Cheney says terrorists at war with U.S. before 2001

BIG News ^ | 10/6/05

[areafiftyone]

U.S. servicemembers fighting in the global war against terrorism are "directly engaging the enemies of the United States."

These enemies have considered themselves to be at war with America since long before Sept. 11, Vice President Richard B. Cheney said in Washington Wednesday.

Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and other terrorist groups "were actually at war with this country before 2001," Cheney told attendees at the Association of the United States Army's annual meeting and exposition.

In 1983, an explosives-laden truck killed 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, Cheney recalled. Afterward, U.S. troops were withdrawn from Beirut, he said.

And "time and time again, for the remainder of the 20th century, the terrorists hit America and America did not hit back hard enough," Cheney said. In 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in New York City, he noted. During the same year, he recalled, extremists in Mogadishu, Somalia, ambushed and killed 18 American soldiers.

Cheney said terrorist bombers struck again in 1996, killing 19 U.S. servicemembers, mostly Air Force members, at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were the targets of terrorist bombings, he recalled, that killed 231 people, including 12 Americans. And in October 2000, 17 sailors died when terrorist suicide bombers in Aden, Yemen, attacked the USS Cole, he said.

Over time "the terrorists came to believe that they could strike America without paying any price," Cheney pointed out. And on Sept. 11, 2001, "they attacked the United States directly," he said.

Now four years old, the global war on terrorism "is a new kind of war against the most ruthless of enemies," Cheney said. The terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks "have proven their eagerness to kill innocent men, women and children by the thousands," Cheney pointed out.

"The fight we are waging," he noted, "is every bit as urgent as it is dangerous."

That danger continues to be very real, in part, because terrorist organizations like al Qaeda want to obtain weapons of mass destruction, Cheney said. And the terrorists, he noted, "would not hesitate to use such weapons at the first opportunity."

The Sept. 11 attacks convinced the U.S. government to take the offensive against global terrorists, Cheney said, rather than to "sit back and wait to be hit again." Accordingly, America's strategy to prevent future terrorist attacks on the homeland, he said, is predicated on "taking the fight to the enemy" in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today in Iraq terrorists "are testing our resolve and trying to shake our commitment to democracy in that part of the world," Cheney observed. The terrorists are fighting hard in Iraq, he said, because they "regard Iraq as the central front in their war against the civilized world."

Iraqis are slated to vote for a new constitution in an Oct. 15 referendum. The terrorists want to take over Iraq as a base and as a springboard to new attacks and conquests, the vice president explained, noting they'll do "everything they can" to derail Iraq's march toward democracy.

However, America "will stand by our friends" and "we will help Iraqis build a nation that is free and secure and able to defend itself," Cheney vowed. The United States "will confront our enemies on this and every other front in the war on terror, he said.

And "with good allies on our side, we will prevail," he said.

[MizSterious]

Osama issued his fatwa/declaration of war with the US in either 1994 or 1995. Anyone (including dumb journalists) can find copies of it on the net, or in one of several books published on the subject.

[Gay State Conservative]

Correct.The filthy,9th Century knuckle draggers started
this war in February 1993,if not earlier.

[elc]

Although there have been terrorist attacks against US targets by other organizations for years, OBL's first fatwa against us was issued in 1996.

[theDentist]

Not that I want to criticize, but why has it taken so long for such a statement to be issued from the Exec. Branch? Is it becuase they didn't want to criticize previous Administrations? Please tell me they didn't just realize this.

[JimSEA]

Here is Osama's declaration of war

[Conspiracy Guy]

7th century

[Conspiracy Guy]

Kindergarten! ? ! ! You dang whippersnapper!

[JimSEA]

Here is Osama's declaration of war

Sorry link done improperly first time.

[Carsigliere]

It started with Sirhan Sirhan assasinating robert Kennedy and after that, flurries of airline hijackings.

[theDentist]

I fear you may be right.

[Gay State Conservative]

why has it taken so long for such a statement to be issued from the Exec. Branch? Is it because they didn't want to criticize previous Administrations? <.I>

You may be onto something here.For many,many years,tradition has demanded that former Presidents refrain from criticism of a sitting President.Republicans who have left the WH have adhered to this (for example,former President Bush while Billy Bob was in office),but,fairly recently,two former democRAT Presidents (The Peanut Farmer and The Most Ethical President In History) have seen fit to violate it.

So maybe,in the eyes of the President,the gloves are off when it comes to Billy Bob.

[Berlin_Freeper]

House of Representatives - September 07, 2000[Page: H7349]
Osama Bin Laden has made no secret of his anti-American, anti-Western and anti-Israel sentiments:

August 1998--The ``International Islamic Front for Jihad against America and Israel,'' a group sponsored by Bin Laden, issues a warning in the London-based newspaper al-Hayat that, ``strikes will continue from everywhere'' against the United States. (CNN Interactive, 8/20/98)

May 1998--Bin Laden announces the formation of an ``International Islamic Front for Jihad against America and Israel,'' according to The News, an Islamabad, Pakistan daily. (The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism web site, www.ict.org.il)

March 1998--Bin Laden faxes messages to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and U.S. consulates in Peshawar, Lahore, and Karachi threatening to attack U.S. facilities and citizens. (The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism web site, www.ict.org.il)

February 1998--Bin Laden uses a fatwa, religious decree, to call for the liberation of Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as the death of Americans and their allies. The decree says, ``These crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger and Muslims.'' (The Washington Post, 2/25/98)

May 1997--During an interview with CNN, Bin Laden reaffirms his call for a holy war against Americans. ``We have focused our declaration of jihad on the U.S. soldiers inside Arabia ..... The U.S. government has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal through its support of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.'' (Reuters, 5/11/97)

February 1997--Bin Laden threatens holy war against the U.S. in an interview on the British documentary program, Dispatches. ``This war will not only be between the people of the two sacred mosques and the Americans, but it will be between the Islamic world and the Americans and their allies because this war is a new crusade led by America against the Islamic nations.'' (Reuters, 2/20/97)

November 1996--Bin Laden issues an ultimatum to the U.S. and Western countries with troops stationed in Arab countries and declares a holy war against the ``enemy.'' Had we wanted to carry out small operations after our threat statement, we would have been able to ..... We thought that the two bombings in Riyadh and Dhahran would be enough (sic.) a signal to the wise U.S. decision-makers to avoid the real confrontation with the Islamic nation, but it seems they did not understand it.'' (The Washington Times, 11/28/96)

November 1996--Bin Laden warns U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia to expect more ``effective, qualitative'' attacks and advises Western forces to speed their ``departure'' from the Middle East. (UPI, 11/27/96)

August 1996--Bin Laden says to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper that the Saudis have a ``legitimate right'' to attack the 5,000 American military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia. ``The presence of the American crusader armed forces in the countries of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger and the biggest harm that threatens the world's largest oil reserves ..... The infidels must be thrown out of the Arabian Peninsula.'' (The Washington Post, 8/31/96)

August 1996--In an interview with The Independent, a London daily, Bin Laden calls the June 1995 truck bomb in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia ``the beginning of war between Muslims and the United States.'' (New York Daily News, 8/11/96)

July 1996--Bin Laden warns that the terrorist who bombed American soldiers in Saudi Arabia will also attack British and French military personnel. He said ``[the bomb in Dhahran] was the result of American behavior against Muslims, its support of Jews in Palestine, and the massacre of Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon.'' (New York Times, 7/11/96)

[gridlock]

Cheney says terrorists at war with U.S. before 2001

WHAT EVER GAVE HIM THAT IDEA?

[Conspiracy Guy]

I've got jeans older than you.