Joe Splink wrote: ↑Tue Jul 08, 2025 1:18 pmThus, I conclude that what
I know about the German translation is inconclusive. Beyond that, citing the missing 'in advance' as disproving the gist of the US/Michael translation is misleading. True or false?
I agree that it would be misleading if the issue of the translation's accuracy starts and ends there, but it doesn't. The German press video noted three inconsistencies and added that there are more, plus two of their translators made general statements against the validity of the American government's translation, plus Morris regarded the American government's second translation (involving Michael) somewhat negatively. With that in mind, I can't tell whether the paragraph you quoted is incriminating or not. I am skeptical either way. The only way to get at the truth of it is with a proper full translation.
I tried running the video through OpenAI's Whisper but the translation that came back is very poor quality. It picked up only some of the words in the first couple minutes, no words at all after 3 minutes.
On the one hand, I think the lack of work done here by the truther movement is suggestive. The German media coverage dates to 2001, and it is only this that truthers cite. Some examples of that:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/the-faulty-b ... anslation/
https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHA ... atape.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videos_an ... _bin_Laden
What I mean is that there was no continued effort to fix the translation or clarify the issue. For a matter of such importance, with so many people skeptical of Bin Laden's involvement, I think there should be years of arguments over what the most accurate translation should be. Instead we don't even seem to have the one German group's complete translation. This suggests the story had been squeezed for all its juice on the first go.
On the other hand, I can't see where the primary accusation has been rebutted, that being that the American government's translation is "manipulative". If there really was a deliberate mistranslation then it rather poisons the whole subject for me in a way that I will automatically lean away from any lesser claim.
This strange website might stand alone in attempting to debunk what truthers say about the translation. It takes a similar position as yourself, that there may indeed be problems with the translation but that other parts of the video remain incriminating.
https://www.911facts.dk/?p=7680&lang=en
A great deal more could be said here, but I'll add just one thing -- does it even pass the basic smell test that Bin Laden would go into a meeting with some friends, one of them holding up a camcorder, and begin discussing his secret participation in 9/11 that he had already expressly denied (or was just about to deny) in public? I don't think so. I can't imagine why such a video would be created except to incriminate himself in the eyes of Westerners. Its appearance was incredibly convenient at a time when there was so little connecting Bin Laden to the attack.