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Supplement, 16-22/9/01 (2)



Jihad against ŒTerrorismı, 16-22/9/01 (2)


WORLD OPINION

*  Druze leader blames Mossad, CIA [Good olı Walid, never misses a trick]
*  African voices caution US against rash reply [African press less than
enthusiastic about US vengeance]
*  Iran Advises U.S. Against Attacking Afghans
*  Israel Says It Won't 'Pay Price' of Coalition [Israel nervous about
possible US concessions to conciliate Arabs. The problems of the definition
of Œterrorismı start here]
*  Black Tuesday: the view from Islamabad [Sensible Pakistani viewpoint,
arguing that the US Œmust extend its definition of humanity to cover all
peoples of the worldı and that Muslims in western countries must cease their
refusal to mix with the society around them]
*  Fears and expectations in Turkey
*  Japan may change pacifist constitution
*  US revenge action can never be called war against terrorism [Talk by
indian Muslim leader reported in the Iranian press]
*  US attacks raise mixed feelings in Africa [Contrast between concern for
US suffering and lack of concern for African suffering]
*  US strikes will split Arab world, says Mubarak
*  Waging war against terrorism [An excellent article from india, published
in the Pakistani paper, Dawn. The most genuinely Œphilosophicalı article
Iıve yet seen on the subject]
*  Russian Orthodox Church blesses bombardments [And, by way of contrast,
here is Metropolitan Cyril of Smolensk, denounced by the Russian press in
1996 as head of the tobacco smuggling mafia in Russia]
*  Iran refuses to allow US planes to use airspace
*  ŒToday we are all Americans' [Benjamin Netanyahu seizes the time]


http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/16/world/world22.html

*  DRUZE LEADER BLAMES MOSSAD, CIA
Sydney Morning Herald (from AFP), 16th September

Lebanon's anti-Syrian Druze leader Walid Jumblatt believes the CIA and
Israel's secret service Mossad are behind the terrorist attacks in the
United States, and that Saudi extremist Osama bin Laden is an "American
agent", newspaper reports said today.

"There are a number of questions on the authors of the attacks in America. I
think they (the attacks) were a great coup carried out by the secret
services. The CIA and the Mossad could be behind (the attacks) to provoke a
new war and impoverish and occupy the Middle East," Jumblatt was quoted as
saying.

"Who is bin Laden who has become the number one (enemy) of western
civilisations? He is an invention of the American secret services who chose
to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan with US backing," said Jumblatt,
who had ties with the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.

"It is an enormous scandal because in 1994, the CIA pointed the finger at
bin Laden as a very dangerous man," Jumblatt said, adding: "It is also
surprising that a great state which has a military budget of $US 350
billion, was not able to thwart these attacks."

"One should find out whether the American (secret) services are implicated
in starting a merciless war between America and the racist West against
Arabs and the Muslims," he said.

Jumblatt, who defends the Palestinian uprising and their right to an
independent state, also expressed concern that the "war against terrorism"
could develop into a "huge massacre of Palestinians".

"Under the pretext of fighting bin Laden, the Zionists may commit a huge
massacre in Palestine to push through an exodus of its Arab residents and
give the green-light to (Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) to carry out a huge
massacre," Jumblatt said.

He also called on Britain to "present its apologies to the Arab and Muslim
people for its crime: the creation of Israel".

Britain, which in 1920 was granted a mandate over Palestine up until the
1948 creation of the Israeli state, promised to aid the "Jews to create a
home in Palestine", during the 1917 Balfour declaration often considered to
have led to the establishment of the Jewish state.

Jumblatt, who was presiding over a ceremony in the Shouf mountains southeast
of Beirut, also called on the audience to observe one minute of silence in
memory of the "innocent (people) killed in the World Trade Centre".

The silence was also held in memory of the "Arabs killed in Palestine, in
south Lebanon, in Syria, Jordan and Iraq in the war against Israel", he
said.


http://www.iol.co.za/html/frame_news.php?click_id=68&art_id=qw1000732264572B
232

*  AFRICAN VOICES CAUTION US AGAINST RASH REPLY
Independent (from Reuters), 17th September

African newspapers are urging the United States to show restraint in its
hunt for those responsible for last Tuesday's terror attacks.

"Rest of the world must save US from itself," was the headline for the
editorial in South Africa's Sunday Independent.

In Nigeria, This Day warned against fanning the flames of racial and
religious hatred.

"We don't want to look back twenty years from now at a world devastated by
racial and religious conflict and wonder if it could have been avoided," it
said in its Sunday edition.

South Africa's Sunday Independent said scenes of terrified people fleeing
through New York last week brought to mind past images of US military
strikes against civilian populations.

"Their expressions of horror and disbelief are reminiscent of those on the
faces of Japanese civilians fleeing the horror of US nuclear bombs in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Vietnamese civilians fleeing US napalm, or Iraqi
civilians fleeing US cruise missiles," it said.

Newspapers across the world's poorest continent condemned the attacks and
most sympathised with ordinary Americans.

"It is not only an American tragedy but also a universal tragedy, which
defies the natural, the free and the sacred in human life," Gambia's The
Independent said on Friday.

Mixed with the sympathy, there was widespread condemnation of US foreign
policy, particularly in the Middle East.

"This is the example, the standards that the United States (has) set for the
world - resolving differences by force, getting rid of enemies by superior
military weapons," The Post newspaper in Zambia commented.

"We sincerely hope that the practices of the United States against Libya,
Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Yugoslavia will not be repeated as a result of these
barbaric murders by terrorists and mad people," it added.

South Africa's Business Day newspaper said the best defence against this
form of terrorism was peace in the Middle East.

"Securing a just peace in the Middle East is the key to any enduring victory
over terrorism and needs to be approached with equal, if not greater,
passion than vengeance for last Tuesday," it said in an editorial on Monday.

Many African newspapers pleaded with the United States not to target the
Islamic world.

The United States has vowed retaliation by a "mighty giant" and has fingered
Saudi-born Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect behind the devastating
attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.

"Thanks to partisan American and Western press coverage, the popular image
of a terrorist as a Muslim, preferably of Arab origin, with fundamentalist
persuasion, is being firmly entrenched in the world mind," Nairobi-based
East African weekly said.

Nairobi was the scene of one of two 1998 bomb attacks on US embassies in
East Africa that killed more than 200 people and for which Washington blamed
Osama bin Laden.

Many African countries have large Muslim populations and share a sense of
Third World solidarity with the Arab world.

Many African countries are also sympathetic to the plight of the
Palestinians. South Africa's ruling African National Congress has long
regarded the Palestine Liberation Organisation as a comrade-in-arms.


http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010917/wl/attack_iran_dc_2.html

*  IRAN ADVISES U.S. AGAINST ATTACKING AFGHANS
Yahoo, 17th September

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday
condemned deadly attacks in the United States, but said punishing
Afghanistan might cause a human catastrophe and could trigger more problems
for America.

His comments indicate that it is unlikely that Iran, which is hostile to
Afghan's Taliban rulers, would join a U.S.-led international coalition in a
possible attack on Afghanistan.

``Islam condemns the massacre of defenseless people, whether Muslim or
Christian or others, anywhere and by any means,'' Khamenei said in his first
public reaction to Tuesday's attacks that killed around 5,000 people in New
York and Washington.

``Based on the same principle, Iran condemns a possible attack on
Afghanistan which could lead to another human catastrophe,'' Iran's IRNA
news agency quoted him as saying.

Khamenei, a staunch foe of the United States, has the final say on all state
matters in Iran, including foreign policy.

``If America wants to wage war on Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan and
expand its influence in the region, it will see its problems mounting,''
Khamenei warned.

``Is the Muslim nation of Afghanistan to suffer another war only because a
few people are believed to have had a hand in the recent events?'' he asked.

``The actions of a few Muslims are no authorization to commit repression
against Muslims and attack Afghanistan.''

KHATAMI SEEKS UNITED FRONT AGAINST TERRORISM

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami Monday called for an urgent meeting of
the world's largest Muslim body to discuss fighting terrorism and a possible
clash of cultures.

``Given the sensitive situation, there is a need for efforts to mobilize
public opinion against violence and intolerance,'' the moderate Khatami said
in a letter to Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the leader of Qatar,
which currently chairs the 55-member Organization of the Islamic Conference
(OIC).

``Unfortunately, the recent inhuman acts in the United States have become an
excuse for those who see their interests in clashes with the Muslim
civilization to provoke anger against Muslims,'' Iran's state-run radio
reported him as saying.

[.....

A UNHCR spokesman said in Pakistan Monday that tens of thousands of Afghans
had left several major cities and were heading toward borders with Iran and
Pakistan.

A new exodus could undermine recent efforts in Iran to repatriate more than
two million refugees, mainly Afghans, amid a severe shortage of jobs.

[.....]


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46620-2001Sep17.html

*  ISRAEL SAYS IT WON'T 'PAY PRICE' OF COALITION
by Lee Hockstader and Daniel Williams
Washington Post, 18th September

JERUSALEM, Sept. 17 -- As it ushered Arab countries into a multinational
coalition against Iraq a decade ago, the first Bush administration persuaded
Israel to stay in the background, even to hold its fire when Iraq launched
Scud missiles at Tel Aviv.

Israel's current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has made it clear that times
have changed. In a series of pugnacious pronouncements since the Sept. 11
attacks in the United States, he has insisted Israel will not sit quietly as
the current Bush administration seeks to build a coalition of Arab and
Islamic states against terrorism.

"It is inconceivable to grant [Yasser Arafat] legitimacy because someone
thinks that might facilitate the inclusion of Arab countries in this
coalition," Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, referring
to the Palestinian leader. "We will not pay the price for the establishment
of this coalition."

[.....]

Foreign Minister Abdul-Illah Khatib of Jordan, for instance, said it will be
difficult for the Bush administration to line up Arab support without a
commitment to solving the Israeli Palestinian dispute once and for all.
"People will need to be convinced that Israel is not taking advantage" of
the situation to demonize the Palestinian cause by comparing it to
terrorism, Khatib said.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said today that the Israeli-Palestinian
standoff "may be one of the elements which encouraged" the terrorist
attacks. He said President Bush suggested to him in a telephone conversation
that the United States will be "very active" in trying to arrange a
cease-fire. "But what I'm seeing now is the Israeli government is seizing
the opportunity and launching attacks now and then," Mubarak said on "Larry
King Live." He added: "This will have terrible repercussions after that."

[.....]

For Israeli hard-liners, the decision to hold back during the Persian Gulf
War in 1991 is a bitter memory. Many, including Sharon, believe that leaving
the war to the United States made Israel appear weak. Afterward, the United
States pushed a reluctant Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir into peace talks.

"Sharon doesn't want to open the door to a repeat situation where Israel
will be a passive actor in a coalition," said Gerald Steinberg, head of the
program on conflict management and negotiation at Israel's Bar Ilan
University. "The Americans don't understand the depth of Israeli views on
this."

Israelis, who have suffered dozens of casualties from terrorist attacks,
were convinced from the first day that they should be charter members of any
anti-terrorism coalition. They bristled at suggestions they should help cool
the conflict with the Palestinians to help Washington enlist Arab and
Islamic allies.

"Terrorist actions against Israeli citizens are no different from bin
Laden's terrorism against American citizens," Sharon told the Knesset,
Israel's parliament, today. "Terrorism is terrorism, and murder is murder."

Arafat, meanwhile, has drawn his own lessons from the Gulf War, when he took
the side of Iraq, the loser, and risked pariah status. He seems determined
not to repeat that choice. After months of tolerating or encouraging
terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, he is eager to show cooperation with
the United States and demonstrate that Sharon is the one responsible for
unbridled violence.

Although Bush has not phoned Arafat, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has
urged Arafat several times to defuse the clashes and resume talks with
Sharon's government. According to his close associates, fear is Arafat's
prime motivation in wanting to cooperate. If Washington identifies him with
the terrorist camp, it may embolden Sharon to launch an offensive to crush
the Palestinian Authority. For that reason, Palestinian officials said,
Arafat has dropped all preconditions for cease-fire talks with Peres,
insisting he is ready to meet "anywhere, anytime."

"We can make it through this with the United States. We can't make it if
left alone with Sharon," said Ahmed Abdul Rahman, Arafat's cabinet
secretary. "We are wise enough not to make war with America."

Shortly after news of last Tuesday's attacks reached Gaza, Arafat called an
urgent meeting of top political and military advisers to lay out a course of
action. He grimly informed the half-dozen officials and the head of his
combined security forces that he would immediately announce a pro-American
position, said an official who was present.

Because Arafat recognized that many Palestinians who are aggrieved by U.S.
support for Israel would show little sympathy for the United States, he
ordered police and political parties to suppress anti-American
demonstrations. Most dramatically, he warned leaders of militant Islamic
groups to launch no terror attacks in Israel. If they did, he pledged to
fight the groups ruthlessly, no matter how great the risk of internal
Palestinian violence.

"Arafat's position is desperate," said Marwan Kanafani, an adviser to and
spokesman for the Palestinian leader. "He is on a tightrope. His problem is
how to avoid to being a victim of all this."


http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/18/op.htm#4

*  BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
18th September

Samuel Huntington's evil desire for a clash between civilizations may well
come true after Tuesday's terror attacks. The crack that divided Muslims
everywhere from the rest of the world is no longer a crack. It is a gulf
that, if not bridged, will surely destroy both.

For much of the world, it was the indescribable savagery of seeing jet-loads
of innocent human beings piloted into buildings filled with other innocent
human beings. It was the sheer horror of watching people jump from the 80th
floor of the collapsing World Trade Centre rather than be consumed by the
inferno inside. Yes, it is true that many Muslims also saw it exactly this
way, and felt the searing agony no less sharply. The heads of states of
Muslim countries, Saddam Hussein excepted, condemned the attacks. Leaders of
Muslim communities in the US, Canada, Britain, Europe, and Australia have
made impassioned denunciations and pleaded for the need to distinguish
between ordinary Muslims and extremists.

But the pretence that reality goes no further must be abandoned because this
merely obfuscates facts and slows down the search for solutions. One would
like to dismiss televized images showing Palestinian expressions of joy as
unrepresentative, reflective only of the crass political immaturity of a
handful. But this may be wishful thinking. Similarly, Pakistan Television,
operating under strict control of the government, is attempting to portray a
nation united in condemnation of the attack. Here too, the truth lies
elsewhere, as I learn from students at my university here in Islamabad, from
conversations with people in the streets, and from the Urdu press. A friend
tells me that crowds gathered around public TV sets at Islamabad airport had
cheered as the WTC came crashing down. It makes one feel sick from inside.

A bizarre new world awaits us, where old rules of social and political
behaviour have broken down and new ones are yet to be defined. Catapulted
into a situation of darkness and horror by the extraordinary force of
events, as rational human beings we must urgently formulate a response that
is moral, and not based upon considerations of power and practicality. This
requires beginning with a clearly defined moral supposition - the
fundamental equality of all human beings. It also requires that we must
proceed according to a definite sequence of steps, the order of which is not
interchangeable.

Before all else, Black Tuesday's mass murder must be condemned in the
harshest possible terms without qualification or condition, without seeking
causes or reasons that may even remotely be used to justify it, and without
regard for the national identity of the victims or the perpetrators. The
demented, suicidical fury of the attackers led to heinous acts of
indiscriminate and wholesale murder that has changed the world for the
worse. A moral position must begin with unequivocal condemnation, the
absence of which could eliminate even the language by which people can
communicate.

Analysis comes second, but it is just as essential. No "terrorist" gene is
known to exist or is likely to be found. Therefore, surely the attackers,
and their supporters, who were all presumably born normal, were afflicted by
something that caused their metamorphosis from normal human beings capable
of gentleness and affection into desperate, maddened, fiends with nothing
but murder in their hearts and minds. What was that?

Tragically, CNN and the US media have so far made little attempt to
understand this affliction. The cost for this omission, if it is to stay
this way, cannot be anything but terrible. What we have seen is probably the
first of similar tragedies that may come to define the 21st century as the
century of terror. There is much claptrap about "fighting terrorism" and
billions are likely to be poured into surveillance, fortifications, and
emergency plans, not to mention the ridiculous idea of missile defence
systems. But, as a handful of suicide bombers armed with no more than knives
and box-cutters have shown with such devastating effect, all this means
precisely nothing. Modern nations are far too vulnerable to be protected - a
suitcase nuclear device could flatten not just a building or two, but all of
Manhattan. Therefore, the simple logic of survival says that the chances of
survival are best if one goes to the roots of terror.

Only a fool can believe that the services of a suicidical terrorist can be
purchased, or that they can be bred at will anywhere. Instead, their
breeding grounds are in refugee camps and in other rubbish dumps of
humanity, abandoned by civilization and left to rot. A global superpower,
indifferent to their plight, and manifestly on the side of their tormentors,
has bred boundless hatred for its policies. In supreme arrogance,
indifferent to world opinion, the US openly sanctions daily dispossession
and torture of the Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces.

The deafening silence over the massacres in Qana, Sabra, and Shatila refugee
camps, and the video-gamed slaughter by the Pentagon of 70,000 people in
Iraq, has brought out the worst that humans are capable of. In the words of
Robert Fisk, "those who claim to represent a crushed, humiliated population
struck back with the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a doomed people".

[.....]

Ultimately, the security of the United States lies in its re-engaging with
the people of the world, especially with those that it has grievously
harmed. As a great country, possessing an admirable constitution that
protects the life and liberty of its citizens, it must extend its definition
of humanity to cover all peoples of the world. It must respect international
treaties such as those on greenhouse gases and biological weapons, stop
trying to force a new cold war by pushing through NMD, pay its UN dues, and
cease the aggrandizement of wealth in the name of globalization.

But it is not only the US that needs to learn new modes of behaviour. There
are important lessons for Muslims too, particularly those living in the US,
Canada, and Europe. Last year I heard the arch-conservative head of
Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami, Qazi Husain Ahmad, begin his lecture before an
American audience in Washington with high praise for a "pluralist society
where I can wear the clothes I like, pray at a mosque, and preach my
religion". Certainly, such freedoms do not exist for religious minorities in
Pakistan, or in most Muslim countries. One hopes that the misplaced anger
against innocent Muslims dissipates soon and such freedoms are not curtailed
significantly. Nevertheless, there is a serious question as to whether this
pluralism can persist forever, and if it does not, whose responsibility will
it be?

The problem is that immigrant Muslim communities have, by and large, chosen
isolation over integration. In the long run this is a fundamentally
unhealthy situation because it creates suspicion and friction, and makes
living together ever so much harder. It also raises serious ethical
questions about drawing upon the resources of what is perceived to be
another society, for which one has hostile feelings. This is not an argument
for doing away with one's Muslim identity. But, without closer interaction
with the mainstream, pluralism will be threatened. Above all, survival of
the community depends upon strongly emphasizing the difference between
extremists and ordinary Muslims, and on purging from within jihadist
elements committed to violence. Any member of the Muslim community who
thinks that ordinary people in the US are fair game because of bad US
government policies has no business being there.

To echo George W. Bush, "let there be no mistake". But here the mistake will
be to let the heart rule the head in the aftermath of utter horror, to bomb
a helpless Afghan people into an even earlier period of the Stone Age, or to
take similar actions that originate from the spine. Instead, in deference to
a billion years of patient evolution, we need to hand over charge to the
cerebellum. Else, survival of this particular species is far from
guaranteed.

The writer is professor of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.


http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?id=100092

*  FEARS AND EXPECTATIONS IN TURKEY
by Florence Biedermann
International Herald Tribune (?) and Kathimerini (Turkey?), 18th September

ANKARA (AFP): Turkey, a close ally of the United States and the only Muslim
member of NATO, takes a position of greater strategic importance following
last week's terrorist blitz on the USA, analysts said yesterday.

And while economists warn that the attacks could aggravate Turkey's economic
crisis, the country's leaders are hoping the events could accelerate
Ankara's entry into the European Union.

Long regarded by NATO as a buffer between three countries to its southeast
that support terrorism - Iraq, Iran and Syria - Turkey could be asked to
open up its military bases for the "first war of the 21st century."

For Hasan Unal, professor of international relations at Bilkent university
in Ankara, "the role of Turkey in the region will undoubtedly become
greater, because it appears for the moment that the attacks were perpetrated
by Islamists."

"The only Muslim country in NATO, it is well placed to be used by the United
States," he told AFP.

Turkish leaders have already pledged full support for likely joint NATO
action under the alliance's collective defense clause.

However, fears are rife that such action would leave Turkey in a situation
similar to the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War: Ankara, which backed the
strike against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, estimates its losses at some
$35 billion due to a cutback in border trade with its southern neighbor.

Economy Minister Kemal Dervis was determined yesterday to put a positive
spin on the latest developments and welcomed the new focus on Turkey.

"In the current atmosphere, our friends can better understand the rising
importance of Turkey and, if this is the case, (Turkey's) integration with
the European Union will pick up speed," Dervis told reporters.

However, Dervis also said, "We should reject the logic of Turkey demanding
the costs of its participation."

Economic effect

But the effects of last Tuesday's attacks are already being felt in Turkey -
by midday yesterday, the Istanbul Stock Exchange had dropped over 25 percent
in a week.

Economists warned that the threat of war is likely to affect tourism, as
well as the internal consumption. Economic growth had been expected to
improve slightly by 2002.

The Turkish economy plunged into crisis in February when the government
floated the lira to contain a liquidity squeeze, causing the currency to
drop massively against the dollar. In May, Ankara began implementing a
strict program of economic reforms in return for multibillion-dollar aid
from the IMF and World Bank.

Turkey, meanwhile, hosts a force of some 40 British and US planes in the
Incirlik air base in its south, which patrol the no-fly zone imposed on
northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to protect the region's Kurdish
population.

During the Gulf War, Turkey allowed the base to be used in the air campaign
against Iraq. Soli Ozel, professor at the University of Bilgi in Istanbul,
warned yesterday that if Iraq is implicated and if NATO declares war,
"Turkey must receive something really big for its cooperation. It must not
repeat the error of 10 years ago, when it emerged empty-handed."


http://www.wn.com/?action=display&article=9341586&template=worldnews/search.
txt&index=recent

*  JAPAN MAY CHANGE PACIFIST CONSTITUTION
ISN (Reuter's), Tue 18 Sep 2001

Japan's ruling bloc on Tuesday began discussing a new law that would allow
logistical support for any U.S. military retaliation for last week's
unprecedented air attacks on New York and Washington.

The debate comes at a time when Japan, which is home to the U.S. military's
biggest presence in Asia, is pondering whether it should make "visible"
contributions as its most important strategic ally prepares to fight a
global war against terrorism. Japan came under fire from a wide spectrum of
the world community when it declined to commit even a token force to the
Gulf War in 1991. Instead it extended $13 billion in aid for the U.S.-led
multinational forces trying to oust Iraq from Kuwait.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, known for his nationalistic tinge and
pro-American stance, has been pushing for a revision to the pacifist
constitution to clarify the ambiguous status of the military as well as to
allow Japan to take part in collective self-defence by going to the aid of
an ally if attacked.

Separately, a Japanese official said Japan may lift sanctions on Pakistan
and India to help encourage their support for the US drive to track down
Osama bin Laden, named by Washington as the prime suspect in the attacks.
Tokyo imposed the sanctions after the two countries carried out nuclear
tests in 1998.

Any move by Japan to boost its military role will arouse controversy in
Asia, because of the country's wartime imperialism, and at home because of
its pacifist constitution. Japan's US drafted constitution renounces war as
a means to settle international disputes and the government has long
interpreted that to mean it is banned from going to the aid of allies when
they are attacked.


http://www.irna.com/newshtm/eng/27180251.htm

 * US REVENGE ACTION CAN NEVER BE CALLED WAR AGAINST TERRORISM

New Delhi, Sept 18, IRNA -- Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Delhi on Tuesday said
that the US action of revenge on Afghan innocent people in the name of
combating with terrorism could never be called war against terrorism.

The Muslims of India are concerned over the US announcement to attack
Afghanistan along with its allies as such step would prove disastrous for
the whole world, Maulana Syed Ahmed Bukhari said in a press conference here.

Bukhari said Muslims are being targeted in the different parts of the world
by US since last fifty years, pulling down of Iran Air passenger aircraft in
1989 with 299 on board by a US missile attack, the terrible and oppressive
actions of Israel with open and criminal support of US are also acts of
terrorism.

Terrorism and Islam are different from each other and the US, Britain and
Israel are the prime mover of posing "Islamic Terrorism" in a world where
all have subjected Muslims to their tyranny, he said.

Bukhari said, " No one can say with confidence what may be called terrorism,
and until and unless terrorism and freedom movement are differentiated the
war against the terrorism cannot be won."

 Bukhari said in his opinion the terrorist attacks in the US is a reaction
of its oppressive activities on Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan
and if Washington opts to attack Afghanistan, the severe reaction of it will
be imminent and natural.

 The Indian support to US operation against Afghanistan in the name of
suppressing terrorism would be proved dangerous to India, Bukhari said
adding if foreign power succeeds in shedding blood in this region India too
would not be safe from it."

He warned that US should keep it in mind that the arrest of Osama Bin Laden
or the destruction of Afghanistan is not the solution of the issues rather
the only solution lies in the revision of its policies towards Palestine. US
should understand that violence creates violence and should be ready to face
severe reaction." Regarding the Indian Government's one sided offer to the
US for all type of cooperation has no moral right to talk against terrorism
as some of the members of the government perpetuated the worst incident of
terrorism by demolishing Babri Masjid in India and do not even regret for
thousands of Muslim who fell prey to post demolition riots in different
parts of the country, he said.

 If Indian Government is serious against terrorism then it should snap ties
with Israel and raise same voice to fix Israel as a terrorist state, he
said.

Bukhari also condemned Pakistan's decision to provide all cooperation to US
as the reaction of almost five million Afghan refugees, living in Pakistan,
would be so severe that cannot be controlled by Islamabad and the
possibility of disintegration of Pakistan would be enhanced.

Bukhari appealed to all Islamic countries to be united because Muslims can
foil all attempts against Muslims and Islam only by standing united.


http://www.mg.co.za/mg/za/archive/2001sep/features/19sep-africa.html

*  US ATTACKS RAISE MIXED FEELINGS IN AFRICA
by PETER CUNLIFFE-JONES
Mail & Guardian (AFP), 19th September

'I t is horror. It is unimaginable,' said Tayo Balogun, a civil servant in
Lagos, black Africa's largest city, pouring over the photographs in the
daily newspaper the day after three hijacked planes struck targets in two US
cities.

Then came the twist. "It is not that horror is unimaginable. Just that it
would happen there," he said.

Africa, for all that happens that is positive on the continent, is home
uncontestably to more wars, more death, more horror and more human misery
than anywhere else.

Yet, most still manage to feel sympathy for victims of violence elsewhere,
though this is not always easy.

According to the International Rescue Committee, around 2,5-million people
have died in little over three years, unmourned and largely even unnoticed
by the world, as a result of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Wars or civil unrest are taking place in at least half of more than 50
countries that make up Africa. In Angola, Sudan, Sierra Leone and elsewhere
wars have been taking place for years. Millions of people die of diseases
for which drugs exist and can be afforded in the West, but which Africans
cannot afford.

And most of the time, this death and suffering is ignored by the outside
world.

In the face of this, the reactions of world leaders -- calling isolated
horrors such as last weeks events 'the greatest evil of our time' -- have
struck some hard.

On Monday, worried authorities in Liberia, a country that is yet to recover
from seven years of brutal civil war, temporarily shut down a private radio
station after it allowed on air what was perceived as an anti-American
remark.

"What is so much about America? People are dying here and America has not
cared to comment," the caller said, sparking the shut down of the station.

While African presidents all lined up to condemn last weeks' attacks, and
while most ordinary Africans would share that sense, in some mainly Muslim
parts of black Africa there were isolated scenes of jubilation.

In Kano, the largest city in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria, 31-year-old
Saminu Abdullahi said he had celebrated at the news of the attacks.

"America is the number one enemy of Islam. It is behind all the killings of
Muslims in Bosnia, in Iraq and in Palestine. It supports the killing of
Muslims all over the world," he said. But others were more cautious of
appearing to antagonise.

The authorities in Sudan, who once sheltered the prime suspect Osama Bin
Laden and were themselves bombed by Washington in 1998, have in the past
week roundly condemned the events in the United States.

And many other, ordinary Africans have expressed sympathy.

In Kenya, the attacks in the United States raised painful memories of the
bomb attacks outside US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which a total of
212 Africans and 12 Americans died, and thousands more were injured.

A leading Christian cleric in Kenya, the Reverend Peter arap Bissem, said
Kenyans feel "solidarity with our brothers and sisters in America, victims,
like we were, of a terrorist programme."

But others were less sympathetic.

Scores of thousands of Algerians have died gruesome deaths over the past
nine years in an Islamist insurgency which has drawn little reaction from
the outside world.

"They have reaped what they sowed. Bin Laden is of the Americans' own making
and now they're paying for creating him," said an Algiers lawyer who has
himself suffered the wrath of the Islamists.

"When Algeria cried for help to fight terrorism, the silence from the US was
deafening," said a pharmacist, noting that Anwar Haddam, a leader of the now
disbanded Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), blamed for much of the violence in
Algeria, now lives in conditional liberty in the United States.

Between 1996 and 2000, South Africa was hit by a spate of around 190 bomb
blasts in and around Cape Town, killing three and injuring some 131, with
most blamed on a radical Islamic organisation.

But a senior government official who deals with security said the
fundamentalist threat in South Africa had been greatly contained and South
Africa like other governments has been supportive of Washington.

Nevertheless, much of Africa is largely cut off from the world markets, with
African accounting for only two per cent of world trade, and this was
perhaps why only a handful of Africans were in the World Trade Center when
it was attacked.

Rwanda's relationship with Washington has been strained by the US role in
the Rwandan genocide of 1994 when, as shown only last month by the release
of declassified documents, Washington intervened to ensure the withdrawal of
UN forces there.

Experts believe that if it had been bolstered instead of withdrawn, the UN
force could have halted the killings of 800 000 people.


http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/19/wtal219.x
ml

*  US STRIKES WILL SPLIT ARAB WORLD, SAYS MUBARAK
by Philip Smucker in Cairo and Patrick Bishop in Amman
Daily Telegraph, 19th September

PRESIDENT Hosni Mubarak of Egypt sounded a loud cautionary note yesterday,
telling America that precipitate military action could alienate the Arab
world and spill innocent blood.

He also made it clear that he will be spearheading efforts to gain
concessions from Washington on the Palestinian question.

Mr Mubarak's advisers said he feared that hasty US military action in
Afghanistan would split the Arab world in half between "those who support
Washington and those who are against".

Jordan, another moderate in the region, is equally fearful that strikes
against Iraq could produce a furious local reaction which would make it
extremely difficult for the country to sign up to a coalition with
Washington.

Mr Mubarak, while warning against fast action in Afghanistan, is voicing
pan-Arab demands for far more US involvement in solving the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

That demand appeared to have been satisfied last night when Israel bowed to
American demands and suspended all "offensive operations".

In several interviews with US television networks before the Israeli
announcement, Mr Mubarak said that in targeting an "individual," or Osama
bin Laden, "you are going to kill innocent people".

Analysts said the president was manoeuvring to help his Palestinian
neighbours and also appease Islamic groups in his country. Some of his views
were similar to those of banned fundamentalist groups in Egypt.

After several years away from the international limelight, engaged in a
brutal struggle against Islamic fundamentalists at home, the Egyptian
president appears to have seized on the current international crisis to
launch a political comeback.

Western officials said that Mr Mubarak has "one ear cocked towards
Washington and another towards the concerns of the country's Islamists".

They are concerned that his blunt suggestions that the attacks on the US
were a likely result of Washington's aloof stance in the Middle East crisis,
will be greeted with glee by Islamic fundamentalists in the region and
elsewhere.

The Egyptian government's view of the current crisis and that of its
Islamist adversaries has been close in recent days.

Mamoun al-Hodhaibi, a senior official in Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood,
said: "Mubarak is saying what we believe. Hasty action from Washington may
divide the governments of the Muslim world.

"The Americans must search, instead, for the reasons why this happened
including what is going on in Palestine with Muslims being killed every day
by American [manufactured] aircraft."

Last night's Israeli announcement of a halt in all attacks on Palestinian
targets may help to take the steam out of such accusations.

In Jordan, Western officials say there is little sympathy for the Taliban
and an American attack on Afghanistan is unlikely to generate antagonism. An
assault on Iraq could, however, create huge problems for the kingdom.

Fraternal and economic ties are strong with Iraq providing all Jordan's oil
at highly favourable rates. During the Gulf war the late King Hussein was
forced to be Iraq's only supporter in the region out of deference to strong
pro-Baghdad feeling on the streets.

His son King Abdullah has condemned last week's attacks and offered support
to Washington. Jordan's intelligence service is expected to provide valuable
help to America.


http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/19/op.htm#1

*  WAGING WAR AGAINST TERRORISM
by Swami Agnivesh and Rev. Valson Thampu
Dawn (Pakistan), 19th September

We could respond to the latest and unparalleled outbreak of global terrorism
in two ways. The first is that of opportunism. It could be turned to our
advantage, say, in reinforcing the case against cross-border terrorism and
manoeuvre the US into an anti-Pakistan stance with a beneficial spin-off for
our Kashmir agenda. Or we could see escalating international terrorism as a
pointer to the pathology of the world order that is being crafted almost
exclusively from a Euro-American perspective, with the rest of the world as
mere pawns on the chessboard of orchestrated social, cultural and economic
expropriation.

President Bush is right in terming the terrorist carnage in New York and
Washington as 'acts of war'. But the campaign against terrorism needs to be
situated in a larger war against the cult and culture of violence in all its
myriad forms. Selective targeting of the 'terrorist outfits' inconvenient to
oneself can only degenerate into yet another project of terror, no matter in
what ideological or rhetorical costume it is draped and displayed.

As Indians we are inclined to be sentimental. Sentimentality involves a
distortion of sentiments and an avoidance of truth. It constructs a
one-sided version of reality, leaving out the disturbing aspect of the
situation. Many of us are likely, hence, to feel strongly that this is not
the time to take an objective view of terrorism as a global phenomenon.
Especially in the wake of the terrible Tuesday, the image of the US as the
grand victim of global terrorism haunts our imagination so powerfully that
any attempt to see the dialogue of terror objectively could seem
blasphemous. The truth must be spoken, nonetheless, lest the colossal human
sacrifice witnessed in New York and Washington goes waste. And that would be
a tragedy worse than the collapse of the World Trade Centre itself.

Our world subscribes to the unwritten dogma that loss of life is more tragic
in some contexts and some countries, whereas it is treated as a routine
matter in most others. For decades the American foreign policy, especially
the war against Communism, has involved the sacrifice of millions of lives
in far away lands. Prolonged and poignant suffering has been inflicted on
entire nations in order to break down the will of the people. Somehow it was
deemed legitimate to sacrifice peoples at a distance to secure the
foundations of American hegemony over the world. At the same time, the loss
of a single American life has been a matter of hyper-sensitivity. We have
all been bought into this specious logic for too long.

It is a mark of the greatness of the American society that not every one
there subscribes to this hypocritical dogma. Denouncing the barbarity that
was rained on New York, Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism at the
University of Texas at Austin, writes, "But this act was no more despicable
than the massive acts of terrorism, the deliberate killing of civilians for
political purposes, that the US government has committed during my lifetime.
For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has
deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate
that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism." Only think
of the hellish sight that the highway from Kuwait to Basrah (Iraq) presented
after the liberation of Kuwait.

A day after the war had ended, thousands of Iraqi soldiers were retreating,
virtually fleeing in fear, from Kuwait commandeering whatever vehicles were
available. US B52 bombers rained cluster bombs on them killing thousands all
along the highway, clearly after the hostilities had ended. That was not
branded terrorism, as the pirate who confronted Alexander would have
sneered, only because the US had irresistible firepower.

Predictably, Bush has exhorted the democracies of the world to unite in this
war against terrorism. Who can dispute that this needs to happen? But who
can, at the same time, hope that this would result in the eradication of the
cult of violence, as symbolized by this mega terrorism, unless there is an
honest understanding of the need to abjure violence as the means to attain
one's goals.

How can a nation that sits on stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and
is in a position to blackmail and terrorize the world have the moral right
to lead a campaign against terrorism? The exclusive right that a few nations
claim to use nuclear and hi-tech violence at will is in itself a terrorist
idea that needs to be seen for what it is. As long as double standards and
injustice continue to plague the global community and vitiate the rhetoric
of peace, terrorism will continue to bedevil the human race.

Most people are carried away by the magnitude of the havoc that the
terrorists have wrought in New York and Washington. Mind-boggling as that
really is, what speaks even louder is its carefully choreographed symbolism.
This is, by far, the most vicious blow to the American presumption of
impregnability at home. The only other comparable event in terms of its
symbolic resonance is the sinking of the Titanic that, according to Joseph
Conrad, humbled the pride of an entire civilization and burst the bubble of
Anglo-Saxon arrogance. The terrible Tuesday has served notice on the nation
that American muscle power may not necessarily translate itself into
security for Americans either at home or abroad. America needs to combine
her awesome firepower with an inspired commitment to justice and compassion
for all. And that should include those miserable wretches who are doomed to
groan under the 'dictators' that the US detests.

That is possible only if this great nation learns to temper its
geo-political calculations with a sense of universal responsibility and
compassion for all in distress. American pre-eminence must not be founded
exclusively on American firepower or economic clout, but also on a global
commitment to end poverty, destitution, and injustice of every kind.
President Kennedy's stirring words to his countrymen, "Ask not what America
can do for you; ask what you can do for America and what we together can do
for the world," are far more relevant today than they were then.

The symbolism of the event - trade towers collapsing and the nerve centre of
the mightiest war machine in history folding up in panic - has not been lost
in the torrent of sympathy that people all over the world felt for the
victims. The twin towers symbolized a whole civilization that allows wealth
to flee from the people at large and accumulate in the hands of a few. Never
before in history have mechanisms of affluence left so many destitute as
they do in our globalizing world today. Death by starvation, the brooding
ferocity of hunger, is the ultimate terror.

It is time the Americans came to terms with the irony of their affluence and
preeminence in a world of escalating inequalities and explosive grievances.
They have must to lose. Consider, in comparison, the Afghans and the Iraqis.
How much damage could a few terrorists have inflicted on these countries
with a few passenger planes? That is why the idea of an American retaliatory
strike against Afghanistan looks so unexciting, even pathetic. Are we about
to witness a re-run of North Vietnam?

It was the rare resolve bred by poverty that humbled the US there. History
is moved by those who have nothing to lose. Marx knew this, and so cried
out, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose except your
chains". Only those who have nothing to lose could have turned themselves
into missiles and displayed the suicidal recklessness that portended
Doomsday in Washington.

The second thing that the people of America need to note is this: the
trigger-happy approach of the US to policing the globe bespeaks a crude
unconcern for the cost that this exacts from other people. The mastery of
electronic warfare that seems to guarantee negligible loss of life to
oneself has been the main reason for the cavalier posturings of the US in
this respect. One wonders if rockets would have rained on Sudan and
Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks on American embassies, and the
average American endorsed this effrontery, if the horror of Black Tuesday
were anticipated then. The gaping intelligence-and-security lapse writ large
over this humiliating event is proof enough that the prospect of a massive
terrorist attack in the nerve centre of American finance and defence
establishment was never taken seriously by the US.

All on a sudden it is as if Vietnam, Iraq, Baghdad, Cambodia, Nicaragua,
Chile and Laos have all come home to roost. For a change, the victims are no
longer 'the demonized other', but men and women one has seen and known. And
that is a different kind of experience from the CNN coverage of hi-tech war
at a distance. Ironically, it is the apocalyptic scale of the devastation in
this event that makes retaliation both unavoidable and unthinkable. This
explains why a subterranean tremor of popular anger is now sweeping through
the American people, for all the outward tokens of solidarity they display.
To an extent unimaginable a few days ago, more and more Americans are
beginning to see an emerging link between American foreign policy, studded
with distant proxy wars, and the hell that broke out in their own backyard.

Third, the American people need to ensure that the seeds of terror that the
enemy has rained over them do not penetrate and sprout in their collective
psyche either as fear psychosis or as irrational hatred against all and
sundry. Terror's first casualty is the capacity for sound judgment. Panic
robs people of their capacity for subtle distinctions. Yet all that we
cherish - truth, justice, compassion, love, and beauty - stands on this very
foundation.

The sporadic outbreak of violence against people of Asian origin, especially
mistaking the Sikhs for terrorists, is pathetically ridiculous. Unless this
is contained at once, the terrorists will have the last laugh of having
infected the mind of America with the virus of terrorism.

There is a lesson in this for India as well. Our precipitous haste in
boarding the American bandwagon is clearly based on a naive
over-exaggeration of the benefits that can be harvested thereby. In this
purblind fixation, we seem to become unmindful of the cost that is sure to
come in the wake of this misadventure. What is the proof, as yet, of the
genuineness of the American resolve to contain and eliminate global
terrorism in a dispassionate and consistent fashion?

We cannot afford to be carried away by the moment. The truth of life and
history is that issues have to be faced and justice upheld, sooner of later.
The alternative is to walk an unending trail of death and devastation in the
foolish hope that a higher degree of counter violence will bring our
adversaries (nee, terrorists) to their knees. While it is true that hardly
any terrorist movement has succeeded in attaining its goal, it is also true
that very few terrorist movements have been crushed by brute force alone.
Look at Sri Lanka, the bleeding island paradise, where sorrow blossoms
instead of flowers; no further argument is needed.

Those who believe that terror can be treated or targeted selectively, live
in a fool's paradise, as the American did till the other day. Black Tuesday
was, in that sense, a moment of truth. But a moment of truth need not
necessarily become a moment of enlightenment. For that, the truth
encountered has to be internalized and upheld in the hard choices that a
nation makes. President Bush could get it all wrong if he persuades himself
to believe, against his own better sense, that the war to be one is the war
against a particular brand of terrorism. The war of this century must be
against the rising cult of violence that turned the last century into a
cauldron of cruelty and an abyss of human suffering.


http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/18/15541.html

*  RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH BLESSES BOMBARDMENTS
Pravda, 18th September

³From the Christian point of view, Americans have religious reasons for a
retaliatory strike,² Metropolitan Cyrill, the chairman of the Foreign
Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchy told journalists today at a
news conference here in Moscow. Answering questions, the metropolitan
stressed that ³US responses, of course, will take place, and they should
take place, since, from the Christian point of view, evil should be
punished.²

Metropolitan Cyrill is also sure that Œthe USA has moral and even religious
grounds for a retaliatory strike.² He reminded a well-known phrase: ³One who
has lifted his sword, will die by the sword,² according to the RIA Novosti
news agency.

The high-ranking clergyman does not rule out that damage can be made to
innocent people. In this case, American may be accused of ³fighting innocent
people.² Metropolitan Cyrill went on to say: ³I do not think that a
retaliatory strike will cause inter-confessional enmity,² since the
terrorist attacks perpetrated in the USA do not have religious grounds.

The Russian Orthodox Churchıs position, voiced by Metropolitan Cyrill,
really makes a sensational news story. It is, maybe, for the first time that
church hierarchs are directly blessing a war. Typically evangelical
peace-loving instructions, e.g. ³if anyone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn the other also² are forgotten.

It is not clear why the Russian Church has made up its mind to give
appraisals of what the USA is doing or is planning to do. Whether it carry
out a retaliatory strike of not ­ it is up to them to decide. The USA is
another country populated with people who have different beliefs.

So, the Russian Churchıs recent statements affects delicate matters related
to the field of law, in the field of inter-ethnic and inter-confessional
relationships. One should not forget that Russia is a mutinational and
mulitconfessional country. Many Russians profess Islam.

What is the world communityı reaction going to be, should Russian Moslems
call for support of Afghanistan? They do have right to do so, but they do
not do so.

Why, then, the Russian Church has decided to speak its mind on the point
that evidently has nothing to do with the church? The metropolitanıs
certainty that the retaliatory strike will not cause interconfessional
enmity is in reality extremely controversial. It is clear by now that the
threats alone of bombing Afghanistan have already worsened relations between
the Moslem and European worlds, to say nothing of the incidents with
mistreating Moslems in the USA.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=394576621

*  IRAN REFUSES TO ALLOW US PLANES TO USE AIRSPACE
Times of India, 21st September

TEHRAN ( AFP ): The Iranian government said Thursday it would refuse to
allow the United States to use its airspace for any attack on neighbouring
Afghanistan.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will in no way allow the United States to
attack Afghanistan using its airspace," said foreign ministry spokesman
Hamid-Reza Assefi, quoted on state television.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday that Tehran, whose
ties with Washington were severed two decades ago, "condemns any eventual
military action in Afghanistan which would lead to a new human catastrophe."

Iran, home to more than one million Afghan refugees, is also concerned over
a possible influx of refugees in case of US military strikes on Afghanistan
in retaliation for last week's terror attacks in the United States.


http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/32770.htm

*  ŒTODAY WE ARE ALL AMERICANS'
by Benjamin Netanyahu
New York Post, 21st September

WHAT is at stake today is nothing less than the survival of civilization.

There may be some who would have thought a week ago that to talk in these
apocalyptic terms about the battle against international terrorism was to
engage in reckless exaggeration. No longer.

Each one of us today understands that we are all targets, that our cities
are vulnerable, and that our values are hated with an unmatched fanaticism
that seeks to destroy our societies and our way of life.

I am certain that I speak on behalf of my entire nation when I say: Today we
are all Americans - in grief, as in defiance.

In grief, because my people have faced the agonizing horrors of terror for
many decades, and we feel an instant kinship with both the victims of this
tragedy and the great nation that mourns its fallen brothers and sisters.

In defiance, because just as my country continues to fight terrorism in our
battle for survival, I know that America will not cower before this
challenge.

I have absolute confidence that if we, the citizens of the free world, led
by President Bush, marshal the enormous reserves of power at our disposal,
harness the steely resolve of a free people and mobilize our collective will
- we shall eradicate this evil from the face of the earth.

But to achieve this goal, we must first however answer several questions:
Who is responsible for this terrorist onslaught? Why? What is the motive
behind these attacks? And most importantly, what must be done to defeat
these evil forces?

The first and most crucial thing to understand is this: There is no
international terrorism without the support of sovereign states.
International terrorism simply cannot be sustained for long without the
regimes that aid and abet it.

Terrorists are not suspended in mid-air. They train, arm and indoctrinate
their killers from within safe havens on territory provided by terrorist
states.

Often, these regimes provide the terrorists with intelligence, money and
operational assistance, dispatching them to serve as deadly proxies to wage
a hidden war against more powerful enemies.

These regimes mount a worldwide propaganda campaign to legitimize terror,
besmirching its victims and exculpating its practitioner - as we witnessed
in the farcical spectacle in Durban last month.

TAKE away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of
international terrorism will collapse into dust.

The international terrorist network is thus based on regimes - Iran, Iraq,
Syria, Taliban Afghanistan, Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and
several other Arab regimes such as the Sudan.

These regimes are the ones that harbor the terrorist groups: Osama bin Laden
in Afghanistan, Hezbollah and others in Syrian-controlled Lebanon, Hamas,
Islamic Jihad and recently mobilized Fatah and Tanzim factions in the
Palestinian territories and sundry other terror organizations in such
capitals as Damascus, Baghdad and Khartoum.

These terrorist states and terror organizations together form a terror
network, whose constituent parts support each other operationally as well as
politically. For example, the Palestinian groups cooperate closely with
Hezbollah, which in turn links them to Syria, Iran and bin Laden.

These offshoots of terror have affiliates in other states that have not yet
uprooted their presence, such as Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

How did this come about? The growth of this terror network is the result of
several developments in the last two decades: Chief among them is the
Khomeini Revolution and the establishment of a clerical Islamic state in
Iran.

This created a sovereign spiritual base for fomenting a strident Islamic
militancy worldwide - a militancy that was often backed by terror.

Equally important was the victory in the Afghan war of the international
mujahedin brotherhood. This international band of zealots, whose ranks
include Osama bin Laden, saw their victory over the Soviet Union as
providential proof of the innate supremecy of faithful Muslims over the weak
infidel powers. They believed that even the superior weapons of a superpower
could not withstand their superior will.

To this should also be added Saddam Hussein's escape from destruction at the
end of the Gulf War, his dismissal of U.N. monitors and his growing
confidence that he can soon develop unconventional weapons to match those of
the West.

Finally, the creation of Yasser Arafat's terror enclave gave a safe haven to
militant Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Like
their muhajedin cousins, they drew inspiration from Israel's hasty
withdrawal from Lebanon, glorified as a great Muslim victory by the
Syrian-backed Hezbollah.

Under Arafat's rule, these Palestinian Islamic terrorist groups made
repeated use of suicide bombing, going so far as to run summer camps in Gaza
that teach Palestinian children how to become suicide martyrs.

Its adherents, believing in the innate supremacy of Islam, suffered a series
of shocks when in the last two centuries that same hated, supposedly
inferior West penetrated Islamic realms in North Africa, the Middle East and
the Persian Gulf.

For them the mission was clear: The West had to be first pushed out of these
areas. Pro Western Middle Eastern regimes were toppled in rapid succession,
including in Iran. And Israel, the Middle East's only democracy and its
purest manifestation of Western progress and freedom, must be wiped off the
face of the earth.

THUS, the soldiers of militant Islam do not hate the West because of Israel,
they hate Israel because of the West. They see it as an island of Western
democratic values in a Muslim Arab sea. This is why they call Israel the
Little Satan, to distinguish it clearly from the country that has always
been and will always be the Great Satan - the United States of America.

Nothing better illustrates this better than Osama bin Laden's call for jihad
against the United States in 1998. He gave as his primary reason not Israel,
not the Palestinians, not the "peace process" - but rather the very presence
of the United States "occupying the Land of Islam in the holiest of places."
And where is that? "The Arabian peninsula," says bin Laden, where America is
"plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers and humiliating its people."
Israel, by the way, comes a distant third after "the continuing aggression
against the Iraqi people."

For the bin Ladens of the world, Israel is merely a sideshow. America is the
target.


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