The
Bunker
George Szamuely
They’re Our Terrorists
The United States has known for a number of years that Osama bin Laden—responsible apparently for the deaths of countless Americans—had made Afghanistan his home. Yet not only has the U.S. government made no attempt to topple the Taliban regime (not such a difficult task since its chief sponsors are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two U.S. satellites), it had even forgotten to list Afghanistan as one of the states that sponsor terrorism. Indeed, earlier this year, the Bush administration promised Afghanistan $43 million in humanitarian assistance, thus bringing the total pledged this year to $124 million. Extraordinary generosity, when compared to the 10-year sanctions regime still in effect against Iraq and the refusal to give Yugoslavia a penny unless Slobodan Milosevic was handed over.
The truth is the U.S. has no problems at all with terrorism. It just doesn’t like being the victim of terrorism. The Taliban and Osama bin Laden are useful instruments of U.S. foreign policy. This goes well beyond the familiar story of bin Laden, the mujahideen and the CIA fighting side by side against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has consistently aligned itself with, financed and trained the most extreme, intolerant Islamists, the most ruthless cutthroats and the worst drug dealers. It is no accident, then, that it was in this U.S.-led New World Order that Osama bin Laden rose to his dizzy height—to the point where he has become emboldened enough to turn on his master.
During the 1980s bin Laden traveled around the world recruiting radical Islamic volunteers to fight the anti-Soviet jihad. Yet following the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the camps in which the volunteers underwent military training, political education and Islamic consciousness-raising did not close down. On the contrary, they continued to flourish, sending out recruits for one jihad after another. The jihads were largely directed at perceived foes or rivals of the United States. Russia, China and India have repeatedly declared the Taliban to be the greatest source of instability in the region. Fundamentalist volunteers have been sent to Xinjiang province in China, where Turkic Muslim Uighur insurgents are attempting to detach an Islamic republic out of China. Volunteers have turned up in the Russian provinces of Chechnya and Daghestan, seeking to carve out independent Islamic states.
Russia’s Muslim population mainly resides in the Caucasus, a region abundant in oil and gas—much sought after by a number of powers, most importantly the U.S. Clearly the secession of a number of Islamic republics from Russia and the creation of resource-rich but weak, strife-torn Islamic states would serve U.S. interests very nicely.
Not surprisingly, therefore, that when it comes to terrorism Americans adhere to a rigid double standard. Terrorism does not count as terrorism when it is directed against the Russians. In September 1999, terrorists from Chechnya went on a bombing spree in Russia, blowing up a number of apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities. Almost 300 people were killed. The Russians accused an Islamic extremist sect, perhaps bin Laden’s, of responsibility. Nonsense, cried the dim bulbs of The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the ever-hysterical New Republic as well as William Safire. It was the Russian government itself that blew up the buildings to generate popular support for the fight against the Chechen insurgency.
Russia’s Central Asian allies, which for years have been subjected to the most horrendous Taliban-inspired violence, have also been told that they can expect no sympathy, only strictures, from the U.S. What might have been in store for Russia and Central Asia can be gleaned from the example of the Balkans. Bin Laden and the various Islamist holy warriors worked hand in hand with the U.S. trying to establish the first Islamic dominated republic in Europe. The Clinton administration, with the parroting media cheerfully in tow, declared that the Bosnian Muslims were the victims and the Serbs the oppressors. The U.S. government threw its weight behind the radical Islamist Alija Izetbegovic and decided to help the Iranians ship arms to the Bosnian Muslims. Almost immediately after the first arms shipments, hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard fighters and trainers poured into the country. This helped Iran entrench itself in Bosnia. Meanwhile, sinister organizations like the Third World Relief Agency, which was clearly linked to Osama bin Laden, funneled money and arms to the Bosnian Muslims, all with the happy connivance of the United States.
The same pattern was repeated in Kosovo a few years later. Osama bin Laden’s links with the Kosovo Liberation Army have been amply documented.Osama bin Laden will obviously have to go. But the Taliban are too useful for Washington to abandon. The U.S. will have to do what it usually does at times like this—find a more pliable replacement.
THE END
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