- "We want our land to be freed of the enemies; we
want our land be free of the Americans." -- Osama bin Laden, 1999
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- "They hate our freedoms." -- President George
W. Bush, 2001
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- If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not
fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the
enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. -- Sun Tzu
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- The philosophy of the sixth century BC Chinese military
strategician Sun Tzu is relevant to a glaring disconnect between two aggrieved
parties. Bush, after overcoming his apparent initial befuddlement (recorded
for posterity) to the attacks on 9-11, defiantly voiced his anger. Hatred
of American freedoms, according to Bush, had spurred some Muslims to carry
out an unprovoked attack on US soil. This claim is ludicrous; and it is
refuted by the 9-11 commission's final report that identifies 9-11 mastermind
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's motivation for the attacks as his "strong
disagreement with American support for Israel."
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- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/#n1(1)
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- In 1996 Osama bin Laden summoned the Muslim Brotherhood
to action.
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- It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam
had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by
the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that
the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands
of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq.
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- It is now clear that those who claim that the blood of
the American solders (the enemy occupying the land of the Muslims) should
be protected are merely repeating what is imposed on them by the regime;
fearing the aggression and interested in saving themselves. It is a duty
now on every tribe in the Arab Peninsula to fight, Jihad, in the cause
of Allah and to cleanse the land from those occupiers. Their wealth is
a booty to those who kill them.
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- Bin Laden's grievances about the injustices perpetrated
against Arabs and Muslims by the US and Israel were already in the public
realm. It is irrefutable that US and Israeli Zionists are carrying out
ethnic cleansing and genocide against Palestinians. Former US Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright even infamously admitted in a television interview
that the destruction of hundreds-of-thousands of Arab children was a worthy
price in achieving American objectives in Iraq. So bin Laden's stated grievances
were public and also corroborated by US and Israeli officials. It is a
verifiable fact, that the US and Britain have stripped away the freedoms
of the Arabs, whether directly, through Israel, or by the complicity of
backing Arab despots.
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- Bin Laden also addressed Americans:
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- Terrorizing you, while you are carrying arms on our land,
is a legitimate and morally demanded duty. It is a legitimate right well
known to all humans and other creatures. Your example and our example is
like a snake which entered into a house of a man and got killed by him.
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- The youths hold you responsible for all of the killings
and evictions of the Muslims and the violation of the sanctities, carried
out by your Zionist brothers in Lebanon; you openly supplied them with
arms and finance. More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack
of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanction)
imposed on Iraq and its nation. The children of Iraq are our children.
You, the USA, together with the Saudi regime are responsible for the shedding
of the blood of these innocent children.
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- Osama bin Laden's remarks are transparent. He claims
the right of resistance. There exists a compelling case for the moral,
legal, and political right of Palestinians to resist occupation.
- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/#n2(2)
- Bin Laden implored Muslims "to do whatever you can,
with one own means and ability, to expel the enemy, humiliated and defeated,
out of the sanctities of Islam."
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- Therefore, even though American civilians are not targeted
in our plan, they must leave. We do not guarantee their safety, because
we are in a society of more than a billion Muslims. A reaction might take
place as a result of US government's hitting Muslim civilians and executing
more than 600 thousand Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine
from reaching them. So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because
it extended its war against troops to civilians. This is what we say. As
for what you asked regarding the American people, they are not exonerated
from responsibility, because they chose this government and voted for it
despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in
other places and its support of its agent regimes who filled our prisons
with our best children and scholars. We ask that may God release them.
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- Citizens' Responsibility for their Government
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- Because the U.S. army and Israeli military have indiscriminately
targeted Arab and Muslim civilians, Bin Laden, feels that US civilians
should bear responsibility for having chosen a government that conducts
such atrocities.
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- Inescapably, this parameter of responsibility could apply
on Israel, where a large number of Israelis cast votes leading to the election
of the murderous war criminal Ariel Sharon. Israeli Jews gave an indication
of the general sentiment held towards Palestinians when 63.7% of poll respondents
opined that the government should encourage Palestinians to leave.
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- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/#n3(3)
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- What is most amazing is that these respondents haven't
yet realized that the Israeli government has been actively seeking to displace
the Palestinians all along. The poll represents nothing less than a euphemism
for ethnic cleansing.
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- Which way do American citizens lean? A Zogby poll indicates
a tight race between the duopoly candidates: President George Bush (45%)
and Democratic Party challenger John Kerry (47%). Outsider Ralph Nader
garners only 2 percent.
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- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/#n4(4)
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- The focus on the person running for president is overwhelming.
It is the cynosure of the election. Does one person make such a difference?
Ostensibly, yes. In the upcoming US presidential election the commercial
media presents the choice as between Bush and Kerry, or variously as Bush
and Bush-lite, or Bush and Bush-plus.
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- Much attention is being paid to the duopoly candidates
and their negligible differences -- especially, since one candidate gets
dragged ever further in the direction of the other candidate, apparently
unable to stake his own positions. Bush is setting the agenda for both
himself and his mimicking opponent. The major claim to stake out a different
position would be to oppose the occupation of Iraq, not in tactics, but
as a matter of principle. The invasion was illicit and sovereignty must
revert to Iraqis.
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- Instead the Democratic Party has pushed peace and Iraqi
sovereignty out the door. Democratic leadership contender Dennis Kucinich,
in a colossal surrender of his anti-war campaign, played politics likely
in an effort to preserve future presidential ambitions within the Democratic
Party.
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- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/#n5(5)
- He has effectively abandoned the progressive camp and
his integrity will likely take a beating.
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- Another earlier contender for the Democratic nomination,
Howard Dean, had taken a drubbing for insinuating that even-handedness
should have a place in Middle Eastern diplomacy. Kerry does not make that
mistake. Kerry has raised bias to new heights. Kerry, through the diplomacy
of his brother, has genuflected before the Zionist lobby in Israel and
assured support of Zionism, which means continued support for territorial
theft, ethnic cleansing from these lands, and the dehumanization of Palestinians.
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- On the important fundamental issue of Iraq, Bush and
Kerry espouse a similar immoral stand. There are, however, choices outside
the duopoly. Where independent candidate Ralph Nader's name appears on
the ballot he is an option. That it is difficult to get his name on the
ballot indicates a lot too. Nader is not the ideal candidate but his positions
when compared to the duopoly candidates' positions sure look much more
preferable.
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- Democrats are playing dirty pool against Nader in his
attempts to get on the ballot. It appears he is fighting fire with fire
in accepting the aid of Machiavellian Republicans for which Nader is receiving
much criticism. To these critics I would pose the question: if you could
further the platform for the destitute, oppressed, and about-to-be slaughtered
peoples by accepting aid from an unscrupulous adversary, would you refuse?
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- Even in states where Ralph Nader may not appear on the
ballot there is always the option of abstaining or spoiling the ballot.
A no-vote is arguably preferable to casting a vote for a war criminal.
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- Rejecting US Corrupt Corporate Funded Elections
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- http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10414.shtml
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- If the election is only about how Americans can improve
their own lot while other countries' citizens perish at American hands
then that is a very telling indictment of the state of US society. This
is what is puzzling about MIT professor Noam Chomsky's voting strategy.
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- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/#n6(6)
- How are the victims of imperialism to benefit from a
Kerry presidency?
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