Charley Reese - Friday, October 31, 2003
I've noticed that when Osama bin Laden issues a statement, the full text is rarely reported to the American people. In the interest of knowing our enemy, I thought I'd pass along a few of his statements. As you will see, the man doesn't much care for us.
The latest statement is addressed to the American people.
"Some have the impression," he says, "that you are a reasonable people. But the majority of you are vulgar and without sound ethics or good manners. You elect the evil from among you, the greatest liars and least decent and you are enslaved by your richest and most influential among you, especially the Jews, who lead you using the lie of democracy to support the Israelis and their schemes and in complete antagonism towards our religion."
Whew.
"These schemes are paid for in our blood and land, and your blood and economy. This has been proved by recent events. And the war on Iraq, which has nothing to do with you, is proof of that."
He then goes after President Bush.
"Bush and his gang, with their heavy sticks and hard hearts, are an evil to all humankind. They have stabbed into the truth, until they have killed it altogether in the eyes of the world. With this behavior they have encouraged hypocrisy, and spread vice and political bribes shamelessly at the level of heads of state.
"This gang and their leader enjoy lying, war and looting to serve their own ambitions. The blood of the children of Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq is still dripping from their teeth. They have fooled you and deceived you into invading Iraq a second time. And they have lied to you and the whole world.
"Nations are nothing without ethics and morals. If these are gone, the nations are gone."
After saying that Iraq has not been as easy as Bush thought it would be, he says: "To Bush I say, you are begging the world to come to your aid, begging mercenaries from every corner of the world, even from small states. This begging has destroyed your pride and revealed how trivial and weak you are after claiming to defend the whole world."
He then directs his remarks to the American military people.
"And to the American soldiers in Iraq I say, now that all the lies have been exposed and the greatest liar has been revealed, your stay on Iraq's land is compounding the oppression and is a great folly.
"It shows you are selling your lives for the lives of others. And you are spilling your blood to swell the bank accounts of the White House gang and their fellow arms dealers and the proprietors of great companies. And the greatest folly in life is to sell your life for the lives of others."
Then he gets around to the threat, and it's interesting to note that his threat is not open-ended.
"In conclusion I say to the American people we will continue to fight you and continue to conduct martyrdom operations inside and outside the United States until you depart from your oppressive course and abandon your follies and rein in your fools. You have to know that we are counting our dead, may God bless them, especially in Palestine, who are killed by your allies the Jews. We are going to take revenge for them from your blood, God willing, as we did on the day of New York. Remember what I said to you on that day about our security and your security."
In case you don't remember, what he said was that as long as the Palestinians had no security, neither would we.
Americans should take note of what this dangerous man, truly our enemy, says. He's not angry because we are rich (he's worth about $300 million himself) or free. He's angry because of our foreign policy. And, as public polling has shown, that is exactly what the rest of the people in the Middle East are angry about.
Rather than trying to kill our way out of this conflict, maybe we should re-examine the policies that caused it.
King Features SYndicate
Last updated 07/11/2003
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