Full text of Osama bin Laden's videotaped comments

Reuters ^ | 12-27-01 | staff

[AmericanDave]

Al Jazera broadcasting this hate to the rest of the hatefilled Moslems is an additional prof that the west should not respect Islam or Arabs in general. If Al jazera had prefaced the broadcast by saying, we just came across another hatefilled drivel from that worthless terroris, bin laden, ...., I would not have been too harsh in condemning Islam and Arabs" .........Very good. I also agree with the sentiment that if they're on a Jihad, what's wrong with a crusade?

[denydenydeny]

bumping.

[smith288]

Jihad means "Struggle", not "Kill all americans" like Bin Laden says. Crusade is a military effort to gain back holy land from muslims. I dont see us trying to gain back the land as we have no intention to convert anyone. Just blowing them up to discourage following this Bin Laden boob.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Not tons, but tonnes

I beg your pardon. The daisy cutter weighed 1070 stone...;-)

[japaneseghost]

"When the youths, may Allah accept them as martyrs, detonated (the bomb) in Nairobi less than two tonnes, America said this is a terrorist strike and this is a weapon of mass destruction. (But) when it uses two bombs each weighing seven million grams, there is no shame in that.

He's just admitted specific knowledge of the Nairobi bombing.

Gee Usama, last time I checked, YOU were the one who was perverting Islam and making it look bad.

[LoisHunt]

There was a lady bin Laden biographer on MSNBC right after 9/11 who said bin Laden's father wanted to turn his construction bulldozers into tanks to attack Israel. He died like 30 years ago, so the bin Laden resentment of Israel is not some new thing. Rather, its a canard with an agenda to tell us that its recent and he just started saying it.

[fivetoes]

"Three months after the blessed attacks against the international infidels, against the main infidel America,

We will not forget...

[tlrugit]

"If bin Laden's terrorism is "blessed," how can he regard our military response as so outrageous? He complains our bombing killed innocents. What does he think his terrorism did?"

He has cast this as religious war, as indeed it is from his point of view. The US has nothing against Islam per se, rather against those committed to perpetrating acts of violence; Islam as a religion is a non-issue, Islam as a political entity is.
He regards his own acts as 'holy', and defines the US as 'demonic'. In this way no act of violence against the US can be regarded as excessive, nor can any act by the US be regarded as justified. In fact, acts of violence against the US are good because they are blood sacrifices 'pleasing' to his 'deity'. He has reverted to an atavistic primeval religion of human sacrifice, which seems to be a human norm regardless of the nomimal religion at issue.

[Aurelius]

BUMP

[hellinahandcart]

He died like 30 years ago, so the bin Laden resentment of Israel is not some new thing. Rather, its a canard with an agenda to tell us that its recent and he just started saying it.

You know, it really makes no difference at all to me whether he just started saying it recently, or if the first words out of Baby Osama's mouth at age one were "Death to Israel". Makes no difference in my personal assessment of him, makes no difference in the danger he and his fan club represent to Western civilization, makes no difference in what has to be done to them now. It just doesn't matter.

[LoisHunt]

People on FR are expressing the idea that bin Laden just started ranting against Israel because thats what they're hearing on TV. They're not bin Laden biographers; someone's telling them that. Someone who has an agenda and is using lies to further it. Thats all I'm saying. Whats wrong with being aware that you're being lied to?

[hellinahandcart]

Every so often I have to return to a thread and make a retraction. This is one of those times. After giving it a little more thought, I have decided that motive does matter after all in this case. Tell ya how: if this REALLY IS about Israel, it means I have to move the Palestinians much higher up on the enemies list. Quite near the top, in fact. If what you say is true, whatever sympathy I had for their situation would vanish, and I wouldn't raise so much as a whisper of protest if they were all vaporized tomorrow.

It doesn't take a psychologist to figure out that this would probably be the majority reaction, so the "agenda" behind the claim (false or true) that Bin Laden has only recently begun to bring Israel into the equation remains a mystery. Are you sure you want me to believe that this is more about Israel than about a megalomaniac tyrant's grab for power?

Hmm, maybe our government doesn't want us to believe that either. They may still be envisioning peace one day in that region, and the truth (if that is the truth) would blow that possibility into atoms.

[LoisHunt]

I have a different take. 9/11 shook me to the core and I see no limit to the opportunities for organized terrorists or even self-starters to blow up Americans. Sorry to say, but true. We are tremendously vulnerable.

After the Gulf War, I read a column about how our pols had ALWAYS calculated that Americans would not allow their government to continue supporting Israel at the cost of American lives. That was 10 years ago and that columnist was talking about American soldiers' lives. Now, we know it is American civilians lives at risk.

We've already seen Congresscritters who have prided themselves on being strong for civil liberties go along with granting broad new powers to the government without a peep (and I'm not arguing the policy; I, personally, would be tossing people out of the US left and right). The Congress is wary because they know the American people are scared, and rightfully so. 25 years ago, we did a 180 on Vietnam after investing 58,000 American lives. If US civilians come to see our policy about Israel putting their lives at risk so horribly - which I think is happening despite the bravado - Congress will heed that shift of opinion. The "bin Laden never cared about the Palestinians before" is kind of a delaying tactic for the inevitable, IMO.