If ever one year in recent times was a catalyst for change in the broader Middle East and Muslim world, it was 1979. One ray of bright light in that year of darkness was the signing of the historic Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Conversely, three events had dire consequences with which we live today.
First, there was the overthrow of the shah of Iran by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Second, there was the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, by a group of Islamic extremists. And third, there was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Each event fostered the forces of radicalization with implications far beyond the region's borders.
Iran becomes a theocracy. Khomeini's revolution in the early months of 1979 established the wilayat al-faqih, or rule by a Muslim cleric who became the Supreme Leader. He, in effect, formed a theocratic system in Iran, a predominantly Shiite country, and declared the new regime to be "God's government," warning that subsequent disobedience was a "revolt against God."
Ayatollah Khomenei called for Islamic revolutions throughout the region. When the deposed shah was admitted into the United States for medical treatment, Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, beginning the 444 day hostage ordeal. Khomeini set Iran on an adversarial course with America that continues to this day.
As a result of U.S.-led military action, two of Iran's enemies have been overthrownthe Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Iran has been expanding its influence in the region. It is the most important patron of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and it supports Hamas, thereby extending its reach into the Levant and the Arab-Israeli conflict. And, of course, Iran is the focus of international inquiry for its nuclear ambitions.
Saudi Arabia embraces the Wahhabis. On Nov. 20, 1979, a group of Islamic extremists attacked the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam, and held it for two weeks. The extremists included Saudis and Egyptians who were disenchanted with the Saudi regime. They proclaimed that the "Mahdi," the "Guided One," had come to restore righteousness and redeem the world and form a just Islamic society.
The leader of the dissidents was a tribal preacher who opposed the conservative Saudi leadership as impious and in the hands of the West, especially the U.S. The seizure of the Grand Mosque was a blow to the Saudi regime's legitimacy, and to its role as guardian of Islam's holy places. It was only after a bitter armed confrontation and assistance from France's elite Gendarmerie special forces unit that the Saudis were able to defeat these radicals.
In response to this crisis, the Saudi leadership perceived it to be in their interest to bolster their Islamic credentials by binding the regime even closer to the ultraconservative Wahhabis in the kingdom. The Saudi government upped its financial support for the spread of Wahhabi doctrine on a global scale, including assistance to some madrassas, such as those in Pakistan, that teach an extreme view of Islam and have trained militants that later swelled the ranks of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups.
In recent years, however, and as a result of acts of violence and terrorism directed against targets in the kingdom, the Saudi government has begun to crack down on Islamic terrorist groups inside the country and on its bordersas evidenced by recent military actions against groups based in Yemen.
The Soviets invade Afghanistan. In late December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded this mountainous, undeveloped nation, in order to maintain a pro-Soviet regime on their border in Central Asia. The invasion mobilized a whole generation of Muslims, and turned Afghanistan into a flashpoint in U.S.-Soviet relations.
I was the head of the political section of the U.S. embassy in Moscow at the time. I accompanied our ambassador, Thomas Watson Jr., who had been asked to come to the Soviet foreign ministry by Foreign Minister Gromyko's deputy. He told us "that the Soviet government wanted the United States to be the first to be informed of the Soviet Union's response to the Afghanistan government's request for humanitarian assistance."
***
We of course already had clear and timely information about the Soviet military action. Ambassador Watson turned to me and asked, rhetorically, "Is the translation correct" and I replied, "Unfortunately, it is."
Watson glared at the deputy minister and asked in no uncertain terms, "Is this what you want me to report to my president [Jimmy Carter]? Do you understand the consequences of your military action on the relations between our two countries?" The startled man had no answer, and we got up and stormed out of the room.
The consequences were great. Under the Carter and Reagan administrations, a major effort was made to make the Soviets stand down. The U.S. supported the Afghans and the mujahedeen in a way that facilitated the Soviet defeata defeat that was a major factor in the demise of the Soviet Union.
There were other unintended consequences. Our support of the mujahedeen, followed by our virtual abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet retreat, helped create a radical fringe of Islamist fighters and radicals, including Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
Last year we celebrated the great historic achievements marked by the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent unification of Germany. But we should also remember that events in the broader Middle East of 30 years ago have left, in sharp contrast, a bitter and dangerous legacy.
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Turkey has been getting too big for its britches, lately. Personally, I wouldn't mind Russians remainding them---and the rest of ROPers---what real (unPC) war is like. As to the chances of NATO becoming involved, even Obama is not that dumb.
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That's a self-correcting problem. Once Obama implodes the dollar, and the world economy along with it, the traditional productive classes will assume their rightful place atop the food chain once again.
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Or the bloodsucking classes through their boy will vote themselves another $5 trillion like they did last year.
Again, it's a self-correcting problem. Graft on that scale will cause a systemmic collapse. Maybe not the first time but attempted repetition will bring about dire consequences.
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Dr. Steven Hatfill - Person Of Interest Designated Scapegoat
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2010 7:52 Comments ||
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I heard a guess that the Anthrax sent to the National Enquirer's parent company American Media was probably a dumb idiot taking orders overly specifically.
My guess is Iran or some other state actor was involved and the US has been trying to root out who handed Anthrax over to them, not who mailed it out. It might be impossible to determine this with 100% accuracy so they tried media games 'person of interest' to smoke people out without success.
The people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks
There is a deep abyss between the perceptions of the people of Waziristan, the most drone-hit area and the wider Pakistani society on the other side of the River Indus. For the latter, the US drone attacks on Waziristan are a violation of Pakistanis sovereignty. Politicians, religious leaders, media analysts and anchorpersons express sensational clamour over the supposed civilian casualties in the drone attacks. I have been discussing the issue of drone attacks with hundreds of people of Waziristan. They see the US drone attacks as their liberators from the clutches of the terrorists into which, they say, their state has wilfully thrown them. The purpose of todays column is, one, to challenge the Pakistani and US media reports about the civilian casualties in the drone attacks and, two, to express the view of the people of Waziristan, who are equally terrified by the Taliban and the intelligence agencies of Pakistan. I personally met these people in the Pakhtunkhwa province, where they live as internally displaced persons (IDPs), and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
I would challenge both the US and Pakistani media to provide verifiable evidence of civilian casualties because of drone attacks on Waziristan, i.e. names of the people killed, names of their villages, dates and locations of the strikes and, above all, the methodology of the information that they collected. If they cant meet the challenge, I would request them to stop throwing around fabricated figures of civilian casualties that confuse people around the world and provide propaganda material to the pro-Taliban and al Qaeda forces in the politics and media of Pakistan.
I would challenge both the US and Pakistani media to provide verifiable evidence of civilian casualties because of drone attacks on Waziristan, i.e. names of the people killed, names of their villages, dates and locations of the strikes and, above all, the methodology of the information that they collected. If they cant meet the challenge, I would request them to stop throwing around fabricated figures of civilian casualties that confuse people around the world and provide propaganda material to the pro-Taliban and al Qaeda forces in the politics and media of Pakistan.
I pose that challenge because no one is in a position to give a correct estimate of how many individuals have been killed so far in drone attacks. On the basis of American media estimates, 600 to 700 civilian population have been killed. The Pakistani government, pro-Taliban political parties like Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, Tehrik-e-Insaf, and the media are quoting the same figure. Neither the government of Pakistan nor the media have any access to the area and no system is in place to arrive at precise estimates. The Pakistani government and media take the figure appearing in the American media as an admission by the American government. The US media too do not have access to the area. Moreover, the area is simply not accessible for any kind of independent journalistic or scholarly work on drone attacks. The Taliban simply kill anyone doing so.
The reason why these estimates about civilian casualties in the US and Pakistani media are wrong is that after every attack the terrorists cordon off the area and no one, including the local villagers, is allowed to come even near the targeted place. The militants themselves collect the bodies, burry the dead and then issue the statement that all of them were innocent civilians. This has been part of their propaganda to provide excuses to the pro-Taliban and al Qaeda media persons and political forces in Pakistan to generate public sympathies for the terrorists. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or other militants have never admitted to the killing of any important figure of al Qaeda or the TTP. One exception is the killing of Baitullah Mehsud that the TTP reluctantly admitted several days after his death. According to the people of Waziristan, the only civilians who have been killed so far in the drone attacks are women or children of the militants in whose houses/compounds they hold meetings. But that, too, used to happen in the past. Now they dont hold meetings at places where women and children of the al Qaeda and TTP militants reside. Moreover, in this case too no one is in a position to give even an approximate number of the women and children of the terrorists killed in drone attacks.
The people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and al Qaeda. It is in this context that they would welcome anyone, Americans, Israelis, Indians or even the devil, to rid them of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks. Secondly, the people feel comfortable with the drones because of their precision and targeted strikes. People usually appreciate drone attacks when they compare it with the Pakistan Armys attacks, which always result in collateral damage. Especially the people of Waziristan have been terrified by the use of long-range artillery and air strikes of the Pakistan Army and Air Force. People complain that not a single TTP or al Qaeda member has been killed so far by the Pakistan Army, whereas a lot of collateral damage has taken place. Thousands of houses have been destroyed and hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed by the Pakistan Army. On the other hand, drone attacks have never targeted the civilian population except, they informed, in one case when the funeral procession of Khwazh Wali, a TTP commander, was hit. In that attack too, many TTP militants were killed including Bilal (the TTP commander of Zangara area) and two Arab members of al Qaeda. But some civilians were also killed. After the attack people got the excuse of not attending the funeral of slain TTP militants or offering them food, which they used to do out of compulsion in order to put themselves in the TTPs good books. It (this drone attack) was a blessing in disguise, several people commented.
I have heard people particularly appreciating the precision of drone strikes. People say that when a drone would hover over the skies, they wouldnt be disturbed and would carry on their usual business because they would be sure that it does not target the civilians, but the same people would run for shelter when a Pakistani jet would appear in the skies because of its indiscriminate firing. They say that even in the same compound only the exact room where a high value target (HVT) is present is targeted. Thus others in the same compound are spared. The people of Waziristan have been complaining why the drones are only restricted to targeting the Arabs. They want the drones to attack the TTP leadership, the Uzbek/Tajik/Turkmen, Punjabi and Pakhtun Taliban. I have heard even religious people of Waziristan cursing the jihad and welcoming even Indian or Israeli support to help them get rid of the TTP and foreign militants. The TTP and foreign militants had made them hostages and occupied their houses by force. The Taliban have publicly killed even the religious scholars in Waziristan.
I have yet to come across a non-TTP resident of Waziristan who supports the Taliban or al Qaeda. Till recently they were terrified by the TTP to the extent that they would not open their mouth to oppose them. But now, having been displaced and out of their reach, some of them speak against them openly and many more than before in private conversations. They express their fear of the intelligence agencies of Pakistan whenever speaking against the Taliban. They see the two as two sides of the same coin.
What we read and hear in the print and electronic media of Pakistan about drone attacks as a violation of Pakistans sovereignty or resulting in killing innocent civilians is not true so far as the people of Waziristan are concerned. According to them, al Qaeda and the TTP are dead scared of drone attacks and their leadership spends sleepless nights. This is a cause of pleasure for the tormented people of Waziristan.
Moreover, al Qaeda and the Taliban have done everything to stop the drone attacks by killing hundreds of innocent civilians on the pretext of their being American spies. They thought that by overwhelming the innocent people of Waziristan with terror tactics they would deter any potential informer, but they have failed. On many occasions the Taliban and al Qaeda have killed the alleged US spies in front of crowds of hundreds, even thousands of tribesmen. Interestingly, no one in Pakistan has raised objection to killings of the people of Waziristan on charges of spying for the US. This, the people of Waziristan informed, is a source of torture for them that their fellow Pakistanis condemn the killing of the terrorists but fall into deadly silence over the routine murders of tribesmen accused of spying for the US by the terrorists occupying their land.
The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/02/2010 07:37 ||
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For the latter, the US drone attacks on Waziristan are a violation of Pakistanis sovereignty.
In accordance with the Hague Convention of 1907, 'a neutral country has the obligation not to allow its territory to be used by a belligerent. If a neutral country is unwilling or unable to prevent this, the other belligerent has the right to take appropriate counteraction.' Expel or demilitarize the Taliban and al Qaeda within your borders or have that done for you.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2010 18:22 ||
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He mentions that Schools are "Gun free" Zones, that makes any such school a prime target, the baddies know there's nobody to stop them.
I think ANY "Gun Free Zone" is an extremely stupid idea, broadcasting it is even more stupid.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/02/2010 23:39 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
