Osama bin Laden Writes to the American People

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the United States has released another set of documents from the cache that was seized during the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  One of the 113 documents that were released on March 1, 2016 was a letter to the American people.  Here it is, translated into English from the original Arabic:

Obviously, there are some things in the letter that we would not agree with, however, Osama bin Laden's observations about how millions of Americans are living below the poverty line and millions more have lost their homes and jobs is not far off the mark.  It is also interesting to note his comments about how "....taxpayer's money was used to reduce the vultures (of Wall Street) by using the assets of the victims".

Osama bin Laden goes on to write about the current real state of the political game in Washington:

"The course of the policies of the present administration in several areas clearly reveals that whoever enters the White House, even with good intentions to safeguard the peoples' interest, is no more than a train operator. His only task is to keep the train on the tracks that are laid down by the lobbyists in New York and Washington to serve their interests first, even if it is counter to your security and economy. Any president who tries to move the train from the lobbyist's tracks to a track for the American people's interests will confront very strong opposition and pressures from the lobbyists. Your president described the decision by the court in favor of corporations to intervene in the political arena as a victory, but it is not [a victory] for the American people except for the big corporations....The president was not able to defend you against the security and economic loss. The way for change and freeing yourselves from the pressure of lobbyists is not through the Republican or the Democratic parties, but through undertaking a great revolution for freedom: not to free Iraq from Saddam Hussein but to free the White House and to free Barack Husayn so he can implement the change you seek."

Given this:

...and this table which shows the top lobbying industries:

....he is not far from wrong.

While the letter is not dated, according to intelligence officials, most of the documents seized and released in March 2016 were dated between 2009 and 2011.  This letter to the American people could well have been written just as the greatest negative impacts relating to the Great Crisis of 2008 - 2009 were being felt by the global economy.

Obviously, Osama bin Laden had a reasonably sound grasp on at least two of the issues that have impacted life in America to the benefit of a few and the detriment of the majority.