Someone on Atrios log linked this
article from Al-Jazeera.
The gist of it being, after the explosion that ousted the Spanish govt in March, a group claiming to be affiliated with Al Quaeda declared a temporary ceasefire after the new Spanish govt was elected to see if they would really pull out their troops.
Apparently, it went on to say a few words about elections in other countries, including the US.
While I was somewhat skeptical, this paragraph caught my eye:
However, very few mentioned the more ominous part of that declaration, short of excerpts which were reported by the BBC and Reuters.
The money quote, you ask?
"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation.
"Because of this we desire you [Bush] to be elected."
The author quotes more of the alleged declaration to point out that the group is in error about the possible effect on the U.S. elections, but doesn't link to the original English language sources that he says reported on it.
I didn't recall seeing anything about it myself, so, I went looking for the original on the BBC website.
Lo and behold, there it was.
From Thurs, Mar 18, 2004:
A word for the foolish Bush.
We know that you live in the worst days of your life in fear of death squads which spoilt your world and we are very keen that you do not lose in the forthcoming elections as we know very well that any big attack can bring down your government and this is what we do not want.
We cannot get anyone who is more foolish than you, who uses force instead of wisdom and diplomacy.
Your stupidity and religious extremism is what we want as our people will not awaken from their deep sleep except when there is an enemy...
That's not exactly what the Al-Jazeera writer quoted, though there could be differences in translation.
Then I found the Reuters article from Yahoo UK, March 17 of this year
It's specific about both Bush and Kerry:
* The statement said it supported U.S. President George W. Bush in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry, as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom."
In comments addressed to Bush, the group said:
"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation."
"Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected."
Through the looking glass, yet again, I know. And maybe it seems like we already knew that, but in combination with Al Qa Qaa and the general Iraqi clusterf*ck Cheney's insistence that the terrorists want Kerry to win when the opposite is available on an open source seems the sort of hubris that should get smacked down.
Not as pithy as a doctored photo, so I'm not sure this will go anywhere. I'm open to suggestions for how to bring this forward.