Messages from Osama bin Laden (1)

Professor Bruce Lawrence, an Islamic scholar teaching at Duke University, North Carolina, has described Osama bin Laden as one of the best prose writers in Arabic. But he lamented that a large number of past translations of Osama’s words had been disgracefully wrong.

So Verso, reputed to be largest English-language radical publisher in the world, has compiled Osama’s messages into a volume as an important resource for the study of terrorism. It’s titled, as you would have guessed, 'Messages to the World – the statements of Osama bin Laden'.

This compilation of 10 years of Osama's messages may be likened to Mao's dictums in his 'Red Book' - thus, let's call Osama's the 'Green Book'. Professor Lawrence has edited out forgeries and what he has described as 'horrendous' pieces of mistranslation.

An interesting example of one of the big Kahuna's messages uttered in October last year is as follows:

“We continue to make America bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy, Allah willing. And that is not too difficult for Allah. Whoever says that Al Qaeda triumphed over the White House administration, or that the White House administration lost this war—this is not entirely accurate, for if we look carefully at the results, it is impossible to say that Al Qaeda is the only cause of these amazing gains.”

Hmmm, a bit of unusual humility here?

“The White House policy, which strove to open war fronts to give business to their various corporations—in armament, oil, and construction … also helped accomplish these astonishing achievements for Al Qaeda. It appeared to some analysts and diplomats that we and the White House play as one team to score a goal against the United States of America, even though our intentions differ.”

Well, well, well, what can we say?

There you have it – Osama himself acknowledging - and perhaps at the same time, twisting his verbal knife into Bush's side another couple more centimetres - that the USA has unwittingly played and still is playing the role of Osama’s partner in fostering the rise of terrorism, for without the USA rapacious conduct, what would Osama be other than a two-bit grade B terrorist and fugitive, exploding devices in US embassies in Africa and such likes.

But the avarice of Bush and his cohorts in invading Iraq, and the subsequent insurgency in that country have raised the status of al Qaeda, once nothing more than an extremist fringe terrorist group, to a political level equivalent to the Vietcong as national freedom fighters.

To be continued ........