this video has been discussed here so many times, after all.
Two possible origins are usually considered for the tape:
1) It's authentic and shows a real discussion between Osama and his friend. In that case, here is an interesting angle -- I don't actually agree with it but it's worth consideration:
Writer Claims bin Laden Confession Video Offers Evidence of Criminal Conspiracy
To Go to War on Part of US and Britain, And Possible Foreknowledge of the 9/11 Attacks
http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20070226141631611 OR
2) It's a CIA/US intel fake.
Many people take option 2 to constitute proof of 9/11 complicity by US. That is a logical fallacy. Intel ops might fake such a tape to support the official story, independently of whether that story is true, simply because they hope to put speculation to rest. Furthermore, the people who fake it are not necessarily the same as the people who then find it (soldiers in Afghanistan, perhaps) or who end up promoting it (the State Dept.).
MORE IMPORTANTLY, THESE ARE NOT THE ONLY POSSIBILITIES.
This might be one of the "Osama doubles" we heard so much about in the early days after 9/11. Anyone could have faked it before it fell into the hands of the US military: amateurs, the Northern Alliance, a third-country intel agency... even "Curveball"! We are not talking about a high tech fakery, if it is that.
TWO ESSENTIAL MATTERS THAT THESE DISCUSSIONS ALMOST ALWAYS IGNORE:
1) THE MISLEADING TRANSLATION
-provided by the State Department. The OBL of this video speaks of "they" and "them" doing 9/11, not "us" and "we." The translation was demanded as a rush job from contract translators, who later complained. German TV journalist Ekkehard Siekker (Monitor/ARD) hired other translators. They worked on it for more than 30 hours before giving up on the "inaudibles" and calling the State Dept's freelancers to find out how they had arrived at their results. At that point, the State Dept. contractors said, well, if you had 30 hours you'll know better than us, because we only had 10!
2) IT PROVES NOTHING
They may be actors, they may be real fanatics dedicated to committing real murder of "Crusaders and Jews." They may still be assets, dating back to the 1980s. They may be giving a confession that they know to be false, or genuinely think to be true... the footage may be faked by digital means...
And I don't care, because:
Osama and his friend didn't schedule the wargames for September 11th. They didn't choose the scenarios that were run on that day. They didn't practice these scenarios repeatedly beforehand. They didn't keep Bush in a school for 45 minutes during the attacks -- although, and this is VERY interesting, the "Osama" of October 2004 found excuses for this behavior! (See next post, below.)
They didn't make Myers and Rumsfeld pretend to be scarce on the morning. They didn't spontaneously reschedule Winfield's shift on the evening before the attack. They didn't stymie command response and sow confusion in the air defense and keep the interceptors occupied elsewhere.
They didn't bury the dozen-plus prior warnings from foreign intelligence services, many of them highly specific. They couldn't kill the request for a Moussaoui search warrant; Dave Frasca did. They didn't put a yellow stickie over Atta's face and shut down the Able Danger program, after it discovered them; that was the Pentagon. They didn't arrange for a fake Atta to spook around Florida prior to his official arrival date of July 2000.
They didn't insure that the Pentagon was hit, or that UA 93 was shot down by a missile. They played their role, and either they believed in it or they were just acting. And it doesn't matter.
After 9/11, Osama and his friend didn't say there should be no investigation. They weren't the ones who decided 9/11 was an act of war that justified several wars in response, all of which were coincidentally planned before 9/11. They didn't link 9/11 to Iraq and then murder half a million people there in the name of justice. They weren't the ones who ignored the Pakistani financial connection. They did not anthrax the Congress, or sic the FBI to intimidate the Joint intelligence committee investigation of 9/11.
They didn't set up a ludicrous investigation under Kissinger and then Zelikow, who came to it straight from the White House and left it to rejoin his lover Condoleezza Rice (excuse my artistic license).
Osama and his friend didn't say the question of who financed the operation was trivial and irrelevant, and should be ignored. That was the 9/11 Commission Report.
Get the picture? Only those who exclude the above and much more can pretend that this tape settles anything about "who did 9/11."