10/30/2004: Young bin Laden in Sweden

[Undertoad]

A REPEAT on IotD! I figured this one was old enough and interestingly relevant enough to bring it out again. IotD first featured this on September 24, 2001, and the recent bin Laden tape just having been verified as legit, it becomes oddly relevant. On the tape, bin Laden says in his opening,

Security is an important foundation of human life, and free people do not squander their security, contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. Let him tell us why we did not attack Sweden, for example.

Here's why: Osama vacationed there as a kid, and seemed to enjoy it pretty much, along with his remarkably modern, Western, colorful, non-female-repressing, pink-caddy-driving, ugly-tie-wearing family, in the year 1971. He was 14, and boy it must have seemed like a great time. You don't mess with memories like that by bombing them.