U.S. leaders treat these issues as manageable public relations problems and do not see, thanks to God for their blindness, that their behavior is causing some Muslims to hate Americans simply because they are Americans. Brother Osama has said that many Americans are “good people” and “wise people” and are therefore hard to hate. But now, may God be praised, their actions at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and toward God’s holy book are beginning to make them hated as a people. Brothers, only the Lord of both worlds could have made the Americans take leave of their senses and dress captive mujahedin in hoods, manacles, and orange prison suits; put them in cages and at the end of dog leashes; and then make them watch the desecration of God’s book. Brothers, with these acts the Americans as people have become major inspirers of Muslims to join our jihad. God is truly great!
And, Brothers, Washington’s European allies have added to their woes by publishing blasphemous caricatures of our beloved Prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. Also adding to America’s woes is Britain’s decision, and praise to the Almighty for it, to honor the apostate writer Salman Rushdie with a knighthood for his lust to denigrate God’s messenger, may peace be upon him.33 And all the while, much of the U.S. media approved the publication of the cartoons and Rushdie’s vile blasphemies as examples of the freedom of the press that they want Muslims to adopt. Thanks to God for their honesty. Brothers, the Americans are unknowingly sacrificing a precious asset: their reputation for fairness, decency, and as champions of freedom for all peoples. With God’s grace many more believers will come to jihad when they learn to hate Americans as well as American policy.
10. To go on, and by God Brothers brace yourselves, I tell you that U.S. leaders in both political parties continue to tell their people that al-Qaeda and its allies have nothing to do with our blessed religion, nothing to do with Great Islam. Indeed, they seem deathly afraid of the word Islam; for example, the word only appears in the Iraq Study Group’s report as an adjective, as in “Islamic world.”34 And they do not listen even when the Catholic pope—may God punish this formidable opponent of Islam for saying our beloved Prophet is “evil and inhuman”35—truthfully warns Western leaders that Muslims see their secularism “as an attack on their most profound convictions.” Instead, thanks to God, they viciously rebuke the pope for fomenting discord between Christianity and Islam.36 Again, only the truly great God could keep Western leaders and peoples from recognizing the plain truth spoken by that accursed Christian preacher.
11. The American leaders also call us criminals, gangsters, deviants, psychopaths, murderers—they tell their people that we represent only “the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe of the Muslim world.” And so important people like President Bush, Mayor Giuliani, Mrs. Clinton, and hundreds of others within their elite group claim “we will hunt them down one at a time and bring them to justice.” Just last spring, for example, the Americans celebrated the death of our valiant Taliban brother Mullah Dadullah—may God accept him as a martyr—as if it would badly hurt the jihad in Afghanistan. U.S. and NATO leaders cited the death as proof that their goal of killing or capturing those they call “terrorists” one at a time is working, ignoring that they have pursued this policy since 1995 and that there are many more mujahedin now than then.37 And on this point, reality never interferes with their beliefs and claims. Amazingly, Brothers, even after the British chief of internal security publicly explained that her service was surveilling two hundred al-Qaeda–related organizations in the U.K., with more than sixteen hundred known members—and that there are many more not yet identified—then-Prime Minister Blair reiterated the goal of bringing each of them to justice.38
12. Pray God this continues, for it ensures they will not recognize that our movement is large and growing; that your description of U.S. foreign policy as an attack on Islam resonates with hundreds of millions of Muslims, even if they disagree with al-Qaeda’s military operations; and that you, Brothers Osama and Ayman, are heroes and leaders in the Islamic world, especially among the youth. U.S. leaders do not know that their identification of you as “gangsters” will offend all those who see you as good and credible leaders in an Islamic world which is held tight by dictators and tyrants using U.S.-made chains.
13. U.S. leaders also refuse to recognize that al-Qaeda’s twenty-year campaign to instigate Muslims to jihad across the world is succeeding, with attacks in Madrid and London, the growth of Islamist networks in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia, and—all praise to God—an increasing flow of Muslim men from around the world to fight as mujahedin in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those fighters who survive—and may God accept those who fall as martyrs—will return to their native lands with military skill to impart to others, and, most important, an ardent faith in God and His promise of victory. For all this, pray God let the Americans continue to believe and loudly preach that we are just “gangsters.”
14. And, Brothers, the Americans have not found serious men to lead them—God has blessed us with this reality for nearly twenty years. Six years after the 9/11 raids, U.S leaders have not closed their borders or found out who is in their country. Our brothers working here are as safe as they were on the Tuesday of God’s glory. Truly only God could have provided our movement with such a miracle. Astoundingly, Brothers, the American politicians lack the wisdom and moral courage to enforce the immigration laws they have passed. God is great! They refuse to stop illegal immigration because, they loudly assert, “America is a beacon of liberty to the world that we do not want to dim.”39 As you know from al-Qaeda’s extensive experience, Brothers, there is nothing more beneficial to the mujahedin than U.S. politicians who prefer that the United States be seen as the “glowing beacon of liberty” rather than a country of enforced laws. Our brothers now move unnoticed here in a pool of illegal immigrants that exceeds eleven million. Pray God that America long maintains this glow of liberty, which provides a light that warms, guides, and shelters al-Qaeda fighters and the many members of other jihad groups based in the United States.
15. Because the incompetence I have just described is difficult to credit, let me tell you, Brothers, several items that the media are reporting about what America’s nonserious leaders have said and done during the year past.
Notwithstanding the raids by the heroic nineteen, may God be pleased with them, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has for the past two years significantly underfunded the defense of New York City and Washington; only God could have inflicted this blind stupidity on them. And other reports say virtually no U.S. city is prepared to cope with another attack. Indeed, so confused are U.S. officials that the media are reporting that locations in rural America like Kansas, where al-Qaeda has no targets, are far better protected than the country’s urban centers. Praise to God, Brothers, the Americans are still at the drawing board.40
More than a decade after al-Qaeda’s declaration of war, senior FBI officials have said their institution and officers do not need expertise about Muslims, Islam, and the Middle East. This view was supported by the FBI director, may God keep him at his post, a man who also, like his predecessor, has failed to equip his organization with modern computers and communications systems. Truly Brothers, we will derive comfort, safety, and, if God so wills, victory from the arrogant refusal of these men to learn that it is the most essential part of their war against al-Qaeda and its allies to understand Islam, just as we, with God’s help, have labored long and hard to understand America and its history. Yet again the Americans’ self-defeating contempt for Islam’s motivating power is starkly highlighted. Is it not strange, Brothers, that U.S. leaders try to humiliate Muslims as uneducated and medieval, but it is al-Qaeda and its allies that have studied and learned from Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. Clearly, Brothers, the infidels’ police forces in Britain, Canada, and even Australia are gaining knowledge about al-Qaeda’s activities, and they threaten our operations. We have no such worries in the United States, where the FBI revels in its ignorance of Islam
and spends its time digging up farms looking for a man named Hoffa who has been dead more than thirty years and also finds its claim of having found “no evidence” of our brothers in America publicly contradicted by the U.S. director of national intelligence, who says, “There are sleeper cells directly tied to al-Qaeda inside the United States.”41 And more good news for us, Brothers, Bush’s Iraq Study Group has recommended that the FBI send more officers to help the Iraqi police. Forgive my sarcasm, Brothers, but one would have thought that the Iraqi apostates have enough trouble already.42 In addition, the FBI’s willful ignorance of Islam and Muslims also seems rife across the U.S. government; recent media stories show that many senior U.S. officials cannot even distinguish between Sunnis and Shias.43 Brothers we must thank the Almighty God, for only He could have created this situation in a country that brags about the excellence of its education system.
Since 2004, two U.S. intelligence chiefs, Mr. Goss and his successor, Mr. Negroponte, have said they have knowledge of the location of al-Qaeda’s leaders, and even of Brother Osama’s location.44 They said all are based in Pakistan, but that the U.S. military would not hunt and attack them there because of respect for the country’s sovereignty. Then in December 2004 Mr. Goss proved himself a liar by ordering an attack inside Pakistan on Brother Ayman. In other words, Brothers, U.S. leaders first said they were willing to let us kill Americans rather than upset, anger, and endanger the reign of their agent Musharraf. Then, they changed their minds, tried to kill Brother Ayman, and almost wrecked their ties to the apostate Musharraf; who, as you have written, Brother Ayman, is the most important U.S. ally in the war against us and the only one who has hurt al-Qaeda and impeded its operations.45 Inexplicably, President Bush followed this blow to Musharraf by traveling to India and agreeing to give U.S. assistance to India’s nuclear program, thereby strengthening Pakistan’s mortal enemy and shaming Musharraf in front of the Pakistani general officer corps that put him in power and keep him there.46 Brothers, it is with some embarrassment that I tell you that I cannot explain these counterproductive U.S. actions, but we must thank Him for whom all things are possible for them. To continue, Mr. Negroponte, in early 2007, and his successor, Admiral McConnell, later in the year, publicly implied that Musharraf is a liar by refuting Islamabad’s claim of having broken al-Qaeda’s back and driven “al-Qaeda remnants” into Afghanistan by asserting that you, Brothers, and a reinvigorated al-Qaeda are operating safely in Pakistani territory.47 And now, Bush, other U.S. leaders, and their stooge in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, are promoting the downfall of their proxy Musharraf by calling for the restoration of the idolatrous practice of democracy in Pakistan and trying to force the triumph of that brazen female miscreant Benazir Bhutto—and God knows nothing could be more helpful to the mujahedin.48 Truly, Brothers, the U.S. leaders seem confused, indecisive, and perhaps desperate regarding Pakistan; as the proverb says, Brothers, the Americans “wander around in a daze like a duck hit in the head.” By God, Brothers, I tell you only the Lord of the Universe could give us an enemy led by such incompetent men.
Finally, Brothers, and as important to our movement as the foregoing, President Bush, former secretary Rumsfeld, and their gang gave the mujahedin in Iraq a historic and invaluable victory. That victory was over the only American fighters who, as Brother Osama has said, merit our respect—the U.S. Marines. On the brink of success, Bush foolishly ended the Marines’ first attack on Fallujah to please their cowardly European friends, people who stupidly believe the mujahedin will respect powerful foes who do not use all the power at their command. In so doing, Bush not only wasted the lives of his best fighters, and all thanks to God for that, but also showed all Muslims that the Sunni mujahedin in Iraq could defeat Marine assaults, and, thereby, that Sunni fighters could match Shia Hezbollah’s legendary defeat of the Marines in Beirut. Brothers, the Lord of the Universe has made sure that henceforth all Sunnis will see their mujahedin brothers as the “Victors of First Fallujah,” who, with light weapons, bared chests, and the Prophet’s banner, stopped and threw back the infidel’s best fighters, before being driven away by the enemies’ hugely more powerful forces.49 Almost as if to underscore that victory, Bush’s Iraq Study Group clearly told all Muslims that “there is no action the American military can take that…can bring success in Iraq.”50 God is truly great!
16. Brothers, there is one more great advantage al-Qaeda enjoys through God’s grace, and that is the practice of all U.S. leaders to publicly define the status of our war against America only in terms of the detonation of explosives. There has been much proud crowing and preening among these leaders that al-Qaeda has not attacked in America since the blessed 9/11 raid, and a belief that therefore the United States is winning the war against al-Qaeda. May the almighty God keep them mired in this dream. Brothers, as those who read history know, war is much more than detonating explosives, and the mujahedin’s nonexplosive attacks on America, with God’s help, have continued with telling effect every day since 9/11. In this regard, I have learned the following in conversations with work colleagues and social acquaintances, and by reading the media and listening to radio call-in programs. I readily admit these stories are anecdotal, but I believe they faithfully reflect the apprehensive mood of many everyday Americans.
We are slowly changing their way of life. People here are upset and angry with the difficulties of air travel, may God smile on the blessed nineteen for this happy reality, as well as the Pakistani mujahedin in London who made our enemies quiver in fear over the threat to airliners posed by toothpaste tubes.51 People here also are appalled by security that requires the children of grammar-school classes to empty their pockets and clear metal detectors before entering an art museum.
In the area where I live, near Washington, people worry about the under-siege look of the city. One man said to me in wonder: “Roosevelt did not have this much protection in all of World War II.” I also have heard people express anger over what are at times invasive and militarized security procedures in the capital of the world’s most powerful nation, often citing the 2004 presidential inauguration as a graphic example. “We behave as if we are scared to death,” they said.
Americans are worried, thanks to God, by the spiraling federal budget deficit. Brothers, it is impossible to imagine the amount of money the U.S. government is spending on what it calls “homeland security” and on the wars it is waging to kill Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, and elsewhere. In 2006, for example, the Congress raised the debt ceiling to $9 trillion to accommodate the expenses of the U.S. war on Islam.52 The Iraq Study Group’s report, moreover, helpfully told al-Qaeda and its allies that Brother Osama’s bleed-America-to-bankruptcy strategy is working in Iraq, that Washington is spending $8 billion per month there and that it cannot sustain that rate. More recently, the U.S. media have reported that the strain is increasing and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is now approaching $12 billion per month. And a famous American economist and financier recently published a book saying “the U.S. Government is in a weakened financial position to respond to another terrorist attack.”53 And so when al-Qaeda next strikes the United States, with God’s permission, Americans will know that all this spending has been for naught, and that immense additional amounts will be required. We will then, if God permits, tear the heart out of their economy and their morale as well. As an indication of the future, the warning of more attacks issued by Brother Osama in January 2006 drove up the price of oil and gold and caused U.S. stocks to drop by 200 points.54 Imagine, Brothers, the damage that the mujahedin will cause when, if God wills it, our words are again replaced by bullets and bombs inside the United States.
Americans are frightened. I have heard much discussion about their worries of more al-Qaeda attacks—perhaps with nuclear weapons—and recent polling here shows more than half of those questioned believe that another al-Qaeda attack is inevitable and that it will be more damaging than that of our nineteen brothers, may God reward them in paradise. Moreov
er, Americans are both angry and fearful that the erosion of their civil liberties is worsening, because of President Bush’s eavesdropping on telephone conversations inside the United States, secretly accessing private bank records, and profiling each American air traveler. May God worsen these fears.55 It is as you have said, Brothers: Because Americans have not experienced war on their soil since the 1860s, they regard necessary war measures as evidence of incipient dictatorship. Brother Osama’s 2001 judgment has proven to be accurate: al-Qaeda needs to do nothing to terrorize Americans because their leaders and the media will reliably perform that task. And nothing clarifies that reality more than the enhanced fears caused, not by a new al-Qaeda attack, but by the mid-2007 publication of the National Intelligence Estimate on our presence in the United States and the media’s reporting about it.56
Iraq: God’s Gift to His Mujahedin
17. Before ending this message, Brothers, I want to specifically focus on Iraq, where the great and happy news is that God seems to have rendered U.S. leaders ignorant of the wondrous opportunities they have opened for all mujahedin by invading and occupying the country. And just as clearly, these men have yet to fathom the dimensions of the victory, and the surge of confidence they will hand to those fighting in God’s cause when they decide to leave Iraq, and later Afghanistan, pray God, without success.
Let us first praise God for a miracle that only He could have delivered. The Americans are now occupying the three most holy places in Islam: the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Jerusalem.57 Regarding Jerusalem, U.S. leaders know but shield from Americans the fact that they are viewed by Muslims as interchangeable with Israelis. Muslim hatred for Israelis, praise be to God, also accrues to Americans, and will be increased by Washington’s recent gift of $30 billion worth of U.S. arms to Israel to help it murder Muslims. And by invading and occupying Iraq, the U.S. government has created a magnet for mujahedin even more powerful than that which Moscow created in Afghanistan, the first blessed land of jihad.
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