisis of today and the other schemes you mention. There is no solution nor any preventative until you can remove greed from the human make-up. There will always be somebody who tries to get something from nothing. The most striking example today is the Republicans trying to get reason and logic out of the heads of McLiar and Ms Pinocchio. One is all POW with no power and the other is all pad and no flow.


  45. bs says:

    #42

    that wasn’t from me. it was sent to me and i asked the same question. sorry…im trying to figure it out


  46. bs says:

    #43

    that was tolkin who stated that and i was asking the “who was that question” he sent a link and im mixed on the whole thing.

    personally im believing he is alive and very well with dialysis machine and all


  47. bs says:

    It is not rocket science and it was the first mistake of the bush crime family in not understanding that.

    bushco understands that, best believe he does……but his back is protected by the moneychangers. the ones who really run this country, don’t even think that anyone of our american presidents control the peoples government.


  48. RUCerious says:

    BinLaden outsmarted Bushitco.

    But, geez, it was so easy. Incompetent bastards.


  49. misshusseinmolly says:

    The Republicans constantly claim that Bush has done a wonderful job because “we haven’t had any terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11.”

    Not all destruction is caused by physically blowing things up. The fear and paranoia ramped up by those with political agendas have caused this country to play right into Osama’s vision.


  50. bs says:

    BinLaden outsmarted Bushitco.

    there was no outsmarting anyone here. it’s “i can’t kill my oil boss. the one that welcomed our nazi family into the saudi “bin laden” kingdom of oil….my buddy in the carlyle group.”

    that is what it is.


  51. onoclea says:

    Zooey @ 40. Osama on the loose has been more effective for the Bush team from a propaganda perspective than Osama captured. How could they keep creating tapes to frighten us if they captured him? It’s all just too suspicious.


  52. RUCerious says:

    I think BushitCo’s decision to invade a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 was completely envisioned by Bin Laden. He knew Georgie would throw a mental shitfit and lash out at the Muslim world, and the most likely target would have oil up the gazoo.


  53. hussein toasterhead says:

    misshusseinmolly Says:

    Not all destruction is caused by physically blowing things up. The fear and paranoia ramped up by those with political agendas have caused this country to play right into Osama’s vision.
    September 25th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    _______

    Not to mention netted hundreds of billions of dollars for the security industry, the mercenary industry, the defense industry, etc.


  54. hussein toasterhead says:

    bs Says:

    #42

    that wasn’t from me. it was sent to me and i asked the same question. sorry…im trying to figure it out
    September 25th, 2008 at 7:42 pm

    ______

    Ah, ok. If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s Elliot Spitzer. I always thought something was a little fishy about the way he was targeted by his own law, and one that’s designed to protect johns while going after traffickers. It was pure political assassination – the only thing I didn’t get was the motive.


  55. Doc Rock says:

    And the dunderheads Cheney and Bush complied!


  56. bs says:

    hussein toasterhead Says:
    ____________

    yeah i did finally with a little head bumping. good lookin out.


  57. Idyll says:

    bs #38

    I just C and P’d your post to my brother who lives in NY. I hope he finds it as interesting as I did.


  58. kasinca says:

    Bin Laden doesn’t have to hit us with the republicans in office. They are doing all his bidding in the name of greed.


  59. motorfingaz says:

    “I don”t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don”t care. It”s not that important. It”s not our priority.”
    - G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

    “I am truly not that concerned about him.”
    - G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden”s whereabouts,
    3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)


  60. Steaming Pile says:

    So the American banking industry has been infiltrated by al Qaida. Swell.


  61. markusmarkus says:

    Who da thunk it – Osama is smarter than Bush.


  62. rmwarnick says:

    Obviously, Osama is smarter than Bush. But did he have help? Why was this tape released just before the election?


  63. johndoraemi says:

    The “War on Terror” Fraud, and the Washington Post’s “New Approach”
    http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/2008/09/war-on-terror-fraud-and-washington.html



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