Your Third Motivating Reason

“U.S. occupation of Saudi Arabia” - the holy land birthplace of Islam.

            I am confused by your term, “occupation.”  The U.S. definitely does not run the Saudi Arabian government.  The U.S. had bases in Saudi Arabia only at the invitation of the Saudi government.  The U.S. no longer has military forces in Saudi Arabia and I am confused why your campaign of terror does not lessen since this was one of your three reasons to justify killing innocent people.  The U.S. has encouraged the Saudi government to create a democracy in which all the people in the country can have a say how they will be governed.  The first elections in Saudi Arabia have recently taken place.  Although it was not an election inclusive of all the people, it is a significant first step toward the creation of a democratic society.

            Osama bin Laden, let democracy and free choice for all continue to grow and choose to use your influence of words to become part of the democratic process rather than counter-productive deeds of terror.

            You have publicly declared the above three motivating issues were the cause for your execution of the September 11, 2001 attacks.  It is now over five years since 9/11 and the above issues have evolved dramatically.  Your initial reasons are primarily invalid, distorted or in a state of change, yet you offer no evolution in your leadership to modify your killing of innocent people.  Shouldn’t you and al Qaeda make a modification to consider a truce against all innocents?

            As mentioned in the press, perhaps now, post 9/11, you can try to justify continuing your injustices because of: 1. the Abu Ghraib humiliation and torture of prisoners and; 2. the reported Koran desecration at Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military base in Cuba).

            You and the Muslim community must have been outraged by a small group of American soldiers who mistreated Abu Ghraib prisoners in Baghdad.  Male prisoners were stripped naked, some had to wear hoods and assume humiliating positions observed by a female and conducted by male guards.  Some prisoners were threatened by barking guard dogs till they urinated on themselves.  These despicable acts not only caused outrage in the Muslim community, it also caused outrage in the American and global community.

            Americans were ashamed of the inhumane handling of the Abu Ghraib prisoners.  The congress and the people of the U.S. oppose such actions.  Some of the prison guards have already been tried and sentenced to jail and are now serving prison sentences.  The American people abhor torture to prisoners and nowhere is it printed in military manuals to treat prisoners in such a manner.

            Although you may have been justifiably outraged at the small number of unauthorized incidents of inhumane treatment, can you explain why you authorize far worse inhumane treatment of al Qaeda’s prisoners as an “official” matter of course?

The al Qaeda Way

            In the, “al Qaeda Training Manual” (from a copy obtained in Manchester, England on May 10, 2000), the following methods of your prisoner treatment and routine prescribed torture are clearly described:

1 – Blindfolding and removal of all clothing
2 – Hanging by the hands
3 – Hanging by the feet
4 – Beatings with sticks and electric wires
5 – Putting out lighted cigarettes on the victim’s stomachs
6 – Shocking with electric current
7 – Making the victim sit on a sharp stake
8 – Throwing the victim in a septic tank
9 – Pulling out the finger nails and hair
10 – Flooding the victim’s cell with sewage
11 – Giving the victim large quantities of water and watery fruits, such as watermelon, after denying him food and water for several days.  After the victim drinks the water and eats the fruit, his hands and feet should be bound in such a way that the victim will be unable to urinate
12 – Hitting the victim’s genitals with a stick or squeezing them by hand
13 – Dragging the victim over barbed wire and fragments of shattered glass