Bin Laden Message to Europe: Withdraw from Afghanistan

Usama Bin Laden's latest screed on the Western evacutation from Afghanistan is the height of hypocrisy, since Bin Laden actively connived at getting Western troops to go there. Abdel Bar Atwan is a prominent Arab journalist and intellectual. Here what he said about his meeting with Bin Laden in 1996:

' Osama Bin Laden told me when I interviewed him in November 1996, “I can’t fight the Americans on the American mainland. It is too far. But if I succeed in bringing the Americans where I can find them, where I can fight them on my own terms, on my turf, on my own ground, this will be the greatest success.”'

The USG Open Source Center translated Bin Laden's newly-released message to Europe on withdrawing from Afghanistan from the German subtitles.

Bin Ladin Sends Message to 'People of Europe,' Urging Withdrawal From Afghanistan
Jihadist websites -- OSC Summary
Friday, September 25, 2009
Document Type: OSC Summary

On 25 September, a forum participant posted to a jihadist website links to download an audio statement from Al-Qa'ida leader Usama Bin Ladin. The statement, entitled "A Message From Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin to the People of Europe," is 4 minutes, 47 seconds in length, and in Arabic with German and English subtitles available. The video shows as still photograph of Bin Ladin.

The following is a translation of the German subtitles:

(Insert) Say to those who disbelieve, if they desist, that which is past shall be forgiven to them; and if they return, then what happened to the ancients has already passed. (8:38)

(Subtitles) All praise be to Allah, who forbade himself injustice and forbade it us (people).

To the European people: Peace to those who follow the path of righteousness. You know that violations bring down their originators and that injustice has deadly consequences. And killing people is an enormous injustice. This is precisely what your governments and soldiers are doing in Afghanistan under the cover of NATO.

They kill children, women, and the elderly, because Bush was angry with them. Even though you know that they were in no way aggressive against Europe nor had any connections with the events in the United States. So why do you violate values that you consider sacred, such as justice and human rights?
Cont'd (click below or on "comments")


Thus, would it not be appropriate to thoroughly think about this matter and to ask the people of reason and sensibility?

Not much longer, and the war in Afghanistan will be over. Afterwards not even a trace of the Americans will be found there. Much rather, they will retreat far away behind the Atlantic, if Allah so wishes. Then only we and you will be left.

Then, whoever was done an injustice, will revenge himself on that person who did him an injustice.

You are learning a lesson in Georgia, a state that is close to you. Its inhabitants were bombed and humiliated. They asked the Americans for help, to regain their sovereignty over what they had lost. But the Americans had only empty words for them. When they then screamed for help loudly, the American warships came. However, they did not come to reestablish sovereignty over Ossetia and Abkhazia, but to offer them something they do not need: some tents, a bit of food, and detergent.

Therefore, think about this very thoroughly, because a sensible person does not waste his children and his property in the interest of a gang in Washington. It is a disgrace for a person to be a member of an alliance, whose greatest leader does not care about the blood of the people and deliberately bombs villagers from the air. And I am one of the witnesses to this!

Then come the Humvees, and when the crew realize that the casualties were children, they let American generosity pour out and give the relatives of the victims $100 for every child they killed. This is a sad fact.

Is it possible to buy a sheep for $100 in Europe? This is what the lives of our innocent children are worth in the eyes of Washington and its allies!

So, what do you think our reaction will be? If you had seen how your American allies and their helpers gathered thousands of Taliban in containers, cramming them in like sardines, then kept them imprisoned until they died or threw them into rivers, then you would have understood the bloody events of Madrid and London.

When the United Nations initiated an investigations of the crimes of the north, the Bush administration put pressure on it and stopped the investigation. This is what American justice is like.

In summary: We demand neither something unjust nor absurd; and it is certainly part of justice for you to stop your injustice and withdraw your soldiers. It would also be sensible not to treat your neighbors badly. When Europe suffers from an economic crisis today, when its center is no longer topping the list of the world's export nations, and the United States has started to sway strongly because of the bloodletting caused by the economic war, then what will it be like for you after the withdrawal of the Americans -- God willing -- when we decide to revenge ourselves for the oppression on the oppressor?

Happy is whoever learns a lesson from the mistakes committed by others. Modest precautions are better than expensive follow-up care. Returning to truth is better than insisting on falsehood. And peace be upon those who follow the path of righteousness.

(Insert) And if they incline to peace, then incline to it and trust in Allah; surely He is the Hearing, the Knowing. (8:61)
End/ (Not Continued)