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Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden

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Bruce Lawrence (the compiler) points out that while occasional fragments of bin Laden's words are cited, official pressures have ensured that, for the most part, his voice has been tacitly censured - as though too dangerous to hear. This collection of 24 items include interviews with Arab and Western journalists, handwritten letters, and video recordings.

Lawrence also helps one to understand why bin Laden is a heroic figure for millions of Muslims, including many with no sympathy for terrorism. This is based not just on his success in eluding Americans and their allies, but because his personal reputation for probity, austerity, dignity, and courage - contrasting starkly with the mismanagement, lavishness, and arrogance of most Arab regimes.

Bin Laden points out that his terrorism acts are only retaliation, and that the West has killed far larger numbers in the region within living memory - poison gas and strafing of Iraqi villages by Britain in the 1920s, crushing the Palestinian uprising of the 1930s, France's colonial war in algeria in the 1950s-60s, and deaths through malnutrition and disease of Iraqi children in the 1990s due to the U.N. sanctions. Bin Laden estimates 1.5 million were killed in the preceding - Lawrence estimates it as 300,000.

Bin Laden began his massive undertaking against the U.S. after seeing the mujahidin victory over the Red Army in Afghanistan, and the withdrawal of American forces from Somalia in '93. Unfortunately, bin Laden greatly underestimated the special circumstances associated with both - the U.S. and Pakistani support in Afghanistan, and the inconsequentialness of the U.S. landings in Somalia.

Bin Laden on 9/11 (10/21 interview): ". . . they have done this . . . in self-defense, defense of our brothers and sons in Palestine, and in order to free our holy sanctuaries." "the defeat of America . . . is easier for us . . . than the defeat of the Soviet Empire previously. We have already fought them . . . as in Somalia. We have not yet found a significant force of note." ". . . America, has lost its values and appeal . . . Freedom, Human Rights, and Equality . . . were revealed as a total mockery."

On Surviving Tora Bora: Bin Laden reports that bombing was around the clock, every second. There were about 300 mujahidin dug into 100 trenches, spread over one square mile in ten degree below zero temperatures - only about 18 were killed by the combination of ground and air attacks. Certainly this had to have been an easy opportunity for American ground forces if they had been deployed at that time, instead of outsourcing the job to Afghans!

Bin Laden also speaks of how Iraqis should resist the U.S., describing a guerilla campaign like that actually waged.

"Messages to the World" is essential to understanding bin Laden, America's "Public Enemy #1" - especially for counteracting the incomplete and misleading statements provided by our own government.

From the very first speech in this collection, I began to realize how little I knew about bin Laden's ideas--and yes, he has ideas--and how most of what I thought I knew was wrong. I had heard, repeatedly, that he was a relative latecomer to the Palestinian cause, that he had essentially declared solidarity with them merely to gain popularity in the larger Islamic world. That is not borne out by this book. In his very first speech, dated to 1994, bin Laden is already sounding the notes that reverberate throughout this collection: the entire Muslim world is under seige, from Afghanistan, to Palestine, to Iraq, to Chechnya and Bosnia; the humiliation (and emasculation) of Islam by the western world is the implicit goal. Now, clearly, one can quarrel with his analysis, but such a message has broad appeal. The editor and translator are to be commended for striking just the right balance here; they provide imformation, really crucial information, without taking immediate sides and without claiming a false neutrality either. As the editor has emphasized in his interviews about this book, to defeat bin Laden's ideas, "one must decode them, first." This book is an essential part of that decoding process. Perhaps the most salient interview is one granted by bin Laden to a Spanish Muslim. That man, who gives what is by far the most confrontational interview, questioning bin Laden's orthodoxy, among other things, was subsequently jailed for his trouble. That is perhaps the most fitting parable for this book: the very attempt to engage in a dialogue with this man and his ideas will be suspect to some. But it is the critical task before us, and the editor and translator are to be commended for enabling this dialogue, and for having done so with the moral seriousness it demands.

Osama Bin Laden's statements have been widely covered in TV and radio in bits and pieces; but they haven't been gathered together under one cover before; so to receive a unified presentation of all his admonitions, turn to Messages To The World: The Statements Of Osama Bin Laden. Statements issued in his name over the last ten years are here newly translated from the Arabic and annotated with a critical introduction by editor Lawrence, an Islamic scholar, which adds historical, political and religious context to the statements. Any who want insights on Bin Laden's thoughts and viewpoint must have Messages To The World.

Media coverage of the war on terror has shied away from broadcasting Osama Bin Ladin's speeches and statements in complete and unedited form. Messages to the World is a collection of those speeches, selected by a professor from Duke. The themes are mostly global politics and religion, and the tone is simultanously detached and hectoring. If you are an American, it's a bit odd to read, but it never fails to be enlightening. As I was reading Messages, I realized how little I actually know about Bin Ladin's goals, motivation, and political views. Reading this book is a basic, important way to position yourself in the world, to see where you stand in relation to Bin Ladin's ideas. It's necessary reading.

This collection of translated and annotated statements by Osama bin Laden is the sort of primary source collection I had begun to fear would never be published.

In order to understand the "War on Terror" environment in which we currently live, it is imperative to understand the rhetoric of both sides. Regardless of which viewpoint one supports, it is important to know exactly what the other side is fighting for. This knowledge is abundant on the non-terrorist side, but has so far been available on the terrorist side purely through analyses by expert commentators. Thus, being able to read the actual words of the major ideologue of world terrorism at the moment is a considerable boon.

I say "ideologue" for very good reason. As these statements and their accompanying (and copious) notes and introductions demonstrate, there is a distinct ideology involved in this movement. It may be an ideology directed against everything the West holds dear, but it is an ideology nonetheless. Osama bin Laden has clearly thought about a great many issues prior to initiating the campaigns of violence he has.
As case in point, the significance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often debated by academics and policymakers: Is it central to the globalisation of terrorism, or is it merely a convenient justification to use when asked? As even the earliest statements here demonstrate, this is a key plank in al-Qa'ida's ideology - perhaps even more so than many writers have realised.

While one particular statement (the "Declaration of Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders") will be familiar to any reader interested in this conflict as it has been included in a great many works (Gunaratna's "Inside Al-Qaeda" being the most well-known), many of these statements appear never to have been translated fully into English before. In this case, the team involved in this collection deserve even more praise for enabling those with an interest in understanding these issues to do so - particularly when, as they frequently note, the websites originally hosting these messages have been shut down.

The scope of these statements will probably be debated for many years to come. One review here makes the dogmatic assertion that these are not all of the statements made by bin Laden, for example. While this may be true - and bear in mind that many of these statements have been excerpted by various news outlets at various times, which may create the impression of there being more than there are - it seems rather immaterial. Far from only presenting a reasoned side of the man, these statements present his ideas in a clear form. Those translated from audio and video tapes, for example, never make mention of any gestures or tones of voice, since to do so would be rather pointless in my opinion.

Taken as a whole, these statements tend to appear rather repetitive - the only notable change from one to the next being a slightly different emphasis on particular events as they've changed. That said, reading the book cover to cover is probably not the best way to go about it anyway.

The copious amounts of footnotes and introductory matter are also a great strength of this collection. While it is possible to criticise the scholars involved (and it's almost a hobby for some of the reviewers here already), they have at least attempted the difficult task of placing Osama bin Laden in context. He's not a representative of all Muslims, but neither is he the "monster under the bed" for the new millennium.
The footnotes, too, provide a wealth of Qur'anic and Hadith references - including remarks on when the verse or tradition has been taken out of context or deprived of a section of text. Similarly, key figures and events (both past and present) referenced in the text are explained concisely in the notes.
Unfortunately, the sheer volume of these notes has presumably caused the poor proofreading which some statements suffer from. There are a number of words and phrases footnoted which do not have an accompanying note below, and some of these are germane to the text.
Further, one of the introductory notes makes the comment that Yemen is a "military dictatorship" (along with Pakistan and Nigeria). In reality, Yemen is a multi-party democracy (the only such in the Arabian Peninsula) and was so both at the time the book was written and at the time the statement was made. Admittedly, the country may not have a stable and entrenched tradition of democracy, but it is far from the military dictatorship described in this note.

In conclusion, "Messages to the World" is an invaluable aid to those who want to understand the current conflicts "from the source" as it were. It is somewhat heavy reading in places and will remain a controversial book for much of the foreseeable future. Its publication, however, represents a great step forward for much of the world.

Rather along the lines of "only Nixon could go to China", it takes as unimpeachable an authority as Lawrence, Professor of Religion at Duke University and author of several acclaimed works on Islam, to collect, edit, and comment on the published statements of Bin Laden, translated from the Arabic by James Howarth. "Know thine enemy" is the adequate justification for an inevitably controversial publication- it has already attracted more media attention than other books in the counter-terrorism franchise. But Lawrence has written a scholarly, thoughtful work, devoid of sensationalism or simplistic generalizations, and fully accessible. He attempts to decipher the appeal of the mastermind's polemics and style to susceptible disciples, and to place it in historical context. Not everyone agrees with Lawrence's findings- a recent critique by French authors of the collected oeuvre of Bin Laden et cie, finds it devoid of literary or intellectual merit. And the controversy continues...

Osama Bin Laden's statements have been widely covered in TV and radio in bits and pieces; but they haven't been gathered together under one cover before; so to receive a unified presentation of all his admonitions, turn to MESSAGES TO THE WORLD: THE STATEMENTS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN. Statements issued in his name over the last ten years are here newly translated from the Arabic and annotated with a critical introduction by editor Lawrence, an Islamic scholar, which adds historical, political and religious context to the statements. Any who want insights on Bin Laden's thoughts and viewpoint must have MESSAGES TO THE WORLD.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book was a book of 3 choices in my government class. I had to write a "reaction paper" on this book. I must say, along with helping get an A on the paper - this book also taught me some things I didn't know! And for thos who THINK they know.. open your minds and THINK again!

How can any of us put the "war on terror" into context if we don't know what the leader of the other side is saying? Bin Laden knows why he has organized his threat against the USA and he tells us. But our media, and our administration drown him out. The war could come to an end if we could hear what he is saying, if we could understand what he is saying, if we adjudicated what he is saying, and then do something about our acquired thinking. That process begins with the reading of this essential book, which is, actually, a step towards peace.

However readers might dispute the validity of the claims made in Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin-Laden, they will no longer be able to claim ignorance regarding the intentions of the Saudi-born Islamic radical. Presented together in their entirety for the first time, the twenty-four essays and transcripts comprise the body of public messages bin-Laden released during the ten year period from 1994 to 2004, a decade during which relations between the West and the Muslim world underwent dramatic changes. Since that time, the battle for hearts and minds has been waged by governments and Islamic reformists alike through discourse that legitimizes or condemns terroristic acts. Bin-Laden's thoughts in Messages clearly aim at the former but also more radically attempt to redefine "terrorism" as a justified political tool and an appropriate response to American imperialism. Challenging the basic tenets of democracy, capitalism, and even Islam as understood by many Muslims, the collected statements both clarify bin-Laden's political goals and complicate Western responses to his unique methods for realizing them. The source of this polemic tension is bin-Laden's reliance on a relatively well-accepted narrative to justify Islamic retributive attacks on Western targets--his knowledge of history and current political events should give even the most nationalist Westerners pause. However troubling the methods might be he endorse, Messages finally provides a brutally honest answer to the somewhat disingenuous question widely asked in the contemporary West: `Why do the terrorists hate us?'

The book's value is immense given that Western suppression of bin-Laden's thought provides valuable ammunition for an argument he repeats throughout the collection: that the West is grossly hypocritical by overtly professing democratic values while covertly and simultaneously pursuing authoritarian, hegemonic foreign and domestic policies--like censoring free access to information. In an October 21, 2001, interview with reporter Taysir Alluni of al-Jazeera, bin-Laden claims that freedom, human rights, and equality all conceptually collapsed along with the Twin Towers on 9/11: "These values were revealed as a total mockery, as was made clear when the US government interfered and banned the media outlets from airing our words because they felt that the truth started to appear to the American people." (112) Bin-Laden's statements were indeed deliberately censored by US authorities who claimed to fear that "encoded messages" in his taped interviews would be communicated to terrorist cells and trigger more attacks on Americans. Bin-Laden dismisses these "laughable claims" while he warns against underestimating the technical savvies of today's Islamic radicals: "It is as if we are living in a time of carrier -pigeons, without the existence of telephones, without travelers, without the Internet, without regular mail, without faxes, without email. This is just farcical; words which belittle people's intellect." (126)

Bin-Laden is outraged at what he sees to be Western arrogance and casuistry that informs a double-standard of justice for Westerners and Muslims. In an interview from 1998, he is incredulous, "that the Crusader should attack and enter my land and holy sanctuaries, and plunder Muslim's' oil, and then when he encounters any resistance from Muslims, to label them terrorists." (73) Again and again he issues powerful indictments of the "Zionist-backed" US, a "nation without principles or morals," which nonetheless demands from others what it is unwilling to do. (170)

The real danger in withholding information from one's citizens is that it can lead to wild speculation regarding the motives of an opponent. In turn, and in the absence of complete information, people are left to develop (with the encouragement of government) negative stereotypes of an imagined "Other" who's life and goals seem incomprehensible. Following this dehumanization process, opponents can be framed in increasingly negative ways that then legitimize violent political responses--responses that oftentimes prove wholly inappropriate. Failing to interrogate and thus misunderstanding bin-Laden's motives has proved disastrous for US foreign policy since the mid 1990s. Messages makes clear the very different philosophical stakes for both sides and Bin-Laden goes so far as to call his ideological differences with Western "infidels" a "doctrinal" one (134). He accuses President George W. Bush of waging war, "all in the name of oil and more business for his private companies" (234). According to bin-Laden, "victory is not material gain; it is about sticking to your principles" (154). Thus, he describes the nineteen September 11 "post-secondary students" come hijackers as the "living conscience" of the umma, who were motivated by a desire to take "revenge against the evildoers and transgressors and criminals and terrorists" (120).

Bin-Laden's critique of neoconservative politics and capitalist economics is so nuanced that one is initially receptive to his broadly painted social landscape despite the picture's omissions. In the entire collection, he makes a scant reference to providing financial support for the widows of martyrs (101) and encourages pious Muslims to emigrate from corrupt Islamic states to escape "psychological pressure" (274). This is roughly the extent of his social strategy. Instead, his rhetoric breaks off, rather than down when talk turns to implementing his brand of "Qutbist" Islam. He claims to need no alternative vision for the umma's politics--in fact, that's forbidden. Save organization under shari'a law, bin-Laden articulates little with regard to what the Arabian peninsula might actually look like after corrupt and "unaccountable" Arab leaders are deposed and the Prophet's law reinstated (227). Bin Laden never indicates, however, that he agrees with Muslim women who feel discriminated against by shari'a law as widely interpreted by the four major jurisprudential Islamic schools of thought. Many feminist scholars, for example, have explored the egalitarian potential of Islam, but currently lack the political and social capital that conservative legal traditions possess.

His disgust with injustice is genuine, although it curiously stops short of condemning all systems of oppression in its blindness to the workings of patriarchy. Feminists (both secular and Islamic) might wonder how an eye so keenly trained to spot the transgressions of "Western apostates" can miss the injustice endured by his own wives and daughters under shari'a law? Bin-Laden's tunnel-vision-like focus on martyrdom and "the real life of killing, striking, fighting and injuring" (204) impoverishes his theory of justice and overall conception of a healthy, functioning community. Thus, his proclamation of the umma as, "the Nation that desires death more than you desire life," (172) is more self-defeating than threatening. (Such a race to the bottom is a historic strategy guerilla combatants worldwide have grappled with when facing a more powerful oppressor. The scope but not the substance of martyrdom is at issue with radical Islam.) The work of international and post-colonial feminists who have explored these powerful links between masculinity and militarism would be valuable here for its perspicacity and skill in mapping violence's gendering path through sites of conflict. For example, some feminists are quick to point out that dismissing the exigencies of a patriarchal culture can lead to dangerous assumptions that victimize men as well. In his discussion of the best ages from which to recruit jihadists, bin-Laden describes 15 to 25 year old intellectually immature males as those most able to give service to the umma as mujahedeen, purportedly because of their limited family commitments (91). Not only are these boys disproportionately recruited into warfare because of their gender and impressionable age, but many never return to communities throughout the Islamic world that are worse for their absence.

Had Americans any doubt of bin-Laden's willingness to keep his sights on Western targets for the foreseeable future, Messages should dispel that notion. In fact, average US citizens might benefit from conversations on the legitimate use of political violence, theories of representative government, and a crash course on how the global financial market works--and for whom. For it is these average citizens that bin-Laden is talking to. The American people who vote and fund their government's activities with tax money (140)--and particularly those who chose to work in a building symbolic of American economic imperialism--are just as likely targets as uniformed men. This charge of culpability is indeed fearsome--but perhaps not in the way he intended. Bin-Laden's intolerant, narrow solution to injustice refuses to know the burden of a do-it-yourself model of justice that must be tweaked and monitored vigilantly--a model that depends on Westerners' ability to steer, however clumsily, their constructed government. Messages might be the best reminder lately of the responsibilities of citizenship--of each citizen--to keenly observe the political systems they claim to have birthed. That is perhaps the only real check on radical violence of any sort.