Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (No Series)

by Scheuer, Michael

  19.Ayman al-Zawahiri, “The Zionist-Crusader aggressions on Gaza and Lebanon,” www.muslim.net, July 28, 2006.

  20.Quoted in Hamid Mir, “U.S. Using Chemical Weapons—Usama bin Laden,” Ausaf, November 10, 2001, 1, 7.

  21.“Statement by Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, May God Protect Him [and] the al-Qaeda Organization,” al-Qal’ah (online version), October 14, 2002.

  22.Ibid.

  23.Ibid.

  24.Osama bin Laden, “Message to Muslims in Iraq,” December 28, 2004, www.dazzled.com/soiraq’pdf/Iraq.zip.

  25.Tariq Ramadan, In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), ix–x.

  26.This is absolutely not to say that bin Laden has replaced the ulema as the religious instructor and guide of Muslims. He has not. Bin Laden has never shown the least inclination to play such a role, and he has consistently said that the clerics who have been imprisoned in Muslim countries and the United States are the rightful leaders of jihad and reformation in the Islamic world. Just as some Westerners have claimed bin Laden “hijacked Islam,” other Westerners incorrectly claim that bin Laden aspires to be the new “mahdi” or even the “caliph” of the Islamic world, claims that are made nowhere in the corpus of his rhetoric and writings.

  27.Dr. Madawi al-Rashid, “Islam Today: From the Jurisprudence Scholars to the Men of the Cave,” Al-Quds Al-Arabi (online version), February 6, 2006.

  28.Ibid. Dr. al-Rashid’s argument that senior Islamic scholars are being discredited and left behind may help to explain two recent high-profile efforts they have made to reassert their leadership. In the first, Shaykh Salman al-Awdah, renowned Saudi scholar and former mentor of bin Laden, published a public letter to the al-Qaeda chief beseeching him to reconsider his martial approach to rectifying the Muslim world’s problems. Al-Awdah, however, was neither willing to attack bin Laden personally nor to claim that he was not a good Muslim; indeed, al-Awdah addressed him as “My brother Usama.” In the second effort, 138 prominent Islamic scholars—including the grand muftis of Egypt and Syria—addressed a letter to Pope Benedict VI and other Christian leaders in which they called for a dialogue between the leaders of the two faiths. Neither effort shows much confidence on the part of the Muslim scholars. Shaykh Awdah’s noncombative letter to bin Laden testifies to the respect the latter continues to command among Saudis and to al-Awdah’s fear of alienating his flock. The Muslim scholars’ letter to the pope also had a pleading air to it, urging the need for Christian-Muslim dialogue, but strongly intimating that negating the bin Laden–inspired Islamist movement would be impossible if Christians continued to “wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.” See Shaykh Salman Bin-Fahd al-Awdah, “Letter to Usama bin Ladin,” Islam Today WWW, September 17, 2007; and “An Open Letter and Call From Muslim Religious Leaders to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, et al.: A Common Word Between You and Us,” October 11, 2007, ww.brandeis.edu/offices/ communications/muslimletter.pdf.

  29.Reza Aslan, “A Coming Islamic Reformation,” Los Angeles Times (online version), January 28, 2006.

  30.For example: “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States”; “He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only”; and, “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” See John Rhodehamel, ed., The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 2001), 128.

  31.Osama bin Ladin, “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques: Expel the Heretics From the Arabian Peninsula,” Al-Islah (online version), September 2, 1996. Like Jefferson’s treatise, bin Ladin’s also stressed (a) the burden of government-imposed taxes (in a tone that may resonate with American taxpayers today) and (b) that resort to arms came only after a long series of peaceful remonstrances by Saudi reformers to the king, each of which had been rejected.

  It [the Saudi reformers’ slate of objections] pointed to the state’s financial and economic situation and the terrible and frightful fate in store as a result of the debts of usury which have broken the state’s back, and to the waste that has squandered the nation’s wealth to satisfy personal wealth, resulting in taxes, duties, and excises imposed on the public. (a)

  Although the [reformers’] memorandum submitted all that [they proposed] leniently and gently, as a reminder of God and as good advice in a gentle, objective, and sincere way, despite the importance and necessity of advice for rulers in Islam, and despite the number and positions of the signatories of the memorandum and their sympathizers, it was of no avail. Its contents were rejected and its signatories and sympathizers were humiliated, punished, and imprisoned. The preachers’ and reformers’ eagerness to pursue peaceful reform methods in the interest of the country’s unity and to prevent bloodshed was clearly demonstrated. So why should the regime block all means of peaceful reform and drive the people toward armed action? That was the only door left open for the public for ending injustice and upholding right and justice. (b)

  32.George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address, http://whitehouse.gov, January 20, 2005. For all the scorn that has been launched in condemnation of President George W. Bush’s supposedly inferior intellectual capabilities, it must be noted that Mr. Bush was absolutely right when he said that all human beings yearn for freedom and liberty. Like most Americans, however, Mr. Bush’s accurate insight was boxed in by the “free society” we have established on the North American continent. The quote marks around the term “free society” are meant not to be demeaning but rather to denote ownership—as in “our” free society. When Mr. Bush and most Americans (with the notable exceptions of the Democratic party’s core factions and most of the academy’s social science faculties and law schools) use the term, they are talking about a republican form of mixed government, a constitution grounded in the British constitution, the common law, the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, and a polity whose most enduring and protective mores are guided by Protestant Christianity. With these tools Americans have built history’s freest, fairest, and most economically prosperous republic. Sadly, whether America turns out to be history’s most durable and longest-lived republic is an open question.

  The clear success of America’s republican experiment rightly inculcates pride and a sense of accomplishment among most Americans, but it also induces an odd combination of Pollyanna-ishness and intolerance regarding the concept of freedom held by others in the world. The intolerance, not surprisingly, becomes most pronounced when we are examining the attitudes toward freedom of those outside the Anglo-American tradition. Born of a revolution meant to secure freedom and liberty for themselves and their posterity, Americans have a history of running hot and cold regarding the revolutions of others that are proclaimed to be efforts to attain freedom. And that is the way it should be. Revolutions, even if staged in the name of freedom, are not all by definition beneficial to the national-security interests of the United States, which must, of course, always be the deciding factor in determining the U.S. response to revolution.

  Both ends of the Cold War provide a good glimpse of the dangers and promise inherent in supporting other peoples’ revolutions. Woodrow Wilson (about whom not enough negative can ever be said) took a half-hearted swing at the Bolshevik Revolution but backed out almost as soon as he began, believing that any new Russian government had to be better t
han that of the evil, freedom-hating tsar. Today we may be standing squarely athwart an incipient revolution that may or may not benefit us if we succeed but that is surely damaging us mightily as we seek to suppress it. That revolution is the one being led and inspired by Osama bin Laden and that is meant, ultimately, to overthrow every authoritarian Muslim government in the world except for a restored Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

  33.Even given this authoritarian record, however, the Islamists’ governing philosophy is less despotic than that of most of the governments they intend to overthrow. The brilliant, commonsense American strategist Ralph Peters, who is not remotely a softy regarding America’s Islamist enemies, has accurately assessed the Islamists’ philosophy and found that reality does not mesh with the neoconservatives’ iron rule that the destruction of the current U.S.-protected Muslim tyrannies will inevitably lead to Islamofascist regimes. “The power of Islamic fundamentalist regimes in power has been deplorable,” Mr. Peters writes.

  They torture without remorse, imprison or execute without trial, and restrict basic freedoms to a degree intolerable to Westerners. Yet, after all the gore has been hosed into the sewer, there is a moral center to the greatest of the fundamentalists. It just isn’t our moral center. Not many fundamentalist leaders share our taste for liberal democracy (which we acquired over the better part of a millennium), but some do share other ideals we profess. They are for mass education (although we might not agree with their curriculum and their exclusion of women). They desire to democratize their nation’s wealth, if not its government. They seek to do [that] which social demagogues only promised. They have a sense of honor higher than that prevalent in the deathbed societies they seek to revitalize. And their reactions have yet to prove anywhere near as belligerent toward other states as their rhetoric.

  See Ralph Peters, Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph? (Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 1999), 127.

  34.See Michael F. Scheuer, “Clueless into Kabul,” American Interest 2, no. 1 (September–October 2006), 111–19, and Pamela Constable, “Afghan Leader Losing Support,” Washington Post, June 26, 2006, A-1.

  35.Helene Cooper, “Saudis Say They Might Back Sunnis If U.S. Leaves Iraq,” New York Times, December 13, 2006, and Diana Ellis, “Saudi King: Spreading Shiism Won’t Work,” Associated Press, January 27, 2007.

  36.For the strengthening authoritarian trend in constricting Islamist activities in Jordan, see Jamal Halaby, “Jordan’s King Puts Constitutional Monarchy on the Back Burner for Now,” Associated Press, August 26, 2005; “Jordan Blocks Muslim Militants from Pulpits,” Agence France-Presse, September 4, 2006; Jamal Halaby, “Jordan Lawmakers Limit Religious Edicts,” www.thestate.com, September 14, 2006; and Shafika Mattar, “Jordan Fears Growing Shiite Influence,” www.washingtonpost.com, November 17, 2006.

  37.Hamza Hendawi, “Syria Fears Spillover of Sectarian Strife,” www.theday.com, January 22, 2007; Anthony Shadid, “Syria’s Unpredictable Force,” Washington Post, May 27, 2005; Ibrahim Hamidi, “Can Syria Keep Its Islamist Genie in the Bottle?,” www.dailystar.com.lb, January 12, 2005; Neil MacFarquhar, “Syria, Long Ruthlessly Secular, Sees Fervent Islamic Resurgence,” New York Times, October 24, 2003, A-1, and, Rime Allaf, “Fundamentalism No Benefit to Syria,” www.metimes.com, July 24, 2007.

  38.Uri Avnery, “The Next Crusades,” Arabic Media Internet Network, March 5, 2005.

  39.Judith Ingram, “Rebellion Spreads into Russia,” Washington Times, May 8, 2005; Simon Saradzhyan, “Chechnya: Spreading the Insurgency,” www.isn.ethz.ch, June 13, 2006; and “Chechen Rebel Chief Declares Islamic Emirate,” Threat and Claim Monitor, Intel Center, November 29, 2007.

  40.Fiona Hill, Anatol Lieven, and Thomas de Waal, “A Spiraling Danger. Time for a New Policy Toward Chechnya,” CEPS Policy Brief, no. 68 (online version), April 2005, and “Interview with Sergei Markedenov, Institute of Political and Military Analysis, Moscow,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, May 5, 2006.

  41.Sebastian Smith, “Islamic Rebels Tighten Grip on Dagestan,” Australian, July 20, 2005; C. J. Chivers, “Russia Steps Up Anti-terror Drive as Chechen War Spreads,” New York Times, October 23, 2004; “Soldier Causalities Exceed 6,600 in Chechnya Campaigns,” Novosti (online), August 10, 2007; and “Near-Daily Violence Grips Inqushetia,” Moscow Times.com, September 3, 2007.

  42.Andrew MacGregor, “Islam, Jamaats and Implications for the North Caucasus, Part 1,” Terrorism Monitor (www.Jamestown.org) 4, no. 11 (June 2, 2006), and Part 2, Terrorism Monitor no. 12 (June 15, 2006); and Svante Cornell, “The North Caucasus: Spiraling Out of Control?,” Terrorism Monitor 3, no. 7 (April 7, 2005).

  43.Hill, Lieven, and deWaal, “Spiraling Danger”; Jonah Hull, “Russia Sees Muslim Population Boom,” Al-Jazeerah.net, January 7, 2007; and Oleg Petrovskiy, “Hired Jihad Fighters in No Hurry to Get to Iraq. They Are Quite Happy in Chechnya,” www.utro.ru, July 27, 2004.

  44.Lawrence Scott Sheets and William J. Brand, “Atomic Smugglers Pose New Hazard for Former Soviet Republics,” International Herald Tribune (online version), January 25, 2007; Desmond Butler and Katherine Schraeder, “Georgia Sting Seizes Bomb Grade Uranium,” Associated Press, January 25, 2007; Tenet, Center of the Storm, 279; Dr. Paul A. Goble, “The Islamization of Russia,” Association of Former Intelligence Officers Conference, October 26, 2007.

  45.Steyn, America Alone, 2, 27.

  46.Joginder Singh, “Bangla Is Going the Pak Way,” Asian Age (online version), January 13 2006, and Eliza Griswold, “Bangladesh for Beginners,” www.slate.com. December 29, 2005.

  47.“Drifting Toward Extremism,” http://planetguru.com, February 6, 2005, and Griswold, “Bangladesh for Beginners.”

  48.Charles Tannock, “The World Cannot Afford Bangladesh’s Going Taliban,” Daily Star, July 21, 2005.

  49.Alok Bonsai, “Terror: Bangladesh’s Growing Export,” Asia Tribune (online version), April 9, 2006; Rolana Buerk, “Bangladesh and Islamic Militants,” BBCNEWS.com.uk, February 25, 2005; and Mamun-Ar-Rashid, “Countless Militant Networks like Spider’s Net,” Dainik Janakantha, July 19, 2005, 1, 11.

  50.Chowdhry Manuf, “Islamic Militant Behind Deadly Bangladesh Blasts Surrenders,” Agence France-Presse, March 2, 2006; Farid Hussain, “Bangladesh Attacks Bring Fear of Militancy,” Boston Globe (online version), December 9, 2005; David Montero, “How Extremism Came to Bangladesh,” Christian Science Monitor (online version), September 6, 2005; “Bangladesh Bombs Spotlight ‘Holy Warriors,’” Reuters, September 2005; and Anjoli Aggarwal, “HUJI has Close Ties with ISI and Osama,” Times of India Online, April 6, 2006.

  51.Tannock, “World Cannot Afford”; Romananda Sengupta, “Bangladesh: Next Terror Frontier?” Rediff India Abroad (http://us.rediff.com), December 19, 2005; Paul Eckert, “Bangladesh Bomber Arrests Said Only the Beginning,” Reuters, March 8, 2006; and Maneeza Hussain, “The world Can’t Afford to Ignore Bangladesh,” India Monitor.com, August 29, 2005.

  52.Dan Morrison, “‘Bomb Culture’ Threatens Bangladesh,” Washington Times, January 15, 2005; Montero, “How Extremism Came to Bangladesh”; Sengupta, “Next Terror Frontier?”

  53.“Bangladeshis Hail Capture of Top Militants,” Reuters, March 7, 2006.

  54.Mamun-Ar-Rashid, “Countless Militant Networks”; Griswold, “Bangladesh for Beginners.”

  55.Tannock, “World Cannot Afford”; Mizan Rahman, “Bangladesh Militant Leader ‘Tied to al-Qaeda’,” Gulf Times (online version), March 26, 2006; Brigadier General Showkat Hossain, “Operation Haluaghat—Security During the Next Election,” Protham Alo (online version), July 17, 2006; and Mamun-Ar-Rashid, “Countless Militant Networks.”

  56.“Difting Toward Extremism”; Bonsal, “Bangladesh’s Growing Export;” Sengupta, “Next Terror Front?”; Mamun-Ar-Rashid, “Countless Militant Networks”; and Shahid Allam, “Spectre of Fundamentalism: Warning Bells Getting Louder,” New Nation (online version), February 22, 2005.

  57.“Bangladesh Declares Emergency, Imposes Curfew,” Reuters, January 11, 2007; M
atthew Rosenberg, “Rivalry Fuels Bangladeshi Political Crisis,” Associated Press, December 24, 2006; “Presence of Afghan Veterans in Bangladesh Poll Flayed,” www.indiannews.com/bangladesh, December 28, 2006; and Y. P. Rajesh, “Bangladesh Islamists Confident of Expanding Hold,” Reuters, January 31, 2007. In 2006 the organization Transparency International named Bangladesh the most corrupt country in the world for the fifth consecutive year. See “Bangladesh Most Corrupt,” Daily Star, January 1, 2006, and “Politicians Losing Respect of People for Corruption,” New Nation Online Edition, January 27, 2007.

  58.Princeton Lyman and Scott Allan, “Prevent the Rise of Another Taliban,” Baltimore Sun (online version), October 19, 2004.

  59.Edmund Blair, “Conservative Anglicans Warn Liberal Churches in the West,” Reuters, October 31, 2005, and Edward Harris, “Nigerian Christians Burn Muslim Corpses,” Associated Press, February 23, 2006.

  60.George Thomas, “Terror Havens: al-Qaeda’s Growing Sanctuary in Nigeria,” www.cbn.com, May 2, 2005; Andrew McLaughlin, “Behind Rising Oil Cost: Nigeria,” Christian Science Monitor, January 18, 2006; and “Nigerian Taliban plots comeback,” Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2006.

  61.“Shell Evacuates Oil Field After Attacks by Niger Delta Militants,” Agence France-Presse, February 11, 2006; Jeffrey Tayler, “Nigeria’s Troubles Could Become America’s,” www.allafrica.com, March 13, 2006; Erich Marquardt, “The Niger Delta Insurgency and Its Threat to Energy Security,” Terrorism Monitor 4, no. 16 (August 10, 2006); and “Five Nigerians on Terror Charges,” news.bbc.co.uk, November 23, 2007.