By Matthew Schofield, Kansas City Star editorial board columnist

Osama bin Laden has issued some advice to Europeans:

The world vilest human notes: "an intelligent man does not waste his money and sons for a gang of criminals in Washington."

And then he goes on to note:

"It is shameful to be part of an alliance whose leader does not care about spilling the blood of human beings by bombing villages intentionally... If you had seen [killings] of your American allies and their helpers in northern Afghanistan ... then you would understand the bloody events in Madrid and London."

He, of course, appears to be referring to Al Qaida followers, post September 11. Just kidding, instead though, he reveals himself to be a bit of a time-traveller in that last statement. The Madrid and London bombings, 2004 and 2005, were apparently revenge for bombings in 2009.

The problem with his statement _ other than simply exposing him (again) as quite insane _ is that a man who has insisted for years killing civilians is acceptable in pursuing a goal, is now criticizing the killing of civilians. Beyond that, he's making the point for how horrible killing civilians is by reminding Europeans about the European civilians his followers have killed.

My experience, having covered both those bombings, is, like American post-9/11, the English and Spaniards, won't so easily forget and forgive.

Still, he is trying. His intention is to push German voters as they head to the polls Sunday towards voting for leaders who would get them out of Afghanistan. The other part of that plan, brilliantly concieved to show Germans just how bad the murder of innocents can be, was to unleash attacks on innocents in Germany. Those appear to have been foiled.

Back in 2005, his followers planned a similar bit of convincing for me and folks living near me in Baghdad. Iraqi security busted an Al Qaida cell that had written down our locations, name and room, in the hotel we shared. The two garbage truck bombs that arrived and detonated a couple weeks later (I'd luckily left, for unrelated issues) were apparently stage two of his brand of diplomacy.

Still, while it missed with me, it is hard to see how bin Laden's logic will fail to sway German voters.

On the other hand, it does serve as a nice reminder, to North and South Americans, Asians, Australians, Europeans, why we maintain a coalition in that country where so much has gone wrong lately.

Bin Laden and his Al Qaida core are still there, still making videos (they do seem to have better production values these days, don't they?) and still begging for a smart bomb to swerve into whatever cave they're camping in these days.