Following is the English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a
videotape aired by Aljazeera on Friday 29 October. In the interests of
authenticity the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of
the screen, has been left unedited.
To begin: Peace be upon he who follow
the Guidance.
People of United States, 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 in human life and that free men do
not forfeit their security contrary to Bush's claims that we hate
freedom.
If so, then let him explain why did not
strike - for example - Sweden.
And we know that freedom haters do not
possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 may Allah have mercy on
them.
No, we fight because we are free men who
do not 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.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we
are in the fourth year after the events of September 11, Bush is still
engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real cause 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 towers.
But after it became unbearable and we
witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the America/Israeli coalition
against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a
difficult way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to
invade Lebanon and the American 6th fleet helped them in that.
And the whole world saw and heard but
did not respond.
In those difficult moments many hard to
describe ideas bubbled in my soul but in the end they produced intense
feelings 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 oppressors
in kind and that we 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.
We have not 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 is lengthy and
both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride,
arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth.
This resemblance began after the visits
of Bush Senior 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 these monarchies and
military regimes and became jealous of their remaining decades in their
position 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
pretences of fighting terrorism.
In addition, Bush sanctioned the
installing of sons as state governors and did not forget to import
expertise in election fraud from the regions 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.
And for the record, we had agreed with
the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all
the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes before Bush and
his administration notice.
It never occurred to us that the
Commander in Chief of the armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his
citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone at a time
when they most needed him.
But because it seemed to him that
occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its
butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and
their butting of the skyscrapers we were given three times the period
required to execute the operations. All praise is due to Allah.
