I don't know if the links will come through on this, so here's the URL to
the entire story.
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/jihad.htm
For non-Americans, the Atlantic is a fairly left-leaning (by American
standards) journal.
Coming to Grips with Jihad
September 12, 2001
s investigators attempt to trace yesterday's devastating terrorist acts to
their source, attention seems increasingly to be focusing on Osama bin Laden
and his militant followers-Islamic fundamentalists who consider themselves
engaged in a "jihad" (often translated as "holy war" but perhaps more
accurately rendered as "righteous struggle") against the Western world. The
attacks on New York and Washington (if they are, indeed, the work of bin
Laden's men) represent the most audacious expression to date of
fundamentalist Islamic hatred for the West. But the jihad is not new. A
number of Atlantic articles from the early 1990s to the present have
considered the movement, addressing its origins and its consequences.
In "The Roots of Muslim Rage" (September 1990), the historian of Islam
Bernard Lewis explored the reasons behind Islamic fundamentalists' antipathy
to the West. He contended that "fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in
seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life
that they wish to retain or restore for their people." Arguing that Islamic
fundamentalists are ultimately struggling against the dramatic changes
brought about by secularism and modernism, Lewis went on to write that
"Islamic fundamentalism has given an aim and a form to the otherwise aimless
and formless resentment and anger of the Muslim masses at the forces that
have devalued their traditional values and, in the final analysis, robbed
them of their beliefs, their aspirations, their dignity, and to an
increasing extent even their livelihood." Lewis brought his piece to a close
with an admonition:
It should now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far
transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that
pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations-the perhaps
irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our
Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion
of both. It is crucially important that we on our side should not be
provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction
against that rival.... The movement nowadays called fundamentalism is not
the only Islamic tradition. There are others, more tolerant, more open, that
helped to inspire the great achievements of Islamic civilization in the
past, and we may hope that these other traditions will in time prevail.
In "Blowback" (May 1996), Mary Anne Weaver explained Osama bin Laden's rise
to power as an example of the manner in which the U.S. support for the
Afghan mujahideen-the loose coalition of fighters from all parts of the
Islamic world who doggedly resisted Soviet occupation during the 1980s-has
backfired on the United States. In essence, Weaver wrote, the CIA's training
of the mujahideen allowed for the creation and development of "an informal
network of small, loosely organized underground cells, with support centers
scattered around the world: in the United States, the Persian Gulf
countries, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Sudan, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan." After describing the enduring relationships forged in this
network-between, among others, the Saudi Arabian bin Laden, the Afghan
leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, the blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar
Abdul-Rahman (convicted in 1996 of seditious conspiracy to wage a "war of
urban terrorism against the United States"), and the Palestinian Ramzi Ahmed
Youssef (considered to have been the mastermind of the 1993 terrorist attack
on the World Trade Center)- Weaver noted that such connections, the direct
result of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, have led
to the emergence of "a new breed of terrorist" whose energies are directed
against their former sponsors and trainers. The nature of terrorism has
changed, Weaver concluded-today, "E-mail and faxes drive the jihad."
More recently, Robert Kaplan visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and, in
"The Lawless Frontier" (September 2000), painted a disturbing picture of a
region dominated by tribalism, ignorance, violence, and rampant religious
fanaticism. The region's fundamentalist religious fervor crystallized in
1994 with the emergence of the Taliban, a militant group devoted to an
extremely inflexible version of Islam. In 1996, the Taliban seized control
of Afghanistan's government, and, as Kaplan observed during his April, 2000,
trip, it now continues to exert a powerful, destabilizing influence on the
border regions of Pakistan.
The Taliban embody a lethal combination: a primitive tribal creed, a
fierce religious ideology, and the sheer incompetence, naiveté, and cruelty
that are begot by isolation from the outside world and growing up amid war
without parents. They are also an example of globalization, influenced by
imported pan-Islamic ideologies and supported economically by both Osama bin
Laden's worldwide terrorist network (for whom they provide a base) and a
multibillion-dollar smuggling industry in which ships and trucks bring
consumer goods from the wealthy Arabian Gulf emirate of Dubai (less a state
than the world's largest shopping mall) through Iran and Afghanistan and on
to Quetta and Karachi.
In addition, we've included an Atlantic Unbound interview from August, 2000,
in which the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid discussed his book, Taliban:
Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, and shared insights
gained from his extraordinary access to Afghanistan and its radical Taliban
movement.
Today, the U.S. has a "get Osama bin Laden policy" but no effective Afghan
policy.... Afghanistan is now a major regional threat not just because the
Taliban are harboring Islamic extremists from more than twenty countries in
the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia but also because of the
proliferation of heroin exports, the sales of arms and other weapons, and
the cross-border smuggling which is destroying all the economies in the
region. Afghanistan is a black hole sucking in all its neighbors.
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