James
van Luik
Publisher
& Editor
Sunday
121502
Volume
1, No. 6
2
Articles
1.
Osama bin Laden: Letter to The American People
2. Peaceful is Warlike, Freedom is
Relative, Hate is Love, Violence is Tenderness, Murderers are
Saints, Evil is Goodness
1.
Letter to The American People
Osama
bin Laden
(Online document: the full text of Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to The American People”, reported in the London “Observer”. The letter first appeared on the internet in Arabic in November and has since been translated and circulated by Islamists in Britain. It is surprising this letter has not had any noticeable circulation in the United States which contrasts with Europe and elsewhere where it has appeared in the usual standard print news sources as well as in the smaller outlets. I have not changed the spellings or text or grammar in any way. Because most of the subscribers outside the United States have probably read this long letter, I have added a short additional article.)
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,
“Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory” [Quran 22:39]
“Those who believe fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan.” [Quran 4:76]
Some American writers have published articles under the title ‘On what basis are we fighting?’ These articles have generated a number of responses, some of which adhered to the truth and were based on Islamic Law, and others which have not. Here we wanted to outline the truth – as an explanation and warning – hoping for Allah’s reward, seeking success and support from Him.
While seeking Allah’s help, we form our reply based on two questions directed at the Americans:
(Q1) Why are we fighting and opposing you?
(Q2)What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
As for the first question” Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:
(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
(a) You attacked us in Palestine:
(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily.
(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.
When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islaam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) – and we make no distinction between them.
(iii) The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You must know that the Palestinians do not cry alone; their women are not widowed alone; their sons are not orphaned alone.
(b) You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.
(c) Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis;
(i) These governments prevent our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah, using violence and lies to do so.
(ii) These governments give us a taste of humiliation, and places us in a large prison of fear and subdual.
(iii) These governments steal our Ummah’s wealth and sell them to yu at a paltry price.
(iv) These governments have surrendered to the Jews, and handed them most of Palestine, acknowledging the existence of their state over the dismembered limbs of their own people.
(v) The removal of these governments is an obligation upon us, and a necessary step to free the Ummah, to make the Shariah the supreme law and to regain Palestine. And our fight against these governments Is not separate from out fight against you.
(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.
(e)Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.
(f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.
(g) You have supported the Jews in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and agreed to move your embassy there. With your help and under your protection, the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. Under the protection of your weapons, Sharon entered the Al-Aqsa mosque, to pollute it as a preparation to capture and destroy it.
(2) These tragedies and calamities are only a few examples of your oppression and aggression against us. It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge. Is it in any way rational to expect that after America has attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then leave her to live in security and peace?!!
(3) You may then
dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against
civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which
they did not partake:
(a) This argument
contradicts your continuous repetition that American is the land
of freedom and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American
people are the ones who choose their government by way of their
own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its
policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and
affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the
Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and
its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the
Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to
refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if
they want.
(b)The American
people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that
bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our
homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the
Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq.
These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to
attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American People ;are
the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones
who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish,
through their elected candidates.
(c) Also the
American army is part of the American people. It is this very
same people who are shamelessly helping the Jews fight against
us.
(d) The American
people are the ones who employ both their men and their women in
the American Forces which attack us.
(e) This is why
the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes
committed by the Americans and Jews against us.
(f) Allah, the
Almighty, legislated the permission and the option to take
revenge. Thus, if we are attacked, then we have the right to
attack back. Whoever has destroyed our villages and towns, then
we have the right to destroy their villages and towns. “Whoever
has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their
economy. And whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the
right to kill theirs.
The American
Government and press still refuses to answer the question:
Why did they
attack us in New York and Washington?
If Sharon is a man
of peace in the eyes of Bush, then we are also men of
peace!!! America does not understand the language of manners and
principles, so we are addressing it using the language it
understands.
(Q2) As for the
second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you
to, and what do we want from you?
(1)
The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them – peace be upon them all.
It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language.
(b) It is the religion whose book – the Quran – will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling’s, and trading with interest.
We call you to all
of this that you may be freed from that which you have become
caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that
you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to
conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached.
(b) It is
saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization
witnessed by the history of mankind:
(i) You are the
nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its
Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will
and desire. You separate religion from you policies,
contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to
the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing
question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty
to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures
and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny
them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws
which govern their lives?
(ii) You are the
nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all
religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury.
As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the
Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have
then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of
your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at
your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you
against.
(iii) You are a
nation that permits the production, trading and usage of
intoxicants. You also permit drugs, and only forbid the trade of
them, even though your nation is the largest consumer of them.
(iv) You are a
nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to
be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down
this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst
you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your
laws object.
Who can forget
your President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the
official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to
account, other than that he ‘made a mistake’, after
which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind
of event for which your name will go down in history and
remembered by nations?
(v) You are a
nation that permits gambling in its all forms. The companies
practice this as well, resulting in the investments becoming
active and the criminals becoming rich.
(vi) You are a
nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising
tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to
serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your
profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of
women.
(vii) You are a
nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly
and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are
established on this, under the name of art, entertainment,
tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to
it.
(viii) And because
of all this, you have been described in history as a nation that
spreads diseases that were unknown to man in the past. Go ahead
and boast to the nations of man, that you brought them AIDS as a
Satanic American Invention.
(xi) You have
destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than
any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the
Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy
companies and industries.
(x) Your law
is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their
political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their
gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies,
media and economy.
(xi) That which
you are singled out for in the history of mankind, is that you
have used your force to destroy mankind more than any other
nation in history; not to defend principles and values, but to
hasten to secure your interests and profits. You who dropped a
nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate
an end to the war. How many acts of oppression, tyranny and
injustice have you carried out, O callers to freedom?
(xii) Let us not
forget one of your major characteristics: your duality in both
manners and values; your hypocrisy in manners and principles. All
manners, principles and values have two scales: one for you and
one for the others.
(a) The freedom
and democracy that you call to is for yourselves and for white
race only; as for the rest of the world, you impose upon them
your monstrous, destructive policies and Governments, which you
call the ‘American friends’. Yet you prevent them from
establishing democracies. When the Islamic party in Algeria
wanted to practice democracy and they won the election, you
unleashed your agents in the Algerian army onto them, and to
attack them with tanks and guns, to imprison them and torture
them – a new lesson from the ‘American book of
democracy’!!!
(b) Your policy on
prohibiting and forcibly removing weapons of mass destruction to
ensure world peace: it only applies to those countries which you
do not permit to possess such weapons. As for the countries you
consent to, such as Israel, then they are allowed to keep and use
such weapons to defend their security. Anyone else who you
suspect might be manufacturing or keeping these kinds of weapons
you call them criminals and you take military action against
them.
(c) You are the
last ones to respect the resolutions and policies of
International Law, yet you claim to want to selectively punish
anyone else who does the same. Israel has for more than 50 years
been pushing UN resolutions and rules against he wall with the
full support of America.
(d)As for the war
criminals which you censure and form criminal courts for –
you shamelessly ask that your own are granted immunity!! However,
history will not forget the war crimes that you committed against
the Muslims and the rest of the world; those you have killed in
Japan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq will remain a shame
that you will never be able to escape. It will suffice to remind
you of your latest war crimes in Afghanistan, in which densely
populated innocent civilian villages were destroyed, bombs were
dropped on mosques causing the roof of the mosque to come
crashing down on the heads of the Muslims praying inside. You are
the ones who broke the agreement with the Mujahideen when they
left Qunduz, bombing them in Jangi fort, and killing more than
1,000 of your prisoners through suffocation and thirst. Allah
alone knows how many people ;have died by torture at the hands of
you and your agents. Your planes remain in the Afghan skies,
looking for anyone remotely suspicious.
(e) You have
claimed to be the vanguards of Human Rights, and your Ministry of
Foreign affairs issues annual reports containing statistics of
those countries that violate any Human Rights. However, all these
things vanished when the Mujahideen hit you, and you then
implemented the methods of the same documented governments that
you used to curse. In America, you captured thousands the
Muslims and Arabs, took them into custody with neither reason,
court trial, nor even disclosing their names. You issued newer,
harsher laws.
What happens in
Guatanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its
values, and it screams into your faces – you hypocrites,
“What is the value of your signature on any agreement or
treaty?”
(3) What we call
you to thirdly is to take an honest stance with yourselves –
and I doubt you will do so – to discover that you are a
nation without principles or manners, and that the values and
principles to you are something which you merely demand from
others, not that which you yourself must adhere to.
(4) We also advise
you to stop supporting Israel, and to end your support of the
Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the Chechens and to also
cease supporting the Manila Government against the Muslims in
southern Philippines.
(5) We also advise
you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We desire for
your goodness, guidance, and righteousness, so do not force us to
send you back as cargo in coffins.
(6) Sixthly, we call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington.
(7) We also call
you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual
interests and benefits, rather than the policies of sub dual,
theft and occupation, and not to continue your policy of
supporting the Jews because this will result in more disasters
for you.
If you fail to
respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the
Islamic Nation. The Nation of Monotheism, that puts complete
trust on Allah and fears none other than Him. The nation which is
addressed by its Quran with the words: “Do you fear them?
Allah has more right that you should fear Him if your are
believers. Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by
your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and
heal the breasts of believing people. And remove the anger of
their (believers’) hearts. Allah accepts the repentance of
whom He wills. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.”
[Quran9:13-1]
The Nation of
honour and respect:
“But honour,
power and glory belong to Allah, and to His Messenger (Muhammad-
peace be upon him) and to the believers.” [Quran 63:8]
“So do not
become weak (against your enemy), nor be sad, and you will be
superior (in victory )if you are indeed (true) believers”
[Quran 3:139]
The Nation of
Martyrdom; the Nation that desires death more than you desire
life.
“Think not of
those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are
alive with their Lord, and they are being provided for. They
rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them from His bounty and
rejoice for the sake of those who have not yet joined them, but
are left behind (not yet martyred) that on them no fear shall
come, nor shall they grieve. They rejoice in a grace and a bounty
from Allah, and that Allah will not waste the reward of the
believers.” [Quran3:169-171]
The Nation of
victory and success that Allah has promised:
“It is He Who
has sent His Messenger (Muhammad peace be upon him) with guidance
and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it victorious over all
other religions even though the Polytheists hate it.” [Quran
58:21]
“Allah has
decreed that ‘Verily it is I and My Messengers who shall be
victorious.’ Verily Allah is All-Powerful, All Mighty.”
[Quran 58;21]
The Islamic Nation
that was able to dismiss and destroy the previous Empires like
yourself; the Nation that rejects your attacks, wishes to remove
your evils, and is prepared to fight you. You are well aware that
the Islamic Nation, from the very core of its soul, despises
your haughtiness and arrogance.
If the Americans refuse to listen
to our advice and the goodness, guidance and righteousness that
we call them to, then be aware that you will lose this Crusade
Bush began, just like the other previous Crusades in which you
were humiliated by the hands of the Mujahideen, fleeing to your
home in great silence and disgrace. If the Americans do not
respond, then their fate will be that of the Soviets who fled
from Afghanistan to deal with their military defeat, political
breakup, ideological downfall, and economic bankruptcy.
This is our
message to the Americans, as an answer to theirs. Do they now
know why we fight them and over which form of ignorance, by the
permission of Allah, we shall be victorious?
2. Peaceful is Warlike, Freedom is Relative, Hate is Love, Violence is Tenderness, Murderers are Saints, Evil is Goodness
Arundhati Roy
George Bush, Jr. said, “We’re a peaceful nation.” America’s favorite Ambassador, Tony Blair (who also holds the portfolio of Prime Minister of the U.K.), echoed him: “We’re a peaceful people.”
Speaking at the
FBI’s headquarters sometime later, George Bush, Jr. said,
“This is the calling of the United States of America, the
most free nation in the world, a nation built on fundamental
values; that rejects hate, rejects violence, rejects murderers,
rejects evil. And we will not tire.”
Here is a list of
the countries that America has been at war with – and bombed
– since World War II: China (1945-1946, 1950-1953), Korea
(1950-1953), Guatemala (1954, 1967-1969), Indonesia (1958), Cuba
(1959-1960, the Belgian Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos
(1964-1973), Vietnam (1961-1973), Cambodia (1969-1970), Grenada
(1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s),
Panama (1989), Iraq (1991- to the present), Bosnia (1995), Sudan
(1998), Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan still.
Certainly it does
not tire—this, the Most Free Nation in the World. What
freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders, the freedoms of
speech, religion, thought; of artistic expression, food habits,
sexual preferences (well, to some extent), and many other
exemplary, wonderful things. Outside its borders, the freedom to
dominate, humiliate, and subjugate—usually in the service of
America’s real religion, the “free market.” So
when the U.S. government christens a war Operation Infinite
Justice, or Operation Enduring Freedom, we in the third world
feel more than a tremor of fear. Because we know that Infinite
Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And
Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
(For some comic relief from the U.S. governments' slogan above:
it is obvious that in this slogan "Operation Enduring Freedom"
there is an obvious second meaning for the word "enduring.")