Osama Bin Laden Quotes

“Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still free—and we're not. Guess who's winning the" war on terror?”
― Cory Doctorow

“Like the Nazis, the cadres of jihad have a death wish that sets the seal on their nihilism. The goal of a world run by an oligarchy in possession of Teutonic genes, who may kill or enslave other 'races' according to need, is not more unrealizable than the idea that a single state, let alone the globe itself, could be governed according to the dictates of an allegedly holy book. This mad scheme begins by denying itself the talents (and the rights) of half the population, views with superstitious horror the charging of interest, and invokes the right of Muslims to subject nonbelievers to special taxes and confiscations. Not even Afghanistan or Somalia, scenes of the furthest advances yet made by pro-caliphate forces, could be governed for long in this way without setting new standards for beggary and decline.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy

“New Rule: Conspiracy theorists who are claiming that we didn't really kill Bin Laden must be reminded that they didn't think he did the crime in the first place. Come on, nutjobs, keep your bullshit straight: The towers were brought down in a controlled demolition by George W. Bush to distract attention from Hawaii, where CIA operatives were planting phony birth records so that a Kenyan named Barack Obama could someday rise to power and pretend to take out the guy we pretended took out the Towers. And I know that's true because I just got it in an e-mail from Trump.”
― Bill Maher, The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass

“I imagine Johnny Mathis hates Bin Laden as much as I do, but could Johnny agree Bin Laden had a better speechwriter than Bush?" Axis of Evil "? Come on." A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain "is much more powerful propaganda. Poetic, even.”
― John Waters, Role Models

“Since I speak and write about this a good deal, I am often asked at public meetings, in what sometimes seems to me a rather prurient way, whether I myself or my family have 'ever been threatened' by jihadists. My answer is that yes, I have, and so has everyone else in the audience, if they have paid enough attention to the relevant bin-Ladenist broadcasts to notice the fact.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy

“Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy

“It can certainly be misleading to take the attributes of a movement, or the anxieties and contradictions of a moment, and to personalize or 'objectify' them in the figure of one individual. Yet ordinary discourse would be unfeasible without the use of portmanteau terms—like 'Stalinism,' say—just as the most scrupulous insistence on historical forces will often have to concede to the sheer personality of a Napoleon or a Hitler. I thought then, and I think now, that Osama bin Laden was a near-flawless personification of the mentality of a real force: the force of Islamic jihad. And I also thought, and think now, that this force absolutely deserves to be called evil, and that the recent decapitation of its most notorious demagogue and organizer is to be welcomed without reserve. Osama bin Laden's writings and actions constitute a direct negation of human liberty, and vent an undisguised hatred and contempt for life itself.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy

“It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war without end.' I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war. In protean forms, it is fought and refought in every country and every generation. In bin Ladenism we confront again the awful combination of the highly authoritarian personality with the chaotically nihilist and anarchic one. Temporary victories can be registered against this, but not permanent ones. As Bertold Brecht's character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat. But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy

“The most basic barrier was language itself, very few Americans in Iraq whether soldiers or diplomats or news paper reporters could speak more than a few words of Arabic. A remarkable number of them didn't even have translators. That meant for many Iraqis the typical 19 year old army corporal from South Dakota was not a youthful innocent carrying Americas good will, he was a terrifying combination of firepower and ignorance.”
― Dexter Filkins, The Forever War

“Shrouded as he was for a decade in an apparent cloak of anonymity and obscurity, Osama bin Laden was by no means an invisible man. He was ubiquitous and palpable, both in a physical and a cyber-spectral form, to the extent that his death took on something of the feel of an exorcism. It is satisfying to know that, before the end came, he had begun at least to guess at the magnitude of his 9/11 mistake. It is essential to remember that his most fanatical and militant deputy, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, did not just leave his corpse in Iraq but was isolated and repudiated even by the minority Sunnis on whose presumed behalf he spilled so much blood and wrought such hectic destruction. It is even more gratifying that bin Laden himself was exposed as an excrescence on the putrid body of a bankrupt and brutish state machine, and that he found himself quite unable to make any coherent comment on the tide—one hopes that it is a tide, rather than a mere wave—of demand for an accountable and secular form of civil society. There could not have been a finer affirmation of the force of life, so warmly and authentically counterposed to the hysterical celebration of death, and of that death-in-life that is experienced in the stultifications of theocracy, where womanhood and music and literature are stifled and young men mutated into robotic slaughterers.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy

“I can see why people find him [Hugo Chávez] charming. He's very ebullient, as they say. I've heard him make a speech, though, and he has a vice that's always very well worth noticing because it's always a bad sign: he doesn't know when to sit down. He's worse than Castro was. He won't shut up. Then he told me that he didn't think the United States landed on the moon and didn't believe in the existence of Osama bin Laden. He thought all of this was all a put-up job. He's a wacko.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Like many people, I feel like celebrating. Remember this feeling. It is human, and can help us understand when others express bloodlust.”
― John Green

“Suppose that we agree that the two atrocities can or may be mentioned in the same breath. Why should we do so? I wrote at the time (The Nation,October 5, 1998) that Osama bin Laden 'hopes to bring a "judgmental" monotheism of his own to bear on these United States.' Chomsky's recent version of this is 'considering the grievances expressed by people of the Middle East region.' In my version, then as now, one confronts an enemy who wishes ill to our society, and also to his own (if impermeable religious despotism is considered an 'ill'). In Chomsky's reading, one must learn to sift through the inevitable propaganda and emotion resulting from the September 11 attacks, and lend an ear to the suppressed and distorted cry for help that comes, not from the victims, but from the perpetrators. I have already said how distasteful I find this attitude. I wonder if even Chomsky would now like to have some of his own words back? Why else should he take such care to quote himself deploring the atrocity? Nobody accused him of not doing so. It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

“It is time we accept there’s no Cronkite moment for Afghanistan. Perhaps it's time we value the hearts and minds of our own over distant Afghan tribes.”
― Tiffany Madison

“I am nothing like my father. While he prays for war, I pray for peace.

And now we go our separate ways, each believing that we are right.

My father has made his choice, and I have made mine.

I am, at last, my own man.

I can live with that.”
― Omar bin Laden, Growing Up bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World

“New Rule: The White House doesn't have to release the dead Bin Laden photos, but don't pretend we can't take it. We've seen pictures of Britney Spears's vagina getting out of a car. Television has desensitizes us to violence, and porn has desensitized us to people getting shot in the eye.”
― Bill Maher, The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass

“I admit to a feeling of pride that my father had saved the day yet again, although I also thought that nothing would have been better for me personally than for the mullah to force my father's departure within the hour. Either way, I know now that nothing would have stopped my father from his Jihad. If he could not remain in Afghanistan, he would go to Pakistan. If Pakistan pulled the welcome mat, he would go to Yemen. If Yemen threw him out, he would journey to the middle of the most hostile desert where he would plot against the West. Violent Jihad was my father's life; nothing else really mattered. Nothing.”
― Omar bin Laden, Growing Up bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World

“The global jihad espoused by Osama bin Laden and other contemporary extremists is clearly rooted in contemporary issues and interpretations of Islam. It owes little to the Wahhabi tradition, outside of the nineteenth-century incorporation of the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya and the Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah into the Wahhabi worldview as Wahhabism moved beyond the confines of Najd and into the broader Muslim world.

The differences between the worldviews of bin Laden and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab are numerous.

Bin Laden preaches jihad; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab preached monotheism.

Bin Laden preaches a global jihad of cosmic importance that recognizes no compromise; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s jihad was narrow in geographic focus, of localized importance, and had engagement in a treaty relationship between the fighting parties as a goal.

Bin Laden preaches war against Christians and Jews; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab called for treaty relationships with them.

Bin Laden’s jihad proclaims an ideology of the necessity of war in the face of unbelief; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab preached the benefits of peaceful coexistence, social order, and business relationships.

Bin Laden calls for the killing of all infidels and the destruction of their money and property; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab restricted killing and the destruction of property…

The militant Islam of Osama bin Laden does not have its origins in the teachings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and is not representative of Wahhabi Islam as it is practiced in contemporary Saudi Arabia, yet for the media it has come to define Wahabbi Islam in the contemporary era. However, “unrepresentative” bin Laden’s global jihad of Islam in general and Wahhabi Islam in particular, its prominence in headline news has taken Wahhabi Islam across the spectrum from revival and reform to global jihad.”
― Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad

“As Donilon [President Obama's security advisor] would tell me, Obama said:" Here's the deal. I want this hunt for Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to come to the front of the line. I worry that the trail has gone cold. This has to be our top priority and it needs leadership in the tops of your organizations. You need to ensure that we have expended every effort to take down the top leadership of al Qaeda, especially these two individuals. And I want regular reports on this *to me* and I want them starting in thirty days.
Donilon followed up and drove and drove the point home with a memo, which the president signed. He sent it to each of those present. It read: 'In order to ensure that we have extended every effort - directly provide to me a detailed operational plan for locating and bringing to justice Osama bin Laden.”
― Mark Bowden

“In a June 25, 2010, Washington Post article, the CIA acknowledged officially
discussing the creation of a video of a fake Saddam Hussein having sex with a
teenage boy in order to discredit him in the eyes of the Iraqi people. Evidently,
the Agency did create a video of a fake Osama Bin Laden drinking liquor
around a campfire with his cronies, bragging about their conquests of young
boys. The article quoted an anonymous former CIA officer “chuckling” at the
memory, and declaring that the actors used in the video were drawn from
“some of us darker-skinned employees.” These ridiculous clandestine ideas
brought to mind the childish efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro forty years
earlier.”
― Donald Jeffries, Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics

“We have evidence of thermite. Osama bin Laden didn't put thermite in the buildings.”
― Christopher Lee Bollyn

“Managing two families wasn't easy, but bin Laden wasn't discouraged. He developed a theory of multiple marriages. 'One is okay, like walking. Two is like riding a bicycle: it's fast but a little unstable. Three is a tricycle, stable but slow. And when we come to four, ah! This is the ideal. Now you can pass everyone”
― Lawrence Wilkes

“I had no idea if the photos [of Osama bin Laden's dead body] would ever be made public, and I didn't care.”
― Mark Owen, No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

“Before I left, I noticed a shelf that ran above the door. It was just above where he [bin Laden] was standing when we got to the third deck. I slid my hand up and felt two guns, which urned out to be an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol in a holster. I took each weapon down and pulled out the magazine and checked the chamber.
They were both empty.
He hadn't even prepared a defense. He had no intention of fighting. He asked his followers for decades to wear suicide vests or fly planes into buildings, but didn't even pick up his weapon [...]
Bin Laden knew we were coming when he heard the helicopter. I had more respect for Ahmed al-Kuwaiti in the guesthouse because at least he tried to defend himself and his family. Bin Laden had more time to prepare than the the others, and yet he still didn't do anything. Did he believe his own message? Was he willing to fight the war he asked for? I don't think so. Otherwise, he would have at least gotten his gun and stood up for what he believed. There is no honor in sending people to die for something you won't even fight for yourself.”
― Mark Owen, No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

“If Osama Bin Laden and 19 Arab hijackers truly brought down the World Trade Center, why was a network of Israeli intelligence agents engaged in a concerted effort to destroy the evidence?”
― Christopher Lee Bollyn, Solving 9-11: The Deception That Changed the World

“Bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. None of the reasons have anything to do with our freedom, liberty, and democracy, but have everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world.”
― Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror

“From the beginning of al-Qaeda, there were reformers and there were nihilists. The dynamic between them was irreconcilable and self-destructive, but events were moving so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell the philosophers from the sociopaths. They were glued together by the charismatic personality of Osama bin Laden, which contained both strands—idealism and nihilism—in a potent mix.”
― Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

“Remember, Osama had died multiple times before he was actually dead.
Before he was actually KILLED.”
― Osama assassination