Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Bin Laden in Full

I guess I overlooked this in the election hubub, but on Nov. 1, al Jazeera released a full transcript of the recent bin Laden video. I haven't seen this mentioned on a lot of sites that usually track such matters. Here's a part that makes me curious:

Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.

Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."

What the hell is he talking about? Or was this, too, something I missed by not seeing "F9/11?"

As for the controversial "states" reference, the translation sheds little light:

Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

Evidently unaware that "state" has a dual meaning in modern English.

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