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It may be faked. The video image was fuzzy & poor quality. Any 19 year old with a camcorder and a computer could have done better.
My thoughts:
bin Laden has been rumored to be in poor health or even dead for several years. The fact that he hasn't been seen on video until now since 2004, and the strange things about this one support those rumors. One commentator said it would be strange to dye his beard, since in Arabic culture a gray beard connotes wisdom (although I've noticed that the aging Saudi leaders tend to have jet-black deyed breads).
His faced looks weird. He could have make-up to make him look healthier, or it might be someone else. The poor quality of the image could be to conceal this further.
Voices are harder to fake convincingly. When you hear comedians do impressions of George Bush or anyone else, you can usually tell it's not the real person. What I heard sounded like the high-pitched, airey bin Laden voice, but I don't understand Arabic and you really have to listen to the nuances of pronouciation to tell if it's the same person, or an impersonation.
Editing sound usually produces detectable splices, and editing phrases from recorded at different times is difficult to conceal because of acoustical differences of different recording environments.
So I think a fluent Arabic speaker listening carefully to this tape and previous ones should be able to determine how genuine the audio is.
If it is a fake, who did it? I'd say Al Quada. If the US governemnt fakes it, it would be higher quality. Plus, if bin Laden is alive he could discredit it by relasing a higher quality tape looking more like he did in the 2004 tape. If if not, the other Al Quada spokesman, Dr. Zhawari(sp) could denouce it as fake.
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