Teddy's Signed Up, I'm Sure

[Annie]

The world of bin Laden: no drinks, no gambling, no pictures of women
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 17/11/2005)

Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty.

The first complete collection of the Saudi's statements published today portrays a world in which Islam's enemies will take the first steps towards salvation by embracing the "religion of all the Prophets".

Its editors have rooted out many statements which they identified as forgeries and retranslated to correct "horrendous" errors.

His terms for America's surrender appeared after the September 2001 suicide attacks and include demands that amount to the abandonment of much of western life.

Alcohol and gambling would be barred and there would be an end to women's photos in newspapers or advertising.

Any woman serving "passengers, visitors and strangers", presumably anyone from air stewardesses to waitresses, would also be out of a job.

The West must "stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you" and has become the "worst civilisation witnessed in the history of mankind".

The publisher Verso said it expected criticism for releasing the thoughts of a terrorist but denied that the volume would be the jihadis' equivalent of Mein Kampf.

According to Gavin Browning at Verso, disapproval "is something that we're anticipating".

"The idea is to have an annotated, scholarly collection of bin Laden's words," he added. "Until now, his words have only been available in poor translations or soundbites."

Mr Browning emphasised that publishing his views did not imply any approval of them by the publishers.

The book's introduction is written by Prof Bruce Lawrence who teaches Islamic studies at Duke University, North Carolina and describes the terrorist as "one of the best prose writers in Arabic".

Many past translations of the words of the head of al-Qa'eda have been "horrendous" and often wrong, he said.

In the book the terrorist responsible for the deaths of 3,000 civilians in September 2001 says that killing the innocent is wrong. In bin Laden's world a global conflict is under way between the umma, or Muslim community, and unbelievers.

1 November 20

No one, do anything to upset his take on the world. -Teddy wishes he had the balls to say this.