h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry this has taken so long. I've compiled a little Dossier:


"Persian/Arabic/Farsi are all used fairly interchangably." Persian is Farsi.

Arabic is the language of much of the Middle Eastern world. Arabic is the language of Iraq and Saddam Hussein. It is the language of Jordan. Farsi may be spoken in those countries, but Arabic is the language. French is spoken in New York State, but the Governor of New York doesn't get an invitation to the Francophone Summit.

http://www.al-bab.com/arab/language/lang.htm

Farsi is Indo-European; Arabic Semetic. They're not close at all. It's like English and Hebrew.


All that having been said, he's spent a big chunk of his life in Afghanistan so he probably speaks Farsi and a mess of other languages. But, on the other (third) hand, he's a devout Wahabi. He's most likely to make his pronouncements in Arabic.

And, perhaps most directly relevant, why would Dr. Kassem M. Wahba, Arabic language program coordinator, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University be involved in the translation of this transcript of the video http://www.mbpolitics.com/obl/OBL_Transcripts.html if the video was in a language other than Arabic?

And, not that I really trust CNN, but they say he spoke Arabic on the video tape: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape/

and:

http://www.afghan-web.com/language/

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=Syria&seq=1

http://www.indexmundi.com/jordan/languages.html

http://www.indexmundi.com/iran/languages.html

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=Iraq&seq=1

Goodnight, all.

Well, I should have seen it coming. Poor wraith, picked on by big bad flipper. Golly wonder why my inbox is flooded with spam all of a sudden. Yeah, I am going to go ahead and pull out of not only this thread but H2G2 completely. So, never fear. You have won. Way to be mature folks.....

I guess I should have made myself clearer. In the west, when we say Arabic, we are usually talking about Persian/Farsi. Again, there are dialects, but think of it this way. In Italy, every region has a certain dialect of Italian, but in schools, they teach the Tuscan version, and outside of Italy, Tuscan is what we know as Italian. It's rather the same with Arabic. There are dialects, but educators all use Farsi as the language of choice to teach. Ergo, when a Saudi wants to talk to an Afghani, he uses Farsi. It's the most "universal" of the Arabic languages. (Rather like Latin was the educated man's language of choice in Europe in the early middle ages, which gave way to French later on.)

The professor that I was talking about is a specialist in nationalism and terrorist groups in the middle east. Let's just put it this way...he floats in certain circles with access to certain things.

Thanks, anhaga. As I understood it, Arabic is the lingua franca for Muslims, as Latin was for Catholics until Vatican II, so OBL speaking Farsi didn't sound right to me...

I stand corrected. I knew that there was something wrong with what I was saying....

I think it's actually *because* in the west we put Farsi and Arabic into the same basket that I messed up. But after reading this, I called my current middle east professor and asked him, and he told me that bin Laden, because of his connections to the Saudi ruling family, probably had a good education, and thus was well versed in both Farsi and Arabic, although Arabic would be his first language.

<< In the west, when we say Arabic, we are usually talking about Persian/Farsi.>>
No *way* Montana! (That may be so in the USA, but not in NZ - we'd never say Arabic and think Farsi... As anhaga said, they're in no way similar languages.) Arabic is the lingua franca, not Farsi. In fact, Muslims must learn Arabic to read the Koran - if read in any other language, it isn't the sacred book at all, no more than a commentary.

<>
If your inbox is suddenly flooded with spam, I can absolutely promise and assure you, that has nothing whatever to do with Wraith!
My inbox has been flooded with spam this morning, all encouraging me to have p*nis extensions (which is just hilarious.) It would as logical for me to blame that on, say, Dave, as for you to blame your spam on anyone here...

Della, I corrected myself. I (rather problematically, I'll admit) conflated the two languages. I have since clarified what I meant. There's no need to shoot the messenger here. Suffice it to say that while I cannot speak nor read any of the languages spoken in any middle eastern country, I know people who can. That's what they do for a living. They have assured me that bin Laden was well aware of, and had had a hand in, the planning and execution of what happened to the twin towers on 9/11. They have absolutely no reason whatsoever to lie about what they heard on the tape. Here is the website of one of the professors I work with (this page is his bio):

http://www.meaning.org/levinebio.html

Not exactly what I would call a government puppet, to say the least.

Can we just drop it please?

Oh, and I will freely admit that Mark's ego is *quite* healthy, thank you very much! (I get dosed with it three times a week, and that's....um....more than enough!)

Dave
A lot of the employees have the time to run small businesses.
So I would guess some of them might have the catering contract.

"I am going to go ahead and pull out of not only this thread but H2G2 completely"

So sargentFlipper is pulling out - yet again. Yikes - we should all do something!

Some sort of celebration, I think.

Hi folks.

Before anyone jumps on me for this, I stress that it is just a theory. I'm not caliming that it's hard fact. But it is a theory that's growing in credibility by the day and the pieces are fitting together like a well designed jigsaw puzzle. Consider:

Right from the start, the war on terror is Dubya's own creation. Standard operating procedure when theorising who might be responsible for a crime is to consider who has the most to gain. The potential gains for Bush and his friends are huge.

There's re-electability as a tough, credible war-time president and John Wayne character.

There's distraction of the empty-headed, easily led, American public away from the non-legitimate nature of Dubya's presidency.

There's increased military spending in the tens of billions, lining the pockets of Bush's friends and puppeteers.

There's revitalising of the world's most bountiful poppy fields in Afghanistan and control of the worldwide cocaine market.

There's control of the world's second largest oil reserves in Iraq.

There's the start of a systematic program of subjugation and control of Muslims. Satisfying America's racist paranoia towards the Arab world.

Wow! Pretty powerful incentives for a sociopath such as Dubya and easily worth a few thousand American and a few tens of thousands of foreign lives.

Osama binLaden was responsible for 9/11 in the same way that a golf club is responsible for winning the US open.

binLaden was nothing more than a tool, used to carry out the first step of a very intricate plan. Osama and Dubya have been the best of friends and right now Osama is relaxing in his office at CIA headquarters waiting until the next time he's required.

Sadly, what even he doesn't realise is that the next time he's required, he'll be "captured" and offered up to the world at exactly the right time to benefit Dubya's election bid the most. Yep, when the tide of 2004 election opinion is at its most crucial point we'll all hear "well folks, we got him".

binLaden will be betrayed (of course, just like Saddam, he'll never be allowed to speak to the world, too much danger of the truth spilling out). Dubya will be betraying a hither-to useful friend, not that he'll lose any sleep over that.

Dave and sargentFlipper will happen along and tell everyone how insane I am, thereby doing what they're paid to do - run America's disinformation campaign.

Then 'you' are the fnal useful tool. 'You' will re-elect Dubya and the evil will reign for another four years.

Remember - it's all just theory.

cocaine doesn't come from poppies.

And, leave "empty-headed" out of the description of the American public. Whether or not it's true, it doesn't affect your theory; it only affects how people will respond to you theory.

I'm not sure about the truth of "America's racist paranoia towards the Arab world". "America's paranoia toward the rest of the world" would be less inflammatory and perhaps more defensible.

"Osama binLaden was responsible for 9/11 in the same way that a golf club is responsible for winning the US open" Maybe "caddie" should be substituted for "golf club". And I think you probably would want to re-emphasise the theoretical nature of your post at this point or people are going to clamour for proof of your assertion.

That having been said, an interesting hypothesis, Empty Sky. I don't think that it's a terribly new hypothesis, but it is certainly one that doesn't get a lot of air time. Except maybe on CBC.

The following link is not to a real news story. It is humour.


'Paul Bremer, the top US civilian administrator in Iraq, has expressed concern that “Iraq cannot achieve democracy without the high-level of litigiousness we enjoy in America.”'


http://bbspot.com/News/2004/01/iraq_lawsuit.html

Most of that I agree with Empty.

But just as "The fact that you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you" so the fact that the War on Terror serves all these useful (to some) purposes doesn't mean that they're aren't any terrorists. And the fact that Dubya and Osama need each other doesn't prove they're in cahoots (though they could be).

Noggin

" cocaine doesn't come from poppies"

Sorry, you're right, anhaga.

That should be opium and herion.

Did nothing for me..the medicinal form of heroin...what is the name?
Heck..forgotton. Nitrous oxide was wonderful. Almost as good as alcohol.

"the medicinal form of heroin...what is the name?"

Methadone???

http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/heroin.html

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/methadone/

Might loopy be thinking of Morphine? (I know I am.)