Look who peeked out of the hole today…

Parts of an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden aired Sunday on an Arabic-language TV network in which the al Qaeda leader attacks the West for cutting off funds to the Palestinian Hamas-led government and referred to a “crusader-Zionist war” against Islam.

Al-Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, said the new tape is from bin Laden. CNN could not immediately confirm the tape’s authenticity, but analysts said the voice sounds like bin Laden’s and the language is consistent with his manner of speaking on previous tapes.

A U.S. intelligence official said technical analysis of the tape is under way.

Well, what do we make of this? I suppose we could sit back, yawn, and toss this bin Laden appearance on the heap of the other tapes received post 9/11. Or, we could react to this as yet another reminder that terrorism remains real. It’s still close. Another terrorist plot could be (and likely is) just around the corner.

You know what scares me the most? It’s not Osama bin Laden. It’s the complacency of the American people.