Bin Laden Lauds Costs Of War to U.S.

[B~E]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Nov1.html

It kind of make you feel bad.


Bin Laden Lauds Costs Of War to U.S.
Recent Videotape Boasts of Inflicting Economic Damage

By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 2, 2004; Page A02

Osama bin Laden boasted that the invasion of Iraq has bogged down the United States in a hopeless war that advances al Qaeda's recruitment goals and bin Laden's aim of bankrupting the U.S. economy, according to a translation of the full text of the terrorist leader's remarks on a videotape that surfaced last week.

"The thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war" about the dangers of invading Iraq, bin Laden said on the tape, according to a U.S. government transcript released yesterday. "But the darkness of the black gold [oil] blurred his vision. . . . The war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threatened his future."

Osama bin Laden said the Iraq war has done more damage to the U.S. economy than he expected. (AP)



The tape, bin Laden's first videotaped appearance since September 2003, was given to the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television network, which released a seven-minute version Friday. It showed bin Laden saying, among other things, that Americans would be held responsible for electing any president who persecutes Muslims.

Yesterday the network released the entire 18-minute tape, and U.S. officials issued a translation of bin Laden's entire message.

On the tape, the Saudi millionaire brags that he is succeeding beyond his dreams in destabilizing the U.S. economy and bankrupting the U.S. government, asserting that President Bush is easily manipulated into taking military and security steps that harm American interests.

The results of the U.S. war in Iraq, he said, "have been by the grace of Allah positive and enormous, and have by all standards exceeded all expectations."

"The policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations -- whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction -- has helped al Qaeda to achieve these enormous results," bin Laden said. "And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and we are playing as one team toward the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ."

Bin Laden added, "Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all of those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business," referring at one point to the Halliburton energy services company, which Vice President Cheney led before his election.

Bin Laden also suggested that the huge sums of money Washington spends on homeland security and the military serve his agenda of weakening the U.S. economy.

"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration," bin Laden said. "All that we have to do is to send two mujaheddin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written 'al Qaeda' in order to make the generals race there, to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses, without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."

He added: "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy." He noted remarks by counterterrorism experts that al Qaeda's expenses in attacking America are a tiny fraction of the cost of Washington's counterterrorism efforts. "Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million [U.S.] dollars . . . besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

"As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record, astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars. Even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujaheddin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan."

In the address, bin Laden also imagined the nearly 3,000 victims of the attack on the World Trade Center reflecting during their last moments on their guilty feelings about U.S. foreign policy. "They say, 'How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak,' " bin Laden said.

Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Any comment ? Is he exagerating ?

[phreakerhaxxor]

Hes trying to make us think the war of terrorism is pointless and its only hurting us, and that we should leave him alone, what it really is, is a death sentence.

Its bad that 1200 lives have already been lost, but its a war. You can't go into it thinking you'll survive, you go into thinking anything can happen. The US shouldn't regret a war, Iraq asked for it, they got it.

[Glowpole]

Actaully Iraq didn't ask for it...if i remeber right.....bush went into iraq on assumption on weapons of mass destruction and only found nothing........but catching saddam is a benefit to the world imo

[Roach Of Discord]

Bin Laden brings up some good points, sadly.

[TheNamelessYam]

Originally Posted by phreakerhaxxor

The US shouldn't regret a war

and on the other hand, the bush administration should regret specific actions they took, which caused the war to be much harder. such as not sending the requested amount of troops.

[phreakerhaxxor]

Glowpole, we did in fact have many other reasons then that, and there are or were weapons of mass destruction in sadams possession, do you think all the people he killed were slapped to death? No.

Punk, anyone can make that mistake, and the war isn't harder, we could win it right now if we wanted to, but it would kill innocent civilians .

Roach, sounds like a game of starcraft to me, a guy running hoping the other guy will run out a minerals so he can rebuild his base. While telling the guy he has a hack that will drop him, mine as well leave because he has the game won. Sadly, the guy running never wins, does he..?

[Roach Of Discord]

Originally Posted by phreakerhaxxor

Glowpole, we did in fact have many other reasons then that, and there are or were weapons of mass destruction in sadams possession, do you think all the people he killed were slapped to death? No.

We went in because Bush told us that they were a direct threat. He PROMISED us weapons of mass destructions. He failed to provide us proof, so he failed to correctly lead our country. He used Iraq to distract us from the truth. Osama Bin Laden ordered 9/11 to be done. He was the cause, and he should have been the one taken out. He always should have been our top priority. Sadly enough, he wasn't. Bush couldn't find him, so instead of continuing the search for bin laden, he went after Iraq. He created a pointless war made from assumptions, and in my opinion, lies. He sent out 18 year old kids to fight a pointless war, and die doing it. He wasted many lives, for nothing, while he sat around safely playing golf and preaching about how they WILL find something that obviously doesn't exist.

Summed up, the war wasn't worth it, and he is fighting this so called "war against terrorism" in the wrong spots. News flash...IRAQ DID NOTHING.

Originally Posted by phreakerhaxxor

Punk, anyone can make that mistake, and the war isn't harder, we could win it right now if we wanted to, but it would kill innocent civilians .

Aren't we already killing tons of innocent civilians? I'll answer that question for you. Yes.
It also isn't all that simple. We can't just win this war "at any time"...because this so called war realy has no point. There is no real mission. They took out saddam, "freed" Iraq, and now they won't leave. Iraq is now out of control because of it. It's a mess. Far worse than when saddam was a dictator. It's a mess that we created, and it's a mess that we can't seem to fix.

Originally Posted by phreakerhaxxor

Roach, sounds like a game of starcraft to me, a guy running hoping the other guy will run out a minerals so he can rebuild his base. While telling the guy he has a hack that will drop him, mine as well leave because he has the game won. Sadly, the guy running never wins, does he..?

Umm..k?

[dP]

Wow, I always thought Bin Laden was a stupid idiot and doesnt know shit.

[phreakerhaxxor]

Roach your making Bush look like a bad guy, your probly one of those people that think bush is paying terrorists and its all one huge government conspiracy (sp?).

We are hunting Bin Laden, in the the process of hunting him we took out Saddam and that was a good thing, would you rather leave him there? There are weapons of mass destruction somewhere, maybe not in Iraq but there were, we KNOW that. Saddam kept us out of his facilitys for years, and during those years he did this *72 times*. We had just as much a reason to capture Bin Laden as we did Saddam. We didn't just stop hunting Bin Laden and go after Saddam, we've been looking for them this whole time.

Keep in mind just because Bush is a president doesn't mean he's a wizard and he knows what to do when to do it for our country. He makes mistakes, and we should support him.
If you think Kerry will stop this war, think again, yesterday he annouced hes sending 50,000 more troops. (50,000 was it? think it was that)

Bush is not some innocent civilian, american killing bastard, its a war, wars have innocent civilians killed. Someday your just going to have to realize that. It's not pointless either, its a war on terrorism, theres terrorists, there have always been terrorists, bush is just dealing with them now that theres no pussy liberals in office.

Iraq is not out of control, were teaching them how to have law enforcement and govern themselves. Or do you think they're lying?

Safely playing gofl? What presidents have went and fought in a war, while they were president? We need a president to run our country not a dead man, everyone enlisting in the army should go in thinking, theres a chance i might die, and thats a chance im willing to take.

[Sir liqu1d_g0at]

the iraq war is completely pointless, osama is right

[Kuzmich]

Hmm what can i say?

Go Bin Go!!!!

[l33t 0n3]

Bin Laden is about as dense as iridium. Hell, anyone who agrees with him is. Read the thing, don't you see that he is rambling about this because he is loosing?

[Kuzmich]

Maybe, but if he did succede at what he is trying to do, that'd make me happy.

[Thistle]

Osama Isnt lying, you all have been fed bullshit. Think for yourselfs.

[l33t 0n3]

Originally Posted by Thistle

Osama Isnt lying, you all have been fed bullshit. Think for yourselfs.

You must me mentally incapable of thinking, then?

[Sir liqu1d_g0at]

HAHAHAHA, please, i cant believe you believe all this bull shit about you winning the war on terror. you're just an idiot, tell me one thing that the iraq war has produced that is good for the US.... Nothing, your soldiers are dying for no cause and so are all the other coalition troops, even more people hate the USA because of this pointless war, look how much it costs.... Osama is right, i hate him and i hope he dies but he is right. he is still at large and just because there havent been any terrorist attacks dont think he is weak...