Usama bin Laden, the Islamic jihadist who organized the 9/11 assaults in opposition to Americans over 20 years in the past, has been again within the headlines this week after his “Letter to America” picked up consideration on social media.
But these selling it look like glossing over the deranged conspiracy theories and threats that the fear honcho pushes within the diatribe.
The two-decades-old piece of jihadist propaganda was wiped from The Guardian’s web site earlier this week on account of a surge in consideration — “without full context” — it was getting after some influencers on TikTok started speaking about it. Some customers stated it modified their worldviews. Others went so far as to say they realized bin Laden “was right.”
Part of bin Laden’s letter blamed America for supporting the “Israeli oppression of the Palestinians” and “the occupation” within the Holy Land.
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After the pattern gained some traction on TikTok, with 274 movies posted beneath the hashtag from Tuesday to Wednesday, a compilation of movies was uploaded once more to X and gained over 35 million views, surpassing the 1.85 million views initially gained on TikTok.
FILE – In this 1998 file photograph, Ayman al-Zawahri, left, holds a press convention with Osama bin Laden in Khost, Afghanistan and made obtainable Friday March 19, 2004. An individual aware of developments stated Sunday, May 1, 2011 that bin Laden is useless and the U.S. has the physique. (AP Photo/Mazhar Ali Khan) (AP1998)
TikTok stated the variety of movies selling the content material is small and “reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate.” The firm stated it was proactively and aggressively eradicating content material and investigating the way it received onto the platform.
But the letter, unsurprisingly for one thing penned by a terrorist mastermind, is filled with extremist rhetoric, threats of violence, antisemitism and different language that may usually fall afoul of left-leaning on-line communities.
In the rambling tirade, bin Laden justifies al-Qaeda’s assaults in opposition to the U.S. as a result of “you attacked us” and “You attacked us in Palestine.”
“The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged,” he threatens, earlier than accusing the U.S. of occupying “our countries” and ravenous Muslims.
Asking rhetorically “what do we want from you?” he solutions: “The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam” earlier than excoriating America for not being an Islamic theocracy.
“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.”
“It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme,” he claims.
He additionally requires the tip of “immortality and debauchery.”
“We call you…to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling’s [sic], and trading with interest.”
The now-deceased terrorist dives headfirst into antisemitic conspiracy theories, alleging that “the Jews” management “your policies, media and economy.”
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“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,” he says.
Soon after, he accuses the U.S. of buying and selling “sex in all its forms” earlier than tapping into fringe conspiracy theories about HIV/AIDS: “Go ahead and boast to the nations of man, that you brought them AIDS as a Satanic American Invention.”
He points an exhaustive listing of calls for by way of international insurance policies and lowering the American footprint overseas, earlier than threatening the U.S. in no unsure phrases.
“If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight [sic] with the Islamic Nation,” he stated.
Bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 in May 2011.
While the net influencers calling on Americans to “read” the letter have expressed the way it modified the best way they view the world, few if any have addressed the precise content material of the terrorist propaganda they’re urging folks to learn.
Charles Cooke, a senior editor at National Review, was one in every of many who have been crucial of the revisionism Bin Laden’s work is being given — saying that “one would have thought that at least some of it ought to have been reflexively, presumptively, self-evidently abhorrent to the nobody-purer-than-me TikTok crowd.”
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“What is it about those ideas being expressed by someone foreign — someone who can plausibly (albeit stupidly) be cast as a victim — that causes otherwise exquisitely sensitive people to completely gloss over them?” he requested.
“In quotidian American politics, the most inconsequential of sentiments are routinely cast as being a part of the ‘white, male, cisgendered hegemony.’ But Osama bin Laden starts talking about the evils of homosexuality and fornication, about the fusing of church and state, and about ‘complete submission to His Law,’ and it’s just…ignored,” he stated.
Fox News’ Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aids-conspiracies-anti-semitism-inside-bin-ladens-deranged-letter-picking-up-new-support-online
