AIDS Conspiracies for Anti-Semitism: Inside Bin Laden’s Deranged Letter Gaining New Support Online
Usama bin Laden, the Islamic jihadist who organized the 9/11 attacks on Americans more than 20 years ago, has made headlines again this week after his “Letter to America” gained attention on social media.
But those promoting it seem to be overlooking the crazy conspiracy theories and threats that the terror chief pushes in the diatribe.
The two-decade-old piece of jihadist propaganda was scrubbed from The Guardian’s website earlier this week due to a surge in attention – “without full context” – it was receiving after some TikTok influencers began to Talk about it. Some users said it changed their view of the world. Others even went so far as to say that they realized that Bin Laden “was right.”
Part of Bin Laden’s letter blamed the United States for supporting “Israeli oppression of the Palestinians” and “occupation” in the Holy Land.
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After the trend gained some traction on TikTok, with 274 videos posted under the hashtag from Tuesday to Wednesday, a compilation of videos was uploaded to X again and garnered over 35 million views, surpassing 1.85 million views originally obtained on TikTok.
FILE – In this 1998 file photo, Ayman al-Zawahri, left, holds a news conference with Osama bin Laden in Khost, Afghanistan, available Friday, March 19, 2004. A person familiar with the events said Sunday, 1 May 2011 that bin Laden is dead and the United States has the body. (AP Photo/Mazhar Ali Khan) (AP1998)
TikTok said the number of videos promoting the content is small and that “reporting of trends on our platform is inaccurate.” The company said it was proactively and aggressively removing content and investigating how it got onto the platform.
But the letter, as expected from a terrorist mastermind, is filled with extremist rhetoric, threats of violence, anti-Semitism and other language that would normally conflict with left-leaning online communities.
In his incoherent diatribe, Bin Laden justifies Al Qaeda attacks against the United States because “they attacked us” and “they attacked us in Palestine.”
“The blood that flows from Palestine must be equally avenged,” he threatens, before accusing the United States of occupying “our countries” and starving Muslims.
Rhetorically asking “what do we want from you?” he responds, “The first thing we call you to is Islam” before criticizing the United States for not being an Islamic theocracy.
“You are the nation who, instead of ruling by the Shariah of Allah in your Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you want and desire. You separate religion from your politics, contradicting the pure nature that affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.”
“It is the religion of Jihad in the path of Allah, so that the Word and religion of Allah reign supreme,” he says.
He also calls for an end to “immortality and debauchery.”
“We call you…to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, narcotics, gambling. [sic]and trade with interest.”
The now-deceased terrorist dives headlong into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, alleging that “the Jews” control “their politics, their media and their economy.”
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“As a result of this, in all their different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control every aspect of your life, becoming their servants and achieving their goals. aims at their expense,” he says.
Soon after, he accuses the United States of trading in “sex in all its forms” before turning to fringe conspiracy theories about HIV/AIDS: “Go ahead and brag to the human nations that you brought them AIDS as an American satanic invention.” “.
He issues an exhaustive list of demands in terms of global policies and reducing the American footprint abroad, before threatening the United States in no uncertain terms.
“If you do not respond to all these conditions, then prepare to fight.” [sic] with the Islamic Nation,” he stated.
Bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEAL Team 6 in May 2011.
While online influencers calling on Americans to “read” the letter have expressed how it changed the way they see the world, few if any have addressed the actual content of the terrorist propaganda they urge people to read.
Charles Cooke, senior editor of National Review, was one of many who criticized the revisionism being given to bin Laden’s work, saying that “one would have thought that at least some “All of this should have been reflexively, presumptively, and patently abhorrent to the TikTok crowd who are no one purer than me.”
“What happens if those ideas are expressed by someone foreign – someone who can be plausibly (if stupidly) presented as a victim Does that cause otherwise exquisitely sensitive people to completely overlook them? asked.
“In everyday American politics, the most inconsequential sentiments are routinely presented as part of ‘white, male, cisgender hegemony.’ But Osama bin Laden begins to talk about the evils of homosexuality and fornication, the fusion of the Church and the State, and of ‘complete submission to His Law,’ and it is simply… ignored,” he said.
Fox News’ Jamie Joseph contributed to this report.
