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Griffin making stuff up again?

I'm a bit confused about the OP. Sure, bin Laden's address was "aimed at Americans," but not really. His target audience is the Islamic world. There's no reason he should speak in English no matter how fluent he may or may not be.

It's just like the Truth Movement calling us out. They don't really want to do that, they're just posturing for their fellows and new recruits.

The language bin Laden speaks to the West in is violence, not English. I don't see the least reason to be suspicious here.
 
R.Mackey said:
I'm a bit confused about the OP. Sure, bin Laden's address was "aimed at Americans," but not really. His target audience is the Islamic world. There's no reason he should speak in English no matter how fluent he may or may not be.

It's just like the Truth Movement calling us out. They don't really want to do that, they're just posturing for their fellows and new recruits.

The language bin Laden speaks to the West in is violence, not English. I don't see the least reason to be suspicious here.
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Very nicely put Mackey. Not only science, but politics as well. Is there anything you can't do?:jaw-dropp
 
Dang! It just occurred to me where Griffin got this crap.

He buys the "Tim Osment" story. Supposedly Osama is a CIA asset who took some training or came to the US to work some sort of weapons deal. Some whackadoodle tried to feed us the story that he met this "Tim" and that he spoke English well.
 
Lenbrazil said:
He did go to an elite school at which some classes were taught in English 1968– 76 (when he would have be about 11 – 19) but I have met Pakistanis and Indians who went to such schools and some of them are barely comprehensible even after living for a number of years in the US.
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From The Osama bin Laden I Know, by Peter L. Bergen:

Brian Fyfield-Shayler is a British citizen who lived in Saudi Arabia from 1964-1974, where he taught English to a number of the bin Laden boys. . . .

His English was not amazing. He was not one of the great brains of that class. On the other hand he was not in the bottom. But this does not necessarily mean he is middling because it was one of the top two schools in the country. . . .

Edward Giardet, a reporter, was covering the siege of Jalalabad.

The incident with bin Laden was in February '89. . . . and then a tall man came out and he spoke in English. I was trying to think where he went to school. It was sort of an American accent. . . .

I stopped going through the interpreter and we had a direct conversation [in English].

[Bolding original; notes omitted]
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It was sort of an American accent. . . .
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Well, that explains it.

His speeches might have less resonance if he's calling fer all y'all to throw off the bonds of Yankee capitalism and oppression ye hear?
 
Debaser said:
Well, that explains it.

His speeches might have less resonance if he's calling fer all y'all to throw off the bonds of Yankee capitalism and oppression ye hear?
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Or a rousing sermon asking us to accept Allah as our personal savior. :):)
 
Lenbrazil said:
Based on your experience do you think the way English is taught at elite schools in Arabia is more effective? Some Arabs do speak very good English.

Here in Brazil even students at very good private schools don't learn to speak English very well unless they go special expensive English courses. However the one who go to American or British schools were most classes are taught in English learn to speak it well.
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I taught English as a Foreign Language during the 70's to a wide range of nationalities, in the UK.
We had many young Saudis, often from the fringes of the royal family and their many 'cousins'. They arrived with a good command of English, and studied long and hard. Then they went to the discos and nightclubs, got roaring drunk and picked up girls.
Wealthy Saudis are taught English well, at a young age, by highly-paid imported tutors. No doubt OBL was no exception.
 
SpitfireIX said:
From The Osama bin Laden I Know, by Peter L. Bergen:
Quote:
Brian Fyfield-Shayler is a British citizen who lived in Saudi Arabia from 1964-1974, where he taught English to a number of the bin Laden boys. . . .

His English was not amazing. He was not one of the great brains of that class. On the other hand he was not in the bottom. But this does not necessarily mean he is middling because it was one of the top two schools in the country. . . .

Edward Giardet, a reporter, was covering the siege of Jalalabad.

The incident with bin Laden was in February '89. . . . and then a tall man came out and he spoke in English. I was trying to think where he went to school. It was sort of an American accent. . . .

I stopped going through the interpreter and we had a direct conversation [in English].

[Bolding original; notes omitted]
Click to expand...

Though "impeccably" may have been an overstatement Grifto seems to have been right factually however he jumped to a conclusion not supported by that fact.

That's the problem with truthers, the closest they get to spouting anything other than complete BS is when they reach they reach the wrong conclusion based on accurate info, as above, or they draw reasonable conclusions based on faulty info. For example they believe that intercepts over US airspace were routine before 9/11 and say it was suspicious there were no intercepts that day.

More commonly their facts and logic are so confused one wonders how they can function in the real world.
 
TruthersLie said:
Actually Len there are two things I noticed.

Many of the gulf arabs have pretty good spoken english, but their reading and writing are horrible. I think this is because when English (and most foreign languages are taught), they focus on conversation and subsequently the Arab students pick up conversational english. But since reading and writing are MUCH harder to pick up, they don't do it. I know several locals here (not my students) who have very good spoken english, but can't read even simple english. Their statement is "it is too hard, and what do I need to read for."
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Here in Brazil its pretty much the opposite, it is common for people to be able to read English reasonably well but often they can't speak very well. I guess that's because the alphabet is the same and much of the vocabulary is similar especially for people reading texts in their areas of expertise. Often they can understand a engineering/medical etc journal article better than one from Newsweek.

Normally that can't write for $#!t but based on my translation work most are not good at it in Portuguese either.
 
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