Was Osama Right? - WSJ editorial
 

Was Osama Right?
By BERNARD LEWIS
May 16, 2007; Page A21

During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?"

A few examples may suffice. During the troubles in Lebanon in the 1970s and '80s, there were many attacks on American installations and individuals -- notably the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, followed by a prompt withdrawal, and a whole series of kidnapping of Americans, both official and private, as well as of Europeans. There was only one attack on Soviet citizens, when one diplomat was killed and several others kidnapped. The Soviet response through their local agents was swift, and directed against the family of the leader of the kidnappers. The kidnapped Russians were promptly released, and after that there were no attacks on Soviet citizens or installations throughout the period of the Lebanese troubles.


These different responses evoked different treatment. While American policies, institutions and individuals were subject to unremitting criticism and sometimes deadly attack, the Soviets were immune. Their retention of the vast, largely Muslim, colonial empire accumulated by the tsars in Asia passed unnoticed, as did their propaganda and sometimes action against Muslim beliefs and institutions.

Most remarkable of all was the response of the Arab and other Muslim countries to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Washington's handling of the Tehran hostage crisis assured the Soviets that they had nothing to fear from the U.S. They already knew that they need not worry about the Arab and other Muslim governments. The Soviets already ruled -- or misruled -- half a dozen Muslim countries in Asia, without arousing any opposition or criticism. Initially, their decision and action to invade and conquer Afghanistan and install a puppet regime in Kabul went almost unresisted. After weeks of debate, the U.N. General Assembly finally was persuaded to pass a resolution "strongly deploring the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan." The words "condemn" and "aggression" were not used, and the source of the "intervention" was not named. Even this anodyne resolution was too much for some of the Arab states. South Yemen voted no; Algeria and Syria abstained; Libya was absent; the non-voting PLO observer to the Assembly even made a speech defending the Soviets.

One might have expected that the recently established Organization of the Islamic Conference would take a tougher line. It did not. After a month of negotiation and manipulation, the Organization finally held a meeting in Pakistan to discuss the Afghan question. Two of the Arab states, South Yemen and Syria, boycotted the meeting. The representative of the PLO, a full member of this organization, was present, but abstained from voting on a resolution critical of the Soviet action; the Libyan delegate went further, and used this occasion to denounce the U.S.

The Muslim willingness to submit to Soviet authority, though widespread, was not unanimous. The Afghan people, who had successfully defied the British Empire in its prime, found a way to resist the Soviet invaders. An organization known as the Taliban (literally, "the students") began to organize resistance and even guerilla warfare against the Soviet occupiers and their puppets. For this, they were able to attract some support from the Muslim world -- some grants of money, and growing numbers of volunteers to fight in the Holy War against the infidel conqueror. Notable among these was a group led by a Saudi of Yemeni origin called Osama bin Laden.

To accomplish their purpose, they did not disdain to turn to the U.S. for help, which they got. In the Muslim perception there has been, since the time of the Prophet, an ongoing struggle between the two world religions, Christendom and Islam, for the privilege and opportunity to bring salvation to the rest of humankind, removing whatever obstacles there might be in their path. For a long time, the main enemy was seen, with some plausibility, as being the West, and some Muslims were, naturally enough, willing to accept what help they could get against that enemy. This explains the widespread support in the Arab countries and in some other places first for the Third Reich and, after its collapse, for the Soviet Union. These were the main enemies of the West, and therefore natural allies.

Now the situation had changed. The more immediate, more dangerous enemy was the Soviet Union, already ruling a number of Muslim countries, and daily increasing its influence and presence in others. It was therefore natural to seek and accept American help. As Osama bin Laden explained, in this final phase of the millennial struggle, the world of the unbelievers was divided between two superpowers. The first task was to deal with the more deadly and more dangerous of the two, the Soviet Union. After that, dealing with the pampered and degenerate Americans would be easy.

We in the Western world see the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union as a Western, more specifically an American, victory in the Cold War. For Osama bin Laden and his followers, it was a Muslim victory in a jihad, and, given the circumstances, this perception does not lack plausibility.

From the writings and the speeches of Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, it is clear that they expected this second task, dealing with America, would be comparatively simple and easy. This perception was certainly encouraged and so it seemed, confirmed by the American response to a whole series of attacks -- on the World Trade Center in New York and on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in 1993, on the U.S. military office in Riyadh in 1995, on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000 -- all of which evoked only angry words, sometimes accompanied by the dispatch of expensive missiles to remote and uninhabited places.

Stage One of the jihad was to drive the infidels from the lands of Islam; Stage Two -- to bring the war into the enemy camp, and the attacks of 9/11 were clearly intended to be the opening salvo of this stage. The response to 9/11, so completely out of accord with previous American practice, came as a shock, and it is noteworthy that there has been no successful attack on American soil since then. The U.S. actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had been a major change in the U.S., and that some revision of their assessment, and of the policies based on that assessment, was necessary.

More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences -- both for Islam and for America -- will be deep, wide and lasting.

Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East" (Oxford University Press, 2004).

This article's conclusion is solely based on "Stage 2" succeeding (the world becomes under Muslim control) simply because the West leaves the Muslim countries alone. The article doesn't demonstrate how this is even remotely possible.

The article is showing

#1: What the radical Islamists think of the USA
#2: We aren't doing enough to stop them, rather we doing more to encourage them by our weakness.

In a nutshell, the article is stating "we're not doing enough to stop them" becuase we're not "invading" Muslim countries enough. The article is saying, if we don't "invade enough", stage #2 will succeed and the world will become Muslim. The article is stating we are "encouraging" them by not invading enough, and this "encouragement" will make stage #2 succeed, the world becomes Muslim. It doesn't demonstrate how stage #2 is even remotely possible if we don't "invade" enough.

It's faulty logic, my friend.

Kerri, please read the article, instead of skimming it.

Does someone else have an opinion? Anyone?

I did read it.

Perhaps you can demonstrate the correlation which demonstrates the success of "stage 2" then....

That's better. Quiet.

Americans do not have the will to fight a prolonged, low-intensity war. It's a distraction from...Hey! American Idol is on. Gotta go.

His analysis is crap.

For example:

Why were the Arab countries friendly to the USSR despite the latter's actions in Afghanistan etc?

The author says this was because the Soviets were tough.

How about because the USA was allied with Israel, so the Arab countries and PLO had to cozy up to the USSR? Where did most of the Arab countries get their military hardware from, all those T72s and MIGs? Wow, Arabs vs Israel is the single most defining conflict in the Middle East, from whence modern jihad etc sprang, and the author somehow overlooks it?

Do you not see what a dip**** this guy is?

Edit: Okay, maybe I was a little mean, after all I haven't read his other stuff. So I rephrase - do you not see what a dip**** this guy is in this op-ed piece?

Sadly there is a lot of truth there...

Joe

Yes, and the Soviets are currently still a world superpower...


oh wait

Oh snap! We got SERVED!

But seriously, we did play right into Osamas hands.

One thing I don't get is bin Laden's outrage that US troops were in Saudi Arabia. We only went there after Iraq invaded Kuwait. And, AFAIK, we've turned Prince Sultan AFB over to the Saudis and have just about all left there by now. Saddam was the glue that held us there and he's gone now. And if bin Laden really wanted the US to stay out of the ME, he sure went about it the wrong way. Now we have far more bases there with no end in sight. Seems to me bin Laden, while he got his immediate goal of killing Americans, got the opposite of what he wanted long term.

Are you really looking for logical thinking over there?

Rick, I don't think he wanted to keep the US out of the MidEast, quite the opposite actually. From what I've read his plan was this:

- Use the attack of 9/11 to cause the US to invade the MidEast knowing that the resulting US prescence in the region would fan the zeal of the regions Muslim population to bring about a resurgence of the religion itself.

I think Osama found the perfect mark with GW, he's played him (and all of us) for a fool. OBL knew that the any conflict on ME soil would be impossible for the US to fight, with terrorists breeding more terrorists, and with no central enemy to fight. We're shadow boxing over there just as OBL planned, and our continued occupation only supports the belief that we are aggressors, occupiers, and a threat to the entire Muslim world.

If you read bin laden's stuff, he is pretty specific about wanting to kill Americans and Jews. Like John said, this is tied to the Arab-Israeli conflict more than anything else, as he conflates the US and Israel.

American Political leaders are more interested in jockying for position at the feeding trough of the Public Treasury than they are in Muslim Fundlementalism.

The American people are kept in the dark as to the realities of the threat from Islam. Nobody wants to scare the goose that lays the Golden Eggs.

Americans should be aware that being MR Nice Guy doesn't work in Central Asian and ME cultures...they view it as weakness, its a hard land and hard people. As such the use of force is necessary to get your point across. Liberals seem to think everybody thinks rationally, forgetting the tribal nature of the inhabitants.

The West in general is at a disadvantage in fighting a will of the wisp war. The Western Bureaucratic model demands that we quantify instead of qualify our successes and losses. This is not a war of machinery but of ideas and WILL.

In spite of recent revisionist history the US had the WILL to win WW2 at any cost. We were on a mission from Gawd. Today that will seems to have been sapped, nobody thinks that they have to sacrafice any sweat or blood to achieve their ends. Everybody is led to believe that the land of milk and honey will go on forever. Sadly this delusional state is not the case, ask the Chinese what they think.

The USA is still a Titanic economic power and will keep rolling on impervious to the nibbling at the sides by other economies and insurectionists bent on a better world according to them. However this Titanic power has allready hit the iceberg and the facade is begining to crack. Toyota a Japanese Company is now the #1 Automaker in the world. AMEN.

I don't doubt that Russia's methods work better. I believe they did something similar in Iraq recently when one of their citizens was killed. I think US forces let them come in and handle the perpetrators.

The big difference is Russia disregards human rights at all levels including their own citizens. As much as some hate to admit it, the US was built on strong Christian morals that won't allow us to kill someone's parents for what they did or any of the other methods Russia uses (as affective as they may be).

American Political leaders are more interested in jockying for position at the feeding trough of the Public Treasury than they are in Muslim Fundlementalism.

The American people are kept in the dark as to the realities of the threat from Islam. Nobody wants to scare the goose that lays the Golden Eggs.

Americans should be aware that being MR Nice Guy doesn't work in Central Asian and ME cultures...they view it as weakness, its a hard land and hard people. As such the use of force is necessary to get your point across. Liberals seem to think everybody thinks rationally, forgetting the tribal nature of the inhabitants.

The West in general is at a disadvantage in fighting a will of the wisp war. The Western Bureaucratic model demands that we quantify instead of qualify our successes and losses. This is not a war of machinery but of ideas and WILL.

In spite of recent revisionist history the US had the WILL to win WW2 at any cost. We were on a mission from Gawd. Today that will seems to have been sapped, nobody thinks that they have to sacrafice any sweat or blood to achieve their ends. Everybody is led to believe that the land of milk and honey will go on forever. Sadly this delusional state is not the case, ask the Chinese what they think.

The USA is still a Titanic economic power and will keep rolling on impervious to the nibbling at the sides by other economies and insurectionists bent on a better world according to them. However this Titanic power has allready hit the iceberg and the facade is begining to crack. Toyota a Japanese Company is now the #1 Automaker in the world. AMEN.

American Political leaders are more interested in jockying for position at the feeding trough of the Public Treasury than they are in Muslim Fundlementalism.

The American people are kept in the dark as to the realities of the threat from Islam. Nobody wants to scare the goose that lays the Golden Eggs.

Americans should be aware that being MR Nice Guy doesn't work in Central Asian and ME cultures...they view it as weakness, its a hard land and hard people. As such the use of force is necessary to get your point across. Liberals seem to think everybody thinks rationally, forgetting the tribal nature of the inhabitants.

The West in general is at a disadvantage in fighting a will of the wisp war. The Western Bureaucratic model demands that we quantify instead of qualify our successes and losses. This is not a war of machinery but of ideas and WILL.

In spite of recent revisionist history the US had the WILL to win WW2 at any cost. We were on a mission from Gawd. Today that will seems to have been sapped, nobody thinks that they have to sacrafice any sweat or blood to achieve their ends. Everybody is led to believe that the land of milk and honey will go on forever. Sadly this delusional state is not the case, ask the Chinese what they think.

The USA is still a Titanic economic power and will keep rolling on impervious to the nibbling at the sides by other economies and insurectionists bent on a better world according to them. However this Titanic power has allready hit the iceberg and the facade is begining to crack. Toyota a Japanese Company is now the #1 Automaker in the world. AMEN.

And another fact the author overlooks, lets not forget Chechnya (sp).

Here the Russians were tough as hell on Muslim insurgents, just look up how many civilians and soldiers have been killed in that war, how many cities bombed out, Putin is no shrinking violet, appx 15,000 Russian soldiers dead and considerably more Cechens.

And before that, the Soviets were pretty tough in Afghanistan, another 15,000 Russian soldiers dead.

Yet the Russians have continued to suffer major Islamic terrorist attacks, in Moscow and Beslan and elsewhere in the heartland. Being "tough" hasn't worked so well for the Russians, has it?

That's my point. Being blindly and stupidly "tough" does not work. Being smartly and selectively "tough" does work.

Going into Afghanistan was smart tough. Going into Iraq was stupid tough. Our current govt doesn't seem to distinguish between smart and stupid.

The article actually serves its purpose quite well... It does a great job of rallying support for the current administration's plans among those with little knowledge of world history.

But through the lens of historical context, his arguments start to break down pretty fast!

Interesting article, if somewhat shallow and a bit lame. Someone must have cut part of it out prior to my reading it, because he does not propose any actions, he relates some events, reactions to these events, and what he believes is the thinking behind those reactions.

Cool Chick, if you did actually read that, why is there no evidence of comprehension in your replies? Stage 2 is not the world caliphate, it is them attacking us here. That has already happened more than once, or did you miss that in the papers?

The conflict is Muslim vs Jew at its heart, which is ignored here. The US is on Israel's side, right or wrong, that is how it is seen over there, which makes us evil Jew lovers.

OBL does not want us to leave the Middle East, he wants us to leave the planet. A billion Muslims, if not with him are definitely not against him, or there would be at least some outcry regarding the things he has fomented from other Muslims.

The Fort Dix Six and Islamaburg in NY state are the tip of the iceberg. We have a HUGE population of felons who have converted to Islam while in the pen and many will get out eventually. They are violent, know plenty about killing and creating chaos and are Americans.

The Soviets saw what happened in Iran with the Ayotola, saw it happening in Aganistan and decided to nip it in the bud, so that it wouldn't spread to the 40 Million Muslims in the USSR.

Again Quanitative over Qualitative. Thats how Western Bureaucracies work.

NO its not Muslim vs Jew at heart. Its Islam vs Every other religion. Islam historically is driven to convert or kill infidels. To spread the word of Allah around the world.

The Black American Muslims are not the same breed as the Jihadies.

That seems to be the sad truth, that no one seems to be able to credibly refute (I've asked many times for someone to refute it, only to be met with silence each time), but many seem to want to just ignore.

I understand that the big MO (Mohammad) himself lived peacefully with Jews and Christians and treated them as people of the book and acknowledged that the Jews, Christians and Muslims worshipped the same God they do.

But that is beside the point. Even if Soviet style tactics might work better, do we really want to be like the Soviets?

Here is a wikipedia summary of Soviet military losses during 10 years of war in Afghanistan. Basically, 15K dead, 54K casualties (excluding >400K illnesses) of which 10K permanently disabled. And lots of vehicles.

It's kind of interesting to compare this with US losses during 5 years (so far) of war in Iraq. 3.4K dead (excluding 700-1K military contractors), 25K casualties, don't know number disabled (although >100K soldiers returned from Iraq have been approved for disability benefits by the VA, don't know how severe those disabilities are). Fewer vehicles.

So, at this rate, after 10 years in Iraq, we might have 7K US dead, 50K US casualties (but 200K to 400K soldiers receiving disability benefits of some sort). And some number of vehicles.

We are doing better than the Soviets :-)

Between December 25th, 1979 and February 15th 1989 a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000-104,000 force at one time in Afghanistan). 525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other KGB sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of MVD Internal Troops and police. A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar or manual jobs.

The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier and internal security troops came to 14,453. Soviet Army formations, units and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28 and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. During this period 417 servicemen were missing in action or taken prisoner; 119 of these were later freed, of whom 97 returned to the USSR and 22 went to other countries.

There were 469,685 sick and wounded, of whom 53,753 or 11.44%, were wounded, injured or sustained concussion and 415,932 (88.56%) fell sick. A high proportion of casualties were those who fell ill. This was because of local climatic and sanitary conditions, which were such that acute infections spread rapidly among the troops. There were 115,308 cases of infectious hepatitis, 31,080 of typhoid fever and 140,665 of other diseases. Of the 11,654 who were discharged from the army after being wounded, maimed or contracting serious diseases, 92%, or 10,751 men were left disabled.[31]


Remains of Soviet trucks in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 2002.Material losses were as follows:

21 aircraft
333 helicopters
147 tanks
1,314 IFV/APCs
433 artillery guns and mortars
1,138 radio sets and command vehicles
510 engineering vehicles
11,369 trucks and petrol tankers