Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video yesterday and it contains much of the same. However, what is new is that he shows his comedic side a bit.

“[The so-called 'surge'] bears its fruits in his pockets and the pockets of Halliburton. And lest Bush worry, I congratulate him on the success of his security plan, and I invite him on the occasion for a glass of juice, but in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament in the middle of the Green Zone,” al-Zawahri said.

The cafeteria, of course, was bombed by Al Qaida in Iraq. But as always the joke is on Zawahiri. Zawahiri chastises the Congressional bill calling for U.S. soldiers to retreat (‘phased redeployment’) stating, the “bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap.” He wants to kill another 200,000 to 300,000 soldiers.

That sounds all fine and dandy, yet his cell in Iraq doesn’t target Coalition soldiers. Al Qaida in Iraq intentionally targets Iraqi civilians, preferring to attack markets instead of patrols.

And while Al Qaida in Iraq continues to lose allies because of their tactics, Zawahiri claims membership into Al Qaida is open-ended and welcomes all.

“Al-Qaida is not merely for the benefit of Muslims,” he said. “That’s why I want blacks in America, people of color, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world.”

The problem with this statement, of course, is that Zawahiri has repeatedly called for the Ummah to rise up against the Infidel and uses Islamic justification to attack dar el-Islam. Even in the same video Zawahiri both states he is addressing the statement to Muslims and quotes a Koranic verse which states Jews and Christians are unworthy of alligning with. Yet, if we take the excerpted statement to heart, he wants to make allies with people who, according to the verse he quoted, are worthy of scorn, contempt and death.

There simply is not any other way to look at Zawahiri’s latest video without laughing a bit. He claims the American military is broken (sound familiar?) and states America’s European allies in Iraq are suffering (just how many are actually there?). He asks Muslims the world over to reflect back to the early days of Islam and ask if, in one case, the grandson of Muhammad would declare jihad, yet he doesn’t bother to mention jihad didn’t become a pillar of Islam until the religion became a political tool to justify expansion and imperialism, the latter in which Zawahiri condemns without directly condemning Islam itself.  In fact, he is directly responsible for at least a portion of the continuation of the political Islam (Islamism) policy of expansion by the sword.

Zawahiri states the benefactors of the wars are Bush and Haliburton, a common American Liberal statement used to debate the merits of the war in Iraq. He criticizes Hamas, yet he calls on Hamas to launch attacks against Israel thus recognizing their role in the jihad. He cites excerpts from news broadcasts and a report filed by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point while attempting to prove his point, yet he doesn’t bother making the connection those exact excerpts do nothing but prove him wrong.

If we continue to aspire to nothing more than diplomas, positions, salaries, pensions and the raising of our children, there will be nothing but humiliation in store for us, our children and our grandchildren. If, on the other hand, we are happy with killing, captivity, emigration, losing one’s spouse, orphanage, and losing one’s wealth, homeland and beloved in the path of Allah, then with Allah’s help, no power on the face of the earth can defeat us. If we are victorious over ourselves, we shall be victorious in every battle, with Allah’s help, and if we are defeated by ourselves, then let us forget about anything called dignity, liberty and honor.

That basically sums it up. If the same Muslim Ummah Zawahiri addresses his latest video to are happy with a culture of death, then fight on. If, on the other hand, they wish to happily live and recognize Al Qaida has suffered humiliating defeats time and time again, then they can live in the opposite version of Zawahiri’s twisted liberty.  We’ve seen the type of world Zawahiri would seemingly like to live in unfold in Iraq.

While not condemning Al Qaida in Iraq attacks, quite the opposite actually as he praises the group and their tactics, Zawahiri envisions a world filled with Muslim on Muslim violence all the while wishing to recruit non-Muslims to fight against the very same Muslims his group is killing.  And yet one constant in the Islamist creed is to defend against non-Muslim aggression.  Zawahiri, on the other hand, wants to recruit non-Muslim aggressors.

Read the full translation and see a brief video clip at Laura Mansfield’s site.