In America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies, George Friedman, chairman and founder of Stratfor, has written an excellent book on the history behind the current war on terror, tracing its roots back to the Carter administration and explaining the reasons things are the way they are. Stratfor provides strategic intelligence on global business, economic, security and geopolitical affairs. According to their website, “Stratfor - the world's leading private intelligence firm -- provides corporations, governments and individuals with geopolitical analysis and forecasts that enable them to manage risk and anticipate political, economic and security issues vital to their interests.” As Stratfor’s founder and chairman, Friedman is highly qualified to write on this topic.
Friedman sees this current war as the fourth modern global conflict. Just as World War II grew out of World War I, and the Cold War grew out of World War II, the current global war on terror has grown out of the Cold War. The situation we face today is the direct result of the geopolitical changes that occurred as a result of the fall of the Soviet Empire. Both the events leading up to the collapse and the resulting global situation after the collapse set the stage for the conflict between radical Islam and the West.
One of the Soviet’s favorite techniques to weaken American power around the world was to support insurgents and guerillas in order to bog down U.S. forces. One of the most successful was the support of the North Vietnamese, ultimately driving the U.S. from the region. America, on the other hand had a lousy track record with supporting guerillas. When the Soviets attacked Afghanistan, it was an opportunity for the U.S. to use this technique against them. This was an opportunity to “make the Soviets bleed” like they made us bleed. President Carter authorized the recruitment, organization and supplying of guerilla warfare in Afghanistan by utilizing indigenous forces that were already rising to resist the Soviets. Carter signed the first “Intelligence Finding” authorizing covert military operations in Afghanistan in order to “harass” soviet troops. It was this “Finding” that served as the legal basis for the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It was also this “Finding” that would culminate, via a long, circuitous and unpredictable route, in September 11.
The first problem was how to fund the covert war. Ever since senator Church passed legislation requiring the CIA to get authorization for such funding, it would impossible to get money from Congress, and if it tried, then the operation would no longer be secret. Saudi Arabia realized that an America weakened by the oil embargo of the 1970s was dangerous to its national security, because if the Soviets or Iran won out in the region, they would be destroyed as a nation. Therefore, Saudi Arabia had a greater interest in what was happening in Afghanistan than America did. The United States was worried that the Soviets were attacking Afghanistan in order to push into the Middle East and capture the oil fields for itself.
Second, the United States had very little intelligence on Afghanistan, and what we did have was only from the CIA agents monitoring the narcotics trade and the poppy fields in the country. Therefore, America had to turn to Saudi Arabia for money and intelligence, making an alliance with the Wahabis in order to gain what we needed.
The U.S. structure a deal with the Saudis to provide funding and personnel to work with the CIA to build a guerilla force to bog down the Soviets in Afghanistan. This was the beginning of an alliance between the U.S. and Muslim fundamentalists.
The third fractor was Pakistan, a long-term American ally. It was torn between the secularism of its founders and the radical Islam of the majority of its population. It was also afraid of being trapped between a Soviet dominated Afghanistan and a pro-Soviet India. Pakistan had a lot of intelligence on Afghanistan and a long contiguous border where training camps, logistic systems, and bases of operations could be set up. The North Vietnamese had Laos and Cambodia; the U.S. had Pakistan.
A three-way alliance was formed. The United States would provide training, coordination and strategic intelligence; the Saudis would provide the money and the guerillas; the Pakistanis would provide the territory and the intelligence needed.
Jimmy Carter was the one who presided over this alliance. Yet, his goal was not to destroy the Soviet Union but to find a balance while restoring America’s power in the world after its decline over the last decade. Carter had no idea that the war in Afghanistan would lead to the destruction of the Soviet Union and the rise of Al Qaeda. When Reagan took office in 1981, he intensified Carter’s alliance and wove it into a larger plan to destroy the Soviet Union and intensify America’s global power.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Al Qaeda was well-trained and well-equipped, possessing many Soviet and American weapons along with the expertise to use them. The Soviets were brutal in their attempts to squash the guerillas, killing many, so that those who lasted the decade-long war were well-trained, experienced, hardened and determined. These radical Islamic fighters saw the fall of the Soviet Union as a Muslim victory, as it was the first victory a Muslim army had achieved against a non-Muslim force in centuries. After the war, these Islamic fighters were irate at America because it threw them away without any hint of gratitude.
The United States saw the war in Afghanistan differently. The war in Afghanistan was only a part in a larger plan that brought the Soviet Union down. America felt it also played the major role, providing the support and training needed for victory. Without the U.S. backing, the guerillas would have been completely annihilated by the Soviets. Because the U.S. ignored their allies and expected them to maintain some kind of bond with us after the war, a rift was created between the Jihadists and America.
In the same way, the first Bush administration mistakenly believed that the Arab countries would be happy with America for helping them free Kuwait and a bond would be created between us and the Arab states. President Bush expected gratitude; he never expected rage. It is clear that the United States was ignorant of the Islamic world and made some serious blunders that caused so much anger and hatred that laid the foundation for Al Qaeda.
While Shiite Muslims are a minority in the whole Arab world, they are the majority in the Gulf region, especially in Iran. The Saudis, by contrast, are not only Sunni, but they are Wahabi, the most radical of the Sunnis. So the Saudis saw the Shiites of Iran not only as a threat to their religion but also a threat to their oil fields. The problem for Saudi Arabia was how to contain Iran and the Soviets at the same time, and the answer was Iraq. Both nations wanted to contain Iran and the Soviets, so America felt is was the best policy to back them as well. Unwittingly, however, the U.S. ended up supporting the most radical form of Islam as a negative unintended consequence. And this radical Wahabi Islam has proved to be even more dangerous to the United States than Shiite Iran.
In order to bog down Iran, the United States sent signals to Iraq that it wouldn’t oppose them if they decided to attack Iran. The resulting war tied up both countries for a decade, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars on both sides. The United States kept shifting its policy towards Iraq to keep it destabilized and to prolong the war. The United States knew that Iraq could not beat Iran, and the Saudis gladly backed the war in order to keep both armies bogged down for nearly ten years.
American foreign policy has chosen to make alliances of necessity with evil states in order to oppose even more evil states. The U.S. made alliances with Stalin and Mao in order to counter worse leaders. America also tends to create solutions that solve the short-term problem at the risk of creating greater problems down the road.
Saddam Hussein wanted to take over Iran and Kuwait in order to become the dominant power in the region. The U.S. quietly assured him, with deniability, that if he won the war we would allow him to have Kuwait as well. Then for the next ten years the U.S. kept shifting the balance of power to make sure Iraq never accomplished its goal and achieved its prize. After ten years, Iraq was less exhausted than Iran, and Saddam declared victory and demanded his prize. The American Ambassador, unaware of the intricacies and policy shifts, assured Saddam Hussein that while the U.S. was opposed to his taking Iraq, they would do nothing to stop him. As soon as Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. worked with the Saudis to launch Operation Desert Shield and then Desert Storm.
The soldiers returning to Saudi Arabia from Afghanistan were outraged by the presence of non-Muslim forces on holy soil. They believed that Muslim states were not naturally weak and could defend themselves if they were willing to sacrifice and persevere. But they also believed that the current Muslim leaders were corrupt and incapable of defending their countries. Therefore, they felt that America had to be humiliated in order to break the psychological dependency on the United States and to generate confidence among the Islamic masses.
These fighters knew America’s strengths, but they also knew its weaknesses. They knew how the American intelligence agencies worked and how they carried out covert operations. These returning fighters were not the poor and disposed, but many were from wealthy families, educated and some even had advanced degrees in secular fields. They also had financial backing from the Saudi royal family and other wealthy Saudis. The financial network that had supported the guerillas in Afghanistan had never been shut down and now it was being used to fund Al Qaeda long after America had lost interest in it.
They knew they needed to take a long time to prepare to strike hard at the United States in order to pull it into a full-scale war against the Islamic world. By doing this they hoped to discredit secular Islamic states in the region and to sap American strength. Through a series of increasing attacks on American targets, the Embassies in Africa, the barracks in Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, they hoped to illicit a hard response from America. Bill Clinton, however, didn’t want to seem impotent and make Al Qaeda look powerful, nor did he want to be drawn into a full-scale war, so he chose to respond in a half-hearted way.
The first mistake America made was to pull the plug on the resistance fighters in Afghanistan and not give them back their papers so they could return home. This was not solely America’s fault, since most of the governments didn’t want these fighters to come back and cause trouble at home. Stranded in a strange land, scarred by war, this band of about 1,000 soldiers united and became a fierce fighting force in the battles for supremacy after the war with the Soviets was won. Most ended up going back home, but the bond between them was strong. Being abandoned by the U.S. and rejected by their home governments was not only seen as a personal affront but as endemic of the malaise that shrouded all the Islamic governments in the Middle East. They viewed the outside threats to Islam, America and the Soviet Union, as manageable and insignificant compared to the inner threats of corrupt Islamic governments.
The first major incident leading up to the current situation goes way back to the Crusades and the loss of the Caliphate. At the height of its power, the Muslim Empire was actually larger than the Roman Empire. The goal of Al Qaeda was to take over one Islamic state in order to set an example and to establish a base of operations. Afghanistan became that base, with the Taliban running the internal affairs and Al Qaeda operating around the world. Al Qaeda hoped to sweep the Muslim world and establish fundamentalist governments throughout the Middle East, unifying the Islamic world and reestablishing the Caliphate.
The key element in their strategy was to show that America is weak and vulnerable in order to break the illusion of the super power’s dominance and remove the Muslim world’s fear and subservience. They felt that the United States lacked to power and moral character to assert its will in the long run. Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, Beirut, Somalia, and failure to depose Saddam Hussein all seemed to demonstrate the fact that America could strike a hard first blow but could not sustain a prolonged conflict.
Al Qaede realized that it had to strike a blow to the United States that was enormous and for which there was no easy defense, in order to send a clear message to the Islamic masses. The plan was to draw the United States into a prolonged conflict with multiple Islamic states to solidify the Islamic world and to drain the U.S. military dry.
In a society with many unguarded targets, a small group with explosives is very difficult to stop. The fewer the operatives, the more difficult it is to find them. The nearly infinite number of targets and the sparsity of operatives is what makes defending against terrorism a nightmare. The physical damage caused by terrorists is minimal while the psychological damage is extraordinary, making it a powerful political tool.
Al Qaeda’s strategy and ideology were different, and it wasn’t trying to send a message to the United States but to the Islamic world. They saw the United States as an actor that could be manipulated into behaving as they wanted it to behave.
After the end of the Cold War, America didn’t have a major enemy that could threaten its security. Attention was focused on rogue states, such as North Korea, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran and Cuba, and these were not allied together against the United States. The major threat was threat was that they might develop nuclear weapons. The secondary threat was that they might invade their neighbors. The third level of threat was that they might violate the human rights of their own citizens. All of these were considered containable and manageable through international organizations, such as the United Nations.
The way the United States responded to the small crises throughout the world was triggering unexpected responses in the Islamic world. While the United States saw itself as neutral, impartial and doing good, the Islamic world saw America encroaching on Islamic territory and siding with those who were against Muslims. The intervention by the United States in Kosovo and Somalia, for example, were considered by the Muslim world as struggles between America and Muslims. The United States failed to realize that there was no such thing as a neutral intervention. The United States also saw the fact that these nations were Islamic as incidental while the rest of the Muslim world saw it as fundamental. Al Qaeda used these incidents to mobilize support against Americal Confusion was also created when the United States declined to get involved in other conflicts, making it seem as if America had no coherent foreign policy in place.
The United States also wrongly assumed that nations would be willing to trade a little bit of their sovereignty in order to have stability and security. This was true for many countries, but it infuriated the Muslim nations. The great powers in Europe were also uneasy about America’s growing power and unpredictability, and many were hoping, and even helping, that America would trip and fall, in order to limit America’s power and make us easier to predict and control. After the Cold War ended, America saw the global economy as the most important issue and assumed everyone else did too. However, most nations, especially Islamic countries, viewed national autonomy as more important than prosperity and security. The United States thought that all countries would welcome transnational prosperity, but some Islamic countries were ready to resist, even to the death.
When Al Qaeda started its global terrorism operation, most analysts either ignored it or misunderstood it. They viewed Al Qaeda like any other Palestinian terrorist organization, with limited political goals and operations. The term “terrorist” tended to obscure the issue, since there are vast differences between different organizations as to their ideology and strategy. They didn’t understand how different Al Qaeda was from any other terrorist organization. Al Qaeda wasn’t interested in symbolic gestures and affecting local politics but had a much more complex ideology that drove its global strategy to implement their international political goals. While most other terrorist organizations were based on Arab ethnicity and were trained by the Soviets to further local political agendas, Al Qaeda was based on Islam and they had a global religious agenda that was based on centuries of Islamic history and tradition. By merely focusing on its attacks and not its ideology, the United States totally misunderstood what Al Qaeda was about.
While the United States didn’t create Al Qaeda, we created the atmosphere and climate for it to grow and flourish. When Bill Clinton responded in a half-hearted manner to the embassy bombings and the attack on the Cole, he unwittingly empowered and emboldened Al Qaeda.
This is a summary of the first few chapters of the book which I found extremely helpful in understanding these events. Friedman goes on to dissect the problems with the American intelligence system and why it missed 9/11. He then goes on to explain how America’s military had been stripped down after the Cold War and was totally unprepared for a major military conflict on the scale that was needed to confront Al Qaeda. Friedman’s detailed analysis of what was involved in the September 11 attacks is impressive and chilling, clearly showing that Al Qaeda is highly trained, extremely disciplined and very determined to destroy the United States. He then shows how it is impossible to defend against such attacks and explains why most of what is being done in response to 9/11 is worthless.
I thought Friedman’s detailed account of how the United States prepared for and implemented a major military offensive against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in less than a month was amazing. While Al Qaeda knew we would attack, they expected a massive assault in the following spring, but Operation Enduring Freedom was totally unconventional and unexpected, catching Al Qaeda by surprise. He goes on to describe how America fought the war, the alliances that had to be made with former, and current, enemies, and the problems of working with nationalistic forces within Afghanistan.
The book goes on to cover the war in Iraq up to the end of July, 2004. Friedman concludes that the United States is winning the war. Al Qaeda has failed to achieve any of its strategic goals. There has been no uprising in the Islamic world, no regimes toppled. In fact, most Islamic governments have increased their cooperation with the United States. Al Qaeda has been backed against a wall. The game is far from over, but the U.S. certainly has the lead -- in spite of an extraordinary array of blunders, some inexplicable.
You can read chapter summaries and learn more about the book at: http://www.americassecretwar.com/index.html
Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Friday, March 9, 2007
Preachers of Hate
Kenneth Timmerman is a journalist who has spent most of his life covering the news in the Middle East. In Preachers of Hate he traces the roots of anti-Semitism and how it is growing around the world, especially in the Middle East. He covers much of the same ground as other books I have read recently, but he uses a lot of primary source materials, interviews, and quotes to illustrate first-hand the hatred and racism of leaders and major figures not only in the Middle East but around the world.
One of the main sources of modern anti-Semitism is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fictional document published by the secret police in Russia around 1890 to 1900 to stir up hatred toward the Jews. The book pretends to be the minutes of secret meetings by Jewish leaders where they plot to take over the world. This document has been published in many languages and spread around the world. Even today, the lie that there is a worldwide conspiracy of Jews to take over the world is rampant in many countries.
Every fanatical Islamic radical is familiar with this document and they believe it is true. Islamic religious leaders use this work to indoctrinate young men and stir up in them a hatred for the Jews. Millions of copies are available in Arabic in every Arabic language bookstore around the world. It is one of the primary texts used to stir up animosity towards Israel and all Jews living around the world.
Another interesting fact is the alliance between Hitler and radical Islamists before and during World War II. Because of their mutual hatred of the Jews, an agreement was made to work together to eradicate the Jews from the earth. Prominent Nazi leaders had high level meetings with Arab leaders in order to facilitate the murder of millions of Jews not only in Europe, but throughout the Middle East during the war.
I also found the story behind how Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace prize in 1994. The prize was shared with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in order to quell public outrage. How any of these men could be considered candidates for a peace prize is beyond belief, especially Arafat. Yasser Arafat was adept at manipulating public opinion, mainly by promoting peace in English to the Western press and then turning around in Arabic and promoting the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. If his statements in English were taken at face value without any consideration of his actions or true beliefs, it might be possible for him to be seen as a peacemaker. However, his actions and undeniable public statements leave no doubt that he had no intention of making peace with Israel. Instead, he worked tirelessly for Israel’s destruction and would settle for nothing less than complete annihilation of the Jews.
Here are some quotes from the book that clearly illustrate this point.
Here is a quote that clearly shows the message Arafat publicly declared he wanted to send to Palestinian children:
In an interview with Arafat broadcast on TV he was asked what message he wanted to share with the Palestinian children he quickly replied, “A Child who is grasping a stone, facing a tank, is it not the greatest message to the world when that child becomes a martyr. We are proud of him. Such a child will be given a new life.”
In addition to this, children are taught how to achieve martyrdom. One of the main roles of religious clerics is to educate young children in the art of suicide bombing. In Palestine, religious leaders are not men called by God but appointed by Arafat. They have no interest in religious education unless it is useful for stirring up hatred for the Jews. They are commanded to preach Jihad against Israel or be damned as the very word of God. This is a direct call to murder Jews for no other reason than hate. Killing Jews is not a political need but a religious requirement, and it is not an order from Arafat but the word of God Himself.
This is the message that has been pounded into them at the mosques week after week, year after year; if they want to be good Muslims they have to kill Jews. This is an important lesson we in the west have to heed. The enmity being preached against America and the West has nothing to do with politics or support for Israel but the simple fact that we are not Muslims.
Arafat’s top appointed cleric in Gaza preached: “The Jews are the allies of the Americans and the Americans are the allies of the Jews, and they are against you, Oh Muslims. Wherever you are, kill the Jews and those Americans who are like them and those who stand by them. They are all in one trench against the Arabs and the Muslims.
At the end of a video for children urging them to become martyrs, the official seal of the Palestinian Authority comes on at the end with a written message in Arabic and English: “Ask for death; the life will be given to you.”
Timmerman points out that not even Hitler’s youth were urged to commit suicide; they were taught to kill, not be killed. This is the ultimate in child abuse. That young children are being indoctrinated to hate Israel and the West and commit suicide in order to murder them still hasn’t been fully understood by the West.
Another important distinction to be made is that the present political conflict in Israel today is not the cause of the hatred of the Jews. Rather, it is the hatred of the Jews that is causing all the violence in the Middle East. It is not a matter of Israel’s political policies or defensive measures. No matter what Israel does, the only solution for the radical Muslim extremists is the total annihilation of Israel and the death of all Jews.
What Arafat and other Muslim leaders have done is take a minor border conflict in Palestine and have transformed it into a global conflict between Islam and non-Muslims, an eternal battle between Good and Evil. The Muslims have taken the position of no peace, no accommodation, no compromise, no coexistence. Muslims are being taught that the conflict between Muslims and Jews is total and eternal, and it will end only when the Muslims have murdered the last Jew hiding behind a tree or a stone.
Timmerman also gives some important information on Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Saudi support of global terrorism through the takeover of mosques around the world by radical Wahhabi teachers.
Osama bin Laden boasted about his terrorist training camps, saying that “the only expense for a new trainee is the cost of travel to the camp. Everything else is paid for by Al Qaeda. We are building an international army, Mohammed’s army, to combat occupying governments. There are 26 million Muslims in Europe, and in the United Kingdom we have over 385 Islamic fundamentalist organizations, 1,200 mosques, and 800 fundraising organizations. We form a fifth column and we will create chaos. We won’t stop until we see the Muslim flag flying over Number 10 Downing Street.”
According to CIA former head George Tenet, “Al Qaeda’s terrorist network is present in over 60 countries. An estimated 20,000 men have received military and intelligence training in their camps before returning to their home countries. They form the backbone of a deadly worldwide Jihad.”
One of the main sources of modern anti-Semitism is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fictional document published by the secret police in Russia around 1890 to 1900 to stir up hatred toward the Jews. The book pretends to be the minutes of secret meetings by Jewish leaders where they plot to take over the world. This document has been published in many languages and spread around the world. Even today, the lie that there is a worldwide conspiracy of Jews to take over the world is rampant in many countries.
Every fanatical Islamic radical is familiar with this document and they believe it is true. Islamic religious leaders use this work to indoctrinate young men and stir up in them a hatred for the Jews. Millions of copies are available in Arabic in every Arabic language bookstore around the world. It is one of the primary texts used to stir up animosity towards Israel and all Jews living around the world.
Another interesting fact is the alliance between Hitler and radical Islamists before and during World War II. Because of their mutual hatred of the Jews, an agreement was made to work together to eradicate the Jews from the earth. Prominent Nazi leaders had high level meetings with Arab leaders in order to facilitate the murder of millions of Jews not only in Europe, but throughout the Middle East during the war.
I also found the story behind how Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace prize in 1994. The prize was shared with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in order to quell public outrage. How any of these men could be considered candidates for a peace prize is beyond belief, especially Arafat. Yasser Arafat was adept at manipulating public opinion, mainly by promoting peace in English to the Western press and then turning around in Arabic and promoting the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. If his statements in English were taken at face value without any consideration of his actions or true beliefs, it might be possible for him to be seen as a peacemaker. However, his actions and undeniable public statements leave no doubt that he had no intention of making peace with Israel. Instead, he worked tirelessly for Israel’s destruction and would settle for nothing less than complete annihilation of the Jews.
Here are some quotes from the book that clearly illustrate this point.
Here is a quote that clearly shows the message Arafat publicly declared he wanted to send to Palestinian children:
In an interview with Arafat broadcast on TV he was asked what message he wanted to share with the Palestinian children he quickly replied, “A Child who is grasping a stone, facing a tank, is it not the greatest message to the world when that child becomes a martyr. We are proud of him. Such a child will be given a new life.”
In addition to this, children are taught how to achieve martyrdom. One of the main roles of religious clerics is to educate young children in the art of suicide bombing. In Palestine, religious leaders are not men called by God but appointed by Arafat. They have no interest in religious education unless it is useful for stirring up hatred for the Jews. They are commanded to preach Jihad against Israel or be damned as the very word of God. This is a direct call to murder Jews for no other reason than hate. Killing Jews is not a political need but a religious requirement, and it is not an order from Arafat but the word of God Himself.
This is the message that has been pounded into them at the mosques week after week, year after year; if they want to be good Muslims they have to kill Jews. This is an important lesson we in the west have to heed. The enmity being preached against America and the West has nothing to do with politics or support for Israel but the simple fact that we are not Muslims.
Arafat’s top appointed cleric in Gaza preached: “The Jews are the allies of the Americans and the Americans are the allies of the Jews, and they are against you, Oh Muslims. Wherever you are, kill the Jews and those Americans who are like them and those who stand by them. They are all in one trench against the Arabs and the Muslims.
At the end of a video for children urging them to become martyrs, the official seal of the Palestinian Authority comes on at the end with a written message in Arabic and English: “Ask for death; the life will be given to you.”
Timmerman points out that not even Hitler’s youth were urged to commit suicide; they were taught to kill, not be killed. This is the ultimate in child abuse. That young children are being indoctrinated to hate Israel and the West and commit suicide in order to murder them still hasn’t been fully understood by the West.
Another important distinction to be made is that the present political conflict in Israel today is not the cause of the hatred of the Jews. Rather, it is the hatred of the Jews that is causing all the violence in the Middle East. It is not a matter of Israel’s political policies or defensive measures. No matter what Israel does, the only solution for the radical Muslim extremists is the total annihilation of Israel and the death of all Jews.
What Arafat and other Muslim leaders have done is take a minor border conflict in Palestine and have transformed it into a global conflict between Islam and non-Muslims, an eternal battle between Good and Evil. The Muslims have taken the position of no peace, no accommodation, no compromise, no coexistence. Muslims are being taught that the conflict between Muslims and Jews is total and eternal, and it will end only when the Muslims have murdered the last Jew hiding behind a tree or a stone.
Timmerman also gives some important information on Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Saudi support of global terrorism through the takeover of mosques around the world by radical Wahhabi teachers.
Osama bin Laden boasted about his terrorist training camps, saying that “the only expense for a new trainee is the cost of travel to the camp. Everything else is paid for by Al Qaeda. We are building an international army, Mohammed’s army, to combat occupying governments. There are 26 million Muslims in Europe, and in the United Kingdom we have over 385 Islamic fundamentalist organizations, 1,200 mosques, and 800 fundraising organizations. We form a fifth column and we will create chaos. We won’t stop until we see the Muslim flag flying over Number 10 Downing Street.”
According to CIA former head George Tenet, “Al Qaeda’s terrorist network is present in over 60 countries. An estimated 20,000 men have received military and intelligence training in their camps before returning to their home countries. They form the backbone of a deadly worldwide Jihad.”
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Hatred’s Kingdom
Written by Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.
Wahhabism has been the major influence on global terrorism. It started in Saudi Arabia in the mid 1700’s and evolved into the leading religious influence in the Kingdom. It struck a deal with the Saud family, and they government and the clerics have had a symbiotic relationship ever since. Wahhabi schools and mosques are funded by the government and their teachings are authorized by ruling family. The government of Saudi Arabia sends and supports Wahhabi teachers throughout the world, including in the US. In the 1980’s Wahhabism became even more radical and began teaching that Christians are polytheists, therefore must be killed. Clerics preach that Muslims must destroy the idols of the West: Capitalism, Freedom, Secularism, Crusaderism. They even changed their doctrine to teach that the women and children of polytheists must be killed. This teaching is the religious foundation for Osama bin Laden and his global terrorism crusade.
Osama bin Laden was raised in Saudi schools filled with anti-American hatred and went to a Saudi university run by Wahhabis. He was personally trained by a leading Wahhabi teacher. Bin Laden spoke in support of Wahhabi teachings and clearly indicated that he was religiously motivated to attack the West, especially America. He was also funded by Saudi Arabi through charities. When he went to Afghanistan h took over the resistance to USSR. After the war, Afghanistan became his base for Al Queda.
Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia was the major supporter of the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were also supported by the Saudi government. The Taliban was radically transformed by Wahhabi doctrine after bin Laden took over. Before the 1980’s the Taliban was a moderate Islamic government but it was transformed into one of the most extreme and repressive governments within a decade by bin Laden.
Saudi Arabia is the most rigid fundamentalist Islamic nation in the world. Wahhabi clerics constantly preach hatred of any US presence, corporate and military, on Saudi soil. They want to cleanse holy nation of all corruption and corrupting influences, and view terrorism as a legitimate means to accomplish this end. These extremists want to spread this cleansing to other secular Islamic nations. They hate secular Islamic states, such as Jordan, because they see this as a corruption of Islam. And through terrorism, they want to spread this cleansing to the whole world
Many Russian states were influenced by Wahhabi teaching. There are 20 million Muslims in Russia. 21 of Russia’s states have a majority Muslim population. One of Russia’s most difficult problems is dealing with extremist Islamic groups within these states and Russia itself. Saudi clerics praised both Hamas bombings and Chechnya bombings by Islamic radicals. The destruction of the Soviet Union was a primary goal of Saudi clerics.
Many Saudi fighters in Afghanistan went to Bosnia to fight the Serbs, taking their Wahhabi teachings with them. These Saudi fighters were brutal, more inhumane than the Bosnian Muslims, beheading Serbs and dismembering them. They also brought their Wahhabi teaching to Pakistan. Saudi Arabia raised $100 million dollars to support Islamic fundamentalist fighters in Bosnia. The Wahhabi Saudi Muslims sought to cleanse Bosnian Muslims and turn them into fanatics like themselves.
Since 1960 Wahhabi Islam has been taught in the US. Half of the mosques in the US were built by Saudi money. Al Qaeda recruited through these US mosques. Terrorism, martyrdom, and hatred for the West, Christians, and Jews is taught in these US mosques. Radical Islam in South East Asia has also been supported by Saudi Arabia in the same way.
Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars to Iraq to support its war against Iran. Saudi Arabia was more afraid of Iran than Iraq, though both posed a great threat to its security. Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 it was clear that Iraq was going to invade Saudi Arabia next. Yet, in the 1980’s revolutionary Iran was a greater threat to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia agreed to US troops on its soil in order to protect it from Iraq. The first Gulf War was fought not only to free Kuwait but to protect Saudi Arabia. Yet most Saudis were angry that US troops were allowed on its holy soil. The government had to face a huge political and religious backlash even after the majority of the US troops left. The fact that some US troops were left in Saudi Arabia caused tremendous turmoil in the nation. Many Islamic clerics claimed that the real threat to Saudi Arabia was the US, not Iraq. The US Air Force used Saudi air bases to patrol the no-fly zones in Iraq which had been set up to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. When President Clinton asked for permission to base more troops in Saudi Arabia, he was firmly denied. The religious and political climate had changed since the first Gulf War so much that it was impossible for the Saudi government to allow more US troops on its soil. At this time there was a great outcry to drive the US out of the Gulf region, especially Saudi Arabia.
It was in this climate that Osama bin Laden became increasingly irate over the US presence in Saudi Arabia. He had even offered the use of his Afghan rebels to protect the Kingdom in place of the US military before the first Gulf War. During the 1990’s bin Laden formed an alliance with the leader of Hezbollah, which was responsible for the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Bin Laden moved to Sudan and began his anti-American operations. In 1993 he took his terrorism to the West by bombing the World Trade Center. Because he spoke out harshly against the Saudi government and its compromises with the West, his Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1994. He decried the governments poor defense strategy, its wasting of oil revenue and the use of foreign troops to protect the Kingdom. In 1995 he planned the bombing of the Saudi National Guard barracks, killing 7 Americans.
Bin Laden’s concern was not with Israel per se, but only with the fact that the West backed Israel. His primary concern was the presence of US troops on Saudi soil. The Islamic extremists claimed to have been responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union through their victory in Afghanistan and warned that the United States was next.
In 1996, bin Laden bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans, 1 Saudi, and wounding 372 others. The Saudi government blocked the FBI from conduction a thorough investigation because they were afraid they would discover evidence linking leading governmet and royal family members to terrorist organizations within Saudi Arabia. Saudi Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing, and many of its members were Saudi citizens supported by the government.
In 1999 bin Laden made his declaration of war against the West. In addition, he ceased all terrorist activity within Saudi Arabia after making a deal with the government. He also called on all Muslims to stop fighting each other and unite against the West. He then took his terrorist campaign to Africa, Yemen, and then to the US.
In 1995 the Saudi government began to make regular payments to Osama bin Laden. Two Saudi princes also began to support him regularly. The Saudi government clearly supported terrorism, and made a deal with bin Laden to keep his attacks outside of the Kingdom, even if it meant attacking the US directly. In 1998 bin Laden bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, using Saudi citizens to carry out the attacks. On October 12, 2000 the attack on the USS Cole, killing 17 US sailors and wounding hundreds of others, was carried out by Saudi citizens using a rubber boat owned by a prominent Saudi businessman. A wealthy Saudi merchant family gave the financial support for the bombing.
Before the second Gulf War, Al Qaeda had a formidable presence in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden used Saudi Arabia as a base to launch terrorist attacks with full knowledge of the government. 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks were Saudi citizens. Most of them had never fought in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but were trained in Saudi Arabia.
There was a distinctive shift in Wahhabi teaching starting in the 1980’s. Saudi Clerics began teaching and preaching that Americans, Christians and Jews should be killed and wiped off the face of the earth. This was also taught in the schools and universities. Saudi textbooks for grade school and high school students were filled with hate-filled invective against the West. For twenty years a whole generation was brainwashed with hatred and murder. In this atmosphere of hate it was easy to recruit young men to become terrorists and suicide bombers.
In the 1980’s Saudi Arabia became a haven for radical extremists who had been kicked out of their own countries. These radical Islamists became teachers in Saudi schools and universities. The Muslim Brotherhood was supported by the Saudi government and when its members fled Egypt, Saudi Arabia welcomed them with open arms. Along with Saudi Wahhabi clerics, these extremists formed the backbone of all Saudi education. Every child educated in Saudi Arabia was force-fed radical Islam, hatred for the West, and the necessity of Jihad against America.
Saudi Arabia publicly spoke out against terrorism, yet they poured billions of dollars into these schools and terrorist organizations. Immediately after 9/11 the Saudi government flatly denied that any Saudi citizens had been involved in the attacks. It wasn’t until the evidence was undeniable that they changed their position to saying that the attackers were fringe elements. While telling the world that they regretted the attacks on the US, internally they praised the attacks and called for more. In fact, it took the Saudi two weeks before severing ties with the Taliban and two months before moving to freeze bin Laden’s assets.
After the 9/11 attacks, Saudi Arabia spent tens of millions of dollars on an extensive public relations campaign in the US to convince Americans that Saudi Arabia was a friend of the US. But at the same time, internally they were praising the attacks and even supporting the Palestinian Intifada. The Saudi government gave money to the families of the suicide bombers in Israel, giving more incentive for young Palestinians to blow themselves up. In a poll taken of Saudi men between 25 and 41, 97% supported Osama bin Laden and his cause. After 9/11 the political and religious situation in Saudi Arabia has not changed. The Saudi government has been working hard to convince the world that it stands for peace while at the same time funding terrorism all around the world.
Much of the support for terrorist groups comes from Islamic charities. While these charities do some humanitarian good, most of the money is funneled to extremist groups. The heads of these charities are Saudi government officials and royal family members. Several are official branches of the Saudi government. Any claim of the Saudi government that they don’t know where the money is going is clearly false. In fact, documents seized in raids on terrorist organizations have produced spreadsheets with Saudi government logos clearly listing all the funding given to terrorists, families of suicide bombers, and weapons and bomb materials.
Saudi Arabia talked about peace in Palestine while supporting suicide bombers. Now they are talking about peace around the world while still supporting global terrorist organizations. Saudi schools and mosques around the world still preach hatred and murder, and these schools and mosques are built and supported by Saudi government funds. It will take more than a war in Afghanistan and Iraq to bring an end to global terrorism. These are merely the outward manifestations of an internal problem. Until the culture of hatred is changed and the teaching of murder is stopped, global terrorism will be a problem. Terrorism is no longer local in scope and limited in its focus, but it has become international in its scope and catastrophic in its effects. It no longer is used to achieve limited political objectives but is bent on total destruction of its opponents. The terrorists will not rest until the West is destroyed, Israel wiped off the map and Christians either subjected to radical Islam or killed. America’s war on terror has overlooked the source of terrorism, the ideology and religious ideas that drive terrorism. It is deeply ingrained hatred that motivates terrorism, not economic or political injustices. The problem is not Islam but Saudi Arabian Wahhabi Islam. Without the support of the Saudi government and the funds generated by oil revenue, Wahhabism would have remained a small lunatic fringe group. Wahhabism developed an anti-Western hatred system and the Saudi government provided the vehicle to deliver that hatred to the rest of the world. The key is to stop the state funding of terrorism and get governments to bring an end to hate-filled teaching through international agreements.
Other books I have read that give additional information and different perspectives on this issue are:
Sleeping with the Devil, by Robert Baer, former senior CIA operative in the Middle East.
Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror, by Richard Minitar.
Inside the Kingdom, by Carmen bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s sister-in-law, gives a personal description of what living under the oppressive Saudi regime is like, as well as the inside story of Osama bin Laden’s rise to power.
Terrorist, by John Updike, is a fascinating novel by a great author, giving the personal story of a young Muslim man growing up in America and his pursuit of radical Islam.
My FBI, by Louis J. Freeh, former head of the FBI, has a great personal description of how the FBI had to fight with the Saudi government to investigate the Khobar tower bombing.
Wahhabism has been the major influence on global terrorism. It started in Saudi Arabia in the mid 1700’s and evolved into the leading religious influence in the Kingdom. It struck a deal with the Saud family, and they government and the clerics have had a symbiotic relationship ever since. Wahhabi schools and mosques are funded by the government and their teachings are authorized by ruling family. The government of Saudi Arabia sends and supports Wahhabi teachers throughout the world, including in the US. In the 1980’s Wahhabism became even more radical and began teaching that Christians are polytheists, therefore must be killed. Clerics preach that Muslims must destroy the idols of the West: Capitalism, Freedom, Secularism, Crusaderism. They even changed their doctrine to teach that the women and children of polytheists must be killed. This teaching is the religious foundation for Osama bin Laden and his global terrorism crusade.
Osama bin Laden was raised in Saudi schools filled with anti-American hatred and went to a Saudi university run by Wahhabis. He was personally trained by a leading Wahhabi teacher. Bin Laden spoke in support of Wahhabi teachings and clearly indicated that he was religiously motivated to attack the West, especially America. He was also funded by Saudi Arabi through charities. When he went to Afghanistan h took over the resistance to USSR. After the war, Afghanistan became his base for Al Queda.
Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia was the major supporter of the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were also supported by the Saudi government. The Taliban was radically transformed by Wahhabi doctrine after bin Laden took over. Before the 1980’s the Taliban was a moderate Islamic government but it was transformed into one of the most extreme and repressive governments within a decade by bin Laden.
Saudi Arabia is the most rigid fundamentalist Islamic nation in the world. Wahhabi clerics constantly preach hatred of any US presence, corporate and military, on Saudi soil. They want to cleanse holy nation of all corruption and corrupting influences, and view terrorism as a legitimate means to accomplish this end. These extremists want to spread this cleansing to other secular Islamic nations. They hate secular Islamic states, such as Jordan, because they see this as a corruption of Islam. And through terrorism, they want to spread this cleansing to the whole world
Many Russian states were influenced by Wahhabi teaching. There are 20 million Muslims in Russia. 21 of Russia’s states have a majority Muslim population. One of Russia’s most difficult problems is dealing with extremist Islamic groups within these states and Russia itself. Saudi clerics praised both Hamas bombings and Chechnya bombings by Islamic radicals. The destruction of the Soviet Union was a primary goal of Saudi clerics.
Many Saudi fighters in Afghanistan went to Bosnia to fight the Serbs, taking their Wahhabi teachings with them. These Saudi fighters were brutal, more inhumane than the Bosnian Muslims, beheading Serbs and dismembering them. They also brought their Wahhabi teaching to Pakistan. Saudi Arabia raised $100 million dollars to support Islamic fundamentalist fighters in Bosnia. The Wahhabi Saudi Muslims sought to cleanse Bosnian Muslims and turn them into fanatics like themselves.
Since 1960 Wahhabi Islam has been taught in the US. Half of the mosques in the US were built by Saudi money. Al Qaeda recruited through these US mosques. Terrorism, martyrdom, and hatred for the West, Christians, and Jews is taught in these US mosques. Radical Islam in South East Asia has also been supported by Saudi Arabia in the same way.
Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars to Iraq to support its war against Iran. Saudi Arabia was more afraid of Iran than Iraq, though both posed a great threat to its security. Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 it was clear that Iraq was going to invade Saudi Arabia next. Yet, in the 1980’s revolutionary Iran was a greater threat to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia agreed to US troops on its soil in order to protect it from Iraq. The first Gulf War was fought not only to free Kuwait but to protect Saudi Arabia. Yet most Saudis were angry that US troops were allowed on its holy soil. The government had to face a huge political and religious backlash even after the majority of the US troops left. The fact that some US troops were left in Saudi Arabia caused tremendous turmoil in the nation. Many Islamic clerics claimed that the real threat to Saudi Arabia was the US, not Iraq. The US Air Force used Saudi air bases to patrol the no-fly zones in Iraq which had been set up to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. When President Clinton asked for permission to base more troops in Saudi Arabia, he was firmly denied. The religious and political climate had changed since the first Gulf War so much that it was impossible for the Saudi government to allow more US troops on its soil. At this time there was a great outcry to drive the US out of the Gulf region, especially Saudi Arabia.
It was in this climate that Osama bin Laden became increasingly irate over the US presence in Saudi Arabia. He had even offered the use of his Afghan rebels to protect the Kingdom in place of the US military before the first Gulf War. During the 1990’s bin Laden formed an alliance with the leader of Hezbollah, which was responsible for the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Bin Laden moved to Sudan and began his anti-American operations. In 1993 he took his terrorism to the West by bombing the World Trade Center. Because he spoke out harshly against the Saudi government and its compromises with the West, his Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1994. He decried the governments poor defense strategy, its wasting of oil revenue and the use of foreign troops to protect the Kingdom. In 1995 he planned the bombing of the Saudi National Guard barracks, killing 7 Americans.
Bin Laden’s concern was not with Israel per se, but only with the fact that the West backed Israel. His primary concern was the presence of US troops on Saudi soil. The Islamic extremists claimed to have been responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union through their victory in Afghanistan and warned that the United States was next.
In 1996, bin Laden bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans, 1 Saudi, and wounding 372 others. The Saudi government blocked the FBI from conduction a thorough investigation because they were afraid they would discover evidence linking leading governmet and royal family members to terrorist organizations within Saudi Arabia. Saudi Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing, and many of its members were Saudi citizens supported by the government.
In 1999 bin Laden made his declaration of war against the West. In addition, he ceased all terrorist activity within Saudi Arabia after making a deal with the government. He also called on all Muslims to stop fighting each other and unite against the West. He then took his terrorist campaign to Africa, Yemen, and then to the US.
In 1995 the Saudi government began to make regular payments to Osama bin Laden. Two Saudi princes also began to support him regularly. The Saudi government clearly supported terrorism, and made a deal with bin Laden to keep his attacks outside of the Kingdom, even if it meant attacking the US directly. In 1998 bin Laden bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, using Saudi citizens to carry out the attacks. On October 12, 2000 the attack on the USS Cole, killing 17 US sailors and wounding hundreds of others, was carried out by Saudi citizens using a rubber boat owned by a prominent Saudi businessman. A wealthy Saudi merchant family gave the financial support for the bombing.
Before the second Gulf War, Al Qaeda had a formidable presence in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden used Saudi Arabia as a base to launch terrorist attacks with full knowledge of the government. 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks were Saudi citizens. Most of them had never fought in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but were trained in Saudi Arabia.
There was a distinctive shift in Wahhabi teaching starting in the 1980’s. Saudi Clerics began teaching and preaching that Americans, Christians and Jews should be killed and wiped off the face of the earth. This was also taught in the schools and universities. Saudi textbooks for grade school and high school students were filled with hate-filled invective against the West. For twenty years a whole generation was brainwashed with hatred and murder. In this atmosphere of hate it was easy to recruit young men to become terrorists and suicide bombers.
In the 1980’s Saudi Arabia became a haven for radical extremists who had been kicked out of their own countries. These radical Islamists became teachers in Saudi schools and universities. The Muslim Brotherhood was supported by the Saudi government and when its members fled Egypt, Saudi Arabia welcomed them with open arms. Along with Saudi Wahhabi clerics, these extremists formed the backbone of all Saudi education. Every child educated in Saudi Arabia was force-fed radical Islam, hatred for the West, and the necessity of Jihad against America.
Saudi Arabia publicly spoke out against terrorism, yet they poured billions of dollars into these schools and terrorist organizations. Immediately after 9/11 the Saudi government flatly denied that any Saudi citizens had been involved in the attacks. It wasn’t until the evidence was undeniable that they changed their position to saying that the attackers were fringe elements. While telling the world that they regretted the attacks on the US, internally they praised the attacks and called for more. In fact, it took the Saudi two weeks before severing ties with the Taliban and two months before moving to freeze bin Laden’s assets.
After the 9/11 attacks, Saudi Arabia spent tens of millions of dollars on an extensive public relations campaign in the US to convince Americans that Saudi Arabia was a friend of the US. But at the same time, internally they were praising the attacks and even supporting the Palestinian Intifada. The Saudi government gave money to the families of the suicide bombers in Israel, giving more incentive for young Palestinians to blow themselves up. In a poll taken of Saudi men between 25 and 41, 97% supported Osama bin Laden and his cause. After 9/11 the political and religious situation in Saudi Arabia has not changed. The Saudi government has been working hard to convince the world that it stands for peace while at the same time funding terrorism all around the world.
Much of the support for terrorist groups comes from Islamic charities. While these charities do some humanitarian good, most of the money is funneled to extremist groups. The heads of these charities are Saudi government officials and royal family members. Several are official branches of the Saudi government. Any claim of the Saudi government that they don’t know where the money is going is clearly false. In fact, documents seized in raids on terrorist organizations have produced spreadsheets with Saudi government logos clearly listing all the funding given to terrorists, families of suicide bombers, and weapons and bomb materials.
Saudi Arabia talked about peace in Palestine while supporting suicide bombers. Now they are talking about peace around the world while still supporting global terrorist organizations. Saudi schools and mosques around the world still preach hatred and murder, and these schools and mosques are built and supported by Saudi government funds. It will take more than a war in Afghanistan and Iraq to bring an end to global terrorism. These are merely the outward manifestations of an internal problem. Until the culture of hatred is changed and the teaching of murder is stopped, global terrorism will be a problem. Terrorism is no longer local in scope and limited in its focus, but it has become international in its scope and catastrophic in its effects. It no longer is used to achieve limited political objectives but is bent on total destruction of its opponents. The terrorists will not rest until the West is destroyed, Israel wiped off the map and Christians either subjected to radical Islam or killed. America’s war on terror has overlooked the source of terrorism, the ideology and religious ideas that drive terrorism. It is deeply ingrained hatred that motivates terrorism, not economic or political injustices. The problem is not Islam but Saudi Arabian Wahhabi Islam. Without the support of the Saudi government and the funds generated by oil revenue, Wahhabism would have remained a small lunatic fringe group. Wahhabism developed an anti-Western hatred system and the Saudi government provided the vehicle to deliver that hatred to the rest of the world. The key is to stop the state funding of terrorism and get governments to bring an end to hate-filled teaching through international agreements.
Other books I have read that give additional information and different perspectives on this issue are:
Sleeping with the Devil, by Robert Baer, former senior CIA operative in the Middle East.
Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror, by Richard Minitar.
Inside the Kingdom, by Carmen bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s sister-in-law, gives a personal description of what living under the oppressive Saudi regime is like, as well as the inside story of Osama bin Laden’s rise to power.
Terrorist, by John Updike, is a fascinating novel by a great author, giving the personal story of a young Muslim man growing up in America and his pursuit of radical Islam.
My FBI, by Louis J. Freeh, former head of the FBI, has a great personal description of how the FBI had to fight with the Saudi government to investigate the Khobar tower bombing.
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