- Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin
Ladin's speech in a videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity,
the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot
of the screen, has been left unedited.
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- 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:
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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 terrorised and displaced.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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?
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- Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind,
objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
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- This is the message which I sought to communicate to
you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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?
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- 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.
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- 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 among 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.
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- Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are
replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and
misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of
Bush Sr to the region.
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- 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.
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- So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to
his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence 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.
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- 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 mujahidin 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.
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- 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 mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went
bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
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- All Praise is due to Allah.
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- So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America
to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for
Allah.
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- 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 scrutinises
the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving
those spectacular gains.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached
record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
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- And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that
the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue
the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of
the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
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- 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 Halliburton
and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is
... you.
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- 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
20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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".
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They
terrorise 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.
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- Finally, it behoves 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.
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- 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."
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- 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."
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- 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."
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- As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better
than a pound of cure."
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- 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.
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- In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security
is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.
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- Your security is in your own hands. And every state that
doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.
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- And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have
no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.
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- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A
1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm
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