JB> An excellent article in the WSJ today....

 JB> http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=1100
 JB> 10080

 JB> AT WAR


 JB> Was Osama Right?
 JB> Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent
 JB> political trends won't change their view.

 Before the invasion of Iraq Islamists were terrified of the US.

 JB> BY BERNARD LEWIS
 JB> Wednesday, May 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

 JB> During the Cold War, two things came to be known and
 JB> generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two
 JB> rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the
 JB> Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said

 Unless you were under the protection of the US.

 JB> or did anything against the Americans, not only would there
 JB> be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of
 JB> reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and
 JB> politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous
 JB> others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have
 JB> we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?"

 This was true during the Reagan/Bush era, not much before or
 after.

 JB> A few examples may suffice. During the troubles in Lebanon
 JB> in the 1970s and '80s, there were many attacks on American
 JB> installations and individuals--notably the attack on the
 JB> Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, followed by a prompt

 Under Reagan.

 JB> withdrawal, and a whole series of kidnappings of Americans,

 Under Reagan.

 JB> both official and private, as well as of Europeans. There

 Under Reagan, but not our responsibility.

 JB> was only one attack on Soviet citizens, when one diplomat
 JB> was killed and several others kidnapped. The Soviet
 JB> response through their local agents was swift, and directed
 JB> against the family of the leader of the kidnappers. The
 JB> kidnapped Russians were promptly released, and after that
 JB> there were no attacks on Soviet citizens or installations
 JB> throughout the period of the Lebanese troubles.

 Notice that he specified the "Lebanese troubles". The Soviets
 had little commercial activity in the Middle East compared to
 the West.

 Wait. Let me reconsider. I retract my objection. I just
 realized... We should follow the Soviet example. We should take
 vengence on the leader of the attack's family. We should wipe
 out the Bin Laden family. You know, the rich people George H. W.
 Bush was in a meeting with when the 9-11 attack came down. You
 remember? The ones who are so involved in the Saudi Govt and so
 buddy buddy with the Bush family?

 Kill em all!

 Ok, I'm with you on that one.

 JB> These different responses evoked different treatment. While
 JB> American policies, institutions and individuals were
 JB> subject to unremitting criticism and sometimes deadly
 JB> attack, the Soviets were immune. Their retention of the

 The Soviets had little except military personell or activity in
 the area.

 ...

 JB> Afghanistan in December 1979. Washington's handling of the
 JB> Tehran hostage crisis assured the Soviets that they had
 JB> nothing to fear from the U.S. They already knew that they
 JB> need not worry about the Arab and other Muslim governments.

 Since all they had was military involvement they had nothing
 much to lose. At that they really wanted access to the "warm
 water ports", which they never got. The Soviets had little real
 influence.

 JB> The Soviets already ruled--or misruled--half a dozen Muslim
 JB> countries in Asia, without arousing any opposition or
 JB> criticism. Initially, their decision and action to invade
 JB> and conquer Afghanistan and install a puppet regime in
 JB> Kabul went almost unresisted. After weeks of debate, the
 ...
 JB> "intervention" was not named. Even this anodyne resolution
 JB> was too much for some of the Arab states. South Yemen voted
 JB> no; Algeria and Syria abstained; Libya was absent; the
 JB> nonvoting PLO observer to the Assembly even made a speech
 JB> defending the Soviets.

 Which has little to do with any fear or respect the Arabs had
 for the Soviet Union, and much more to do with the absolute
 indifferenct of one Muslim group to the fate of any other unless
 they were closely affected.
 ...
 JB> resolution critical of the Soviet action; the Libyan
 JB> delegate went further, and used this occasion to denounce
 JB> the U.S.

 Again, the Soviet Union and Asian muslims were matters of little
 concern to Arab Muslims.

 JB> The Muslim willingness to submit to Soviet authority,
 JB> though widespread, was not unanimous.

 What willingness? Do the Muslim territories still cling to
 Russia? Is Cheneya fighting to remain part of Russia?

 JB> The Afghan people,
 ...
 JB> organization known as the Taliban (literally, "the
 JB> students") began to organize resistance and even guerilla
 ...
 JB> conqueror. Notable among these was a group led by a Saudi
 JB> of Yemeni origin called Osama bin Laden.

 At which point the US was a prime supplier to those who turned
 into our enemies.

 ...
 JB> explains the widespread support in the Arab countries and
 JB> in some other places first for the Third Reich and, after
 JB> its collapse, for the Soviet Union. These were the main
 JB> enemies of the West, and therefore natural allies.

 Which was of little concern to most Muslims by far. The only
 real interest was self interest. Muslims would sell each other
 out as quickly as they would turn on the West.

 ...

 JB> superpowers. The first task was to deal with the more
 JB> deadly and more dangerous of the two, the Soviet Union.
 JB> After that, dealing with the pampered and degenerate
 JB> Americans would be easy.

 Anyone who believed that was a fool. The Soviet Union was, even
 then, a failed and dissolving experiment.

 JB> We in the Western world see the defeat and collapse of the
 JB> Soviet Union as a Western, more specifically an American,
 JB> victory in the Cold War.

 The final result of the Vietnam war.

 JB> For Osama bin Laden and his
 JB> followers, it was a Muslim victory in a jihad, and, given
 JB> the circumstances, this perception does not lack
 JB> plausibility.

 From their point of view. From their limited knowledge of the
 West and it's history.

 JB> From the writings and the speeches of Osama bin Laden and
 JB> his colleagues, it is clear that they expected this second
 JB> task, dealing with America, would be comparatively simple
 JB> and easy. This perception was certainly encouraged and so
 JB> it seemed, confirmed by the American response to a whole
 JB> series of attacks--

 Esp under Reagan and Bush.

 JB> on the World Trade Center in New York

 Where the perps were captured and imprisoned. Including the
 cleric who approved it. That was the first foray of Bin Laden
 into attacks in the US, if he was involved. And no one knew much
 of who he was then.

 JB> and on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in 1993, on the U.S.

 Where 18 US troops died, and almost a thousand Somalis. Where
 the US took months more to leave, and then turned it over to the
 UN. Where Tom Delay voted for immediate withdrawal, now titles
 his book, "No Retreat, No Surrender". And Bin Laden had
 little if any involvement. Though he likes to claim it.

 JB> military office in Riyadh in 1995, on the American

 On which we were betrayed by the Saudis, who caught the perps,
 and executed them without allowing US access. For which they got
 buddied up to. Esp by Bush.

 JB> embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998,

 After which about 70 cruise missles destroyed terrorist training
 camps in Afghanistan and hit Sudan.

 JB> on the USS Cole in
 JB> Yemen in 2000--all of which evoked only angry words,

 Esp since Bush was handed the evidence and plans for retaliation
 for the Cole, which happened very late in Clinton's term. Bush
 shrugged it off as old news.

 JB> sometimes accompanied by the dispatch of expensive missiles
 JB> to remote and uninhabited places.

 Khartoum is hardly remote or uninhabited.

 From the Naval War College report, Spring 2000.
 **************************************************************************

 The Military Response to Terrorism
 Captain Mark E. Kosnik, U.S. Navy 

 ...
 The Strikes. On 20 August 1998, less than three weeks after the
 embassy bombings, Operation INFINITE REACH was carried out.62
 U.S. Navy surface ships and a submarine in the Arabian Gulf and
 Red Sea fired approximately seventy Tomahawk cruise missiles
 against terrorist targets in Khartoum and Khost (in
 Afghanistan)
 ...
 It is known, however, that the missiles arrived over targets in
 both countries nearly simultaneously. In Afghanistan, they
 damaged a series of buildings in four different complexes that
 constituted a terrorist training camp and bin Laden's main
 operational base. Reports in the Pakistani press claimed that
 the camp "had been leveled"; the Taliban regime in Afghanistan
 reported that twenty-one people had been killed and an
 additional thirty injured. Months later, in January 1999,
 defense officials would release satellite reconnaissance photos
 showing massive damage.
 ...

 within days of the strikes, foreign law enforcement
 organizations, with support from U.S. agencies, arrested bombing
 suspects in Pakistan, Kenya, and Tanzania. In the weeks that
 followed, several terrorists, including a number of key figures
 in the bin Laden network, were arrested in Great Britain,
 Germany, and across Africa. Most importantly, this new
 international effort apparently prevented bombings that bin
 Laden operatives had planned against the U.S. embassies in
 Tirana, Albania, and in Kampala, Uganda. These arrests
 substantiated the administration's claims at the time of the
 strikes that the group had been planning additional terrorist
 attacks against American targets. "The FBI has enjoyed
 unprecedented cooperation from authorities in Kenya, Tanzania
 and more than a dozen other countries that have assisted in the
 probe, a sharp contrast from some of its previous investigations
 of terrorism on foreign soil."

 The reasons for this new vigor and cooperation are not clear,
 but perhaps the strikes, by exposing bin Laden's vulnerability,
 encouraged other nations to overcome the fear of reprisal and to
 take strong action against bin Laden's organization. In any
 ...
 overstated. The missile strikes could only be an opening salvo
 against bin Laden; it is up to law enforcement to continue the
 war.

 As the campaign against bin Laden continues, senior U.S.
 officials suggest, the worldwide effort has stopped at least
 seven bombing attempts by the bin Laden group - against an air
 base in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. embassies in Albania,
 Azerbaijan, the Cote d'Ivoire, Tajikistan, Uganda, and Uruguay.
 Cooperation between Indian officials and the FBI has led to
 arrests of a seven-member cell, believed to be funded by bin
 Laden, that was planning to bomb the U.S. embassy in New Delhi
 and two consulates elsewhere in India.84

 ...
 By October, less than two months after the strike, the Sudanese
 government had dropped calls for an investigation into the
 bombings and had initiated high-level talks with Washington in
 hopes of improving relations.

 ...

 The strikes generally received support from the American public.
 Over 75 percent of the public approved of the attack at the
 time, and President Clinton's job-approval rating rose to 65
 percent.85 A few Republican members of Congress questioned the
 timing of the strikes, suggesting that they may have been used
 as a distraction from the president's domestic troubles;
 overall, however, Clinton received bipartisan support as having
 taken strong action against terrorism.

 **************************************************************************

 JB> Stage One of the jihad was to drive the infidels from the
 JB> lands of Islam;

 Bush handed them that one in Saudi Arabia. Of course, the US
 should have pulled out after Gulf War I, and that would have
 been our choice, not anyone else's.

 Stage Two--to bring the war into the enemy
 JB> camp, and the attacks of 9/11 were clearly intended to be
 JB> the opening salvo of this stage. The response to 9/11, so
 JB> completely out of accord with previous American practice,

 Yes, previously the US at least tried to hit the actual enemy.

 The attack in Afghanistan started out good, but the
 administration dropped the ball on that one when they shifted to
 their war of choice, and for oil, in Iraq.

 JB> came as a shock, and it is noteworthy that there has been
 JB> no successful attack on American soil since then. The U.S.


 There was no successful Islamic attack on US soil between 1993
 and 2001, after the first WTC attack. Had Bush and Condi Rice
 listened to Clarke, and paid attention to the warnings and used
 the plans handed to them by the Clinton administration, WTC 9-11
 might not have happened. We will never know, but we do know Bush
 did nothing.

 JB> actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had
 JB> been a major change in the U.S., and that some revision of
 JB> their assessment, and of the policies based on that
 JB> assessment, was necessary.

 Which was later turned around when Bush got us mired in Iraq,
 and the Muslim world realized the US could *NOT* take over an
 Islamic country and make it stick. At least not under Bush's
 rule.

 JB> More recent developments, and notably the public discourse
 JB> inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of
 JB> Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct
 JB> after all, and that they need only to press a little harder
 JB> to achieve final victory.

 When the US pulls out of Iraq the Islamic radicals will turn out
 to be local nationalists who don't give a damn about
 international Islam, and foreign interventionists who will have
 to get their asses out of Iraq before the Iraqis kill them.

 JB> It is not yet clear whether they
 JB> are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the
 JB> consequences--both for Islam and for America--will be deep,
 JB> wide and lasting.

 They will learn that the US will be out, likely before the '08
 elections, and they will find the Iraqis shoving bullets and
 bombs their way.


BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... George W. Bush... presidential mushroom. Kept in the dark and fed manure.
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