Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden PDF
Preview Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden
$16.95/£10.99/$24CAN DESPITE THE SATURATION OF GLOBAL . media coverage, Osama bin Laden’s own writings have been curiously absent from analysis of the “war on terror.” Over the last ten years, bin Laden has issued a series of carefully tailored public statements, from letters and faxes to video recordings and interviews with Western and Arab journalists. These texts supply evidence crucial to an understanding of the bizarre mix of Quranic scholarship, CIA training, punctual interventions in Gulf politics and messianic anti¬ imperialism that has formed the programmatic core of al-Qaeda. In bringing together the various statements issued under bin Laden’s name over the last decade, this volume forms part of a growing discourse that seeks to demythologize the terrorist network. Newly trans¬ lated from the Arabic, and annotated with a critical introduction by Islamic scholar Bruce Lawrence, this collection places the statements in their religious, historical, and political context. It shows how bin Laden's views draw on and differ from other strands of radical Islamic thought; it also demonstrates how his arguments vary in degrees of consistency, and how his evasions concerning the true nature and extent of his own group, and over his own role in terrorist attacks, have contributed to the perpetuation of his personal mythology. BEL-TIB NON-FICTION 958, 1048092 Bin Laden 2005 Bin Laden, Osama, 1957- Messages to the world : the statements of Osama Bin Laden MESSAGES TO THE WORLD DATE DUE \R 2 0 2008 « ) ( > Brodart Co. Cat. #55 137 001 Printed in USA Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/messagestoworldsOObinl MESSAGES TO THE WORLD THE STATEMENTS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN ♦ - - Edited and Introduced by BRUCE LAWRENCE Translated by JAMES HOWARTH v VERSO London • New York First published by Verso 2005 Introduction © Bruce Lawrence 2005 All rights reserved The moral rights of the editor and translator have been asserted 13579 10 8642 Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG USA: 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014-4606 www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN 1-84467-045-7 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Typeset in Bembo Printed in the USA by Quebecor World, Fairfield CONTENTS Editor’s acknowledgments vii Translator’s note ix Introduction by Bruce Lawrence xi I FROM SUDAN 1994-1995 1 THE BETRAYAL OF PALESTINE 3 2 THE INVASION OF ARABIA 15 II IN KHURASAN 1996-1998 3 DECLARATION OF JIHAD 23 4 THE SAUDI REGIME 31 5 FROM SOMALIA TO AFGHANISTAN 44 6 THE WORLD ISLAMIC FRONT 58 III TOWARDS 9/11 1998-2001 7 A MUSLIM BOMB 65 8 UNDER MULLAH OMAR 95 9 TO OUR BROTHERS IN PAKISTAN 100 10 THE WINDS OF FAITH 103 11 TERROR FOR TERROR 106 CONTENTS IV WAR IN AFGHANISTAN 2001-2002 12 CRUSADER WARS 133 13 THE EXAMPLE OF VIETNAM » 139 14 NINETEEN STUDENTS 145 15 TO THE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN 158 16 TO THE AMERICANS 160 17 TO THE ALLIES OF AMERICA 173 V WAR IN IRAQ 2003-2004 18 TO THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ 179 19 AMONG A BAND OF KNIGHTS 186 20 QUAGMIRES OF THE TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES 207 21 RESIST THE NEW ROME 212 22 TO THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE 233 23 THE TOWERS OF LEBANON 237 24 DEPOSE THE TYRANTS 245 Further reading 277 Index 279 vi EDITOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The labor of many went into the making of this volume. Dr Miriam Cooke read through most of the longer statements with me and offered invaluable insight into the rhetorical nuances of Osama bin Laden’s often archaic Arabic. Also providing help tracking down the cascade of Qur’anic and hadith references in the messages was Kevin Fogg, a recent graduate of Duke University. Another Duke resource was Dr Ebrahim Moosa. A trained religious scholar and an authority on Islamic law, he commented on juridical aspects of bin Laden’s persona, and also read drafts of the Introduction. Finally, Dr Flagg Miller, a linguistic anthropologist, gave permission to cite his unpublished talk on Osama bin Laden’s use of Arabic speech forms in audiocassettes. Dr Khaled Hamid and Tammy Elmansoury provided invaluable help in tracking down Arabic transcripts of bin Laden’s speeches, as did the staff at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. Statement 5 is reproduced by kind permission of CNN. To all of these individuals I am grateful, though none of them bears responsi¬ bility for the final form of these statements, the headnotes introducing them, or the Introduction to the book as a whole. I remain the person of record in the challenging but critical endeavor to bring Osama bin Laden’s actual statements into the conversations and considerations of a wider English-speaking public.
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