Full Transcript of Bin Laden Video
Nov. 1, 2004 -- -- The text below is an unedited government translation of the Osama bin Laden videotape, which was released on Friday, Oct. 29, 2004.
Transcript Text
"The prohibited month, for the prohibited month, and so for all things prohibited, there is the law of equality. If then any one transgresses the prohibition against you, transgress ye likewise against him. But fear Allah, and know that Allah is with those who restrain themselves.
"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, 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. 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. If so, then let him explain to us why we didn'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 upon them.
"No we fight you because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our Nation and just as you lay waste to our Nation, so shall we lay waste to yours. 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. But I am amazed at you even though we are in the 4th year after the events of Sept. 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. So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and I shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken for you to consider. 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.
"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. The bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced 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 homes without mercy 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 didn't respond. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 to be blamed for defending his sanctuary? Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us. This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed repeatedly for years before September 11th. 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. 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. The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders to 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? If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was before September 11th.
"This concerned the causes of the war. As for its 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 amongst them that we haven't 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 of which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents. Our experience with them in lengthy and both types are replete with those who are characterized by pride, arrogance, greed and a misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr. to the region 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. So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act under the pretense 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. 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 Mujahedin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda 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. 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 Mujahedin bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due to Allah.
