As if there is not enough controversy surrounding this Tuesday’s upcoming Presidential Election, Osama Bin Laden released yet another tape through the Al Jazeera Network yesterday, and not only admitted for the first time that he was responsible for the September 11th attacks – but explained why they occurred – along with some other statements that were far more chilling.

With a full beard streaked with gray, the world’s most wanted terrorist wore a white head covering and white tunic under a light brown cloak while standing in front of a tan background and speaking behind a lectern reading from prepared notes. He looked surprisingly healthy and did not appear to weaken or tire during his eighteen minute speech. Believed to be hiding near the Afghan/Pakistani border, Bin Laden’s most recent tape was declared authentic by the American government shortly after its release.

Directing his speech to, in his own words, “the American people,” Bin Laden talked about what he called, “the war…and its reasons and its consequences” and “the best way to avoid another Manhattan” – obviously referring to September 11th. He claimed in the video that the reason he and Al Qaeda chose to attack America was because of the, “injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon…The incidents that affected me directly go back to 1982 and afterward, when America allowed Israelis to invade Lebanon...” He then went on to give the reason why America was attacked and why the Twin Towers in particular were chosen as the targets. “God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but our patience ran out…In these tough moments, many things raged inside me that are hard to describe, but they resulted in a strong feeling against injustice and a strong determination to punish the unjust. While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America.”

Referring to the hijackers of the four doomed planes as, “the 19 blessed ones,” Bin Laden said that he, “had agreed with the general Emir Mohammed Atta, God bless his soul, to carry out all operations within 20 minutes before Bush and his administration noticed.” Speaking of President Bush, Bin Laden then discussed the President’s actions following the moment where White House Chief Of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. walked into the classroom where President Bush was reading with schoolchildren and informed him that the second plane hit and America was under attack. “It appeared to him [Bush] that a little girl’s talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers.” Even the man who orchestrated the attack realizes that President Bush’s decision to continue reading My Pet Goat for almost ten minutes after he was informed of the attack was a stupid one. “It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone…That gave us three times the required time to carry out the operations, thank God.”

While it very much pains me to say this next sentence, I have to admit that Osama Bin Laden is right. He is absolutely correct in his observation of the President’s actions that fateful day. I realize that President Bush did not want to panic the schoolchildren that were in the room with him when he found out about the attack, but all he had to do was politely excuse himself from the room and promise the children that when he had more time, he would return. Instead, to borrow the exact line from Fahrenheit: 9/11, “…Mr. Bush just sat there and continued to read My Pet Goat with the children.”

If you think Osama Bin Laden’s statements about President Bush’s actions on September 11th were disturbing, they are nothing compared to what he said about President Bush and his father – and what he compared them too.

Again, speaking directly to the American people, Bin Laden said, of the President, “Even as you enter the fourth year after the September 11th attacks, Bush is still misleading and deluding you and hiding the real reason from you.” What does that mean? Is it just the insane ramblings of a madman who hates America – or is he trying to tell us something else? I already have my suspicions of the President, which I made clear in my endorsement for John Kerry just two days ago, and I am certainly not taking the word of the man who murdered my best friend as gold – but I do find it coincidental that I just wrote a column where I stated that President George W. Bush is deceiving the American people – only to hear the mastermind behind attacks that saw our President ground thousands of Americans at every airport in the country, but fly members of Bin Laden’s family safely out of America claim that Bush is not being completely honest with us.

Even more frightening was when he compared George W. Bush and his father, Former President George Herbert Walker Bush to, “…regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents. We have a long experience with them. Both types include many who are full of arrogance and greed.” Bin Laden went on to say that after Former President Bush made visits to the region, “he wound up being impressed by the royal and military regimes and envied them for staying decades in their positions and embezzling the nation’s money with no supervision.” So, according to Bin Laden, Former President Bush “passed on tyranny and oppression to his son, and they called it the Patriot Act, under the pretext of fighting terror. Bush the father did well in placing his sons as governors and did not forget to pass on the expertise in fraud from the leaders of the [Mideast] region to Florida to use it in critical moments.”

Wow. What do you say to that?

Again, I am not taking Bin Laden’s words as gold, but coming from anyone – that is a pretty bold statement. And again, it pains me to say this, but in a way – I agree. Knowing now of the almost lifetime relationship between the Bush and Bin Laden families, I can’t help but wonder if portions of what was said in this video has some credibility. And worse, I can’t help but get the thought of what would happen to this country if George W. Bush was given another four years in the White House.

At the end of his speech, Osama Bin Laden told the American people that their security, “is not in the hands of Kerry, Bush or Al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands.” Again, he’s right. The security of the future of this country rests in the hands of each and every American that heads to the voting booth this Tuesday and casts a vote for change, hope – and honesty. A vote for a return to democracy and normalcy – and a return to the America we had on September 10, 2001.

On election day, let’s send George W. Bush home – before its too late.