AQ's Zawhiri Full of Advice

Townhall reported today on al Qaeda's recently released video.

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader appeared in a new video posted Friday calling on Americans to embrace Islam to overcome the financial meltdown, which he said was a consequence of the Sept. 11 attacks and militant strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ayman al-Zawahri, whose 80-minute recording touched on a number of subjects, also lashed out at Afghanistan's government and said any U.S. gains in Iraq will be temporary.

I absolutely love the way these guys believe they're omnipotent. They attacked us on September 11, 2001, and our economy suffered as a result. Then it recovered and did well for a few years, but now that the subprime mess hit the fan and threw the economy into a tailspin, Zawahri thinks he can take the credit for that. Unbelievable!

Oh, and he says the "militant strikes in Iraq" also hurt our economy. That could be indirectly true, if you look at the cost of conducting a war. Of course, he's ignoring the news that al Qaeda all but lost in Iraq. And Michael Yon says we've about won there, though General Petraus disagrees.

Zawahri continued:

"The modern economy has been destroyed by the strikes of the mujahedeen (in Iraq and Afghanistan) and usury," he said, using the Arabic term for holy warriors.

Under Islamic Sharia law, usury, like drinking alcohol, is among the grand sins.

Just to clarify, the Arabic term for holy warriors is "mujahadeen" not "usury."

On the usury point, though, that's just a question of semantics. Janice at You Heard It Here... posted back in March about Islamic mortgages (the links to the equities company's info are now broken). They don't officially charge interest. Instead they have a little line item called, "profit," which is suspiciously the same amount as what the interest would be if it were a non-Islamic mortgage. So they profit off each other without calling it interest, and then it's not the sin of usury. And because we infidels in the West call it "interest," that's the reason our economy is on the skids. Oh yeah, Zawahri sure nailed us on that one!

After that, Zawahri devolved into saying bad things about President Bush, President-Elect Barack Obama, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and the government of Egypt.

I hope don't care if he'll forgive me for not giving his diatribe the consideration he thinks it deserves.