Osama Bin Laden Tape Threatens U.S. States Not to Vote for Bush

The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on Al-Jazeera on Friday, October 29th included a specific threat to each U.S. state, designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words ay wilaya (which means each U.S. state) to mean a country or nation other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security

(from MEMRI).