Five Years Later

Then of course there are the old threads on here...

The U.S. War, Five Years On
By George Friedman

It has been five years since the Sept. 11 attacks. In thinking about the course of the war against al Qaeda, two facts emerge pre-eminent.

The first is that the war has succeeded far better than anyone would have thought on Sept. 12, 2001. We remember that day clearly, and had anyone told us that there would be no more al Qaeda attacks in the United States for at least five years, we would have been incredulous. Yet there have been no attacks.

The second fact is that the U.S. intervention in the Islamic world has not achieved its operational goals. There are multiple insurgencies under way in Iraq, and the United States does not appear to have sufficient force or strategic intent to suppress them. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has re-emerged as a powerful fighting force. It is possible that the relatively small coalition force -- a force much smaller than that fielded by the defeated Soviets in Afghanistan -- can hold it at bay, but clearly coalition troops cannot annihilate it.

A Strategic Response

The strategic goal of the United States on Sept. 12, 2001, was to prevent any further attacks within the United States. Al Qaeda, defined as the original entity that orchestrated the 1998 attacks against the U.S. embassies in Africa, the USS Cole strike and 9/11, has been thrown into disarray and has been unable to mount a follow-on attack without being detected and disrupted. Other groups, loosely linked to al Qaeda or linked only by name or shared ideology, have carried out attacks, but none have been as daring and successful as 9/11.

In response to 9/11, the United States resorted to direct overt and covert intervention throughout the Islamic world. With the first intervention, in Afghanistan, the United States and coalition forces disrupted al Qaeda's base of operations, destabilized the group and forced it on the defensive. Here also, the stage was set for a long guerrilla war that the United States cannot win with the forces available.

The invasion of Iraq, however incoherent the Bush administration's explanation of it might be, achieved two things. First, it convinced Saudi Arabia of the seriousness of American resolve and caused the Saudis to become much more aggressive in cooperating with U.S. intelligence. Second, it allowed the United States to occupy the most strategic ground in the Middle East -- bordering on Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Iran. >From here, the United States was able to pose overt threats and to stage covert operations against al Qaeda. Yet by invading Iraq, the United States also set the stage for the current military crisis.

The U.S. strategy was to disrupt al Qaeda in three ways:

1. Bring the intelligence services of Muslim states -- through persuasion, intimidation or coercion -- to provide intelligence that was available only to them on al Qaeda's operations.

2. By invading Afghanistan and Iraq, use main force to disrupt al Qaeda and to intimidate and coerce Islamic states. In other words, use Operation 2 to achieve Operation 1.

3. Use the intelligence gained by these methods to conduct a range of covert operations throughout the world, including in the United States itself, to disrupt al Qaeda operations.

The problem, however, was this. The means used to compel cooperation with the intelligence services in countries such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia involved actions that, while successful in the immediate intent, left U.S. forces exposed on a battleground where the correlation of forces, over time, ceased to favor the United States. In other words, while the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq did achieve their immediate ends and did result in effective action against al Qaeda, the outcome was to expose the U.S. forces to exhausting counterinsurgency that they were not configured to win.

Hindsight: The Search for an Ideal Strategy

The ideal outcome likely would have been to carry out the first and third operations without the second. As many would argue, an acceptable outcome would have been to carry out the Afghanistan operation without going into Iraq. This is the crux of the debate that has been raging since the Iraq invasion and that really began earlier, during the Afghan war, albeit in muted form. On the one side, the argument is that by invading Muslim countries, the United States has played into al Qaeda's hands and actually contributed to radicalization among Islamists -- and that by refraining from invasion, the Americans would have reduced the threat posed by al Qaeda. On the other side, the argument has been made that without these two invasions -- the one for direct tactical reasons, the other for psychological and political reasons -- al Qaeda would be able to operate securely and without effective interference from U.S. intelligence and that, therefore, these invasions were the price to be paid.

There are three models, then, that have been proposed as ideals:

1. The United States should have invaded neither Afghanistan nor Iraq, but instead should have relied entirely on covert measures (with various levels of restraint suggested) to defeat al Qaeda.

2. The United States should have invaded Afghanistan to drive out al Qaeda and disrupt the organization, but should not have invaded Iraq.

3. The United States needed to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan -- the former for strategic reasons and to intimidate key players, the latter to disrupt al Qaeda operations and its home base.

It is interesting to pause and consider that the argument is rarely this clear-cut. Those arguing for Option 1 rarely explain how U.S. covert operations would be carried out, and frequently oppose those operations as well. Those who make the second argument fail to explain how, given that the command cell of al Qaeda had escaped Afghanistan, the United States would continue the war -- or more precisely, where the Americans would get the intelligence to fight a covert war. Those who argue for the third course -- the Bush administration -- rarely explain precisely what the strategic purpose of the war was.

In fact, 9/11 created a logic that drove the U.S. responses. Before any covert war could be launched, al Qaeda's operational structure had to be disrupted -- at the very least, to buy time before another attack. Therefore, an attack in Afghanistan had to come first (and did, commencing about a month after 9/11). Calling this an invasion, of course, would be an error: The United States borrowed forces from Russian and Iranian allies in Afghanistan -- and that, coupled with U.S. air power, forced the Taliban out of the cities to disperse, regroup and restart the war later.

Covert War and a Logical Progression

The problem that the United States had with commencing covert operations against al Qaeda was weakness in its intelligence system. To conduct a covert war, you must have excellent intelligence -- and U.S. intelligence on al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11 was not good enough to sustain a global covert effort. The best intelligence on al Qaeda, simply given the nature of the group as well as its ideology, was in the hands of the Pakistanis and the Saudis. At the very least, Islamic governments were more likely to have accumulated the needed intelligence than the CIA was.

The issue was in motivating these governments to cooperate with the U.S. effort. The Saudis in particular were dubious about U.S. will, given previous decades of behavior. Officials in Riyadh frankly were more worried about al Qaeda's behavior within Saudi Arabia if they collaborated with the Americans than they were about the United States acting resolutely. Recall that the Saudis asked U.S. forces to leave Saudi Arabia after 9/11. Changing the kingdom's attitude was a necessary precursor to waging the covert war, just as Afghanistan was a precursor to changing attitudes in Pakistan.

Invading Iraq was a way for the United States to demonstrate will, while occupying strategic territory to bring further pressure against countries like Syria. It was also a facilitator for a global covert war. The information the Saudis started to provide after the U.S. invasion was critical in disrupting al Qaeda operations. And the Saudis did, in fact, pay the price for collaboration: Al Qaeda rose up against the regime, staging its first attack in the kingdom in May 2003, and was repressed.

In this sense, we can see a logical progression. Invading Afghanistan disrupted al Qaeda operations there and forced Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to step up cooperation with the United States. Invading Iraq reshaped Saudi thinking and put the United States in a position to pressure neighboring countries. The two moves together increased U.S. intelligence capabilities decisively and allowed it to disrupt al Qaeda.

But it also placed U.S. forces in a strategically difficult position. Any U.S. intervention in Asia, it has long been noted, places the United States at a massive disadvantage. U.S. troops inevitably will be outnumbered. They also will be fighting on an enemy's home turf, far away from everything familiar and comfortable. If forced into a political war, in which the enemy combatants use the local populace to hide themselves -- and if that populace is itself hostile to the Americans -- the results can be extraordinarily unpleasant. Thus, the same strategy that allowed the United States to disrupt al Qaeda also placed U.S. forces in strategically difficult positions in two theaters of operation.

Mission Creep and Crisis

The root problem was that the United States did not crisply define the mission in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Obviously, the immediate purpose was to create an environment in which al Qaeda was disrupted and the intelligence services of Muslim states felt compelled to cooperate with the United States. But by revising the mission upward -- from achieving these goals to providing security to rooting out Baathism and the Taliban, then to providing security against insurgents and even to redefining these two societies as democracies -- the United States overreached. The issue was not whether democracy is desirable; the issue was whether the United States had sufficient forces at hand to reshape Iraqi and Afghan societies in the face of resistance.

If the Americans had not at first expected resistance, they certainly discovered that they were facing it shortly after taking control of the major cities of each country. At that moment, they had to make a basic decision between pursuing the United States' own interests or defining the interest as transforming Afghan and Iraqi society. At the moment Washington chose transformation, it had launched into a task it could not fulfill -- or, if it could fulfill it, would be able to do so only with enormously more force than it placed in either country. When we consider that 300,000 Soviet troops could not subdue Afghanistan, we get a sense of how large a force would have been needed.

The point here is this: The means used by the United States to cripple al Qaeda also created a situation that was inherently dangerous to the United States. Unless the mission had been parsed precisely -- with the United States doing what it needed to do to disrupt al Qaeda but not overreaching itself -- the outcome would be what we see now. It is, of course, easy to say that the United States should have intervened, achieved its goals and left each country in chaos; it is harder to do. Nevertheless, the United States intervened, did not leave the countries and still has chaos. That can be said with hindsight. Acting so callously with foresight is more difficult.

There remains the question of whether the United States could have crippled al Qaeda without invading Iraq -- a move that still would have left Afghanistan in its current state, but which would seem to have been better than the situation now at hand. The answer to that question rests on two elements. First, it is simply not clear that the Saudis' appreciation of the situation, prior to March 2003, would have moved them to cooperate, and extensive diplomacy over the subject prior to the invasion had left the Americans reasonably convinced that the Saudis could do more. Advocates of diplomacy would have to answer the question of what more the United States could have done on that score. Now, perhaps, over time the United States could have developed its own intelligence sources within al Qaeda. But time was exactly what the United States did not have.

But most important, the U.S. leadership underestimated the consequences of an invasion. They set their goals as high as they did because they did not believe that the Iraqis would resist -- and when resistance began, they denied that it involved anything more than the ragtag remnants of the old regime. Their misreading of Iraq was compounded with an extraordinary difficulty in adjusting their thinking as reality unfolded.

But even without the administration's denial, we can see in hindsight that the current crisis was hardwired into the strategy. If the United States wanted to destroy al Qaeda, it had to do things that would suck it into the current situation -- unless it was enormously skilled and nimble, which it certainly was not. In the end, the primary objective -- defending the homeland -- was won at the cost of trying to achieve goals in Iraq and Afghanistan that cannot be achieved.

In the political debate that is raging today in the United States, our view is that both sides are quite wrong. The administration's argument for building democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan misses the point that the United States cannot be successful in this, because it lacks the force to carry out the mission. The administration's critics, who argue that Iraq particularly diverted attention from fighting al Qaeda, fail to appreciate the complex matrix of relationships the United States was trying to adjust with its invasion of Iraq.

The administration is incapable of admitting that it has overreached and led U.S. forces into an impossible position. Its critics fail to understand the intricate connections between the administration's various actions and the failure of al Qaeda to strike inside the United States for five years.

What's a shock, as this special September comes along, is that 9/11 is only five years back. Boys and girls born that spring and summer are entering kindergarten this year, and before they leave elementary school they wil have learned and tucked away the date in about the same place as Antietam and the typewriter and the Great Plague - that is, if they're paying attention at all. We worry about them, as elders do, but what we know about them that they don't is that they are the older generation. Even while this ancient, inescapable irony dawns, we think back more often to a deceased parent or to a friend gone too early, to a favorite teacher or poet or departed doubles partner - anyone who died before September 11th - and wish ourselves that free again, and that young.

All that being said, I think I'm a bit in love with Keith Olbermann now.

Still, I don't get the "older generation" thing - I mean fuck when I was born the Iran Hostage crisis was going on and Vietnam was a recent memory.

We won't be the "older generation" until we're at least 80. (That is my rule for people under 40; you don't get to be old until you're an octagenarian.)

Yesh yesh, I remember those days, young feller. *coughs, leans on cane*

The overarching motivation for the present al-Qaeda campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, and Fazlur Rahman (Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh, Fazlur Rahman).

The fatwa lists three "crimes and sins" committed by the Americans:

- U.S. support of Israel.
- U.S. military occupation of the Arabian Peninsula.
- U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people.

The fatwa states that the United States:

- Plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula.
- Dictates policy to the rulers of those countries.
- Supports abusive regimes and monarchies in the Middle East, thereby oppressing their people.
- Has military bases and installations upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land, in order to threaten neighboring Muslim countries.
- Intends thereby to create disunion between Muslim states, thus weakening them as a political force.
- Supports Israel, and wishes to divert international attention from (and tacitly maintain) the occupation of Palestine.

The Persian Gulf War, the ensuing sanctions against Iraq and the bombing of Iraq by the United States were cited in 1998 as further proof of these allegations. To the disapproval of moderate and liberal Muslims, the fatwa uses Islamic texts to exhort violent action against American military and citizenry until the alleged grievances are reversed: Stating "ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries."

I'm not saying I agree with all or any of that, but I AM thinking that most of what they were complaining about has only been prolonged/strengthened in the last 5 years. The support of Israel, the support for abusive regimes, the military presence in the region,...

The point is that al Qaida itself does not pose an existential threat to our civilization.

which seems to be an emergent meme. i guess better late than never. i remember having that argument after sept. 11 -- "it's just, what, a couple thousand guys. some of them live in tents!" the whole idea that we're "at war" with people who could destroy us (as opposed to just killing a lot of people, which obviously they can do, here and there, now and then) has always been so weird. like we're just one ricin attack away from shariah in sheboygan. i'm not super optimistic about the midterms, for assorted reasons, but i still think these guys are played out.

Here's the first part, you need to click further links to get parts 2 and 3:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1868839,00.html

pauline kael died like 3 days before 9/11, and i remember thinking the same thought about her - weird, since she was a pretty tough gal and all.

i lost a close family friend to cancer on the same day, and i know that's why i had little sympathy for people so broken up about someone they'd never met. now, it makes a little more sense to me, but still, it was hell for her husband, to have to go through that loss and be explosed to all this proxy-grief.

"At this time of day, their equivalents, in the great conurbations of Europe and America, could expect to ease their not very sharp frustrations by downing a lot of alcohol, by eating large meals with no dietary restrictions, by racing around to one another's apartments in powerful and expensive machines, by downing a lot more alcohol as well as additional stimulants and relaxants, by jumping up and down for several hours on strobe-lashed dancefloors, and (in a fair number of cases) by having galvanic sex with near-perfect strangers. These diversions were not available to the young men of Peshawar."

A cross! They're making it really clear that they view this as Christians Vs Someone, right?

When considered in the light of the "normal" experience of that day, I came off with a very abnormal perspective on it.

First, I was camped in Jedediah Smith State Park in the California redwoods that morning. Being on the left coast I first heard about the attacks perhaps an hour after they were over, from another camper. I listened to the car radio just long enough to get a good idea of what was happening, to the extent that reporters could summarize it at that time. Then I turned the radio off.

When my wife got up I told her what I knew of the attack and that it was very bad. Then we went for a hike among some very big trees. It was peaceful there. We talked some about the attack, but not obsessively.

Later that day we visited a friend's house. The television was on, of course, with endlessly repeated images of planes striking the towers and streets filled with smoke and dust as the crowds ran in panic. By then it was well past noon Pacific Time. After about a half hour of this, when there seemed nothing new to say or see, we convinced the friend to tear himself away from the television and walk on the beach with us. We watched pelicans diving for fish.

Although I am glad I saw and heard enough to appreciate the full import of the event, I am equally glad I didn't spend my whole day being pummeled with horrific images in an endless loop - as was normal for the vast majority of Americans that day. The bruise that it left on their psyches was much deeper, and I believe for most of them, it was far disproportionate to reality, and that disproportionate pain has left them vulnerable to the manipulation of the emotions that were implanted on that day through brutal repetition. Think of the ending of A Clockwork Orange.

This is exactly what I feared on that day and precisely why I chose to avoid complete immersion in the news. My turning off the radio was a deliberate and premeditated act to accomplish this end. It was because I remembered well the other days like that in my life - the Kennedy assassinations, the MLK assassination, the Hinckley attempt on Reagan's life, and all the other gruesome "breaking news" that seemed so oppressive.

If it seems like my actions were a kind of denial and that I refused to face the facts of that day, I hasten to add that I spent most of the remainder of that week thinking about what I had seen and what it meant. It was an unbelievably gloomy time for me, just as it was for others. All I really missed out on was the water-torture of seeing the buildings hit again and again and again and again and...

I still think it was a sound choice. For those many millions of people who lived within 150 miles of the sites of the destruction, who could (or could almost) smell the smoke on the wind, it would be hard to say that their gut-wrenching emotions were unfounded or disproportionate. They were in front of the gun, so to speak and entitled to feel the full measure of grief. But, I think that it would have been better if the miilions more of us who lived thousands of miles from the gaping wound, had kept our heads better, stayed stronger and been able to preserve a longer and wider perspective to complement and smooth out the rawness of the emotions of the survivors. Instead, too many of us identified ourselves as victims that day, instead of reserving ourselves to be the comforters of the real victims.

Just my $0.02.

Mm, same here. I observed some TV coverage before I left for work, a bit at work, and then when I got home I evicted one of my housemates from my room so I could turn my TV off.

I had a 3 year old at the time and didn't want to expose him to too many disturbing images, so I briefly checked it out and then let him watch a Sesame Street tape.

I think what bothers me is how completely crazy some of the things that my family members said to me - and still seem to believe about it - are. I have an aunt who is convinced that somehow we're all going to be taken over by terrorists and women are going to be forced to wear burquas and not be allowed to drive. (And "liberals" will be to blame... of course!) If it didn't make me so frustrated and angry, I'd probably find that funny.

Patience, server is being hit pretty badly, only been released two days ago so this link is going around the world at the moment.

(no joke, 911 is no joke)

This might be me, but personally I'd tell her to kindly not address the point if you want to remain on speaking terms.

"Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan."[Quran 4:76]

Some American writers have published articles under the title 'On what basis are we fighting?' These articles have generated a number of responses, some of which adhered to the truth and were based on Islamic Law, and others which have not. Here we wanted to outline the truth - as an explanation and warning - hoping for Allah's reward, seeking success and support from Him.

While seeking Allah's help, we form our reply based on two questions directed at the Americans:

(Q1) Why are we fighting and opposing you?
Q2)What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:

(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.

a) You attacked us in Palestine:

(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its*price, and pay for it heavily.

(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.

When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islaam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) - and we make no distinction between them.

(iii) The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You must know that the Palestinians do not cry alone; their women are not widowed alone; their sons are not orphaned alone.

(b) You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.

(c) Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis;

(i) These governments prevent our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah, using violence and lies to do so.

(ii) These governments give us a taste of humiliation, and places us in a large prison of fear and subdual.

(iii) These governments steal our Ummah's wealth and sell them to you at a paltry price.

(iv) These governments have surrendered to the Jews, and handed them most of Palestine, acknowledging the existence of their state over the dismembered limbs of their own people.

(v) The removal of these governments is an obligation upon us, and a necessary step to free the Ummah, to make the Shariah the supreme law and to regain Palestine. And our fight against these governments is not separate from out fight against you.

(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.

(e) Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.

(f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.

(g) You have supported the Jews in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and agreed to move your embassy there. With your help and under your protection, the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. Under the protection of your weapons, Sharon entered the Al-Aqsa mosque, to pollute it as a preparation to capture and destroy it.

(2) These tragedies and calamities are only a few examples of your oppression and aggression against us. It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression. Do not await anything from us but Jihad, resistance and revenge. Is it in any way rational to expect that after America has attacked us for more than half a century, that we will then leave her to live in security and peace?!!

(3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:

(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.

(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.

(c) Also the American army is part of the American people. It is this very same people who are shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us.

(d) The American people are the ones who employ both their men and their women in the American Forces which attack us.

(e) This is why the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.

(f) Allah, the Almighty, legislated the permission and the option to take revenge. Thus, if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back. Whoever has destroyed our villages and towns, then we have the right to destroy their villages and towns. Whoever has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy. And whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs.

The American Government and press still refuses to answer the question:

Why did they attack us in New York and Washington?

If Sharon is a man of peace in the eyes of Bush, then we are also men of peace!!! America does not understand the language of manners and principles, so we are addressing it using the language it understands.

(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all.

It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language.

(b) It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.

(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.

We call you to all of this that you may be freed from that which you have become caught up in; that you may be freed from the deceptive lies that you are a great nation, that your leaders spread amongst you to conceal from you the despicable state to which you have reached.

(b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind:

(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?

(ii) You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against.

(iii) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants. You also permit drugs, and only forbid the trade of them, even though your nation is the largest consumer of them.

(iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.

Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?

(v) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. The companies practice this as well, resulting in the investments becoming active and the criminals becoming rich.

(vi) You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.

(vii) You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are established on this, under the name of art, entertainment, tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to it.

(viii) And because of all this, you have been described in history as a nation that spreads diseases that were unknown to man in the past. Go ahead and boast to the nations of man, that you brought them AIDS as a Satanic American Invention.

(xi) You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and*industries.

(x) Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy.

(xi) That which you are singled out for in the history of mankind, is that you have used your force to destroy mankind more than any other nation in history; not to defend principles and values, but to hasten to secure your interests and profits. You who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the war. How many acts of oppression, tyranny and injustice have you carried out, O callers to freedom?

(xii) Let us not forget one of your major characteristics: your duality in both manners and values; your hypocrisy in manners and principles. All*manners, principles and values have two scales: one for you and one for the others.

(a)The freedom and democracy that you call to is for yourselves and for white race only; as for the rest of the world, you impose upon them your monstrous, destructive policies and Governments, which you call the 'American friends'. Yet you prevent them from establishing democracies. When the Islamic party in Algeria wanted to practice democracy and they won the election, you unleashed your agents in the Algerian army onto them, and to attack them with tanks and guns, to imprison them and torture them - a new lesson from the 'American book of democracy'!!!

(b)Your policy on prohibiting and forcibly removing weapons of mass destruction to ensure world peace: it only applies to those countries which you do not permit to possess such weapons. As for the countries you consent to, such as Israel, then they are allowed to keep and use such weapons to defend their security. Anyone else who you suspect might be manufacturing or keeping these kinds of weapons, you call them criminals and you take military action against them.

(c)You are the last ones to respect the resolutions and policies of International Law, yet you claim to want to selectively punish anyone else who does the same. Israel has for more than 50 years been pushing UN resolutions and rules against the wall with the full support of America.

(d)As for the war criminals which you censure and form criminal courts for - you shamelessly ask that your own are granted immunity!! However, history will not forget the war crimes that you committed against the Muslims and the rest of the world; those you have killed in Japan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq will remain a shame that you will never be able to escape. It will suffice to remind you of your latest war crimes in Afghanistan, in which densely populated innocent civilian villages were destroyed, bombs were dropped on mosques causing the roof of the mosque to come crashing down on the heads of the Muslims praying inside. You are the ones who broke the agreement with the Mujahideen when they left Qunduz, bombing them in Jangi fort, and killing more than 1,000 of your prisoners through suffocation and thirst. Allah alone knows how many people have died by torture at the hands of you and your agents. Your planes remain in the Afghan skies, looking for anyone remotely suspicious.

(e)You have claimed to be the vanguards of Human Rights, and your Ministry of Foreign affairs issues annual reports containing statistics of those countries that violate any Human Rights. However, all these things vanished when the Mujahideen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse. In America, you captured thousands the Muslims and Arabs, took them into custody with neither reason, court trial, nor even disclosing their names. You issued newer, harsher laws.

What happens in Guatanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces - you hypocrites, "What is the value of your signature on any agreement or treaty?"

(3) What we call you to thirdly is to take an honest stance with yourselves - and I doubt you will do so - to discover that you are a nation without principles or manners, and that the values and principles to you are something which you merely demand from others, not that which you yourself must adhere to.

(4) We also advise you to stop supporting Israel, and to end your support of the Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the Chechens and to also cease supporting the Manila Government against the Muslims in Southern Philippines.

(5) We also advise you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We desire for your goodness, guidance, and righteousness, so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins.

(6) Sixthly, we call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington.

(7) We also call you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, rather than the policies of sub dual, theft and occupation, and not to continue your policy of supporting the Jews because this will result in more disasters for you.

If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation. The Nation of Monotheism, that puts complete trust on Allah and fears none other than Him. The Nation which is addressed by its Quran with the words: "Do you fear them? Allah has more right that you should fear Him if you are believers. Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of believing people. And remove the anger of their (believers') hearts. Allah accepts the repentance of whom He wills. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise." [Quran9:13-1]

The Nation of honour and respect:

"But honour, power and glory belong to Allah, and to His Messenger (Muhammad- peace be upon him) and to the believers." [Quran 63:8]

"So do not become weak (against your enemy), nor be sad, and you will be*superior ( in victory )if you are indeed (true) believers" [Quran 3:139]

The Nation of Martyrdom; the Nation that desires death more than you desire life:

"Think not of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are alive with their Lord, and they are being provided for. They rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them from His bounty and rejoice for the sake of those who have not yet joined them, but are left behind (not yet martyred) that on them no fear shall come, nor shall they grieve. They rejoice in a grace and a bounty from Allah, and that Allah will not waste the reward of the believers." [Quran 3:169-171]

The Nation of victory and success that Allah has promised:

"It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad peace be upon him) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it victorious over all other religions even though the Polytheists hate it." [Quran 61:9]

"Allah has decreed that 'Verily it is I and My Messengers who shall be victorious.' Verily Allah is All-Powerful, All-Mighty." [Quran 58:21]

The Islamic Nation that was able to dismiss and destroy the previous evil Empires like yourself; the Nation that rejects your attacks, wishes to remove your evils, and is prepared to fight you. You are well aware that the Islamic Nation, from the very core of its soul, despises your haughtiness and arrogance.

If the Americans refuse to listen to our advice and the goodness, guidance and righteousness that we call them to, then be aware that you will lose this Crusade Bush began, just like the other previous Crusades in which you were humiliated by the hands of the Mujahideen, fleeing to your home in great silence and disgrace. If the Americans do not respond, then their fate will be that of the Soviets who fled from Afghanistan to deal with their military defeat, political breakup, ideological downfall, and economic bankruptcy.

This is our message to the Americans, as an answer to theirs. Do they now know why we fight them and over which form of ignorance, by the permission of Allah, we shall be victorious?

That same amateur video, but on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn-y4NCgncY