"Osama bin Laden's new bellicose rant against the United States and President Barack Obama is frustratingly familiar," said Yael T. Abouhalkah in The Kansas City Star. This isn't the first time the al Qaida terrorist leader has released audiotape messages around the time of the 9/11 anniversary. "This one stings a bit, because bin Laden is correct to portray our efforts in Afghanistan as being bogged down in a fight that is leaving U.S. war dead strewn on the field of battle."
"Here’s the funny bit," said Spencer Ackerman in The Washington Independent. Bin Laden says that President Obama is "powerless" to win the Afghanistan war. But the fact is that he put out his predictable Sept. 11 message—which he didn't manage to release until days after the actual anniversary—at a time when al Qaida "is reportedly having difficulty convincing anyone of its relevance outside Waziristan, after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq and showing itself unable to recruit new fanatics."
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