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Reaping the Terrorist Whirlwind!
Aug. 30, 1998
By international syndicated columnist & broadcaster Eric Margolis
Osama Bin Laden's `terrorist network' in Afghanistan and Sudan was
destroyed last week by barrages of Tomahawk cruise missiles. Or so
Washington claimed, though Bin Laden, the latest Muslim malefactor
to bedevil the west, managed to escape America's high-tech wrath.
In fact, two of the Afghan camps were actually training bases for
Harakat Mujihadin, one of many resistance movements fighting to
liberate the Indian-controlled Kashmir. The third was used by
Saudi-supported Arab groups. None were part of Bin Laden's group.
Initial examination of the wreckage of the Khartoum pharmaceutical
plant showed no evidence of chemical warfare production. The US
attacks killed some 25 Afghans, Pakistani, Arabs and Sudanese, and
wounded over a hundred.
America's galaxy of see-all spy satellites and omnivorous
electronic monitoring cannot wholly compensate for its dreadful
human intelligence, which has caused one special operations
failure after the next, from the Iran hostage rescue, to Somalia,
and now the bombing the wrong targets in America's growing war
against Islamic radicals.
In this case, haste compounded errors from poor intelligence. The
US had to respond quickly to the murderous Aug 7 attacks on its
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but lacked, as so often after
terror attacks, a clear target. President Clinton was eager to
distract public attention away from his tawdry misbehavior. So the
president who had dodged the draft in wartime, committed an act of
war by launching missiles that hit Afghanistan, Pakistan, and
Sudan. Americans were delighted. By contrast, the world's 1.2
million Muslims reacted with fury.
Thanks to a drumfire of leaks from CIA and the Pentagon, Osama Bin
Laden, an almost unknown religious eccentric from Saudi Arabia,
became an overnight international celebrity. He joined the long
list of Muslim malefactors that have disturbed the Pax Americana:
Nasser, Arafat, Khadaffi, Khomeini, Saddam Hussein. With his long
beard, wild eyes, and bloodcurdling threats, the sinister Bin
Laden was the perfect image of the modern Islamic terrorist.
I visited the same guerilla training camps in Afghanistan's Khost
province during the 1980's and early 90's that the US attacked
last week. A ramshackle collection of huts, tents, caves, and
firing ranges, they hardly fit our image of a James Bondish terror
central. The guerillas were deeply idealistic young men from
across the Muslim world who had come to fight the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan in the Great Jihad, or holy war.
In 1986, I became the first journalists to learn the full story
about the Islamic International Brigades that had been formed to
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. The CIA, Saudi intelligence, and
Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence(ISI) transported, trained,
armed and directed the Islamic Brigades, whose story I covered in
Peshawar, Pakistan, and in combat against the communists, inside
Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden was employed by CIA as a chief
recruiter, as was the Egyptian cleric, Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman,
who was jailed for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Once these idealistic young Muslims had liberated Afghanistan,
they decided to continue their crusade. The next struggle was
Kashmir, where India was brutally repressing the Muslim majority.
Other Afghan veterans, or `Afghani,' went to fight in Chechnya,
Bosnia, Algeria, Egypt, and the Philippines.
After defeating Soviet imperialism, some `Afghani' decided it was
time to `liberate' the Mideast from `western imperialism.' In
their view, the oil monarchs of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the
Gulf, and the generals running Egypt and Turkey, were no different
from the puppet Afghan communist regime. Extremists, including
Osama Bin Laden, determined to overthrow these western client
regimes, using any and all means, including terror bombing.
Bin Laden and his cohorts accused US-backed Mideast rulers of
being corrupt, godless, western stooges who stole their nation's
oil wealth, and gave it away to the west in exchange for
protection from their own people. America, they claimed, had
replaced Great Britain as the Mideast's colonial ruler. In fact,
the US certainly does keep dictatorial regimes in power across the
Mideast, while championing human and political rights in
economically unimportant places like Burma and Haiti.
Islamic extremists claim American troops are `occupying' Saudi
Arabia, Islam's holy land, as well as Kuwait and the Gulf. That,
and the growing covert struggle mounted by CIA , FBI and military
intelligence to defend the Egyptian, Saudi, and Gulf regimes
against Islamic and democratic opponents has put America into the
Mideast's front lines. Current efforts by Washington to overthrow
the anti-US governments of Libya, Iran, Iraq and Sudan have
further exposed the US to retaliation. Last week's attacks on
Afghanistan will add new foes to the swelling ranks of America's
enemies.
Israel, the other object of Bin Laden's fury, is a later-day
crusader state, he claims, a beachhead of western imperialism that
will one day be driven out. He calls for a war against Jews, as
well as Israel. Like many Islamic radicals, he and his supporters
can't seem to decide if Israel runs American policy in the
Mideast, or if it is merely a cat's paw of US strategic interests.
Bin Laden even absurdly issued a `fatwa,' or religious decree,
calling for attacks on the US and Israel. As a non-religious
figure, he has absolutely no right to do so. Whether Bin Laden
actually mounted the terror attacks in Africa remains unknown, but
his boasting and threats have certainly earned him America's
justified anger and retribution. Like Libya's Khadaffi a decade
ago, he appears to be reveling in new-found fame as the world's
terrorist du jour.
Unfortunately, Muslim everywhere are increasingly dismayed at
America for its support of Israel's repression of the
Palestinians, Many even blame America for the slaughter of Muslims
in Bosnia, Kashmir(wrongly), and Chechnya, and Lebanon(rightly).
They see Clinton hugging IRA terrorist chiefs while bombing
Muslims. The United States is increasingly seen as the enemy of
the Muslim World, a process long encouraged by America's powerful
Israel lobby and Hollywood.
Too many Muslims will mistakenly believe the crackpot Bin Laden a
hero, a Muslim David with a sling of bombs, standing up to the
American Goliath.
Too many will believe the cowardly bombing of an embassy, and
death of hundreds of innocent civilians, was somehow a positive
act against what many see as Washington's growing arrogance in
treating the rest of the world like a legal extension of the
United States; and the Mideast as it personal Oil Raj, policed by
the FBI. Americans, infuriated and frightened by terrorism, will
be even less likely to examine how their own intrigues and
blunders have led to much of the Mideast's current travails.
Americans like to view world affairs in simplistic black and
white. They have always personalized Mideast complexities into a
few evil or saintly leaders, like Khomeini, or Sadat, and brand
all who oppose US strategic dictates in the region as
`terrorists,' or `rogue states.' Few Americans understand that
Muslims are today the world's main troublemakers not because of
their religion, but because Muslim lands were the main victims of
European 19th-century colonialism, and are still struggling from
Morocco to Indonesia to throw off the mantle of lingering western
political, economic, military, and cultural domination.
Washington maintains Mideast terrorism is an evil, amorphous force
that bears no connection to its political behavior in the region.
Not true. Because all Mideast nations, save Israel and Iran, are
harsh dictatorships, the only means of popular dissent is under
the banner of Islam. As a result, democrats and moderates are
lumped together with murderous fanatics like Bin Laden. By denying
democracy and human rights to the Mideast, and staunchly defending
despotism, America has sowed much of the extremist whirlwind it is
now reaping.
Copyright: Eric Margolis, 1998
