I am closely acquainted with individuals (one American, two from India) who spent many years in Pakistan and India.
The following compilation is an original work (mostly by the American) detailing the regional and geo-political back drop as it relates to Al-Quaida and the War on Terror. Forgive my typos and other errors.
The following compilation is an original work (mostly by the American) detailing the regional and geo-political back drop as it relates to Al-Quaida and the War on Terror. Forgive my typos and other errors.
From where did Al-Quaida spawn?
The roots of Al-Quaida are found in the convergence of several historical events. Perhaps the key event was the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 (the same year as the assassination of Anwar Sadat and the Iranian Revolution).
In the wake of that Cold War invasion, the CIA under William Casey mounted extensive operations in Pakistan during the 1980’s intended to organize and equip an effective Mujahedin guerilla campaign against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. These operations drew upon an extensive network of Madrissas (religious schools) in Pakistan, most particularly in the Northwest Frontier Province along the border with Afghanistan, to recruit and train militants who then moved across the border into Afghanistan to fight the Russians. Over a decade of operations, huge quantities of arms, money, and training were provided. Militants came from many other Muslim countries to participate in what was becoming viewed as a Jihad against the Russians, including some radical Arabs (like Bin Laden and Al Zwahiri) from countries like Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, who had political reasons to leave their home countries.
This effort had several side effects that were unintended, but were not necessarily viewed as having any long-term negative impact.
1) An extensive network of associations among Islamic militants of varying backgrounds resulting from years of operations in that region.
2) By necessity, a huge economic network came into existence which was totally underground – smuggling, money exchange, and trade in weapons
3) Those trained by CIA programs retained the body of knowledge on explosives, weaponry, tactics and so forth, useful for guerilla and insurgency operations.
4) The effort, by reason of from where it recruited, and whom it attracted, drew together a group of people who were Islamic radicals, and willing to participate in militant operations.
After the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, and the CIA shut down their operations, the networks fell apart for a time, but many of the people remained in place. People like Osama Bin Laden could not return to their home countries for other reasons, and many did not want to. They found themselves in a place beyond the effective control of any national government.
By the late 80’s the Pakistan Government under Zia Ul Haq had acquired nuclear capability despite sanctions put in place by the US government to prevent them from doing so. Pakistan's desire to obtain Indian Kashmir resulted in a series of tense confrontations with India, at least one of which took Pakistan and India to the brink of war.
The Pakistan Military began to do the math, and came to understand that it could never achieve its long-term objective of seizing control of Indian Kashmir through war with India. That effort had been made two times, and had failed, and any further effort would certainly come to a nuclear confrontation or threat thereof in which Pakistan could not prevail. Their nuclear capability could only be effective as a deterrent to India. On the other hand, clandestine means utilizing the now disintegrating manpower and networks used in Afghanistan by the CIA could be mounted in Indian Kashmir to drive India out of Kashmir, or at least destabilize it, and Pakistan’s nuclear capability would deter India from a direct military response.
The Pakistan Military, through its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) began re-activating the same Madrissa based network that the CIA had used during the war in Afghanistan, but shut down after that war ended with the Russian withdrawal. The idea was to run a campaign of militant insurgency in Indian Kashmir which the Pakistan government and military could deny any direct association with, but to whom they could say they offered diplomatic support. To do this, all military operations (training and military hardware) would have to take place outside of Pakistan’s borders, and funding would have to come entirely through “unofficial†channels. But non-military training, and recruitment could openly take place inside of Pakistan. Afghanistan would offer the perfect staging area for training facilities, and military ordinance, and the extensive smuggling network in the Frontier region of the Pak-Afghan border could be used to siphon off funding for the operation.
This program began in earnest in 1989, soon after the Russian withdrawal. It is worth noting that since that time, the proportion of Pakistan’s GDP directly attributed to the resultant smuggling through Afghanistan has steadily increased, until by the late 1990’s it equaled 50% of GDP – an astonishing figure. All of the overland smuggling routes from Afghanistan into Pakistan are controlled by the Pakistan Military, who would have a monopoly on the revenue from bribery that is always associated with illegal trade in Pakistan. In order to secure this revenue, from the beginning, stability in Afghanistan was a necessary concern, most particularly in the Southern regions of Afghanistan, along the common border with Pakistan. Enter the Taliban – the student militia, comprised almost entirely of Pashtu speaking students from the Madrissa networks in Pakistan. They began a slow, steady conquest of the southern and central regions of Afghanistan, bringing the stability Pakistan required. Eventually, by the late 1990’s, they would control almost all of Afghanistan, with only a few regions in the non-Pashtun North outside of their control.
But once again, the law of unintended consequences began to cause problems that the Pakistan Military and the ISI had not anticipated. As the Taliban began to consolidate their control over most of Afghanistan, they began to look at the Northern regions of Pakistan with the eye to unify with their Pashtu-speaking brothers on the other side of the line. This made the Pakistan Military uneasy, because the last thing they wanted was more instability in the Frontier Province. At around the same time, the notion began to have currency that Afghans had defeated all of the world’s premier military powers, and were unstoppable. They had beaten the British in the 19th century, the Russians in the 20th, so why not the Americans in the 21st. God was on their side, because they were Islamic Warriors. A select group of wealthy Arab Exiles began to promote the idea of exporting Islamic Jihad from their bases in Afghanistan to other areas of the world – wherever Muslims were under siege. And the law of unintended consequences took another step forward.
Using the same methods, and funding as the ISI, and the CIA before them, these people began to assemble a network from within the network used by the ISI. This time, their objective was to advance the expansion of Islamic realms into central Asia (Chechnya and Daghestan), Algeria, Palestine, and to bring down corrupt Islamic governments who had become vassals to the West – including Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. This would unify the Islamic world under a Pan-Islamic realm, similar to the realm of the Caliphate during the “golden age†of Islam.
If you look at conflicts in the Muslim world since the late 1990’s – Chechnya, the Balkans, Algeria, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Indonesia – there always seem to be groups of Islamic militants from other regions of the world who are present among the most active players, and in sizeable numbers. Someone was assembling, training, and proliferating these kinds of players as a kind of “Jihad for hire†army – militants who will go anywhere, and do anything to anyone in order to spread the reach of Islamic Fundamentalism through militancy. Now they are in Iraq because that is where the opportunity lies to fight against those who are perceived as the enemies of this Islamic ideology.
The chief promulgator of anti-Islamic influence in the Muslim world is seen as Westernism, and Secularism, and these are epitomized in the United States. For this reason, the US has become the target. What better way to unite the Muslim world, than for them to be galvanized in the face of a common enemy? But first you have to pick a fight. After attaching Embassies in African, they finally got the full attention of the US on September 11, 2001 with the attacks on New York and Washington.
What is in store for non-muslims (who survive) in the countries where Al-Quaida might rule? Sharia (codification of Islamic Law) dictates that non-muslims given Dhimi status - a caste system, where the the Dhimi have less diminished rights, where, for one example, the court testimony of a Christian would be worth less than the testimony of a Moslem.
Will the liberals in the anti-war movement be spared? The Islamo-fascists consider western influence (movies, pornography, writing) to be a source of evil. And there is a more fundemental problem. Ask a liberal if they support the concept of "Separation of Church and State." That is antithetical to Al-Quaida which believe it a necessity that religion envelopes government.
Possible solutions:
--edited to diminish thread drift--
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. I'm quite serious. Get the monster profits out, control it, tax it, screw Osama BUT GOOD.
