Osama Bin Laden’s widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. 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! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
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.
The video may be downloaded as a 677 mb MPEG file here.
You could knock Wolf Blitzer over with a feather.
Thank you for your kind words. I’m really astounded that the freeze-framing of the video was not immediately picked up on and commented by any of the commercial media outlets. Perhaps one could miss it if one were looking at the English subtitles, but anyone listening to the Arabic and looking at the video should have caught this immediately.
I had at first downloaded a lower-quality RealMedia file of the video, and when I saw the video of Osama bin Laden freeze up after a couple minutes, I thought there must be something wrong with it, so I downloaded the best quality version available (the 667 mb MPEG file), whereupon it became quite clear that the video has been frozen at key points.
your diary is the most linked diary ever at this site. Over 80,000 people came to the site today. Over 90% came to read your diary.
Thanks for the great job! Since the download from Internet Archive is rather slow I put the Hi-Res video on my blog: OBL video – CIA 2007 (divx via Stage6)
The Telegraph in the UK reports:
US loner helps bin Laden to taunt Bush
How likely is it that US intelligence has the tape before Islamist websites? If they’re that good, how come he is still not in custody?
I have to wonder if maybe the tape wasn’t as much a surprise to the Islamist websites (and perhaps to bin Laden) as it was to the Western press and, in fact, everyone EXCEPT US intelligence….
Well, if we don’t hear from OBL re: fake-nocity. Then it’s probably not fake or he’s dead or in jail.
Or is quite happy with the possible outcomes of it and sees no reason to interrupt things when der shrubbenfuhrer is doing exactly as OBL wants….
The guy’s almost as good at playing US pols as Fidel…
That was just a blunder, they published it BEFORE they uploaded it to to the(ir) islamist websites. Man that happens all the time ;-).
And the Egypt press release announcing the Tape? Tell any body you will publish something their rival newspaper hasn`t got at the moment and it is in the press immediatly. Cheers
Nice work, and thanks.
I don’t know why anyone would believe something like this, especially with those video freezes. I mean, I wouldn’t accept it as evidence for anything.
How do we even know this is Bin Laden? He looks different to me. And why would UBL dye his beard? It’s just ridiculous. Future historians will stand aghast that anyone believed the crap being shoved down our throats in this period.
Positively faked, of course.
Great post; linked a summmary to Citizens for Legitimate Government (www.legitgov.org) and it will be in Monday’s newsletter.
Cheers,
Lori Price
CLG
Good post. I think the video is fake too. But for a different reason. The fake or dyed beard and hair may indicate that this bin Laden is an imposter and that the video is a “wag the dog” video. Maybe this is why Rove left the White House, to go into show business.
Good catch.
So much for our vaunted news media.
I hope that the news media will take note, especially now that U.S. Homeland Security advisor Frances Townsend has gone on the record indicating that U.S. intelligence officials believe the video to be legitimate.
The people who play games analyzing all this Bin Laden stuff are wasting their time and ours…what the heck difference does it all really make. The big time killer is in the White House….he & his cabal have killed and injured more people, damaged or destroyed more property, hurt more people than Osama in his wildest dreams could have ever done and for what? Our security…..hogwash. liberate the Iraqis…ask them about it.
The big time killer is in the White House..
And me forgetting my duct-tape so my head doesnt explode reading stuff like that…
Good catch on the freeze frame…I did an article on it 9/7/07
Transcript: Osama Bin Laden video from the Grave…
The authenticity of a Bin Laden communication is determined by voice print analysis. The video quality or content it meaningless.
Al-Queada has long used heavy editing to disguise the time and place in which they made the original recording. For security reasons, they probably do not wish to reveal Bin Laden’s current appearance or location and for marketing reasons they wish to continue using his now iconographic appearance at the time of 9/11. They may also have logistic problems in getting current video made. To control all these factors, they usually just make a voice recording of Bin Laden and then edit it into old footage.
Every intelligence agency in the world and every world wide major media source has done their own voice print analysis of the tape. If it was squirrelly, somebody, somewhere would have said something.
I see no basis for discarding the video in assessing the authenticity of this supposed address to the American people by Osama bin Laden. So-called “voice prints” seem far from reliable as a means of identification. Moreover, both video and audio are vulnerable to tampering.
How would you explain the fact that the references to current events in this release occur only at points where the video portion is frozen? Coincidence? Perhaps, but I don’t think that’s the most probable explanation.
Look, this is simple: if it’s a fake it’s most likely one made by Zawahiri or his people. THEY have a major interest in keeping OBL alive as a symbol of defiance and a recruiting tool, even if OBL assumed cave temperature a long time ago.
Bush has no such interest; the left continually taunts him for not capturing Osama. If OBL is really dead, why would Bush keep resurrecting him? If OBL is alive, then why would Bush create tapes reminding us that he hasn’t caught him?
If Bush “needs” OBL to keep frightening us, why not have the “fake” Osama issue some major threats, instead of having him sound like a college sophomore who got himself outside a six-pack before uploading inane comments up onto YouTube?
Een better, why wouldn’t Bush follow threats from the fake OBL tapes with “false flag attacks”, just as “we all know” he did on 9/11? What better way to terrorize us and further restrict our civil liberties?
One more thing: does anyone KNOW if voiceprints can be faked without the fakery being detectable? I suspect not, as waveforms of the possibly “fake” OBL’s voice could be subected to mathematical analysis against samples known to be genuine. Myself, I would focus on the voiceover during the segments where the tape is stopped.
And oh by the way: have you seen this?
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070910/D8RIKF6G0.html
*******
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – Al-Qaida said Monday that it will release a new video of Osama bin Laden presenting the last testament of one of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers, marking the sixth anniversary of the attacks.
*********
Did Bush fake that report too? Will the new video, if shown, be more Bush propaganda?
Just askin’, is all……
If you can’t understand why the right has an interest in keeping bin-Laden alive, then I really can’t help you. Aside from the rhetoric it allows them to spew, there’s this:
Remember when Bush said that we’re working day and night to catch UBL and Porter Goss did a double-take? That’s all you need to know about that.
So the evil rightwingers conspire to keep Bin Laden alive in order to prevent a massive stream of high-fatality terrorist attacks? Not exactly a damning indictment.
Besides, what about the claims that Bush was just saving the capture of Bin Laden until just before the 2004 election, then the 2006 election, then 2008 etc? I mean either Bush wants Bin Laden alive and well to justify his police state or he wants him captured to shore himself in the polls. It can’t go both ways.
The most annoying thing about conspiracy nuts is that most of them are so damn bad at it.
I don’t know why you argue by bringing up other people’s arguments.
Your style of argument is dishonest.
The capture of Hussein and the killing of Zarqawi did more harm to Bush than good. Things did not get better and he lost excuses as to why things did not get better.
It’s an unstated but official policy of this administration that capturing or killing UBL is more trouble than it’s worth. They are perfectly willing to take the hit for not capturing him. But, other than Krongard, they are not willing to explain why in public.
I’d like to see UBL dead or in custody, but it’s pretty low on my priority list right now. I’d be much more interested in seeing an independent analysis of these tapes. It was done before…no one listened.
That, btw, was the tape from Dec. 2001. The so-called smoking gun.
If you haven’t learned to distrust this administration yet, what is going to convince you?
Grecian formula?
It’s an unstated but official policy of this administration that capturing or killing UBL is more trouble than it’s worth. They are perfectly willing to take the hit for not capturing him. But, other than Krongard, they are not willing to explain why in public.
Killing Bin Laden was a great idea. Bragging that you have killed Bin Laden is pointless. Bin Laden is dead and he is slowly being forgotten by those who count the millions of muslims who thought him a heroic figure around the world. For example in Indonesia in 2003 58% of those polled believed Bin Laden to be someone to be admired, that figure is down to 36% in 2006.
I object to those who have a conspiracy answer for every possible contingency.
If we can’t capture or kill Bin Ladin, then that somehow benefits Bush in some sinister way. On the other hand, if we do capture or kill Bin Laden then that also benefits Bush in some sinister way. During the last 6 years I have not seen anyone who glibly embraces these types of theories who sticks to one scenario. Instead, they just claim to believe the theory that supports the point they want to make at the moment.
If you’re not actually doing this, then you are the first I’ve met and I owe you an apology but frankly, I strongly doubt it. If we catch Bin Laden tomorrow, I don’t think you’ll suddenly think you were wrong.
The major fault in these conspiracy theories is not that they require that politicians be bastards but rather that they require that hundreds if not thousands of professional intelligence and military people all go along with it. I mean, how could you plan on not catching Bin Laden by mistake?
I would actually like to think that a major politician could actually consciously follow the kind of subtle strategy you image all the while taking a beating from his political competition for failing to catch the bad guy. I just don’t think the political animal has that much discipline.
You say:
That’s such prototypical BS, the kind the intelligence services spew. I have in my files a nice letter from Walt Elder to the Church committee saying that, aside from one ‘known’ incident, there were NO OTHER INSTANCES where the CIA tried to kill Castro. Ahem. We now know there were MANY attempts.
Was Walt Elder part of a conspiracy? No. He was passing along what someone told him, and he believed it.
If Bin Laden’s whereabouts are known, dead or alive – it only takes one person to know, and lie about it, to perpetuate the myth.
As for the bogus notion that no one can keep a secret – please tell me what the CIA’s number one family jewel — still redacted in the public release over 30 years after being compiled — is.
If you strongly think the Bin Landen audio a forgery then just test it yourself. If you could actually prove the video a forgery, you would strike a great blow against the evil empire.
Forensic voice print analysis is widely used. You can get a professional voice print analysis for just a couple of thousand dollars. After all there must be tens of thousands of people out there who believe as you do. Ask them all to chip in a dollar. If that fails ask hitt up George Soros for some pocket change.
If you really, really believe the tape a forgery then you have the means to prove it. More importantly, you have the obligation as a citizen to prove it. Time to step up.
In my opinion, the burden is on the government to prove this tape ISN’T a fake.
It is not a new thought to keep a ‘strongman’ in control over the chaos that may ensue, despite knowing full well he’s a devil. See Saddam Hussein. You can ignore the 100s of examples of this, or be open-minded and thoughtful.
The video is not frozen — watch bin Laden’s hands especially, there is a discontinuity between the active and frozen parts, both when it stops and when it starts again.
I’m not sure what exactly it means, but the frozen image is spliced in.
You must be doing SOMETHING right.
You are getting attention from the official deniers.
SEVERAL of them.
Hmmmmmmm…..
AG
Yeah – this is like an exposure pool. Come on in and rag on the post and show your spook credentials! 😀
The gang’s all here.
I guess since dKos has become a safe zone they can spare some workers.
Worky worky work, little ones.
Your time will come.
Sooner or later.
Bet on it.
AG
So just for daring to dissent from the conspiracy theory dogma, you’re branded a spook, an “official” denier?
And what’s with etermination rhetoric like “Your time will come. Sooner or later”?
Nice.
My reply is now a stand-alone post.
Spooky spook spooks on BooTrib? Naaaaahhh!!!
Read it.
And then…go fix your dye job.
Your real colors are plainly showing through.
AG
I read your response. If you had actually made any point in that response I’d argue over it. But that reply read like an incoherent and unconnected stream of consciousness that rambled all over the place.
It seems you’re serious that all it takes to be branded a spook is just to disagree with conspiracy theories.
If I had a dollar for every time some ignorant, intelligence-challenged right wing son of a bitch has told me that my writing is like an “incoherent and unconnected stream of consciousness” that rambles all over the place, I’d be able to pay my rent on time.
You are a self-fulfilling…and self-defeating as well…prophecy, Inkydink.
Go talk to your supervisor.
You need some career guidance.
And some remedial reading comprehension work as well.
I can write.
It is you who cannot read.
Later…
AG
I hope you get your dollars. Since I’m neither ignorant, intelligence-challenged, nor right wing I have no dollar for you.
You talked about some poster in Daily Kos who might be a spook, because of the large number of posts he posted, suggesting a group effort or a robot. But you haven’t presented any evidence like that against anyone posting to this board right now. You seemed to be saying that arguing against conspiracy theories was all the evidence you needed to brand someone a spook. Then you wasted the rest of your reply on unfunny ranting about supposed low-rent spooks, and obsessing over a typo. O.K., I apologize for the typo. Also, I posted on September 11 because that happened to be the day I read your post. If I had read your post on August 11 I would’ve replied then. To the date I replied, you read an implied meaning that did not exist, and now you’ve even put an untrue right wing brand on me.
You can’t get away with hiding behind a quote from Dr. King, stealing the word “justice” from him. You reminded me of how George W. Bush has always said he’s fighting for justice all through his Iraq decisions and attacks on civil liberties. Bush and his cronies brandish terrorist bogeymen and insist that everyone who dissents against their neocon policies must be an al-Qaeda collaborator. Arthur Gilroy is brandishing professional deniers as bogeymen and is insisting that arguing against conspiracy theories must mean you’re a spook.
Maybe you are not intel.
Maybe you are just a coincidence. You and the other several posters who showed up on that thread simultaneously and for the first and only time on this blog posted disagreements with an article that took issue with the total credibility of the Bin Laden video in question.
You must admit that this is one hell of a coincidence.
The rest of your post above?
Piffle.
Empty, foolish piffle.
All of it.
Your role, whether professional troll spook or completely unconsciously used, media-blinded conspiracy denier, is to do work for the Permanent Government.
I thought that my thing on low-rent spooks WAS funny. So did some other people. You cannot please everyone all of the time any more than you can fool everyone all of the time.
I thought the typo was funny, too. Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and he was right. But SOMETIMES a cigar can be a big, fat, smoking dick as well.
Ditto smoking typos.
Which kind was yours?
I don’t know. Only your analyst knows for sure. Is (s)he a Republican?
I was going for humor. Not accuracy.
Why?
Because whether you are a pro or not, I think that we can laugh the PermaGov out of office.
You did not get the humor.
Humor-challenged on top of being reading and thinking challenged, I guess. You could probably get a special license plate and be able to park in those disabled only parking spaces.
Your posting on 9/11 was a coincidence as well? Along with the other deniers? Again, could be. As were the release date of the Bin Laden tape and the Petraeus hearings? Maybe.
Maybe you ARE just an unconscious tool. Maybe you were hypnotized into a Manchurian Candidate-like 9/11 activity date. (**Warning!!! Humor!!!** [Just in case you missed this one, too.]) I do not know and I do not particularly care. Amateur or pro, you serve the same purpose. AND the same masters.
You claim that I cannot “get away with hiding behind a quote from Dr. King, stealing the word ‘justice’ from him?”
Do you see me hiding, Inkster?
And can ANYONE “steal” the word justice? How just would THAT be? ESPECIALLY from someone so spiritually advanced and so bravely eloquent in the lifelong expression of the idea of justice that the government had to have him killed. Or is that too much conspiracy theory for you as well?
I am nothing like Bush.
We are presently subject to a government that kills people like MLK Jr. plus literally hundreds of thousands of others in its pursuit of power…and make no mistake about it, this government represents EXACTLY the same forces that were behind the assassinations of the ’60s AND the Vietnam/Central-South-Caribbean American/Middle Eastern Wars…and you doubt the idea that they are capable of trying to subvert any and all opposition to their policies by any and all means necessary, including faking and/or altering Bin Laden tapes, employing professional blogstiffers and so distorting the truth in the hypnomedia so-called “news” that thousands of other people are trancewalked into lockstepping the same march against the ongoing attempt to express the truth of the matter?
Give me a break.
If you ARE a pro…it ain’t gonna work, here.
Go away.
Or…stay. I LOVE to see you fools waste manpower.
And if you are an amateur?
A deluded fool?
A detuned tool?
WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!
You are being used.
And…have a nice day.
Station WTFU signing off.
Later…
AG
I read Juan Cole’s blog. Juan Cole happened to link to this article, and so I followed this link. That’s how I’m here for the first time.
THIS is your idea of one Hell of a coincidence? Just because people argued with some conspiracy theories, there HAS to be some evil spook plan?? It seems you think all cigars are conspiracies.
I don’t know for sure what the other posters were up to. But you still have not posted any evidence that they really were spooks. Like an unnatural number of posts over a short period of time.
Good luck in laughing the PermaGov out of office, but your alleged humor wasn’t attacking them. It was attacking people you’ve been branding plants without evidence.
Who was talking about whether the dates of the Bin Laden tapes or the Petraeus hearings were coincidence?
Waving around a quote from Dr. King is hiding. You seem to think you can turn yourself into some great hero by wrapping yourself in the quote like some flag.
What I doubt is your specific accusations that certain people are blogstuffers.
Where there is smoke there is a cigar.
Now sometimes the conspiracy cigar may simply be the truly MASSIVE one that keeps people ina a state of hypnomedia trance…like those who automatically attack a post as you did because it does not accept the mass media-promoted view of something.
And sometimes it is a smaller one. Like individual spookbloggers trying to gum up the blogworks in the name of Spamerica.
You may indeed not be a “plant”.
But you do their work FOR them when you question such a post.
As far as quoting MLK Jr…I wrote “Your time will come” regarding those who DO work for The Man on these blogs, and you immediately called it ‘extermination rhetoric”.
I did not wrap myself in that quate as if it were some kind of flag.
I BELIEVE it. And I live by it as well.
Here it is again if you did not get it the first time.
The “arc of the moral universe” brings its time to EVERY criminal, eventually.
Bet on it.
Those who work for this present administration…from the highest right down to the lowest…are working in the service of a continuing criminal enterprise.
And their time SHALL come.
As shall come some form of failure for the sleepwalkers who also support it, innocent of anything other than weakmindedness though they may be. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, even when it is a cosmic law.
No wrapping of flags here.
Just a lifetime of observation.
Eventually the worst of us end up crispy critters on some bunker floor.
And even the guilty innocent have to pay for their mistakes as well.
YOUR time shall come, too, Ink. Even if you think you are being honest. You are asleep at the wheel and the concrete bridge abutments that will do you in approach rapidly.
So it goes.
My own interest in this?
You and the millions like you are liabl;e to take me and mine down with you.
So that goes as well.
All that I can do is try to sound the alarm.
Which I continue to do.
Have a nice drive.
Keep your eyes open around here, though.
“MEN AND WOMEN AT WORK” signs are all over.
Y’might learn something.
AG
I attacked because you accused everyone that was disagreeing with the conspiracy of being spooks. I felt your accusations were groundless at that time. When you said “your time will come” you made it sound like you meant all people questioning conspiracy posts here. And is it EVER possible to question “such a post”. You sound like you can’t question it at all.
Is accusing people of being spooks without evidence really living by Dr. King’s quote about justice?
I don’t find your assertions that I’m “asleep at the wheel” credible, any more than those same assertions I hear from Pat Robertson types going off on their own Messiah complexes.
is one of the main measueable parameters of good, functional intellgence. I get the feeling that yours is more than a little lacking. However, be that as it may…if you are not a spook, so be it.
Have fun NOT being one, I guess.
I certainly am.
AG
Tell us when you get a good sense humor then. 🙂
I was happy that TCM recently reran “Love and Death”. I need to get around and rewatch “Yankee Doodle Bunny” and
“Baseball Bugs” among other Loony Tunes.
Recommended, thanks.
Why is it that in a world where 8 year old Johnny can pick up a $100 digital camera and make a half decent video with clear sound the leader of a supposed worldwide terror network with hundreds of millions of dollars is incapable of matching little Johnny’s video quality? Why is it that all his underlings videos are crystal clear with great sound?
The video is a fake. Its horrid quality is there to try and obscure the actor playing Bin Laden .Dying your beard is worth a stoning to the radical sect Bin Laden belongs to. You’re allowed to tint with a bit of henna but that makes gray into a kind of orange. The brows do not match Bin Laden’s earlier videos and his constant dialysis for renal failure would have him looking a hell of a lot less healthy than this video. All of which is being obscured by the grainy video. The rotten sound in these videos also makes voiceprint analysis problematic – even though other Al Qaeda videos have superb sound.