Oh Frances, You Gotta Lotta Splainin to Do!

Yesterday, I pointed out that in Osama Bin Laden’s latest putative address to the American people, the only references to current events are made at points where the video is curiously frozen, suggesting that an older video was altered for the purpose of creating this new release. This anomaly is blatantly apparent and cannot have escaped the attention of U.S. intelligence analysts.

Yet the very same day, U.S. Homeland Security advisor Frances Townsend was on Fox News where she stated regarding the video: “Well, for sure, the intelligence community, having looked at it, believes it is bin Laden. The indications from the contents of the tape are that it was made recently, certainly in the last several months.”

Townsend went on to say that analysis of the video is continuing, and cautioned that “the particulars of the technical analysis are not something we’re going to reveal.” Nonetheless, I think Frances Townsend owes the American people some explanation of how the U.S. intelligence community arrived at the conclusion that this highly dubious video is authentic.

Author: George Maschke

Ex-U.S. Army Arabic & Persian (Farsi) linguist.