An open letter to the US by Osama Bin Laden justifying his 9/11 terror attacks has gone viral after being discovered by pro-Palestine Gen-Z TikTokers on the Guardian website.
The ‘Letter to America’ was circulated amongst British Islamic extremists in 2002, a year after the atrocities, and saw the al-Qaeda leader attempt to justify the murderous acts in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia that killed nearly 3,000.
It was published on the Guardian’s website in its entirety, based on a translation it obtained, under a link titled ‘Read the Bin Laden letter in full’ – but the newspaper has now removed it after people began sharing it in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.
On TikTok and other social media platforms, video creators appear to have equated the 9/11 mastermind’s views on Palestine with showing solidarity with Palestinian people in the current conflict in the Middle East.
One user wrote: ‘Just read it… my eyes have been opened,’ while another said: ‘I think this has made a lot of people realize that even ‘villains’ can speak the truth.’
Bin Laden – who was killed by US troops in a Pakistan operation in May 2011 – espoused deeply anti-Semitic views and conspiracy theories in the letter, and said that the American army was ‘shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us’.
He also sought to justify the indiscriminate slaughter of American citizens because they indirectly fund American military efforts through paying taxes.
He wrote: ‘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.’
The Guardian’s digital edition of the letter was shared to TikTok by a number of users – seemingly deliberately ignoring Bin Laden’s role as a terrorist warlord responsible for instigating, and inspiring, atrocities across the world.
Nor do most users make any comment on the most extreme comments Bin Laden makes in the manifesto, including calls for the ‘rejection’ of homosexuality and a claim that AIDS was a ‘satanic American invention’.
Hellbound and Down 