"Overwhelming significance"

Abu Yahya al-Libi, an AQ leader and major spokesman, is featured in a 31-minute video tape published on an internet website, urging the AQ membership to focus on attacking the West and Britain in particular in retaliation for the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Be picks Britain in particular because as he puts it:

No child is killed and no calamity occurs in the land of Palestine except as a result of the fact that Britain gave Palestine to the Jews, and therefore it is fitting that her people should expect revenge from the genocidal campaign in Gaza.

And he reminds listeners of the March 7 2005 attack on the London subway that killed 54.

AlHayat also includes in its summary of his remarks the following:

With respect to the demonstrations in Western countries demanding an end to the Israeli attacks on Gaza, [he said]: We are not fooled by policies of beautification. A jackal is still a jackal, even if he wears a sheep's clothing.

And this:

Let the heretical West and the criminal America and the tyrants of the Arab countries have a taste of the bitterness of war, and of the tragedy of expulsion, and of the harshness of terror, since they do not permit our people in Palestine the feeling of security, but terrorize them.

(This might cause some cognitive dissonance for readers of the progressive Firedoglake blog, where Spencer Ackerman today featured a release by an obscure ex-jihadi, Derbala by name, urging an AQ ceasefire vis-a-vis the West. Ackerman says: "Let's be clear about a few things. Derbala has no power to call for or enforce any Al Qaeda ceasefire. But consider how overwhelmingly significant it is that a former terrorist of such obvious credibility would say something like this. And why'd he say it? Because Barack Obama just renounced torture."

Good feelings all around. So much so that the owner of that site, Jane Hamsher, commented:

That is very, very cool.

So, Abu Yahya al-Libi--not cool. And when the blowback starts it will be seen as not only uncool, but also unmotivated, unconnected with the atrocities in Gaza or anything else. Just plain evil. Same as always.