Back in 2001, the world grasped when coordinated Islamist suicide terrorist attacks were carried out by the al-Qaeda group against the U.S.
On the September 11th, in the morning, terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, and crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The third crashed into the Pentagon, whereas the fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania following a passenger revolt.
The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in total, and have since become one of the deadliest terrorist attacks, ever.
Twenty-one years later, in November 2023, amid the bloody war between the Palestinian's Hamas and Israel, following the conflict that escalated following the surprise attack of the former, a 21-year-old article by The Guardians went viral after being reposted many times by users of TikTok.
The letter, which aimed to rationalize 9/11 terror attacks not only received attention from pro-Palestinian TikTok accounts, because pro-Israel users are also interested in it.
This happened because the letter in question, was written by Osama bin Laden, the man who led the al-Qaeda group, the very group that was behind the 9/11 attacks.
Throughout the week, as TikTok users share the link to The Guardian's transcript of bin Laden’s letter, which was written about a year after the 9/11 incident, the virality made some people to question themselves.
This is because the video somehow suggests an alternative perspective about the U.S.’ involvement in conflicts in the Middle East.
In the letter, bin Laden explains the rationale behind the 9/11 attacks.
He argues that the oppression of the Palestinian territories must be "revenged" in an assault against "Americans and Jews."
The terrorist leader also said it brought him "both laughter and tears" when Americans expressed "fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine."
Bin Laden’s letter condemns U.S. support for Israel, and accuses Americans of aiding the oppression of Palestinian people. Bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. special operation in Pakistan in 2011, also denounced U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Kashmir, Chechnya and Lebanon.
The letter itself, which is a broad critique of American foreign policy, also contains claims that Jewish people "control [American] policies, media and economy," that aids a "Satanic American Invention," and that "the creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes."
In the letter, which includes anti-Semitic language and homophobic rhetoric, Osama bin Laden addressed the American people and sought to answer the following questions: "Why are we fighting and opposing you?" and "What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?"
While most of the world considers bin Laden a terrorist and a threat to peace, the virality of the video made some social media users to suggest that the Al Qaeda founder has a point.
"I need everyone to stop what they’re doing right now and go read – it’s literally two pages – go read ‘A Letter to America’. Come back here and let me know what you think. Because I feel like I’m going through an existential crisis right now, and a lot of people are. So I just need someone else to be feeling this too," a person said.
"Just read it.. my eyes have been opened," another commented.
"We’ve been lied to our entire lives," said another.
Several social media users said that reading the transcript caused them to re-evaluate their beliefs about the cause of the 9/11 attacks, and also around the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While people were critical of U.S. involvement in global conflicts, many clarified that they were not praising or defending bin Laden’s orchestration of the 9/11 attacks.
In response to the virality, TikTok removed the hashtag #lettertoamerica from its search results.
The Guardian also took the letter down from its website.
Despite the original web page (archived) was one of the most viewed pages on The Guardian’s website, the publication sees its presence as harmful, and can mislead people, especially younger generations who tend to subjectively believe what they shouldn't.
"The transcript published on our website in 2002 has been widely shared on social media without the full context,” a spokesman of The Guardians said.
"Therefore we have decided to take it down and direct readers to the news article that originally contextualised it instead."
The decision however, sparked even more questions.
Some people said that it's "odd" that a letter by bin Laden was removed because of his mention of Israel and Palestine.
