Letter to America Goes Viral… 21 Years Later
credit: brynmawr.edu
A letter from Osama Bin Laden has been deleted after it caused an entire generation to have an existential crisis.
The letter was published by The Guardian in 2002. They deleted in on Wednesday after it went viral on TikTok. It was also deleted from Scribd and many other places. Watch a short compilation of TikTokers responding to it here. The letter is incredibly hard to find now that it's gone viral. I was able to find a copy here.
Two things are important to notice about this. One, the media is trying to hide this in order to perpetuate the government narrative that terrorism is unprovoked and an irrational hatred of anything Western. It is not. Terrorism is a response to the endless bloodshed and terror the West has imposed abroad.
The second thing is that people young and old are willing to question their unwitting participation in provoking terror. That sentence alone made me break into tears.
Some media are dismissing this letter as antisemitic and indeed, it can be perceived thus. It is anti-Zionist to be sure. It is anti many things that are Western such as the separation of church and state and protection of gay rights. We are NOT endorsing these things with this discussion, nor do we endorse Bin Laden’s rationale of responding to violence with violence on innocent American civilians. But we ignore it at our own peril. It predicted the war in Israel and if we jettison the letter for those reasons, we miss our own complicity in the endless wars on terror that bring more terror to our shores.
Yes, young people! Welcome to your awakening! The war on terror has only created more terror and we are the generation that can stop it by demanding peace and an end to hegemony. We don’t want to “win” this way! We want to “win” on the merits of our achievements not bullying. Yes, let’s go!
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