Usama on Freedom. AP reports that a videotape that seems to be of Usama bin Laden appeared on Al-Jazeera Friday. In the tape, bin Laden puts the lie to the ridiculous assertion the Bush Administration has used for years to ‘explain’ the attacks upon the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

"God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind," he said.

He accused President Bush of "misleading" the American people since the 2001 suicide airline hijackings that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic candidate John) Kerry or Bush or al-Qaida. "Your security is in your own hands," bin Laden said.

"To the U.S. people, my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster," he said. "I tell you: security is an important element of human life and free people do not give up their security."

"If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have dignified souls, like those of the 19 blessed ones," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers.

"We fought you because we are free ... and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours."

There. Straight from the horse's mouth, we have now a clear, unequivocal statement that al-Qaeda is attacking us not because we are free but because our government is Zionist. Let us never again hear anyone talk about the U.S. being attacked because "our enemies hate freedom".
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And let my city’s airport get rid of the ridiculous post-9/11 add-on “Liberty” and revert to “Newark International Airport”, a good enuf name that is accurate and not the slightest pretentious.
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Arabs do NOT “hate freedom”, and no sane person can believe they do. Indeed, Bush’s entire “nation-building” project going on in Iraq, his entire premise that the Iraqi people would rejoice in the streets and put up no resistance to our invasion, was based on the notion that they want freedom!
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The United States was NEVER attacked “because it is free”. It was attacked for one reason and one reason only: that the United States is an active and enthusiastic accomplice in the endless crimes of Israel. And everyone knows it. Even every hack politician who chattered mindless nonsense about “freedom” knew as he uttered such dishonest claptrap that he was just trying to distract Americans from the fact, obvious to everyone in the world, including Americans, that we are being killed for Israel. Every U.S. soldier blown up or gunned down in Iraq, every civilian beheaded, is dying for Israel. And we all know it.
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The tone of Mr. bin Laden’s message seems, from the report, much calmer and more reasoned than others we have heard. I’m not persuaded bin Laden is still alive — he had severe kidney problems three years ago, and dialysis is not readily available in mountain caves — and his message could have been issued at any time since Bush’s rants about “freedom” started to pour out of his lying lips in September 2001. But in any event we now have it from bin Laden himself: the attacks had nothing to do with freedom. And his army of individuals do not hate freedom but want it: freedom from Zionism and the murders and enslavement of Arabs committed in its name, with active U.S. connivance.
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Will either Kerry, who is ancestrally part-Jewish, or Bush, who seems to think that Christianity is a type of Judaism, and that Judaism = Zionism (which it most assuredly does not) make any fundamental change in our Middle East policy? Only drastic, basic change in U.S. policy, renouncing Zionism, will end the endless war the neo-cons have started. But we hear nothing about changing the policy that got us into this mess, do we? Military strength is supposed to save us from our own folly. It won’t tho, because it can’t.
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There is only one way to end the “permanent war” that the neo-cons have set us upon, against a billion Moslems: renounce Zionism as the lunatic evil it is and give Palestinians the rights we demand for ourselves
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Decent Jews can continue to live in Palestine, as Jewish Palestinians, just as they live in the United States as Jewish Americans. Zionism does not improve their lives but endangers both their lives and, if you believe in such things, their immortal souls, now imperiled by crimes against their neighbors, crimes forbidden by the Torah. There is only one road to peace: the path of justice, something Judaism is supposed to care about.
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There does not need to be a permanent war between the U.S. and Islam. Disown Zionism. Destroy it. Merge “Israel” back into a United Palestine under a secular government that takes no sides in religious matters and accords everyone freedom of conscience. Then, just as he has attended Christmas and Easter services with Christian Palestinians, President Arafat (should he survive his current health crisis) will attend Rosh Hashana services with Jewish Palestinians. And Jews will have much less to atone for on Yom Kippur.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 9:23 PM