While these losses are not insignificant, there is no reason to believe that bin Laden’s network has been defeated or, for that matter, is even more than moderately distracted. As argued earlier, al Qaeda is a veteran insurgent organization; it is large, disciplined, well trained, and resilient. It also is dispersed worldwide, and so most of the organization that is targeted against the United States and its allies has not been attacked or disrupted by the U.S. military. The loyalty of al Qaeda’s leaders and foot soldiers remains rock solid—not a single defection has been reported in the media—and bin Laden himself has long since become accustomed to changing his location on a daily basis, if not more frequently. Overall, the impact of the U.S. military onslaught on al Qaeda has caused bin Laden’s forces logistical disruptions, personal sorrow, and some uncomfortable nights in chilled caves; it has not, however, seriously eroded their ability to wage war.
Neither should too much be made of what many in the West have described as the Taliban’s complete military and political collapse. It obviously is true that the Taliban has lost control of the major Afghan urban centers. With that loss, however, the Taliban also has been freed of the duty to feed, protect, and provide social, health, and administrative services to the urban populace. Having originated in the mid-1990s as a rural-based insurgency, the Taliban has been returned to its proper state of nature, courtesy of the U.S. military. The Taliban—and al Qaeda for that matter—has done what all of history’s successful insurgent organizations have done to survive; they have abandoned the cities. “Unlike traditional armies,” Lawrence Friedman recently reminded readers of the journal Survival, “guerrilla groups and terrorists do not expect to hold territory. They need time more than space, for it is their ability to endure while mounting regular attacks that enables them to grow while the enemy is drained of patience and credibility.”7 Many Muslim commentators and analysts have made this point; Abd-al-Bari Atwan in the United Kingdom.8 and Humayun Akhtar in Pakistan,9 for example. The latter also has raised the interesting point that no one in the West has accounted for the more than forty thousand soldiers the Taliban still had under arms when Kandahar fell. In the West, few have mirrored this line of analysis, although more notice should be taken of the views of Milton Bearden, a retired senior U.S. intelligence officer. In warning his countrymen not to count unhatched chickens, Bearden wrote the following in mid-November 2001:
As a rule, set-piece battles for major urban centers are not the way of combat in Afghanistan, especially when a foreign element as prominent as U.S. air support in the current fighting is involved. Getting into Afghan cities, particularly for foreign armies, has always been pretty easy; it took the Soviets less than two weeks to take most of the cities…. The hard part always has been what comes next…. So to call the Taliban down for the count because a string of urban centers has fallen, while possibly true, would be needlessly pushing our luck.10
Bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the Taliban also draw strength from several other factors. First, the interim government of Hamid Karzai is kept in power by foreign, Christian forces, has no Islamist credentials, and is dominated by Masood’s senior lieutenants—Tajiks all. The interim regime therefore is transparently an artificial Western creation, made up of what a Pakistani commentator accurately has called a “minority jing bang lot of nationalities, and I dare say Martians too. Their government will be a mongrel of uncertain parentage and will not last.” It also is devoid of any credible representation from the country’s numerically and historically dominant Pashtun tribe.11 Rather than the interim government being a new beginning for Afghanistan, it is more likely to be a catalyst for steadily intensifying domestic strife. In an excellent and prescient essay in Foreign Affairs, Milton Bearden told his countrymen that not much stability could be expected from a Tajik-dominated regime. “On the contrary,” Bearden argued, “the more likely consequences of a U.S. alliance with the late Masood’s fighters would be the coalescing of Afghanistan’s majority Pashtun tribes around their Taliban leaders and the rekindling of a brutal, general civil war that would continue until the United States simply gave up.”12
The situation on the ground in Afghanistan also bodes well for a resurgence of the Taliban and their al Qaeda associates. Since the fall of Kandahar, multiple regional warlords—many of whom served as anti-Taliban proxies for the U.S.-led coalition13—have established control over personal fiefdoms across the country, creating “a land so perilous it can boggle the mind of anyone who has lived in peace.”14 The murder, bribery, kidnapping, and extortion that the Taliban had all but eliminated have again become commonplace. “I was born in a time of fighting,” a female nursing student in Kandahar told the Washington Post in early 2002, “and I never saw stable conditions except with the Taliban. In the time of [religious] extremism, I could study safely. Now I can’t.”15 As Afghanistan again descends into the barbarous, crime-ridden conditions that fostered the Taliban’s rise to power in the 1990s, Mullah Omar and bin Laden—assuming they have survived—will bide their time until, as bin Laden’s senior aide, Mahfouz Ould Walid, told Al-Jazirah television in November 2001, “The same conditions that helped the Taliban seize these cities in the past will enable the Taliban to recapture these cities in the near future, God willing.”16 As always, Afghans will take extremism over violence and instability every time.
AMERICA AND ITS ALLIES: As signaled by its premature triumphant tone, the United States seems to have learned little since 11 September 2001. As noted in an epigram above, we still lack respect for bin Laden, we still misidentify his organization as terrorist vice insurgent, and—most danger-ously—we still manifest an aversion to military casualties so intense that we have overestimated the impact our air power and military technology have made on al Qaeda and the Taliban. We have shown our might, but we have not inflicted it with full effect, forgetting that, as Ralph Peters has written, “No display of might will change the essence … of the man driven by God.”17 Simply put, we have failed utterly to kill enough Taliban or al Qaeda fighters to make an impression on or deter them. “Americans might not like thinking about vengeance … but that isn’t true of the denizens of the Middle East,” Reuel Marc Gerecht brilliantly wrote in the Weekly Standard.
The ability to inflict intigam, vengeance, is their essential element of power and dominion. If we do not scorch all those who gave aid to al Qaeda, we will mercilessly belittle ourselves before men who have an acute sense of the jugular….
The United States must have a [military] victory sooner, not later, in Afghanistan. Our enemies in the Middle East must see our dead seriousness about eradicating in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East those who have drawn American blood. If bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and their Taliban cohorts are still alive next spring, producing videocassettes trenchantly dissecting our weakness and the immorality of our Muslim “allies,” then we will have hell to pay. No sane Muslim in the Middle East or elsewhere will then want to ally himself with the United States. No non-Muslim, either.18
The United States also continues to be hamstrung by the analyses of our “experts,” as well as by the pervasiveness of our beliefs in the universality of our culture and values. The fixation of the former on state sponsors of terrorism, for example, continues to blind Americans to the reality of al Qaeda’s military and logistics capabilities. While the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were still blazing, a former CIA director and his colleague told Americans that the nature of the attacks “point significantly to the involvement of state sponsorship”19; a prominent historian wrote that “it will become apparent” that the attacks could not have occurred “without the assistance of some governments”20; a usually insightful commentator erred and said that bin Laden “received critical assistance” from “Middle Eastern states”21; and—inevitably—a veteran journalist identified Lebanese Hizballah terrorist Imad Mugniyah as the leader of an Iraq-Iran-Hizballah-al Qaeda conspiracy to attack the World Trade Center.22 One almost sensed that these writers felt that bin Lad
en and al Qaeda were an irritating distraction from the major goal of turning U.S. military power against Iran, Iraq, and other states sponsors. Sad as it is to say, it appears that al Qaeda will have to cause another mass of American dead before Americans can free themselves from the thrall of the incorrect boilerplate analysis of yesterday’s experts.
The experts’ disdain for bin Laden’s capabilities also have caused them to urge the application of limited military power in Afghanistan to pave the way for democracy there and elsewhere in the Muslim world. The Afghan war, then, is an opportunity for social work of international scope, not an opportunity to destroy al Qaeda. The day after the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan began, Jim Hoagland wrote in the Washington Post that the administration must maintain a “steady, calculated, and merciful approach to the war,” while Brian M. Jenkins had scolded U.S. leaders even earlier that “Our violence must be measured…. And American values must be preserved.” Temperate military actions, for Hoagland, would allow the United States to get on with its true mission “to transform the shock of the waves of military strikes into a force for change in societies that have fundamentally given up on themselves and the world.” Speaking in tones worthy of the lamentable Woodrow Wilson at his most absurd, Andrew Sullivan went even further into the deep end and explained to Americans that “We are not fighting for our country as such or for our flag. We are fighting for the universal principles of our Constitution—and the possibility of free religious faith it guarantees.”23 Imperial hubris, it seems, is alive, well, and ready to make our sons and daughters die in its name.
Tragically, many American experts have displayed simple laziness in their research and have fallen back on what a Jesuit professor of mine once termed “analysis by assertion.” They have not, for example, read what bin Laden has written and said about Palestine since 1993 and so they glibly and incorrectly—as has been documented throughout this work—claim that “as longtime bin Laden watchers know he has never been especially concerned with the plight of the Palestinians,” and that “bin Laden embraced the Palestinian cause only when his own future turned bleak.”24 They have ignored the very real accomplishments and popular acceptance of the Taliban government in Afghanistan—the documentation of which is full and easily accessible25—and have taken their lead from Mrs. Jay Leno and the Hollywood wives and equated the fall of Kabul with the liberation of Dachau, thereby obscuring for their countrymen the genuine possibility of a Taliban rebound.
The experts have again rushed to find final answers to the bin Laden threat by asserting that money is the source of his power and therefore the key to his defeat. Ed Blanche has written in Jane’s Intelligence Review, for example, that “Bin Laden’s popularity is due in large part to the millions of dollars he has spent from his personal fortune,” and former U.S. government official W. F. Wechsler claims that bin Laden “derives much of his authority and influence from the money under his control.”26 Lost in this American-centric approach to understanding a problem foreign to their experience, analysts such as Jim Hoagland conclude that “finding and destroying the money trails to bin Laden is essential to finding and destroying the group,” while another scholar asserts the way to defeat al Qaeda is to increase the staff and budget of something called the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department.27 At this threat, bin Laden is surely shaking—from laughter.
Also indicative of how far America’s experts are from understanding bin Laden is their analysis of the videotapes bin Laden has released, or U.S. forces have acquired, since 11 September 2001. This analysis painfully demonstrates their inability to get past appearances to substance. “Gone is that kind of jocular spirit,” the New York Times’ Judith Miller said about the videos. “He is gaunt, he is gray, and he is alone. And he is obviously very depressed.” Concurring, Ambassador Phyllis Oakley said “the fact is this is a diminished man and a diminished organization.”28 Other experts remarked on the growing whiteness of bin Laden’s beard, a possible injury to his arm, the kind of watch and ring he wears, and how much water he drinks while speaking. After the informal video of bin Laden discussing the 11 September attacks was broadcast by the U.S. government,29 the experts ignored how and what bin Laden said—the intricate, professional planning of the attack and the dedication, skill, and bravery of the attackers—and instead decided that he was gleeful and gloating over the attacks, betraying his murderous character, and smugly proud of having tricked the attackers into undertaking a suicide mission. Because the experts continue to confuse bin Laden with a terrorist like Abu Nidal, they missed the awe in which he held the men who sacrificed their lives for their God, as well as his gentle, soft-spoken, and nonboastful manner. “Contrary to the expectation of the Americans,” a late-December 2001 article on Sa’d al-Faqih’s Web site insightfully noted,
the tape will have reflected positively on Osama bin Laden who was shown in the footage to be relaxed in contrast to how he came across in [staged] interviews. As to the contention by the Americans that Osama bin Laden appeared to rejoice and gloat over the deaths of civilians, obviously the vast cultural divide had gotten in the way of the Americans’ understanding of his feelings.30
Finally, most Americans—experts, officials, and civilians—have still not addressed the role of Islam in bin Laden’s activities and message in a frank and analytic manner. While since September there has been more discussion of the role of religion in the war in which the United States is engaged, this discussion continues to occur within the confines of what a British journalist has described as the West’s “suffocating atmosphere of multicultural political correctness.” Bin Laden’s supporters are said to “pray to the God of hate . . [and are] driven by pure hate and nihilism,” their faith is decried as “terrorist fundamentalism,” and they are demonized as “fiends … [and] dedicated fanatics” who hate “with every fiber of their twisted soul.”31 While it is useful to hate the enemy you must kill, it is counterproductive to sail into a war armed with hatred but no understanding of your foe’s worthiness, skill, or appeal. In bin Laden’s case, hate and our unwillingness to talk frankly about Islam have blinded many Americans to the fact that bin Laden has been, in the words of Thomas L. Friedman, “a brilliant and dedicated foe.”32
Instead of belaboring this point, I would suggest that the reader ponder the following words. They came in November 2001 from a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s branch in Jordan, a group with a worldwide presence that dwarfs al Qaeda’s and which is nonviolent in its approach to promoting Islamism. Note in particular that the Brotherhood’s disagreements with bin Laden are theological ones over his attitudes toward other Muslims and not toward his actions against the United States and the West. We regard Bin laden as a Muslim person. He came from a wealthy class and had a lot of money he used to further a noble and honorable pursuit, namely jihad against the Communist Russian occupation of Afghanistan. He played a significant role in this endeavor. Bin Laden subscribes to a particular ideology. He is inclined to Salafi thought [emulation of early Muslims]. We do not doubt his Islamic commitment and loyalty to his religion. A certain line of thought that holds other Muslims as infidels—and this line of thought came from Egypt—tried to drive him toward a renunciation and repudiation form of ideology that we regard as foreign to our concepts. For this reason we oppose him on many of the issues that he adopted, including intellectual issues and efforts at religious interpretations. Still, we cannot say he is a traitor [to Islam], God forbid. He has sacrificed his future and social standing to go and live in the caves and mountains. Hence, his commitment to Islam is undoubted but we do not support many of his ideas or the way he expresses them…. What is demonstrably true in our view is that bin Laden performed a jihad role against the Russians and that he is now carrying out jihad against the Americans by defending Afghanistan, the oppressed Muslim country against which the United States is launching a war in which it uses its powerful weapons without reason or proof.33
Where Are We Going?
“Well, General, our goal was to get them [the Union army] out of Virginia and into the open. Now, they are in the open.” So says Lt. General James Longstreet to Robert E. Lee in the great movie Gettysburg, as the two men discuss events at the close of the first day of that epic battle. These words encapsulate bin Laden’s current position. He has long wanted U.S. ground forces “out in the open,” and Abd-al-Bari Atwan is on the mark when he says “he [bin Laden] believes that attracting U.S. forces to Afghanistan was one of the aims he planned very well.”34 If bin Laden is alive, he must be doubly pleased that U.S. ground forces have deployed to the Philippines and may soon turn up in Somalia and Yemen. Bin Laden no longer has to rely solely on his urban fighters and now can bring to bear the guerrilla forces of al Qaeda, the Taliban, other veteran Afghan fighters led by Khalis, Sayyaf, Hekmatyar, and Haqqani, and other allies and associates in the just-mentioned nations.
Through Our Enemies' Eyes Page 41
