A letter written by Osama bin Laden more than 20 years ago has gone viral on TikTok for what some argue are the wrong reasons.
The two-page document scribed in 2002 was published in November of that year by The Guardian, described as a polemic against the United States in which bin Laden claimed that hating freedom was not the impetus behind wanting to attack America and orchestrate the 9/11 attacks.
On Wednesday, the British publication removed the letter from its website without any explanation beyond the timeline of its original publishing and subsequent removal. The sudden removal of the “Letter to America” has been questioned due to timing, with some surmising that it was wiped by The Guardian due to attention it has garnered across social media, where videos within the past 24 hours have been viewed millions of times each.
Newsweek reached out to The Guardian via email for comment.
Bin Laden was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda who took responsibility for killing roughly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, with more dying each year due to related illnesses stemming from the day’s events. Bin Laden said following 9/11 that attacking the World Trade Center towers “never occurred to us…but it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon.”
On May 2, 2011, under orders from President Barack Obama, a special U.S. operations unit raided bin Laden’s compound in northern Pakistan and killed him.
Wait until TikTok useful idiots find out that Osama bin Laden was once a freedom fighter according to the New York Times and other MSM at that time. pic.twitter.com/3XVlOZCfZ7
— Velina Tchakarova (@vtchakarova) November 16, 2023
Velina Tchakarova, a geopolitical strategist per her X (formerly Twitter) profile, said that the viral response on TikTok conveniently dismisses statements and actions made by bin Laden pre-9/11.
“Wait until TikTok useful idiots find out that Osama bin Laden was once a freedom fighter according to the New York Times and other MSM at that time,” Tchakarova wrote.
Her post included a photo of a story printed in 1993 by The Independent, a British newspaper, titled, “Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace.” It was the first piece to feature an interview with bin Laden conducted by a western journalist.
The piece describes a gold robe-wearing bin Laden as appealing to his brethren as “every inch the mountain warrior of mujahedin legend,” full of wisdom and a gift of hope to the Sudanese at that time.
While described as a “shy” construction engineer and agriculturist with plans to physically scale the Sudan terrain with hundreds of miles of roadways, bin Laden touted sending “not hundreds but thousands” of Arab fighters into Afghanistan, including Egyptians, Algerians, Lebanese, Kuwaitis, Turks and Tunisians.
The story was written by late British journalist Robert Fisk, the ex-Middle East correspondent for The Independent who interviewed bin Laden three separate times, on December 6, 1993, July 10, 1996, and March 22, 1997.
Bin Laden’s accusations against the U.S.
Getty Images
In the letter making its rounds, bin Laden accused the United States of being responsible for the oppression of Palestinians because of its support for Israel.
“The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals,” bin Laden wrote. “Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily.”
“It’s actually so mind-blowing to me that terrorism has been sold as this idea to the American people…that this group of people, this random group of people, just suddenly wakes up one day and just hates you…it doesn’t make sense,” said one TikTok user.
Others referred to bin Laden’s words as sparking an “existential crisis” within them.
At the time of its original publication, The Guardian described the letter as “a chilling new message from Osama bin Laden” that was being circulated among British Islamic extremists, “calling for attacks on civilians and describing the ‘Islamic nation’ as ‘eager for martyrdom.'”
Journalist Yashar Ali wrote on X on Wednesday that at least thousands of TikTok video have been posted reciting or referring to the letter, recorded by “people of all ages, races, ethnicities and backgrounds.”
“Many of them say that reading the letter has opened their eyes, and they’ll never see geopolitical matters the same way again,” Ali said.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.