The September 22, 2001 issue of the British weekly magazine
The Spectator is filled with insightful articles about the
recent terrorist attacks. Most important, its articles explain
the background of the conflict in a way that no American
publication has so far managed to do.
The cover story is ?Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection?
by Stephen Schwartz, who explains who these terrorists are
and where they came from. He writes, ?For Westerners, it
seems natural to look for answers in the distant past,
beginning with the Crusades. But if you ask educated, pious,
traditional but forward-looking Muslims what has driven their
umma, or global community, in this direction, many of them
will answer you with one word: Wahhabism.? This sect
emerged two centuries ago in Arabia. Schwartz points out
that it is violent, intolerant and fanatical. It is also the official
theology of the Gulf States and a powerful part of Saudi
religious culture.
Ibn Abdul Wahhab (1703?92), the founder of the sect, was
near where Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia is today. It
was from this area that Mohammed himself predicted that
trouble, heresy and discord would come. From the beginning
Wahhabism has been associated with the mass murder of all
who opposed it.
Schwartz goes on to say, ?bin Laden is a Wahhabi. So are
the suicide bombers in Israel. So are his Egyptian allies, who
exulted as they stabbed foreign tourists to death at Luxor
not many years ago, bathing in blood up to their elbows and
emitting blasphemous cries of ecstasy. So are the Algerian
Islamist terrorists whose contribution to the purification of
the world consisted of murdering people for such sins as
running a movie projector or reading secular newspapers. So
are the Taliban-style guerrillas in Kashmir who murder
Hindus??
He makes the point?not beyond dispute?that about 80% of
mosques in the US are under the control of Wahhabi imams.
This estimate was made by the Sufi leader Hisham al-Kabbani.
Wahhabism is subsidized by Saudi Arabia. While the Saudis
are our allies, at least to an extent, they pay for the
spreading of Wahhabi ideology ?everywhere Muslims are to be
found.?
?One major question is never asked in American discussions of
Arab terrorism: what is the role of Saudi Arabia? The question
cannot be asked because American companies depend too
much on the continued flow of Saudi oil, while American
politicians have become too cozy with the Saudi rulers.
??It is the most significant question Americans should be
asking themselves today. If we get rid of bin Laden, who do
we then have to deal with? The answer was eloquently put
by Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, professor of political science at the
University of California at San Diego, and author of an
authoritative volume on Islamic extremism in Pakistan, when
he said: ?If the US wants to do something about radical Islam,
it has to deal with Saudi Arabia. The ?rogue states? [Iraq,
Libya, etc.] are less important in the radicalization of Islam
than Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the single most important
cause and supporter of radicalization, ideologization, and the
general fanaticization of Islam.??
In fact, the pilots in the terror attack were all Saudis,
citizens of the Gulf states, Egyptian or Algerian. Two are
reported to have been the sons of the former second
secretary of the Saudi embassy in Washington. It is hard to
escape the fact of the Saudi connection. However, the
degree to which it extends to the Saudi government, if at all,
is unknown.
The American government does not want to face the fact
that while we have sold the Saudis weapons for years and
considered them our allies, they now refuse to let us use the
bases we established within their borders, specifically in case
this kind of situation should arise, so you are not likely to see
this information in the U.S. press. That?s why the world wide
web is so important?because there is censorship
everywhere, sometimes in the name of patriotism or because
a government or administration does not want to admit its
past mistakes. But while we?re being told that Iraq and
Afghanistan are our enemies, we should remember the Saudis
and that old Western saying: ?With friends like these, who
needs enemies??
A second article, ?Death in the Khyber? by Philip Hensher,
tells of past conflicts in Afghanistan. Most Americans know
about the Russian debacle there; and that we aided the
Afghan ?freedom fighters,? and in so doing helped create the
organization that has become Osama bin Laden?s al Quieda.
How many of us know that the British were defeated there a
hundred years before the Russians attacked?
Hensler writes, ?External forces have intervened several times
in Afghanistan over the years, and each time have met with
disaster. The Russian forces in the 1980s were brought to
their knees by Afghan resistance, the lessons the British so
painfully learned a century and a half before quite forgotten.
Once more, those lessons seem to have vanished from the
minds of Western leaders.
In the 1830s, Afghanistan was almost unknown to the west.
Travelers reported that it was a mountainous place full of
ferocious tribes that were engaged in ceaseless war. Its
leader was Dost Mohammed, a ruthless and intelligent man.
?Dost Mohammed accepted the gifts and friendship of the
British before revealing himself to be opposed to their?
policy.? He tells how Dost Mohammed played the Russians
against the British until the British were able to force the
Russians to withdraw from the area.
?In recent days ? to return to the contemporary parallel ? it
has been proposed that in the event of a Western invasion of
Afghanistan the long-deposed king, Zahir, should be
summoned from his quarter-century exile in Rome and placed
at the head of the nation?When the British invaded in 1839,
the Zahir role was fulfilled by another deposed monarch, Shah
Shujah-ul-mulk. As in the case of Zahir, the British assumed,
without having any evidence either way, that their puppet
ruler would command the instant support of the Afghan
populace. However, they did not consider how unpopular a
ruler will be who has been imposed by an invading and alien
force? Dost Mohammed had fled by that time and
surrendered to the British in November 1840. They gratefully
installed him in a palace in India, where he remained, biding
his time.?
The British acted the same way they always have, in all the
lands they?ve conquered. They introduced Western ideas and
culture, assuming they would be seen by the population as
more sophisticated, and thus superior, to their own. But
peace didn?t last. A mob, commanded by Dost Mohammed?s
son, Akbar, surrounded the house of one of the ruling
generals and killed him, then turned on the British occupying
forces. The British tried to negotiate, but Akbar continued
the killing, forcing the British army to leave.
In the dead of the Afghan winter, on January 6, 1842, the
British Army of the Indus numbering some 16,500 men, began
its retreat.
It became the most terrible disaster in the history of British
arms. The retreat lasted five days and, throughout, Akbar
and his forces bore down on the British, killing without mercy.
The appalling onslaught by the Afghans, armed with their
primitive, brutal muskets, the jezails, combined with the fierce
cold of the mountain winter, destroyed the entire British
force.
Of the 16,500 men who began that retreat, the number who
reached the British fort at Jalalabad five days later was
exactly one. Apart from a group of hostages taken by Akbar
who were later released, he was the only survivor of the
whole army, one of the most magnificent the world had ever
seen. The British marched on Kabul and burned down its
central market. Dost Mohammed was returned to his throne.
?What must be absolutely plain to anyone who knows
anything of the history of Western engagement with
Afghanistan ? the three terrible wars that the British fought
there, or the doomed attempts of the Russians to subdue the
country ? is that any talk of a clean, swift operation is
wildly, baselessly extravagant.?
We live in a world that has just gotten up and brushed itself
off after a long Cold War with Russia, during which we did
many reprehensible things in the name of democracy. We
supported cruel dictators, as long as they were anti-Soviet,
and, through the CIA, aided in the destabilization of many
countries. Maybe these actions were necessary?only future
historians who look back upon this time will be able to judge
that clearly. But due to our government?s embarrassment and
even shame, we may not hear the truth from our own writers,
so it?s important that we continue to turn to those in other
countries, who may be more willing to speak the truth.
I hope you will read the original articles?as well as the
September 29 issue of the Spectator at
www.spectator.co.uk. The
Spectator has been published weekly since 1828. Its politics
are conservative and free-spirited, and if you consider that
an impossible combination, you should try a subscription to
one of the English speaking world?s most literate news
magazines.
To link directly to Stephen Schwartz?s article on Osama bin
Laden, click
here.
To link to Philip Hensher?s article on the British disaster in
Afghanistan, click
here.
