Monday 01 November 2004, 16:01 Makka Time, 13:01 GMT
Bin Ladin directed his message at the American people
Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech
in a videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity the
transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has
been left unedited.
Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and
commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate
against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:
Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk
of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another
Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar
of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security,
contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him
explain to us why we don't strike for example – Sweden? And we know
that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19
– may Allah have mercy on them.
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression.
We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our
nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.
No-one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then
makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when
disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in
order to prevent it happening again.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after
the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion,
deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons
are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall
tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken,
for you to consider.
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike
the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the
oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our
people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when
America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American
Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were
killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced.
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women
and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their
occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets
raining down on our home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless
except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation
that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but
it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my
soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of
tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my
mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should
destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we
tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and
children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the
intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate
American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while
resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush
Sr. did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has
ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs
and explosives at millions of children – also in Iraq – as Bush Jr.
Did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet
to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of
September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be
blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind,
objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and
deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time
Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting
with John Weiner in 1998.
You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and
in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as
well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.
The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I
consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at The
White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an
interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what
he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?
If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct
path that will lead America to the security that it was in before
September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.
As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive
and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations.
This is due to many factors, chief amongst them, that we have found it
difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the
resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which
are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the
sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with
those who are characterized by pride, arrogance, greed and
misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of
Bush Sr. to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and
hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of
a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and
became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to
embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or
accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and
they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretense of fighting
terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as
state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election
fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in
moments of difficulty.
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait
this administration. All that we have to do is to send two Mujahideen
to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is
written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause
America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their
achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their
private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla
warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as
we, alongside the Mujahideen, bled Russia for ten years, until it went
bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of
bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the
administration in the White House or that the administration has lost
in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinizes the
results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving
those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war
fronts to keep busy their various corporations – whether they be
working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction – has helped
al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White
House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the
United States, even if the intentions differ.
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British
diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs. (When they pointed out that) for
example, al-Qaida spent $500 000 on the event, while America, in the
incident and its aftermath, lost – according to the lowest estimate –
more than 500 billion dollars.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by
the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record
astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahideen
recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the
fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the
blee-until-bankruptcy plan – with Allah's permission.
It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other
hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something
of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the
shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Haliburton
and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser
is...you.
It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we
had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy
on him, that all the operations should be carried out within twenty
minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.
It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American
armed forces would abandon 50 000 of his citizens in the twin towers
to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.
But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the
little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than
occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the
skyscrapers. We were given three times the period required to execute
the operations – All Praise is Due to Allah.
And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from
among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him, "All that
you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass
destruction – assuming they exist – is available to you, and the
nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the
interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with
an unknown outcome."
But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and
he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of
America.
So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled,
and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his
future. He fits the saying, "Like the naughty she-goat who used her
hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth"
So I say to you, over 15 000 of our people have been killed and tens
of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been
killed and more than 10 000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with
the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil
and keeping their private companies in business.
Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he
causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the
powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of
its sons, also for money.
And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorize the
women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping
with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for
every action, there is a reaction.
Finally, it behooves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments
of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair.
They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.
Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in
their gestures before the collapse, where they say, "How mistaken we
were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive
foreign policies against the weak without supervision." It is as if
they were telling you, the people of America, "Hold to account those
who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from
others' mistakes," And among that which I read in their gestures is a
verse of poetry, "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the
bed of tyranny."
As has been said, "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of
cure."
And know that, "It is better to return to the truth than persist in
error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth
and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.
In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the
hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida.
No.
Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play
with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.
And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or
Helper. All Peace be Upon he who follows the Guidance.
Aljazeera