"We fought you because we are free ... and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours," bin Laden said.
Osama/Usama said this in response to the 9/11 attacks. These were his words on the videotape lol.
Look again at that first line. You are confusing the inspiration for an attack on the US with the justification and reasoning for going to war against the infidels in the first place.
Incidentally, the translation on Al Jazeera is much clearer. The relevant parts from it corresponding to the passage you quoted are there rendered like so. I will embolden keys passages.
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.
No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. 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 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 the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling 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 oppressor in kind and that we should 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.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And so on. Look carefully now at what he is saying, because you are torturing the intent with your narrow interpretation.
He is saying that the inspiration for the attack came because Arabs and Arab lands were being bombed, either directly by the US or with American approval, and that such attacks are the reason for retaliation. By "our nation" he means the Arab lands as a whole; this includes Israel, yes, but it also includes Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf states, all of which are enemies of Islam for accommodating the Americans (in his view).
Your reading is a gross simplification. Or rather, it is a
complication of what is, for him, a very simple issue: Americans and ancient aliens hurt Arabs, therefore they deserve to be hurt in return. You cannot understand his behaviour solely in light of the issue in Palestine, as that reading ignores his real goals: remove the infidels from the Arab Homeland.
All of them.
Saddam sure did claim to hate the Jews. The reason why Arabs like him hate the Jews is due to what the Quran says about Jews and Christians that deny that Allah is the one true God. It says they are to destroy people who deny Allah. I can easily find and quote that if you really need me to.
The Qur'an also demands respect and protection for other "peoples of the book", which has allowed numerous small religious minorities to exist in the Near East, with the only criterion being their presence/mention in the Qur'an. Do you need me to outline in detail the traditional status of Jews in Islamic law? There is
no sensible justification under Islamic law for "destruction" of the Jews, since--according to Qur'anic logic--
the Jews actually worship the same G-d. Which means they do not "deny Allah"! Did that not even occur to you?!
the Osama/Usama crap is done with. it's Osama. get that?
i'm gonna kick your ass if you say it's Usama. fuckssake.
What's the big deal? Was this actually fought over somewhere when I wasn't paying attention?
I just render it that way out of habit 'cuz it's how I usually see it. Should we just leave it in Arabic then?