"No, we fight you because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our Nation and just as you lay waste to our Nation, so shall we lay waste to yours. [...] the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred. I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and I shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken for you to consider. [...] Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers, but after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American-Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon it came to my mind:

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. The bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced. I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood, severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high-rises demolished over their residents; rockets raining down on our homes without mercy. The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child... powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon?

And the whole world saw and heard but didn't respond. In those difficult moments, many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors. As I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children. That day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy; while resistance is terrorism and intolerance. This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions, as Bush Sr. did in Iraq, in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children -- also in Iraq -- as Bush Jr. did in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages. So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs. [...]

[It was made] easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qa'ida in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits to their private companies. This is in addition to our having experience in using guerilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers as we alongside the Mujahedin bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. [...] So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. [...]

Al-Qa'ida spent $500,000 on the event, while America in the incident and its aftermath lost -- according to the lowest estimates -- more than 500 billion dollars, meaning that every dollar of al-Qa'ida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record, astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars. And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahedin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan with Allah's permission. [...]

And it all shows that the real loser is... you. It's the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Atta, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes before Bush and his administration notice. It never occurred to us that the Commander-in-Chief of the American Armed Forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone at the time when they most needed him. But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers we were given three times the period required to execute the operations. All praise is due to Allah. And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him.

All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction -- assuming they exist -- is available to you and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome. But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight and he gave priority to private interests over the public interest of America. So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threatened his future [...] you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.

[...] In conclusion, I tell you in all truth that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qa'ida. No, your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security, has automatically guaranteed its own security."

• Osama bin Laden (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16990-2004Nov1.html)