Bin Laden's Video Message to the American People

Special Dispatch – Jihad & Terrorism

September 10, 2007 

No.1709

Osama Bin Laden's Video Message to the American People

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
Osama Bin Laden's Video Message to the American

On September 8, 2007 the Islamist forum http://al-ekhlaas.org, hosted by Layered Technologies, Inc. in Texas, USA, posted a video message from Osama bin Laden to the American people titled "The Solution."
The following are excerpts.

Bin Laden opens his message by discussing the effect of the 9/11 attacks, which, he claims, "further harmed America's reputation and its prestige worldwide..." He goes on to characterize U.S. policies throughout history, and more recently in Iraq, as morally reprehensible. For example, he presents Bush's claim that the U.S. is "cooperating with Al-Maliki's government in order to spread freedom in Iraq" as an attempt to cover up Bush's "true intentions," which are "to work with leaders of one sect in Iraq against another sect" in hope that this will turn the war in his favor, while in fact this policy has precipitated a civil war "which [Bush] can no longer control." Thus, bin Laden claims that while the U.S. "proclaim[ed] the slogans of justice, freedom, equality, and humaneness," in reality its policies yielded "fear, destruction, killing, famine, illness, and vagrancy." As a result of this war, he continues, "there are more than one million orphans in Baghdad alone, and hundreds of thousands of widows... The American's [own] statistics... [reveal] that more than 650,000 people have been killed in Iraq as a result of the war and its consequences."

Bin Laden then points out that the Democrats have so far failed to stop the war in Iraq, despite winning the congressional elections. He interprets this as an indication that wealthy individuals still dominate policy decisions, and says to the Americans, "Now that your representatives in the Democratic party failed to fulfill your desire to stop the war, you can keep marching in the streets of big [U.S.] cities holding up anti-war signs," but this will be to no avail.

Bin Laden then adds that "there are [nevertheless] two [ways] to bring [the war] to an end. The first... is for us to continue killing and fighting you with ever increasing intensity [until we defeat you]... The second is... [for you] to liberate yourselves from the deception and restrictions... inflicted upon you by the capitalistic system... in the same way you liberated yourselves from the monks and kings that once enslaved you, and from feudalism." The goal of the capitalist system, he warns, is to turn the entire world into a fief controlled by large corporations..."

As an alternative to the capitalist system, bin Laden offers Islam. He calls upon the Americans to embrace Islam, saying: "The biggest and most irreversible error one can commit in this world is to die without surrendering oneself to Allah, namely, to die without embracing Islam." He warns that, once the owners of the major corporations realize that the Americans people have lost confidence in the democratic system and have started searching for an alternative, i.e., Islam, "they will run after you to please you and fulfill your every desire, in order to turn you away from Islam." He therefore advices the Americans not to waver in their pursuit of Islam, since the benefits they will receive by embracing it are numerous, including a significant reduction in taxes, since Islam does not impose taxes beyond the mandatory 2.5% Zakat (i.e., alms) tax.

*********************

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East.  Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.

MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: (202) 955-9070
Fax: (202) 955-9077
E-Mail: memri@memri.org
Search previous MEMRI publications at www.memri.org

Precious Poets Remember Our Troops; Back a Play

There was a young gentleman who read Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words by Larry Smith. After reading this book, he felt compelled to write a play about these men and tell their stories in words. It opened in 2004 "on the edge of Arlington Cemetery, at a small theater inside the Women in Military Service Memorial." Eight of these men were chosen of the twenty-four available to represent the men to be honored. There was an apolitical play, meaning this was not about politics. It is about our Heroes.

So how did it Mr. Lang, the performer, come to travel the world performing his play for our men and women in the Middle East, on the DMZ (dividing line between North and South Korea), Europe, and many other places? This is where our precious poets step up to the plate to support our Troops.

Mr. Peede had been asked to direct a new NEA [National Endowment for the Arts] program called Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. Its intention was to help soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, or their families, to put their experiences into writing--fiction, non-fiction and poetry. The idea was suggested to NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, a poet, by Connecticut poet Marilyn Nelson, who'd recently served as a visiting writer at West Point. Good for the poets.

Reluctant to wait years for Congressional funding or to divert money from other NEA programs, Chairman Gioia sought private funding for Operation Homecoming. Quietly, the Boeing Company stepped up, ultimately giving $1.2 million. The soldiers' tutors at NEA's workshops included writers such as Barry Hannah, Tobias Wolff, Mark Bowden, Victor Davis Hanson and Tom Clancy. The result is a book, "Operation Homecoming" (Random House), which--again some understatement--is breathtakingly good. [Continue reading Mr. Henninger's article.]

It is a wonderful thing that has been done, finally, by the NEA and the Opinion Journal's article. You may purchase Operation Homecoming at Amazon.com. I thought you might like to know. Have a wonderful day! :)

Editor's Note: There will be another open trackback today. If you have an article you've written and would like to share it with others, please feel free to link it here. Just remember to add me to the list of others you've linked. LinkFest is a wonderful new 'station' where we can go to find out who, what, where and how everyone is posting. Well, the people that belong to the open trackbacks! Join up! It's lots of fun. Thank you.



Trackposted by:

Potbelly Stove: Alarmist media and the revised FISA.

Webloggin: Odds and Ends About The Democratic Presidential Debate.

Perri Nelson's Website: Thursday Open Trackback.

The Amboy Times: Anti-CAIR: My Turn on Civil Rights.

Right Truth: Take the Ultimate Global Warming Challenge.

Blue Star Chronicles: Mitt Romney: Peace in Our Nation.

Stuck On Stupid: The U.S. House Members’ Gym Needs an $8 Million Upgrade?

The Pink Flamingo: On the Wings of A Legacy.

Conservative Cat: Adventures with Bruce - In Which I Deny Some Vicious Rumors.

Right Voices: NYT’s: If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?

Adeline and Hazel: Celebrity Plasic Surgery Video.

The Yankee Sailor: Thursday Open Post.

Thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

I've been interviewed by the St. Pete's Times!

Last week I received a phone call from a very nice man. He is from The St. Petersburg Times in Tampa, Florida. He wanted an interview, so we talked for a while. Not a long while, but a while just the same.

Today he has written his article, and he has quoted me in it. He did quote me accurately, but it was only one line. I understand he only has so much space to write his story, and his story was not about me. He was doing a story about CENTCOM.

Blogs are CentCom's new target.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
Published February 12, 2007

Since 2005, CentCom officials have jumped into the blogging fray, facing the realities of a new electronic age in hopes of combating misinformation on the Web, or just getting its own news out.

A three-person team monitors blogs - Internet journals with commentary from ordinary citizens and, often, links to news articles - that concentrate on CentCom's area of responsibility, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. [Read more.]

Either way, I am very excited! This is my first mention in a large newspaper. Hopefully I can write some articles that are worthy of some new readers. Anyone have any ideas of issues I have not yet covered? If so, leave me a comment or an e-mail. Thank you, and have a great day.

Here's a little news:

There is definitely too much going on right now for me to keep up. Global warming (instead of global freezing-30 years ago), Arkin, Giuliani, getting rid of foul-mouthed bloggers hired by Edwards, DHS lied to Congress last year about the two Border Control Agents who were convicted (for allegedly shooting at a drug runner on his way back to Mexico), Agent Ramos was beaten very severely by five illegal aliens when put into the main population (same prior link), Nazanin is Free! article, a tragic update of an American, who just happens to be Muslim, loses his wife and children by murder while serving in Iraq, Duncan Hunter's entry into the field of candidates for presidents, Sleepwalking with the Enemy, Sulzberger's Revenge, Radical Islam: Terror in Its Own Words, videos to post, e-mails to answer, feeds to read, other sites for which to write articles and on and on. I'll be back sometime soon. Hopefully...lol.

Hat tip: TownHall, Kevin McCullough, Bill Murchison, Stix, RealClearPolitics, Little Green Footballs, The Seattle Times and USA Today.