Oil has been a sore point with bin Laden. Al Qaeda propaganda prior to September 11 accused the United States of "robbing all Muslims" of exactly $36.96 trillion by exploiting its oil interests in the Middle East. It issued a pamphlet providing a long and detailed breakdown of its calculations, explaining that this was why America was responsible for poverty in the region.
The pamphlet ends with a vow of revenge, and what appears to be a euphemistic reference of future intent: "O Muslims, the times are critical indeed. Seek the approval of Allah quickly, for this is imperative. Then it won't take as long for the American jinn [in Islamic tradition, a powerful spirit lower than an angel] to be put back into the bottle as it takes for the first light of dawn to turn into the break of day."

By Neil Doyle
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Full text: 'Bin Laden's message'
The voice - thought to be Bin Laden - said it was time to get even

The Arabic television channel al-Jazeera has broadcast a message believed by experts to be from Osama Bin Laden.
Here is the statement, as translated by BBC Monitoring:

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, from the slave of God, Osama Bin Laden, to the peoples of the countries allied with the tyrannical US Government:

May God's peace be upon those who follow the right path. The road to safety begins by ending the aggression.

Reciprocal treatment is part of justice.

The incidents that have taken place since the raids on New York and Washington up until now - like the killing of Germans in Tunisia and the French in Karachi, the bombing of the giant French tanker in Yemen, the killing of marines in Failaka [in Kuwait] and the British and Australians in the Bali explosions, the recent operation in Moscow and some sporadic operations here and there - are only reactions and reciprocal actions.

These actions were carried out by the zealous sons of Islam in defence of their religion and in response to the order of their God and prophet, may God's peace and blessings be upon him.

White House 'criminals'

What [US President George] Bush, the pharaoh of this age, was doing in terms of killing our sons in Iraq, and what Israel, the United States' ally, was doing in terms of bombing houses that shelter old people, women and children with US-made aircraft in Palestine were sufficient to prompt the sane among your rulers to distance themselves from this criminal gang.

Do your governments not know that the White House gangsters are the biggest butchers of this age?

Our kinfolk in Palestine have been slain and severely tortured for nearly a century.

If we defend our people in Palestine, the world becomes agitated and allies itself against Muslims, unjustly and falsely, under the pretence of fighting terrorism.

What do your governments want by allying themselves with the criminal gang in the White House against Muslims?

Do your governments not know that the White House gangsters are the biggest butchers of this age?

[US Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, the butcher of Vietnam, killed more than two million people, not to mention those he wounded.

"If you were distressed by the killing of your nationals in Moscow, remember ours in Chechnya"

[US Vice-President Dick] Cheney and [US Secretary of State Colin] Powell killed and destroyed in Baghdad more than Hulegu of the Mongols.

What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan?

I mention in particular Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia.

We warned Australia before not to join in [the war] in Afghanistan, and [against] its despicable effort to separate East Timor.

It ignored the warning until it woke up to the sounds of explosions in Bali.

Its government falsely claimed that they [the Australians] were not targeted.

'You will be killed'

Why should fear, killing, destruction, displacement, orphaning and widowing continue to be our lot, while security, stability and happiness be your lot?

If you were distressed by the deaths of your men and the men of your allies in Tunisia, Karachi, Failaka, Bali and Amman, remember our children who are killed in Palestine and Iraq everyday, remember our deaths in Khowst mosques and remember the premeditated killing of our people in weddings in Afghanistan.

If you were distressed by the killing of your nationals in Moscow, remember ours in Chechnya.

Why should fear, killing, destruction, displacement, orphaning and widowing continue to be our lot, while security, stability and happiness be your lot?

This is unfair. It is time that we get even.

The message threatened more attacks from supporters of al-Qaeda

You will be killed just as you kill, and will be bombed just as you bomb.

And expect more that will further distress you. The Islamic nation, thanks to God, has started to attack you at the hands of its beloved sons, who pledged to God to continue jihad, as long as they are alive, through words and weapons to establish right and expose falsehood.

In conclusion, I ask God to help us champion His religion and continue jihad for His sake until we meet Him while He is satisfied with us. And He can do so. Praise be to Almighty God.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.

Attorney
General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System
(TIPS)

Total Information Awareness

U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html?ex=1038299767&ei=1&en=8e5eec9cd37c2e6f

"I wouldn't get sucked into the cities," said Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a former head of the Central Command. "There would be a lot of casualties on our side, we'd kill a lot of civilians and destroy a lot of infrastructure, and the images on Al Jazeera wouldn't help us at all," a reference the Arabic satellite network.

One senior official, drawing on comparisons with the American occupation of Japan in 1945, said, "Our message will be that the faster we find the weapons and arrest Saddam's guys, the faster they get some normalcy."

"We have a lot of things teed up to go if the big guys decide to send it," said one senior Defense Department official. "But no green lights yet."

The campaign would quickly seek to cut off the country's leadership in Baghdad and a few other important command centers in hopes of causing a rapid collapse of the government, officials said.

prevent Mr. Hussein from slowing the American assault by flooding the marshes in southern Iraq or igniting the country's vast oil fields, officials said.

The campaign would try to avoid destroying important city services and alienating the civilian population, and would also encourage Iraqi troops to defect.

"While we would not want to kill many Iraqi soldiers, if they stupidly fight, we will," a senior military official said.

One important aim would be to disrupt Mr. Hussein's ability to order the use of weapons of mass destruction. Another would be to wrest control of Baghdad from Iraqi forces without getting bogged down in block-by-block urban warfare.

Bush hinted at another concern, that the Iraqi government would purposefully sacrifice its population to stain an American military victory with civilian blood.

Mr. Hussein is preparing thousands of civilian volunteers to fill "martyrs' brigades" and offer up their lives to bombs and advancing troops.

Acting as suicide bombers or fighting in neighborhood defense squads, the martyrs' brigades' true strategic goal would be to generate anti-American feelings in the region.

"What Saddam is saying to himself is, `I'll give them real civilian bodies, real civilian blood on Al Jazeera or CNN.' "

The move to war has already raised concerns of terrorist reprisals in the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/international/middleeast/10MILI.html?pagewanted=1

 

Israeli infantry units with experience in urban warfare during the Palestinian uprising helped train U.S. Army and Marine counterparts this summer and fall for possible urban battles in Iraq, a foreign defense official says. The Israelis have built two mock cities, complete with mosques, hanging laundry and even the odd donkey meandering down dusty streets. A defense official said the sites far surpass U.S. facilities. The location of the training centers is classified.

Kathleen Cavanaugh, a researcher for Amnesty International, said Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, who is to become Israel's new defense minister this week, could be charged with war crimes for his role as the army's chief of staff during the incursions.

Some 417,000 children up to the age of five (57 percent of the children this age) have suffered moderate corporal punishment such as being shaken, pushed or slapped, while 46,000 - 6.3 percent - suffered more harsh punishment including blows from fists or being beaten with a stick or belt. Of the six to 18 year olds, more than 550,000 - 39 percent of all the children - suffered moderate violence in past year, while 115,000 (8 percent) suffered severe violence.

About 30 percent of the women and 32 percent of the men said violence is a private family matter and not a social problem. A similar number thought violence did not justify breaking up the family. About 16 percent - almost identical numbers of men and women - agree that "a woman can have a good life with her husband even if he beats her up."

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami told the United Nations yesterday that military action will be "unavoidable" unless the U.S. agrees to destroy its weapons of mass destruction.

In a much-anticipated speech to a special session of the U.N. General Assembly held in Brussels, Khatami launched a blistering attack against American leader George W. Bush, accusing him of defying U.N. resolutions and using his country's wealth to line the pockets of wealthy cronies at a time when the people of his country make do without such basic social programs as national health insurance.

"Nearly two years ago, the civilized world watched as this evil and corrupt dictator subverted the world's oldest representative democracy in an illegal coup d'état," said Khatami. "Since then the Bush regime has continued America's systematic repression of ethnic and religious minorities and threatened international peace and security throughout the world. Thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Basic civil rights have been violated. This rogue state has flouted the international community on legal, economic and environmental issues. It has even ignored the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war by denying that its illegal invasion of Afghanistan--which has had a destabilizing influence throughout Central Asia--was a war at all."

Khatami said the U.S. possesses the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, weapons "that, when first developed, were used immediately to kill half a million innocent civilians just months after acquiring them. No nation that has committed nuclear genocide can be entrusted with weapons of mass destruction."

"Bush has invaded Afghanistan and is now threatening Iraq. We cannot stand by and do nothing while danger gathers. We can't for this tyrant to strike first. We have an obligation to act pre-emptively to protect the world from this evildoer," Khatami said.

As delegates punctuated his words with bursts of applause, Khatami noted that U.S. intelligence agencies had helped establish and fund the world's most virulent terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, and the Taliban regime that harbored them. "The U.S. created the Islamist extremists who attacked its people on September 11, 2001," he stated, "and Bush's illegitimate junta cynically exploited those attacks to repress political dissidents, make sweetheart deals with politically-connected corporations and revive 19th century-style colonial imperialism."

Khatami asked the U.N. to set a deadline for Bush to step down in favor of president-in-exile Al Gore, the legitimate winner of the 2000 election, the results of which were subverted through widespread voting irregularities and intimidation. "We favor not regime change, but rather restoration and liberation," he said. In addition, Khatami said, the U.S. must dismantle its weapons of mass destruction, guarantee basic human rights to all citizens and agree to abide by international law or "face the consequences."

Most observers agree that those "consequences" would likely include a prolonged bombing campaign targeting major U.S. cities and military installations, followed by a ground invasion led by European forces. "Civilian casualties would likely be substantial," said a French military analyst. "But the American people must be liberated from tyranny."

Khatami's charges, which were detailed in a dossier prepared by French President Jacques Chirac, were dismissed by a representative of the American strongman as "lies, half-truths and misguided beliefs, motivated by the desire to control a country with oil, natural gas and other natural resources." National Security Minister Condoleezza Rice denied that the U.S. maintains weapons of mass destruction and invited U.N. inspectors to visit Washington to "see for themselves that our weapons are designed only to keep the peace, subject of course to full respect for American sovereignty."

The U.N. is expected to reject any conditions for or restrictions on arms inspections.

Experts believe that the liberation of the United States will require a large ground force of European and other international troops, followed by a massive rebuilding program costing billions of euros. "Even before Bush, the American political system was a shambles," said Prof. Salvatore Deluna of the University of Madrid. "Their single-party plutocracy will have to be reshaped into true parliamentary-style democracy. Moreover, the economy will have to be retooled from its current military dictatorship model--in which a third of the federal budget goes to arms, and taxes are paid almost exclusively by the working class--to one in which basic human needs such as education and poverty are addressed. Their infrastructure is a mess; they don't even have a national passenger train system. Fixing a failed state of this size will require many years."

 

 

extra-judicial executions

"The United States should issue a clear and unequivocal statement that it will not sanction extra-judicial executions in any circumstances, and that any U.S. officials found to be involved in such actions will be brought to justice," the organization added.

Amnesty International

--------------------------------------------------------------

judicial executions

pledged to seek the death penalty for the juvenile

"The fingerprints don't mean anything," he said.

 

 

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