In the wake of the Dorgan and Conrad amendment designed “to double the reward for information leading to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks,” as KXMB in North Dakota puts it, a “new” Osama video has surfaced, prompting the corporate media to circle like a brood of hungry vultures. “A brief clip of an older-looking Osama bin Laden appeared yesterday in a newly posted jihadist video on the Web, ABC News reported,” claims the scurrilous neocon propaganda newspaper, the New York Post. “The al Qaeda boss appears for just one minute and discusses martyrdom with an unseen group in a mountainous location, wearing fatigues, a watch and a ring and showing extensive graying in his beard.”

CNN, on the other hand, noted the obvious. “The environment shown [in the video] is similar to that on releases made before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, in which bin Laden is seen in the company of some of the hijackers,” Octavia Nasr, CNN’s senior editor for Arab affairs, admitted. “Some of the backdrops also resemble those shown in videos when the U.S. attacks against the Taliban in Afghanistan began not long after the 9/11 attacks.”

Of course, that’s because the video tape is a “release” made before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, as should be obvious. In other words, once again, the government is recycling old Osama video footage.

“The video, titled ‘Scent of Heaven,’ was produced by al Qaeda’s propaganda arm. It includes no time references and was posted on jihadi Web sites with little fanfare,” the New York Post continues. In other words, the video, with its absurd title, was produced by the CIA or the Pentagon, using regurgitated video footage, and subsequently posted on CIA “jihadi” websites, likely hosted out of Texas or Maryland

All of this makes certain sense following on the heels of Michael Chertoff’s interview with the Chicago Tribune last week. In response to the patently absurd “attacks on London and Glasgow,” as CBS News characterized recent non-events, Chertoff remarked: “All of this causes me in general to look at the summer as time when we have somewhat more risk and we need to be very vigilant,” that is to say the public needs to be frightened by regurgitated Osama video tapes and warnings of “al-Qaeda” sleeper cells coming out of the woodwork.

“The draft National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is expected to paint an ever-more-worrisome portrait of al-Qaeda’s ability to use its base along the Pakistan-Afghan border to launch and inspire attacks against the United States over the next several years,” reports the Associated Press. “The U.S. will face ‘a persistent and evolving terrorist threat’ within its borders over the next three years. The main danger comes from Islamic terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda, and is ‘driven by the undiminished intent to attack the homeland and a continued effort by terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities’” and “Al-Qaeda is probably still pursuing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and would use them if its operatives developed sufficient capability.” Of course, there is absolutely no evidence of any of this, not that the National Intelligence Council needs evidence, as we are told the NIE “is the most authoritative written judgment concerning a national security issue prepared by the Director of Central Intelligence,” according to SourceWatch.

As well, the NIE and its Brothers Grimm prediction of “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat’” is related to the neocon effort to continue killing and immiserating Iraqis. “At a news conference Thursday, President Bush acknowledged al-Qaeda’s continuing threat to the United States and used the new report as evidence his administration’s policies are on the right course,” the Associated Press continues. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on Sept. 11,” said Bush “That’s why what happens in Iraq matters to security here at home.”

Chertoff, we are told, has a “gut feeling” about an “al-Qaeda” attack this summer. “I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk,” Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune. “Summertime seems to be appealing to them.” Or rather, summertime is the time to scare witless Americans, most unable to notice that old Osama video is once again being recycled into new Final Cut Pro timelines over at the CIA.

According to Time, however, it is not Osama and his Afghan cave dwellers we must worry about, but “home-grown imitators.”

The London and Glasgow attempts, like another failed attack on trains in Germany last year, were notable for their comparative lack of sophistication. The suspects in London and Glasgow apparently got the know-how to make their bombs off the internet, as did the two men who failed to detonate a bomb on a passenger train in Germany last year. So, even as the threat of a major professional attack emanating from Al-Qaeda central may be on the rise, the danger from local amateurs acting autonomously remains ever-present. The limits on their technical expertise has helped Europe dodge a good few bloodbaths. But if Al-Qaeda managed to get one of its Iraq-based bomb-makers into Britain to service local cells such as the one that conducted the London and Glasgow attacks, the local-amateur circuit would become a whole lot more deadly.

Maybe they can send another Richard Colvin Reid, aka the “shoe bomber,” the mental deficient who supposedly attempted to bomb American Airlines 63 on December 22, 2001. According to the official mythology, Reed was sent on the botched bombing mission by Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, who we are told was a senior member of “al-Qaeda,” the database. Of course, according to the Pakistanis, who know something about “al-Qaeda,” as they collaborated with the CIA to create it, Khaled Shaikh Mohammed was killed and his body buried without informing the Americans.

Questions about all of this are not in order, as Michael Chertoff has a “gut feeling” about renewed terrorism. It remains to be seen if “al-Qaeda” or its purported “home-grown imitators” will strike this summer. No doubt, as usual, it will depend on political expediency, especially now that even neocon-friendly Republican Congress critters are weary of the neocon “effort” in Iraq.