Osama's Last Words to his Children

[Chirios]

According to his Brother in Law

Slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden urged his children to go live peacefully in the West and get a university education, his brother-in-law said in an interview published Sunday.

Zakaria al-Sadah, the brother of bin Laden's Yemeni fifth wife Amal, told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper that the Saudi-born extremist believed his children "should not follow him down the road to jihad."

"He told his own children and grandchildren, 'Go to Europe and America and get a good education,'" al-Sadah told the Sunday Times.

Al-Sadah said bin Laden told them: "You have to study, live in peace and don't do what I am doing or what I have done."

Bin Laden was killed in a commando raid in May 2011 by US Navy SEALS at a house in the garrison town of Abbottabad, northwest Pakistan, where he had been living for several years.

Al-Sadah said that in November he had seen his sister for the first time since she was shot in the knee during the raid, and had since been allowed to have a number of meetings with her in the presence of guards.

He said the three wives and nine children who were in the compound -- some are bin Laden's children and others are his grandchildren -- have been held for months in a three-room flat in Islamabad.

They are guarded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, he said.

The Sunday Times published what it said was the first photograph to show some of the young children from the compound: two sons and a daughter, and two grandsons and a granddaughter.

The children were still traumatised after seeing the raid in which bin Laden died, al-Sadah said.

"These children have seen their father killed and they need a caring environment, not a prison -- whatever you think of their father and what he has done," he said.

A Pakistani commission investigating the raid said in October that it had lifted travel restrictions on Bin Laden's family and al-Sadah flew to Islamabad in November to take Amal and her children home.

But he said Pakistani officials had refused to let him take them.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.

Not really sure how I should take this tbh. Obviously it's better he said that than said: here are blueprints for making a bomb, now go and kill the Western infidels; but it suggests to me that he knew, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong which is kind of distressing.

[Zed]

It doesn't suggest that "he knew what he was doing was wrong." There's perfectly viable alternative interpretations. The simplest of those is that he wanted his children to have a good life and not have to go through the hardships that he himself suffered (as was presumably his view on his life).

[Scrib]

All it proves is that he was a rational human being who gave a shit about his family and didn't want them to live the life he did.

That said, his statements about them going to America and studying there could suggest that he had given up hope on ever achieving anything beyond what he already had. Again rational. Or he could be regretting it. Whatever. That is only distressing if you believe that all bad men are comic book-evil and that only then should they be killed or something. He's a mass murdering asshole and got what was coming to him.

[Chirios]

All it proves is that he was a rational human being who gave a shit about his family and didn't want them to live the life he did.

That said, his statements about them going to America and studying there could suggest that he had given up hope on ever achieving anything beyond what he already had. Again rational. Or he could be regretting it. Whatever. That is only distressing if you believe that all bad men are comic book-evil and that only then should they be killed or something. He's a mass murdering asshole and got what was coming to him.

Nah that wasn't my point. I figured that he actually believed the crap he spouted completely, and I find it hard to reconcile these two things together. If he really believed America and Europe were as bad as he said, then why would he want his children to go to America/ Europe? The only sensible conclusion is that some level he must've realised that America/Europe wasn't as bad as he said in public.

[Nephtys]

These sort of statements could be taken as a sort of regret that he didn't accomplish what he wanted to. Basically, a form of defeat. It's not that he necessarily didn't believe in what his cause was, but that he knew that he had lost, and wants his kids to make the best of it.

OBL's stated main goal was to pretty much get foreign powers out of the muslim sphere. There's a long history to that, with the still-lingering resentment of Britain and soforth, fighting the soviets, and more recently Americans. One of OBL's major goals was very clearly to get the US to pull out of Saudi Arabia for example after the gulf war. And that certainly didn't happen.

I'd imagine after spending 10 years on the run, and watching a massive expansion of American influence on the area, that it's a kind of regret that everything backfired. He didn't achieve his political goals, but instead actually lost ground in what he wanted. Having his grandkids go and study in the US then presumably return home and start clinics or businesses is a practical one. The US provides some of the best education around, and it would be of material benefit to his kids. It's certainly a better quality of life than being a hunted man.

[Skgoa]

And let's not forget that the end goal was topling the regimes in the arabic countries. Nothing he did ever managed to further that.

[Alyrium Denryle]

All it proves is that he was a rational human being who gave a shit about his family and didn't want them to live the life he did.

That said, his statements about them going to America and studying there could suggest that he had given up hope on ever achieving anything beyond what he already had. Again rational. Or he could be regretting it. Whatever. That is only distressing if you believe that all bad men are comic book-evil and that only then should they be killed or something. He's a mass murdering asshole and got what was coming to him.

Nah that wasn't my point. I figured that he actually believed the crap he spouted completely, and I find it hard to reconcile these two things together. If he really believed America and Europe were as bad as he said, then why would he want his children to go to America/ Europe? The only sensible conclusion is that some level he must've realised that America/Europe wasn't as bad as he said in public.

It is possible he never did believe all the crap he spouted. I dont know if this is actually true but...

It is possible he just got caught up in something he could not control. He started off with one set of goals, but because of the allies he chose, and the role he had, things spiraled out of control farther than he wanted it to, but he had no choice but to keep going.

It is something to consider.

[Thanas]

People's opinion change over a lifetime, it is quite easy to assume that both the radical terrorist and the guy on the run for over a decade and suffering from medical problems do not have the same political or personal opinions.

Anyway, I don't know how much of this story is true anyway.

[Solauren]

Call my an asshole if you want, but I'm having trouble buying it.

My reasoning is very simple. It's coming third hand from a guy, that want's to relocate members of his family from the people that have him.

Re-read his statements from last to first.

"Why will Pakastani not let my family go?
They are tramatized and need loving care.
All their now-dead terrrorist father wanted was for them to get and education and live in peace."

This also comes months after Bin Laden's death.

Show me a hand-written, authenticated note, or a video tape with clear audio, and I'll buy it.

For right now, his 'last works' looks like people either looking back and going 'you know what...', or someone trying to drum up public support to get his family out of detention.

In the meantime, I've seen too many assholes die, follow by people rewriting their opinion of them, or their memories of them, to make the guy more 'palatable' to themselves or others, to believe it without some proof.