Al-Qaida's 'Charm' Offensive Against President-Elect Obama

Ayman al-Zawahri

Using the N-Word?

(Image from MSNBC)

MSNBC supplies an Associated Press release reporting on al-Qaida's ever-charming Ayman al-Zawahir and his view of President-Elect Obama: "Al-Qaida No. 2 insults Obama with race epithet":

In al-Qaida's first response to Obama's victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect -- along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice -- "house Negroes."

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house Negroes."

Al-Qaida supplied that subtitle because even though the Arabic word "abeed" literally means "slave," it is also commonly used to refer to black Africans, an idiomatic legacy from 1400 years of Arab Muslims enslaving black Africans.

Why doesn't Zawahiri like Obama? Because Obama wants to go after Al-Qaida in Afghanistan (and possibly also in Pakistan), and Zawahiri thinks that this military policy is a bad idea:

He said Obama's plan to shift more troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure, because Afghans will resist.

"Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them," he said.

Am I misreading this, or does Zawahiri's expression "the dogs of Afghanistan" refer to those "Afghans [who] will resist"? Apparently, Zawahiri is so accustomed to speaking in insults that he inadvertently insults his own allies.

Thanks for the own goal, Zawahiri.