Osama picture to be released

[Bismillah]

It started out as Wahhabism and was rotten from the begining, the fact that they were dirt poor and uneducated just made it worse.

 

[beenie]

This is true.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The US is a peaceful non Muslim country and Osama the criminal wanted to destroy it simply because Americans are non Muslims!!

This is a straw man, as anyone can see by reading my post (#92).

The links of Bin Laden and Al-Zawahri's fatwa of 1998 and Bin Laden's speeches of 2001 and 2002 that you cited:
Fatwa / World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders
BBC News | MEDIA REPORTS | Bin Laden rails against Crusaders and UN
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America' | World news | Observer.co.uk
The man himself cited in all these links the numerous acts of injustice and oppression by the US and its allies. Very generally speaking, I don't disagree with the contents of the links, the characterization of the war on Muslims, etc, except for the parts that justify the killing of the American civilians ...

First, Bin Laden's criticism of US foreign policy was extremely misleading, garbled, and hypocritical. Just to name one example: he begged the Saudis to allow him and his Jihadis to use KSA as a base to attack Saddam's Iraq. When the Saudis invited their allies, the Americans, to do the same thing, Bin Laden spread lies about it (calling it an "occupation" the Saudi leaders were helpless to stop) and denounced it as ferocious aggression against Muslims, the Crusader-Zionist army is plundering our riches, etc. Complete nonsense.

Second, Bin Laden's opposition to US foreign policy was not what distinguished him. If you are looking for courageous, rational, humane criticism of US foreign policy, you can arguably find it in the works of Noam Chomsky, or Edward Said, or other people. Attacks on civilians, and conspiracy to mass murder civilians, was what distinguished Osama Bin Laden.

I don't disagree at all with his goals, as I said earlier, with his reading of the attacks on Muslims, with describing the American and Western civilization as the worst, with his reasons for describing it as such, with his examples of the double standard of the "civilized world", etc.

I strongly disagree. I embrace intelligent, rational, humane people who oppose US foreign policy. Bin Laden was not such a person. He was always the friend of violence and hatred. He was so blind that he opposed humanitarian assistance for starving Somalia and supported the brutal military occupation of East Timor, a majority Catholic country which Bin Laden insisted was "part of the Islamic world". He was a fanatic, and a mass murderer.

I repeat what I said; Bin Laden is nothing but a manifestation of frustration of Muslims and he is only a reaction to the real criminal. It's not expected that the US and its allies use this amount of violence, injustice and destruction, and the only reaction they should get is roses? Of course, there will be violent reactions to the first violence and injustice.

No, not "of course". Sorry. The Jews in Nazi Germany, and the blacks in the U.S. and South Africa, didn't organize countless bombings of civilians in response to persecution. The people of East Germany didn't hijack passenger planes to punish the Soviet Union for dominating their country. The people of East Timor didn't say the duty of every Catholic, anywhere in the world, was to murder Indonesians wherever they can, until every last Indonesian soldier leaves East Timor alone. Similarly, many people object to the injustices that Palestinians have been exposed to. Bin Laden and his ilk are unique and special in their belief that mass murder of civilians, in places as far away as Tanzania, has something to do with establishing peace and justice in Palestine.

Oh yeah the Somalians killed the American soldiers in 1993 because of their humanitarian mission, not because they took sides and killed women and children!!

Oh please, are you talking about the warlord Aidid? If anyone took sides, it was him. He was the one who started attacking UN peacekeeping forces, and thus hindering food from reaching the people of Somalia when 300,000 people had already died from the crisis. And he was allies with Al-Qaeda, and Bin Laden, who later bragged of helping Aidid in killing American soldiers. How can the US not take sides when Aidid has already started attacking? And please, provide evidence that UN or US forces were killing women and children in Somalia before Aidid began his attacks in 1992. Otherwise, please acknowledge that your accusation was unfair and false.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go into the details but it's enough to emphasize that I don't agree with the means, but I agree with his views towards the US and the West generally speaking. I will try to return to comment on more things.

Bin Laden's views were nonsense and the means were his primary focus. Mass murder of civilians, more hatred, more violence -- that's the only thing about him that was consistent.

 

[Barcode]

This is a straw man, as anyone can see by reading my post (#92).
First, Bin Laden's criticism of US foreign policy was extremely misleading, garbled, and hypocritical. Just to name one example: he begged the Saudis to allow him and his Jihadis to use KSA as a base to attack Saddam's Iraq. When the Saudis invited their allies, the Americans, to do the same thing, Bin Laden spread lies about it (calling it an "occupation" the Saudi leaders were helpless to stop) and denounced it as ferocious aggression against Muslims, the Crusader-Zionist army is plundering our riches, etc. Complete nonsense.

Second, Bin Laden's opposition to US foreign policy was not what distinguished him. If you are looking for courageous, rational, humane criticism of US foreign policy, you can arguably find it in the works of Noam Chomsky, or Edward Said, or other people. Attacks on civilians, and conspiracy to mass murder civilians, was what distinguished Osama Bin Laden.
I strongly disagree. I embrace intelligent, rational, humane people who oppose US foreign policy. Bin Laden was not such a person. He was always the friend of violence and hatred. He was so blind that he opposed humanitarian assistance for starving Somalia and supported the brutal military occupation of East Timor, a majority Catholic country which Bin Laden insisted was "part of the Islamic world". He was a fanatic, and a mass murderer.

No, not "of course". Sorry. The Jews in Nazi Germany, and the blacks in the U.S. and South Africa, didn't organize countless bombings of civilians in response to persecution. The people of East Germany didn't hijack passenger planes to punish the Soviet Union for dominating their country. The people of East Timor didn't say the duty of every Catholic, anywhere in the world, was to murder Indonesians wherever they can, until every last Indonesian soldier leaves East Timor alone. Similarly, many people object to the injustices that Palestinians have been exposed to. Bin Laden and his ilk are unique and special in their belief that mass murder of civilians, in places as far away as Tanzania, has something to do with establishing peace and justice in Palestine.
Oh please, are you talking about the warlord Aidid? If anyone took sides, it was him. He was the one who started attacking UN peacekeeping forces, and thus hindering food from reaching the people of Somalia when 300,000 people had already died from the crisis. And he was allies with Al-Qaeda, and Bin Laden, who later bragged of helping Aidid in killing American soldiers. How can the US not take sides when Aidid has already started attacking? And please, provide evidence that UN or US forces were killing women and children in Somalia before Aidid began his attacks in 1992. Otherwise, please acknowledge that your accusation was unfair and false.
Bin Laden's views were nonsense and the means were his primary focus. Mass murder of civilians, more hatred, more violence -- that's the only thing about him that was consistent.

:clap:clap

 

[bhaktajan]

What an embarrasment for the Osama-istan Govermment & its ISI.
Now with the Bin-Laden kids talking out, Osama-Arabia & the Saudi families must be all befuddled.
Alas, when were the old days before Talibanistan existed? Before Muhajadeen-istan existed?

 

[Sahar]

Oh please, are you talking about the warlord Aidid? If anyone took sides, it was him. He was the one who started attacking UN peacekeeping forces, and thus hindering food from reaching the people of Somalia when 300,000 people had already died from the crisis. And he was allies with Al-Qaeda, and Bin Laden, who later bragged of helping Aidid in killing American soldiers. How can the US not take sides when Aidid has already started attacking? And please, provide evidence that UN or US forces were killing women and children in Somalia before Aidid began his attacks in 1992. Otherwise, please acknowledge that your accusation was unfair and false.

So the Somalis back then should have been okay with the killing of women and children by the US and UN forces because they were after the Aidid attacks?! :sarcastic
Or the Somalis who killed the American soldiers were only annoyed with the nobility of the American soldiers and those savage people couldn't stand the humanitarian work of the US forces?

What are you trying to say?

From:The U.S. and U.N. in Somalia: Show Transcript

[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]Perhaps the biggest failure was that the United States lost its reputation of impartiality and began to be seen as a foreign power taking sides in Somalia's civil war.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]Randall Robinson:[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]No matter what one feels inside, you must always disguise that, because you can't do effective peacekeeping without that kind of impartiality. We didn't. We had, early on, indicated that we favored some and didn't favor others. And, of course, Mr. Aideed was one of those that we indicated hostility towards very early, and that was a major mistake before the June killing of the Pakistanis.[/SIZE][/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1] ...Randall Robinson points to an incident that he believes led to an attack on Pakistani peacekeepers in June 1993, an event which caused the UN to put a bounty on Farah Aideed's head and the subsequent deployment of US Rangers and members of the Delta Force to try to capture him.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]Robinson:[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]The notice that went out a day or two before that occurred went to mid-level people in Mr. Aideed's forces, indicating that his weapons depot would be inspected the next day. There was no such notice sent to any of the other militia leaders.[/SIZE][/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]And so, he might clearly have had the impression that there was going to be a unilateral disarmament of his forces and not as a part of a comprehensive program undertaken across the country with all of the militia leaders.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]..David Evans believes the tilt against Aideed predates the killing of the Pakistanis.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]David Evans:[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1] There certainly seems to have been a distancing of the senior UN officials from Aideed, a refusal to talk to him and so forth.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]...Randall Robinson believes that UN military personnel have also been at fault.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]Robinson:[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1]You've got now Canadians on trial for murder because Canadians had in their forces there a white supremacist cell that murdered several people point blank range in Somalia. The Belgians, the same thing. Evidence of UN forces throwing Somali civilians off bridges.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, helvetica, arial][SIZE=-1] Well, the Somalis have said, and with justification, that if Aideed has to account for the June situation with the Pakistanis, as well he should, then there ought to be an investigation of the UN peacekeeping forces, too, that have apparently committed a number of human rights abuses in Somalia.[/SIZE][/FONT]

From:http://hornofafrica.ssrc.org/de_Waal3

The UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) was mandated in May 1993. At exactly the same time, a new political strategy emerged: to marginalize Aidid, rather than appease him. But Aidid had seen the U.S. and UN fail their first tests of courage, and was not to be deterred by political posturing by a weaker UN force.
On 5 June, confrontation duly occurred, after a UN raid on a designated weapons storage site at Radio Mogadishu, which resulted in an ambush in which twenty-three Pakistani troops were killed.

...Conflict was almost inevitable once the intention to search the radio station was announced, and indeed the aide who received that notification, Abdi Kabdiid, told the UNOSOM officers so.

The death toll is tragic. But the reasons for it, and the total lack of accountability on the part of the U.S. military command, are just as significant. The accounts by DeLong and Tuckey, and Bowden are full of glimpses into the savagery of the fighting, and the readiness of the U.S. forces to use excessive force. The U.S. soldiers did not always use excessive force, it is true—there are many clear examples of restraint and the careful targeting of gunmen amid crowds of civilians. But there are just as many cases in which soldiers fired without identifying their targets, or loosed off great barrages of missiles, or even shot down people in cold blood who presented no threat to them at all. There were times when they shot at everything that moved, took hostages, gunned their way through crowds of men and women, finished off any wounded who were showing signs of life. Many people died in their homes, their tin roofs ripped to shreds by high-velocity bullets and rockets. Accounts of the fighting frequently contain such statements as this: ‘One moment there was a crowd, and the next instant it was just a bleeding heap of dead and injured. Even with a degree of restraint on the part of the gunners, the technology deployed by the U.S. Army was such that carnage was inevitable.
One thing that the U.S. and UN never appreciated was that, as they escalated the level of murder and mayhem, they increased the determination of Somalis to resist and fight back. By the time of the 3 October battle, literally every inhabitant of large areas of Mogadishu considered the UN and U.S. as enemies, and were ready to take up arms against them. People who ten months before had welcomed the U.S. Marines with open arms were now ready to risk death to drive them out.

When pilot Michael Durant was captured, General Aidid turned the tables on his adversaries. The U.S. forces called a truce, and called Ambassador Robert Oakley, whose policy had been to appease Aidid, back to Somalia. He told the cautiously triumphant General what would happen if Michael Durant was not released:

This is not a threat. I have no plan for this and I’ll do everything I can to prevent it, but what will happen if a few weeks go by and Mr. Durant is not released? Not only will you lose any credit you may get now, but we will decide that we have to rescue him. I guarantee you that we are not going to pay or trade for him in any way, shape or form…
So what we’ll decide is we have to rescue him, and whether we have the right place or the wrong place, there’s going to be fight with your people. The minute the guns start again, all restraint on the U.S. side goes. Just look at the stuff coming in here now. An aircraft carrier, tanks, gunships…. This whole part of the city will be destroyed, men, women, children, camels, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys, everything…. That would be really tragic for all of us, but that’s what will happen.

​

and Bin Laden, who later bragged of helping Aidid in killing American soldiers.

Was this a part of his bragging about his evil ambitions of killing civilians?! Why does it upset you that much? American soldiers were involved in plans of killing a clan leader and also in the actual killing of civilians and they were killed? Hollywood movies are good, huh?! Or maybe Americans; civilians and militants should be untouchable but murdering others and bragging about killing them are okay?

 

[Sahar]

This is a straw man, as anyone can see by reading my post (#92).

You didn't explain why he declared the war on America specifically, or why he viewed Israel as an enemy to Muslims.

First, Bin Laden's criticism of US foreign policy was extremely misleading, garbled, and hypocritical. Just to name one example: he begged the Saudis to allow him and his Jihadis to use KSA as a base to attack Saddam's Iraq. When the Saudis invited their allies, the Americans, to do the same thing, Bin Laden spread lies about it (calling it an "occupation" the Saudi leaders were helpless to stop) and denounced it as ferocious aggression against Muslims, the Crusader-Zionist army is plundering our riches, etc. Complete nonsense.

Second, Bin Laden's opposition to US foreign policy was not what distinguished him. If you are looking for courageous, rational, humane criticism of US foreign policy, you can arguably find it in the works of Noam Chomsky, or Edward Said, or other people. Attacks on civilians, and conspiracy to mass murder civilians, was what distinguished Osama Bin Laden.
I strongly disagree. I embrace intelligent, rational, humane people who oppose US foreign policy. Bin Laden was not such a person. He was always the friend of violence and hatred. He was so blind that he opposed humanitarian assistance for starving Somalia and supported the brutal military occupation of East Timor, a majority Catholic country which Bin Laden insisted was "part of the Islamic world". He was a fanatic, and a mass murderer.

No, not "of course". Sorry. The Jews in Nazi Germany, and the blacks in the U.S. and South Africa, didn't organize countless bombings of civilians in response to persecution. The people of East Germany didn't hijack passenger planes to punish the Soviet Union for dominating their country. The people of East Timor didn't say the duty of every Catholic, anywhere in the world, was to murder Indonesians wherever they can, until every last Indonesian soldier leaves East Timor alone. Similarly, many people object to the injustices that Palestinians have been exposed to. Bin Laden and his ilk are unique and special in their belief that mass murder of civilians, in places as far away as Tanzania, has something to do with establishing peace and justice in Palestine.
Oh please, are you talking about the warlord Aidid? If anyone took sides, it was him. He was the one who started attacking UN peacekeeping forces, and thus hindering food from reaching the people of Somalia when 300,000 people had already died from the crisis. And he was allies with Al-Qaeda, and Bin Laden, who later bragged of helping Aidid in killing American soldiers. How can the US not take sides when Aidid has already started attacking? And please, provide evidence that UN or US forces were killing women and children in Somalia before Aidid began his attacks in 1992. Otherwise, please acknowledge that your accusation was unfair and false.
Bin Laden's views were nonsense and the means were his primary focus. Mass murder of civilians, more hatred, more violence -- that's the only thing about him that was consistent.

You are angry, it's you right. You despise the man, it's okay. You try to draw him in the most offensive image, I can't blame you much. I'd like to say that I have no reason to defend targeting innocents. I am taking the middle ground, expressing what I think is for and against him, and that I, pretty much, understand his motives and the environment that led him to take that path. Maybe I was also expressing why I think there is much sympathy with Bin Laden and his cause, why many Facebook profiles turned into images of Bin Laden, the belief that Bin Laden wasn't responsible for 9/11 attacks or any similar attacks. I believe there will be many copies of Bin Laden as long as the causes behind their presence are not going to end. If you believe that Bin Laden and his alike were somehow born with genes of hatred and violence, you are free but I strongly disagree.

The last thing, there is a huge difference between someone sitting in his luxurious office saying the Palestinians face injustice or the American policy represents double standards and another one who took his arms to fight the occupier in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and in any other place and is willing to give up his soul to defend his just cause.

 

[Starsoul]

You didn't explain why he declared the war on America specifically, or why he viewed Israel as an enemy to Muslims.
You are angry, it's you right. You despise the man, it's okay. You try to draw him in the most offensive image, I can't blame you much. I'd like to say that I have no reason to defend targeting innocents. I am taking the middle ground, expressing what I think is for and against him, and that I, pretty much, understand his motives and the environment that led him to take that path. Maybe I was also expressing why I think there is much sympathy with Bin Laden and his cause, why many Facebook profiles turned into images of Bin Laden, the belief that Bin Laden wasn't responsible for 9/11 attacks or any similar attacks. I believe there will be many copies of Bin Laden as long as the causes behind their presence are not going to end. If you believe that Bin Laden and his alike were somehow born with genes of hatred and violence, you are free but I strongly disagree.

The last thing, there is a huge difference between someone sitting in his luxurious office saying the Palestinians face injustice or the American policy represents double standards and another one who took his arms to fight the occupier in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and in any other place and is willing to give up his soul to defend his just cause.

Totally agree. People in US have to stop seeing this through a key hole, there's a whole lot more in the fog surrounding Obl. For one, a country can spend trillions of dollars, at war with some shady org, against which it cannot provide the world with any single substantial evidence? if he was worth spending (read wasting) so much resources at, and worth killing millions of innocent people in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, there certainly can be evidence against him for US to have gone so far at war with the muslim world.

If he's such a scum bag, super powers must realize they can't spend trillions of dollars in pursuit of such wastages, destroy countries infrastructures, and kill innocent people and children. If even 1/3rd of these resources were utilized in the up-liftment of the 3rd world countries, a poor country like Afghanistan, people would not have only helped the US find their 'most wanted man', they would have easily robbed such figures of the limited glory some ignorant people seem to associate with him.

Us citizen,CIA chief operator Raymond Davis, killed 3 un-armed men in my country recently, without any reason, the US pressurized the country and got him flown off in a few weeks in a hush hush settlement, without a trial, without any penalty ( the wife of one murdered, committed suicide for not having sought justice). Should my country not go at war with yours? And why not? (and guess what, he did it in broad daylight and had countless witnesses who saw this killing with their own eyes)The drones are killing innocent people everyday, and americans in covert operations are killing important people in the country. This is the worst form of *errorism , which is justified openly by the Us govt. and their people.

Those who support , embrace and call this intelligent, humane, just and empathetic, should educate themselves with the meanings of these words, and gain a wider understanding of humanity than they actually believe they're acquainted with. What US suffered in one day, it made Iraq, Afghanistan and pakistan suffer for a good ten years and continues to do so, I must clap heavily for the lobbyists for having been successful in making people see things, exactly as they wanted them to see.

A very happy deception to everybody.

 

[Sahar]

Speaking about Noam Chomsky;

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.​

t's increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition - except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress "suspects." In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it "believed" that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn't know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence - which, as we soon learned, Washington didn't have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that "we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda."
Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden's "confession," but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington's anger that Pakistan didn't turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the US invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death

 

[Mr Spinkles]

So the Somalis back then should have been okay with the killing of women and children by the US and UN forces because they were after the Aidid attacks?!

Let's start over on Somalia. This thread is about Osama Bin Laden. I criticized Bin Laden's violent opposition against UN peacekeepers who were bringing food aid to Somalia, as if they were merely part of a global attack on Islam. Your response: "Oh yeah the Somalians killed the American soldiers in 1993 because of their humanitarian mission, not because they took sides and killed women and children!!"

The problem with your statement is that you have not provided any evidence that "Somalians" (by which you must mean Aidid's supporters) killed the Pakistani UN troops (and later, American troops) in response to UN/US killing of women and children. Please provide this evidence, or withdraw your accusation.

Let me first (1) address your points about Somalia, and second (2) come back to Osama Bin Laden's remarks on Somalia, and compare his fantasies to reality.

(1) As for Somalia, again, it's debatable who "took sides" first, Aidid or the UN. Read bios on Aidid here and here. Long before the UN did anything to Aidid, he was a war criminal, he extorted money from foreign relief groups, he opposed the UN while cynically trying to get support from the US, and he opposed the clan reconciliation process. Like other warlords, he did what he did for his own political gain. He was an obstacle to humanitarian relief, and that is why the UN started to tilt against him.

Now, I will grant you that the UN made a mistake by doing that. But it's ridiculous to assert that because peacekeeping international troops inspected a weapons depot, this justifies ambushing and disemboweling 24 Pakistani UN troops. How did this help the situation in Somalia? It didn't. Aidid's actions only jeopardized the peace process and the flow of aid to starving people.

In any case, after Aidid started a war with the UN of course women and children were killed as a result. Women and children were killed during Aidid's wars with other warlords, too. The civil war was what caused the enormous humanitarian crisis in Somalia the first place. That's why war is a bad thing, to be avoided. Now certainly, the U.S. made mistakes. The article you cited says during the Battle of Mogadishu, "there are many clear examples of restraint and the careful targeting of gunmen amid crowds of civilians. But there are just as many cases in which soldiers fired without identifying their targets ..." So, there were many clear examples of restraint, but also just as many examples of lack of restraint by the American soldiers. Let's remember the context in which this lack of restraint occurred: 160 soldiers were surrounded, cut off, and fighting a pitched battle for over 24 hours. More than half of them were killed or wounded. Others had to run and shoot their way out to save their lives. In some cases, women and children were actually firing weapons, or being used as shields by gunmen. And this was part of an operation to capture (not kill) Aidid for killing UN troops in the first place (they succeeded in capturing two of his aides).

In any case, clearly the violence got out of hand on both sides, as violence usually does (Aidid's clan murdered four journalists, for example). The US/UN realized this, offered peace to Aidid, and withdrew forces from Somalia. The end. The Somalians were left alone again to fight themselves from then onward.

(2) Now let's try to connect the complex reality of Somalia, to Bin Laden's fantastical remarks on Somalia. First, he characterized the UN mission as an attack on Muslims. Pure nonsense. It was tribal warfare between Muslims! And the UN troops included Muslims! So Bin Laden chooses to give no realistic or factual view of the nature of the conflict.

Furthermore, he proposed no solution to Somalia's many problems. One million people at risk of starvation, thousands more killed by clan warfare .... and all this on "Muslim lands". Shouldn't this concern Bin Laden? Yet he doesn't talk about these problems, or their solutions. He just says "You attacked us in Somalia" and his solution is expel the UN peacekeepers, kill American civilians. Somehow, more indiscriminate violence will help end famine and civil war in Somalia.

And Bin Laden was saying this in 2002! Was Bin Laden aware that many years before, the U.S. negotiated a peaceful settlement with Aidid and withdrew all its forces from Somalia? Was he aware that Aidid was killed in the 1990's not by the U.S., but by an Islamic warlord who wanted to enforce Shariah law in Mogadishu? Was he aware that after Aidid's death, his own clan and party the Somalian National Alliance selected his son to be their leader -- a man who is also a U.S. citizen, and in fact a Marine who served in Somalia?

Bin Laden's deluded view of the world cannot handle these facts. The UN mission to Somalia was not an attack on Muslim lands and the brief conflict with Aidid was not a cosmic war between the good guys and the Crusader-Zionists. Following the logic of his 1996 fatwa, it is a religious duty for all Muslims to kill Aidid's own son, the (now former) leader of the Somalian National Alliance, and his family, since they are American civilians. Oops.

Another example of the absurd conclusions one arrives at following Bin Laden's logic: in 2009, the UN helped broker reconciliation between tribes in Somalia and parliament elected Sheikh Ahmed as President. He is an Islamist who promised to introduce Shariah law. What was Bin Laden's response to this? Can you guess?

His response was that Somalia's unity government is "apostate" because it does not declare perpetual war on the UN, aid organizations, all Western countries, Ethiopia (which is mostly Christian), etc. Ahmed is tainted by "the infidels". Bin Laden therefore backed the guerrillas, who say the government's Shariah law will not be strict enough. They are called Al-Shabaab, a Taliban-like movement that in the 2000's started killing foreign aid workers:

"The number of people in Somalia who are dependent on international food aid has tripled since 2007, to an estimated 3.6 million. But there is no permanent foreign expatriate presence in southern Somalia, because the Shabaab has declared war on the UN and on Western non-governmental organizations. International relief supplies are flown or shipped into the country and distributed, wherever possible, through local relief workers. Insurgents routinely attack and murder them, too; forty-two have been killed in the past two years alone."

Al-Shabaab is also known for declaring gold teeth "un-Islamic" and sending patrols to yank them out of people's mouths, among other absurdities.

Here we see, very concretely, how Bin Laden's ideology of violence and extremism is helping to destroy this country. You have to be blind not to see this.

I think that takes care of Bin Laden's violent, extreme, paranoid views on Somalia.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

You didn't explain why he declared the war on America specifically, or why he viewed Israel as an enemy to Muslims.

I never claimed to explain all the reasons. I have explained some of the reasons, we have not arrived at all the reasons yet. They key point I am making, is that his reasons are totally hypocritical and garbled. I already talked about the US bases in KSA and the UN mission in Somalia. Others are easy to dismiss. His complaint that the US doesn't support democracy is absurd, Bin Laden never supported democracy. His complaint that the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan is just bizarre, and demonstrates how desperate he is to come up with justifications for violence against civilians. So, when Bin Laden is defending "Muslim lands" it's okay to attack civilians, but when the US is defending itself during WWII, attacking civilians is a terrible crime? Almost all the reasons Bin Laden used in his "Letter to Americans" to justify attacks on civilians, could be used to justify the mutual attacks on civilians that occurred during WWII, including the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I mean, this is such a lame excuse. Is Osama Japan's representative now? Does he not realize that the US and Japan reconciled many decades ago, that most people killed in his attacks were not alive when the atomic bombs were dropped? Does he not realize that Japanese citizens, and many more people of Japanese descent, were killed on 9/11? Blowing up New York City is a rather insane way to honor the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Now, you sarcastically replied that "Osama the criminal wanted to destroy [America] simply because Americans are non Muslims!!" but again, that was a straw man and anyone can see it.

Read Bin Laden's 2002 "Letter to America" again. There is no question that legitimate grievances exist against American foreign policy. He makes very good use of these grievances. But the Isreal/Palestine issue and the Iraq sanctions aren't enough. He needs more reasons to justify mass murder of civilians, so he also tries to use ridiculous and hypocritical grievances, to supplement the legitimate ones.

And before you so sarcastically say Osama wanted to destroy Americans because they are non-Muslim, consider this: what does he want the US to do, to stop his attacks? While Bin Laden is answering question #1, it's implicit that the U.S. must stop supporting Israel, and various Middle East governments. Okay. But it's also implicit that there is nothing the U.S. can do to avoid more attacks, because some attacks are payback, and the payback isn't finished yet. Then we arrive at question #2, "What do we want from you?" He says, in this order (1) become Muslim, (2) stop being immoral. At the top of the "stop being immoral" list we find he wants Americans to stop fornication; stop inventing our own laws that are different from Shariah; stop permitting usury and intoxicants; and stop "personal acts of immorality" which constitute our "personal freedom".

His more reasonable demands, which amount to "leave us alone", are actually way down at the bottom of his list. Apparently, the most important thing is that Americans must convert to Islam and stop creating our own laws, which differ from Shariah. (Or could this be a cultural misunderstanding on my part? In Arab culture, does one put the most important items at the top or bottom of a list?)

You are angry, it's you right. You despise the man, it's okay. You try to draw him in the most offensive image, I can't blame you much. I'd like to say that I have no reason to defend targeting innocents. I am taking the middle ground, expressing what I think is for and against him, and that I, pretty much, understand his motives and the environment that led him to take that path. Maybe I was also expressing why I think there is much sympathy with Bin Laden and his cause, why many Facebook profiles turned into images of Bin Laden, the belief that Bin Laden wasn't responsible for 9/11 attacks or any similar attacks. I believe there will be many copies of Bin Laden as long as the causes behind their presence are not going to end. If you believe that Bin Laden and his alike were somehow born with genes of hatred and violence, you are free but I strongly disagree.

I see what you're saying. I agree that legitimate grievances exist, which if addressed, will reduce extremism, and will reduce the likelihood of future attacks.

But, you are wrong to say I am trying to draw Bin Laden in the most offensive language. The facts do this all by themselves, without my help. Bin Laden didn't write any brilliant analysis of foreign policy, he didn't organize any political movement which actually achieved worthy goals. His greatest achievement was mass murder. His main effect on US foreign policy -- his most legitimate grievance -- was to make it even more militant, more pro-Israel and more anti-Muslim than it had been before. Thankfully the US has regained some of the sanity it lost after 9/11 (and many other attacks and attempted attacks since then).

The last thing, there is a huge difference between someone sitting in his luxurious office saying the Palestinians face injustice or the American policy represents double standards and another one who took his arms to fight the occupier in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and in any other place and is willing to give up his soul to defend his just cause.

I see what you are saying. But, it's worth considering that there would never have been a US occupier in Afghanistan, if it wasn't for Bin Laden, and probably not Iraq, either. And remember, he fled Afghanistan. And for many years after the U.S. withdrew from Lebanon -- when Bin Laden planned the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, for example -- which "occupier" was he fighting? He killed mostly innocent Kenyans. The US wasn't occupying Kenya. Or Tanzania. And despite Bin Laden's fantasies, the US wasn't occupying KSA, either. Those bombings did not fight any occupier, they were just indiscriminate murder, which could not *possibly* have accomplished any worthy political goal, other than murder.

And then, as I said, we have Bin Laden's position on Indonesia and East Timor. Kofi Anon was a "criminal" according to Bin Laden, for demanding an end to the occupation of East Timor. So Bin Laden wasn't really against military occupation, as a principle, he was only interested in defending "Muslim lands" from infidels -- which is basically anyone who differs from his very narrow view of Shariah law, including many Muslims of the world. If defending Muslim lands means imposing a brutal military occupation on East Timor, which is mostly Christian, Osama was happy with that.

 

[Sahar]

Mr Spinkles, you are repeating your long posts over and over. This was the third post and I haven't read anything new. I don't know, what do you want me to say?

I am not Osama's public speaker and I don't have to defend every line and every word he said in his speeches. I made my opinion very clear about all this multiple times.

Nonetheless, I am going to reply to every passage and every statement (?) and lets see where this is going to take us.

I never claimed to explain all the reasons. I have explained some of the reasons, we have not arrived at all the reasons yet.

No, you claimed that Osama's reasons for attacking America is that it's a non Muslim nation, you have to explain why he didn't express the same amount of enmity to any other non Muslim nation.

They key point I am making, is that his reasons are totally hypocritical and garbled.

We disagree.

I already talked about the US bases in KSA and the UN mission in Somalia.

Yes, and I said before that I have no problem with the way he viewed the US bases in KSA and now I say the US humiliation in Somalia doesn't make me grieve and I don't see why he shouldn't "brag" about it.

His complaint that the US doesn't support democracy is absurd, Bin Laden never supported democracy.

In spite of that, it still means the US is hypocritical.

His complaint that the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan is just bizarre, and demonstrates how desperate he is to come up with justifications for violence against civilians.

He didn't use it as justification for violence against civilians, this wasn't the context. It was one of his examples of the barbaric history of the US and as a proof to his claim that the American civilization is devoid of manners and principles.

So, when Bin Laden is defending "Muslim lands" it's okay to attack civilians, but when the US is defending itself during WWII, attacking civilians is a terrible crime?

Good question.

Is Osama Japan's representative now?

No one need to be Japan's representative to remind himself and the world of the American crimes against humanity. In addition, it's needed to understand the American conscience.

Does he not realize that the US and Japan reconciled many decades ago, that most people killed in his attacks were not alive when the atomic bombs were dropped?

But because I am a Muslim, I believe that God of the world (not the US) doesn't forget, nor does history. The US ultimately will pay very expensive price for its crimes.

Blowing up New York City is a rather insane way to honor the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The latter has nothing to do with the former.

And before you so sarcastically say Osama wanted to destroy Americans because they are non-Muslim, consider this: what does he want the US to do, to stop his attacks? While Bin Laden is answering question #1, it's implicit that the U.S. must stop supporting Israel, and various Middle East governments. Okay. But it's also implicit that there is nothing the U.S. can do to avoid more attacks, because some attacks are payback, and the payback isn't finished yet. Then we arrive at question #2, "What do we want from you?" He says, in this order (1) become Muslim, (2) stop being immoral. At the top of the "stop being immoral" list we find he wants Americans to stop fornication; stop inventing our own laws that are different from Shariah; stop permitting usury and intoxicants; and stop "personal acts of immorality" which constitute our "personal freedom".

I didn't read from the speech that if you didn't become Muslim, we will attack you, because he could easily say this about every non Muslim nation in the world, but he didn't.
Secondly, maybe the culture of lust and consumerism can't be separated from the policy of "after me, the deluge", maybe because this "civilization" doesn't recognize a Just God Who knows and sees, history witnessed the policy of acting god: kill this and punish this, controlling the fates of peoples...maybe for this reason they fear no consequences, they feel they can corrupt in the land as they want without judgment?

Apparently, the most important thing is that Americans must convert to Islam and stop creating our own laws, which differ from Shariah.

Maybe then, we will see more just policies towards the other inhabitants of this planet.

(Or could this be a cultural misunderstanding on my part? In Arab culture, does one put the most important items at the top or bottom of a list?)

It must be the @#$%^@ retarded Arab culture!!

Bin Laden didn't write any brilliant analysis of foreign policy

No, I feel he summarized the story very well.

His main effect on US foreign policy -- his most legitimate grievance -- was to make it even more militant, more pro-Israel and more anti-Muslim than it had been before.

Huh, as I said before the US policy is based on clear unchangeable strategic goals. Fighting, attacking and weakening Iraq and targeting its infrastructure came before 9/11. America has its imperialistic project that was determined much before 9/11. In short, I don't buy "Bin Laden made the US to attack, to be more anti-Muslim..." thing.

Thankfully the US has regained some of the sanity it lost after 9/11 (and many other attacks and attempted attacks since then).

Again, it's highly debatable if he was responsible for these attacks.

when Bin Laden planned the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, for example -- which "occupier" was he fighting?

He was targeting the American interests. He declared war on America, then America can be a target anywhere. Of course, I don't agree. But I see this view no different than the American argument of disregarding the civilian casualties because of the legitimate targets they were after!!

Those bombings did not fight any occupier, they were just indiscriminate murder, which could not *possibly* have accomplished any worthy political goal, other than murder.

They might be easier than others.

So Bin Laden wasn't really against military occupation, as a principle, he was only interested in defending "Muslim lands" from infidels

Well, this is not a bad thing.

If defending Muslim lands means imposing a brutal military occupation on East Timor, which is mostly Christian, Osama was happy with that.

I don't have to agree with his position on this issue but it can be used as an indication for the double standards of the "civilized world". And I believe he pointed this out.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Show us pictures of the dead, murderous sociopath already. Might bring some victims some piece of mind seeing his corpse. Certainly can't hurt.

 

[Chisti]

Show us pictures of the dead, murderous sociopath already. Might bring some victims some piece of mind seeing his corpse. Certainly can't hurt.

What a horrible thing to say.:no:

 

[Kathryn]

I just find it so ironic that ANY radical Muslim would point fingers at any other country and cry "Foul!" when radical Islam is responsible for more deaths of OTHER Muslims than the West ever will be. If you're Muslim and live in the Middle East or Africa or Southwest Asia or the Balkans, you're at much higher risk of being blown apart randomly by a fellow Muslim than by military action from any western civilization.




Look at all those dark blue countries - hardly a one offers much in the way of peace, quality of living, personal freedom, or tolerance.

At some point, Muslim-dominated countries have to take some sort of responsibility for the quality of life (or lack thereof) that their systems and beliefs offer.

If more predominately Muslim countries were more stable, more tolerant, more peaceful, then more radical Muslim leaders might have a bit more credibility. But in light of the many horrors running rampant through so many of these regions, pardon me if I'm not too impressed with their self righteous posturing.

Clean up your own house before focusing on someone else's.

 

[Rakhel]

Ok I have changed my mind. I don't wanna see a picture of Bin Laden. I wanna see what type of Porn they find in his home

Porn stash found in bin Laden's lair

By CHUCK BENNETT and PHILIP MESSING
Last Updated: 8:52 AM, May 14, 2011
Posted: 12:59 AM, May 14, 2011

http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php..._ss=1&at_xt=1&pre=http://www.nypost.com/&tt=0 More Print
It wasn't just plots to kill Americans that got a rise out of him.
It turns out that terror titan Osama bin Laden had a stash of smut to liven up his lair.
Investigators poring over the tons of files, computer drives and other recordings hauled out of bin Laden's million-dollar bunker in Abbottabad, Pakistan, discovered a triple-X-rated porn collection "of modern, electronically recorded video" that is "fairly extensive," it was reported yesterday.
It may have been just what the terror chief needed to rev up for the three wives he lived with in the hideaway that Navy SEALs stormed May 2, killing him with two shots.


Read more: Porn discovered on bin Laden's computer, sources say - NYPOST.com

 

[Kathryn]

Ok I have changed my mind. I don't wanna see a picture of Bin Laden. I wanna see what type of Porn they find in his home

Now I don't know which money shot I'd rather see.

 

[Rakhel]

Now I don't know which money shot I'd rather see.

I know, right?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

What a horrible thing to say.:no:

I don't think it's horrible that some victims of a murderous sociopath might get some type of closure from seeing the body of the man who is responsible for the death of their loved ones. I can how it might be cathartic for some people.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

I am not Osama's public speaker and I don't have to defend every line and every word he said in his speeches.

And yet, you seem to be trying very hard to do so.

I.M.O. there are many distortions in your last post. I will try to respond to only a few. Then you can have the last word in this thread. I apologize for deviating a bit from the topic of Osama photos, we should have had this discussion in another thread.

No, you claimed that Osama's reasons for attacking America is that it's a non Muslim nation, you have to explain why he didn't express the same amount of enmity to any other non Muslim nation.

No, in post #92 I was specifically talking about his grievance of US military bases in KSA. This grievance was crucially tied to the fact that KSA accepted non-Muslim assistance, as you said yourself.

The rest of your comments suffer from a basic problem. You keep forgetting that we are talking about Osama Bin Laden. Not your beliefs, or US hypocrisy.

For example:

But because I am a Muslim, I believe that God of the world (not the US) doesn't forget, nor does history. The US ultimately will pay very expensive price for its crimes.

This is how you may describe your view, but Bin Laden didn't believe in allowing God "ultimately" to levy some "price". Bin Laden believed in levying that price himself, right now. In the form of mass murder of civilians.

Another example:

In spite of that, it still means the US is hypocritical.

Yes. Both Bin Laden and the US are hypocritical. I have discussed US hypocrisy in many other threads. Here, we are discussing Bin Laden.

He didn't use it as justification for violence against civilians, this wasn't the context. It was one of his examples of the barbaric history of the US and as a proof to his claim that the American civilization is devoid of manners and principles.

My mistake. Therefore, according to this logic, Al-Qaeda has a barbaric history and is devoid of manners and principles. The point about Japan is valid coming from you, or any normal person; but coming from Bin Laden it's complete nonsense any way you choose to interpret it.

Secondly, maybe the culture of lust and consumerism can't be separated from the policy of "after me, the deluge", maybe because this "civilization" doesn't recognize a Just God Who knows and sees, history witnessed the policy of acting god: kill this and punish this, controlling the fates of peoples...maybe for this reason they fear no consequences, they feel they can corrupt in the land as they want without judgment?

Setting off car bombs is not "judgment" of American culture, or any culture. It's a crime. Bin Laden committed crimes. I don't expect any culture in the world to escape judgment but we're talking about crimes.

Maybe then [when the US becomes Muslim and adopts Shariah law], we will see more just policies towards the other inhabitants of this planet.

[Brackets added for clarity]. You must be referring to the "just policies" of Indonesia, and the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda comrades in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Again, it's highly debatable if he was responsible for these attacks.

So he was a liar, then?

He was targeting the American interests. He declared war on America, then America can be a target anywhere. Of course, I don't agree. But I see this view no different than the American argument of disregarding the civilian casualties because of the legitimate targets they were after!!

I'm sorry, but when was there ever an American argument that an embassy is a legitimate target?

I don't have to agree with his position on this issue ...

Who are you trying to convince? It sounds like you do feel you need to try to defend Bin Laden, or whitewash his career a little. Why you feel that way, I'm not sure. I leave it to you and other people reading this thread, to figure it out.