Researcher: Bin Laden's beard is real, video is not
From the large tech publication, CNET. (see original for links)
September 12, 2007 11:11 AM PDT
On the Friday before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Osama bin Laden appeared in a new video, his first since prior to the U.S. presidential elections in 2004. In analyzing the video, Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor, an expert on digital image forensics, said in his latest blogs that the video contained many visual and audio splices, and that all of the modifications were of very low quality.
Most striking is bin Laden's beard, which has been gray in recent images. For this video it is black. "As far as my tools can detect, there has been no image manipulation of the bin Laden portion of the image beyond contrast adjustment. His beard really does appear to be that color." The Washington Post has the full video here.
Krawetz says the inner frame of bin Laden was resaved at least twice, and not at the same time. The images show fine horizontal stripes on bin Laden and a background indicating these came from interlaced video sources. In contrast, the text elements, such as the As-Sahab logo, appear to be from non-interlaced sources.
The September 7 video shows bin Laden dressed in a white hat, white shirt and yellow sweater. Krawetz notes "this is the same clothing he wore in the 2004-10-29 video. In 2004 he had it unzipped, but in 2007 he zipped up the bottom half. Besides the clothing, it appears to be the same background, same lighting, and same desk. Even the camera angle is almost identical." Krawetz also notes that "if you overlay the 2007 video with the 2004 video, his face has not changed in three years--only his beard is darker and the contrast on the picture has been adjusted."
More important though are the edits. At roughly a minute and a half into the video there is a splice; bin Laden shifts from looking at the camera to looking down in less than 1/25th of a second. At 13:13 there is a second, less obvious splice. In all, Krawetz says there are at least six splices in the video. Of these, there are only two live bin Laden segments, the rest of the video composed of still images. The first live section opens the video and ends at 1:56. The second section begins at 12:29 and continues until 14:01. The two live sections appear to be from different recordings "because the desk is closer to the camera in the second section."
Then there are the audio edits. Krawetz says "the new audio has no accompanying 'live' video and consists of multiple audio recordings." References to current events are made only during the still frame sections and after splices within the audio track." And there are so many splices that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The only way to prove that the audio is really bin Laden is to see him talking in the video," Krawetz says.
Another bin Laden video was released on September 11 and was much more straightforward. There was a still image of the black-bearded bin Laden (oddly, using a frame not used in the previous video), and then, as has been a tradition at al-Qaida , there was a long, unedited video of a statement read by Azzam Al Amriki, also known as American-born Adam Pearlman, who is currently being sought for treason and thought to be living in Pakistan. That doesn't mean the 9/11-released video wasn't doctored.
Click here and mouse over the image to see Krawetz's 75 percent error level analysis of one image. The white frame around Azzim reveals that his video was composited against the drawing of the World Trade Center being attacked. As Krawetz presented at this year's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, al-Qaida has a history of doctoring background either to present propaganda or simply to disguise locations. In a separate interview, Krawetz talks with CNET News.com about some of the tools he used in his analysis.
- Login to post comments
Great work by an expert!
This was pretty much expected, though, like it seems to be the case with every other aspect of 9/11 that a real expert gets his hands on.
How pathetic -- with all their billion-dollar budgets they can't even make a great video fakery.
Osama’s “Trotskyite”
Osama’s “Trotskyite” Experiment
I sort of figured it come down to this. According to the neocons over at the Weekly Standard, the Rupert Murdoch publication so popular it loses a million bucks each year, “al-Qaeda” is nothing but the next act of the Left’s rolling “Death Cult,” a Left, we are assured by a letter posted on the American Thinker, embracing “Revolutionary Ethos,” never mind the Shariah of Ibn Abdul Wahhab is diametrically opposed to feminism and postmodernism. But we shouldn’t allow such realities to get in the way. Osama’s latest CIA basement tape was churned out precisely to hitch bedlamite Islam to the “progressive” movement, as the idea is to heap infamy upon those who oppose the corporatist plan to reduce the planet to a slave plantation and sweat shop.
Of course, some commentators can’t help themselves, for instance the “conservative” folks over at Power Line, who write that “the affinity between Muslim extremism and Western leftism has never been so clearly displayed. Bin Laden sounds for all the world like a Marxist. He praises Noam Chomsky as one of the ‘most capable’ of American war opponents. Over and over, he attributes American foreign policy to ‘the owners of the major corporations.’ In bin Laden’s view, ‘[t]hose with real power and influence are those with the most capital,’ and ‘the essence of man-made positive laws is that they serve the interests of those with capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer,” in other words, if you happen to believe at least some of this is true—”real power and influence” is indeed wielded by corporatist interests, as should be obvious—you are an “al-Qaeda” fellow traveler. Naturally, intelligence organizations serving the above mentioned corporatist interests built-in the Chomsky element to the dead Osama’s latest diatribe, as people are beginning to realize that in fact most of our problems are a direct result of the corporatist—i.e., as Mussolini noted, fascist—game plan, well advanced.
http://adereview.com/blog/?p=35
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Former Director, CIA
They can't help themselves
"Osama’s latest CIA basement tape was churned out precisely to hitch bedlamite Islam to the “progressive” movement, as the idea is to heap infamy upon those who oppose the corporatist plan to reduce the planet to a slave plantation and sweat shop."
Yup. "Osama" quoted William Blum a ways back too. Kurt Nimmo wrote at the time:
"As noted by Wayne Madsen, it is very peculiar that Osama bin Laden finds it necessary to quote author William Blum in his latest communiqué. "Bin Laden quotes from the introduction of a book written by long-time Washington, DC progressive author and journalist and a friend of mine, Bill Blum," writes Madsen. "Bill was once an editor and contributor to Covert Action Quarterly, a magazine devoted to exposing CIA operations like the arming, funding, and training of Bin Laden and his mujaheddin guerrillas during the Afghan-Soviet war." As Blum essentially defends the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and Osama was ostensibly against the Soviet intervention, it makes absolutely no sense for the dead Wahhabi fanatic to quote Blum—in fact, it is completely irrational and entirely unbelievable.
It’s obvious what is going on here—the Straussian neocons are attempting to connect Blum to terrorism. Since Blum’s book (Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower) is essential reading for those of us who want to understand how U.S. interventionism works—and understanding this process is a direct threat to both the neocons and their neolib fellow travelers—it makes sense for the fake CIA-contrived Osama to make mention of it, regardless of the irrationality of the effort.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1773
The Eleventh Day of Every Month
yeah, Nimmo always nails it.
yeah, Nimmo always nails it. didnt "Osama" mention Michael Moore at one point too? this stuff is so obvious. and more than one expert has basically proven this tape to be fake or at least manipulated on numerous levels. a complicit media means everything to them. as long as its like this we have no chance.
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Former Director, CIA
"didnt "Osama" mention
"didnt "Osama" mention Michael Moore at one point too?"
Lol. Wasn't aware of that but it certainly wouldn't surprise me. Next they'll have him endorsing candidates like Paul or Gravel for President. "What? You're voting for Osama's presidential candidate!? I'm calling homeland security!" Hell they already sort of did that in the 2004 election. Kerry himself claimed that Osama lost him the election (he was only half-right -- his pro-war stance and massive vote fraud took care of the rest). Not that he really cared. Didn't even bother with a recount. That would have been against the Skull and Bones code of honor amongst thieves.
The Eleventh Day of Every Month
not only Kerry(as you say,
not only Kerry(as you say, the coward Kerry took a dive even when confronted with the Ohio evidence, which is strong and would hold up in court), but bonesman Bush also admitted that the Osama tape helped him out:
Bush Admits Bin Laden's Help Ensured Election Win
“I thought it was going to help,” said Bush
According to a soon to be released book written by Bill Sammon, Senior White House Correspondent for the Washington Examiner, Bush attributes his 2004 victory over John Kerry in part to a Osama bin Laden videotape released on the eve of the election.
“I thought it was going to help,” Bush decided. “I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn’t want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.”
Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite went public to call the tape a set up orchestrated by Karl Rove.
We have George W. Bush admitting that bin Laden helped him win the election. We have confirmed analysis that proves past alleged bin Laden audiotapes and videotapes are forgeries. We have bin Laden's 9/11 confession tape being mysteriously discovered by US forces in someone's video cabinet in Jalalabad, a city with a population of 250,000. That gives us odds of at least 250,000 to one that US forces would happen to raid that house, find that videotape and find it interesting enough to pop in the VCR.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/280206binladenshelp.htm
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Former Director, CIA
I highly doubt
that is Bin Laden, the beard my be real but Bin Laden is not.
It is a better stand in than fatty Bin Laden from the BS tape in 2001 which was clearly not him.
another video to watch
A bit off topic but there is a 5 minute video which may or may not stay available for much longer and should be recommended viewing for all truthers. I apologize for not having a direct link but if you go to GOOGLE video and type in the following you will find the video.
TYPE IN : A Buried 60 minutes interview / indictment
the video is self explanatory... watch it and spread the word
Peace Out.
"This would be allot easier if this were a dictatorship, just so long as I'm the dictator"
(G.W. Bush)
Also keep in mind that it's easy to take old stock footage of
Osama (or anyone else) & dub some dialog on recent events into it (like the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, being elected) to make the video seem current, up-to-date.
And the technology has only gotten better
At least on the viewing side. Seems they're dead sloppy on the "craftsman" side--as the most shallow forensics tests show inconsistancies. These people are relying too much on their"spin machines" in MSM to gloss anything dodgy over.
______________________________________
Impeachment. Accountability. A better world.