It’s February, and in keeping with that, Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States:

The Arabian Peninsula has never—since Allah made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas—been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples. If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans’ continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless. [emphasis added]

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million… despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation. [emphasis added]

So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, [emphasis added] Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel’s survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in “Al- Mughni,” Imam al-Kisa’i in “Al-Bada’i,” al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: “As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life.”

On that basis, and in compliance with Allah’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.”

This is in addition to the words of Almighty Allah: “And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?—women and children, whose cry is: ‘Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!’”

We—with Allah’s help—call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Almighty Allah said: “O ye who believe, give your response to Allah and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that Allah cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered.”

Almighty Allah also says: “O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.”

Almighty Allah also says: “So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith.” - Osama Bin Laden, February 23, 1998

That’s right, Osama Bin Laden called for today’s Holy War against the United States in 1998, and he did so because of the US war on Iraq at the time. That means that America’s War with Saddam in 1998 (effectively America’s war on Iraq) had the effect of starting a war with Al Qaeda even though most Americans still deny there was even a war against Saddam being waged. Ironically, when opponents of today’s war FOR Iraq seek to withdraw, they often seek a scenario in which this faux peace allowed them to feel there was no war; a time when America was at war, and creating fragmentary wars such as the one with Bin Laden. Clearly, the actions of the United States-while ignored even today-were enough to spawn war on America by Osama Bin Laden.

It’s hard to deny the war with Al Qaeda has no relationship or tie to the US’ actions-the United States’ war-on Iraq in February 1998.

1) Americans’ continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post

2) …despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million…

3) …the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq

This fatwah of Bin Laden’s was written while his #2 man, Al Qaeda’s strategic planner, Dr Ayman al Zawahiri was in Baghdad, and comes 48hrs after the UN reluctantly agreed to give Saddam more money through the Oil-For-Food program…money that was literally used to pay bribes to China, France, Russia, and other nations as a means of preventing UN support for military action against Iraq.

Opponents of the invasion of Iraq undoubtedly race to point out that Bin Laden’s declaration of war is on behalf of the Iraqi people-not Saddam. This is true, but to believe that the Al Qaeda war on America is disconnected from Saddam is to equally deny that America’s war on Saddam had no effect on the Iraqi people. It’s this simple:

▪ America was waging war on Iraq in 1998 (albeit described by the Clinton Administration as a war on just Saddam and no one else)

▪ One of the direct effects of that war was a war with Al Qaeda per Osama Bin Laden’s own words.

▪ If the United States hadn’t been waging war on Saddam (and in effect the Iraqi people), then Bin Laden wouldn’t have had cause to declare war on the United States, and if he DID still declare war on the United States, then it has to be acknowledged that his rationale for war is not genuine, but a mere excuse for a killer and his supporting killers.

America’s War with Saddam (and in effect on the Iraqi people) in 1998 caused the September 11, 2001 attacks. Ignoring historical fact after nine years is inexcusable, and serves nothing except partisan political expediency.