Subject: SIT 01-09-16: Muslim Terrorists and America's "Third World" War Date: 9/16/01 7:39 PM Received: 9/16/01 7:59 PM From: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com To: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com SIRIUS: The Strategic Issues Research Institute Benjamin C. Works, Executive Director 1515 Jeff Davis Hwy #408 * Arlington, VA 22202 703 415-1191; www.siri-us.com; E-mail: Benworks@AOL.Com --Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil-- To Unsubscribe, send a terse e-message to benworks@aol.com A formatted report may be viewed at: http://www.siri-us.com/issues.html Strategic Issues Today SIT 01-09-16; September 16, 2001 Muslim Terrorists and America's "Third World" War SIRIUS believes we may have reached a cardinal moment in Post Cold War history; a turning point and a realization that prior mistakes have stacked up to the point of "critical mess." Our war on terrorism, announced in steps by President George W Bush each day since Tuesday's attacks, will evolve into a relentless and necessary correction of past half-actions, inaction and misdirected actions. Will it complete a resolution of the issues driving "Terrorism?" Probably not: politics will intrude into policy formulation. Somebody's always angry. But we can knock out the major training infrastructure and The Money. To that point, Mr. Bush has, like his father, committed one unfortunate and insensitive sound bite by referring to this campaign as "a Crusade." That does not help his Muslim allies, targets of the Crusaders. His father, of course, uttered two phrases which famously backfired: "A New World Order," and "Read my lips: `No new taxes." Okay, this may be a global "World War Three." But given its targets are in the Third World and vastly smaller than the Axis Powers of World War Two, or the Central Powers of World War One, this will be a combination of conventional and unconventional war in the Third World. Meanwhile, police forces will root out terrorist cells farther abroad in the civilized world --the metastasized cells of a virulent cancer. As to Afghanistan (almost the size of Texas), in 1979, one historian of the Great Game labeled this cockpit of ethnic chaos as "Britain's Imperial Migraine." Afghanistan is not a true country with any natural cohesion, it is, as Metternich sneered about Italy, "a geographic expression." It is the stuff of Kipling, of "Flashman." Enemies who attack a foe always first take the target in contempt, and these Muslim terrorists hold America and Americans in contempt. They think we are soft. The disaster at Pearl Harbor proved the Japanese wrong; the disasters at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and western Pennsylvania, have already proven that the Muslim terrorists are wildly wrong. And this time, by killing over 5200 people at the World Trade Center alone, some 5500 in all, the terrorists killed English and Irish, Jews and Bangladeshi Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. Mexican and Hondurans died; both documented immigrants and illegals, alike. --And we've got "Band of Brothers" on cable TV. America is getting a patriotic infusion about World War Two. Yes, the American people are self-indulgent Epicureans when enjoying our bountiful liberty, but as resolute as any people when attacked. We have enough Stoic discipline to prosecute a long, tough fight. Presidents Bush and Clinton, Ford and Carter all know what chances have been missed and what needs to be done. There may be tactical disagreements, but all have had time to consider how to rectify the current situation. So, as Senator Arthur Vandenberg observed at the dawn of the Cold War, "all politics stop at the water's edge." The Senate and House have already demonstrated that in their votes on war powers and supplemental emergency spending for defense and relief for New York City. Scope, Planning and Setup: America needs time and so do certain critical partners in a new, wider alliance of civilization v. barbarians. But we see signs of ready cooperation, particularly from Pakistan. And for good reason; Taliban was making all its neighbors nervous. Further, now our government openly mentions the probability that there is a loose nuclear weapon out there in terrorist hands. That may lead back to Baghdad. The scope of this war is wide. Laurie Mylroie has already drawn attention to a connection between Osama Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein in Thursday's Wall Street Journal. The connection is through Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in the New York trial of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. She knows her stuff. So that America's Liberals did not miss the point, James Woolsey, director of the CIA in the early Clinton years, regurgitated the story to the liberal's favorite, "The New Republic." Then Peter Roff of UPI, recycled the story to Conservatives. The Choir has its sheet music. The audit trail leads back to Baghdad, and the road to victory leads there, too. The US, already concerned with how Saddam has been trying to manipulate the Israel-Palestine crisis, has kept two aircraft carrier task forces in the Arabian Gulf and has a desert training exercise underway in Kuwait. So Mr. Bush has forces at hand, that can be rapidly reinforced with troops from the US and Germany. Meanwhile, fuel stocks are being replenished at the US base at Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, and at a base in Spain used by the US Air Force tanker fleet. America is preparing for a still-widening crisis. The alliance Mr. Bush seeks to mobilize will not be an alliance of anti-Muslims v. Muslims and is not a battle Royale against Islam or Christianity, though Taliban will try to make it appear thus. This will be a war between civilization and a minority of misanthropic fascists in Islamic religious "cassocks". As a bonus the alliance may get to interdict the opium-heroin pipeline that runs from the Pathan-dominated mountains, via Afghanistan, to the Chechen and Albanian Mafias and on east, north and west into Europe, Russia and North America. Major Issues: The terrorists working with Osama bin Laden are attempting to export rebellion to Uzbekistan and the western provinces of China, where 8 million Muslim Turkic Uighurs live. Further, there are clear links between Osama and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and to both the Chechen rebels in the Caucasus, and to the KLA rebels in the south Balkans. Osama and The Taliban government of Afghanistan are exporting revolution and terror from the US, through Africa and Asia to the Philippines and Indonesia. There are two very different forms of terrorist movements and terrorists out there. First, are those groups entirely engaged in fighting to liberate land and people from Israel? The others, associated with bin Laden, are focussed on global Jihad against the United States and Israel. Even when the civilized world effects peace between Israel and the Palestinians, this global jihad will continue unless all major countries cooperate in extinguishing this evil threat. For Mr. Bush to prosecute a successful war against terrorism, the US and its traditional and new allies need to address the following elements: 1. Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement must be crushed. 2. Taliban's government in Afghanistan must be replaced. 3. This new alliance must move to effect a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians where the right of both peoples to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is respected. 4. Iran and Syria should back off their support of Hezballah (a Shiite Muslim army in south Lebanon, which continues to harass Israel over its attempt to occupy the disputed "Shabaa Farms" wedge on the Israel-Lebanon-Syria border. 5. Russia needs assistance in effecting an orderly end to the guerrilla-terrorist war in Chechnya. 6. Ultimately, the groups associated with Taliban and Osama have also supported the Bosnian Muslims and the KLA's ugly little wars of conquest in Kosovo, south Serbia and Macedonia. 7. Sudan: Libya's Colonel Qaddaffi is playing the "good boy," helping Egypt try to bring Sudan into line. To end the threat of terrorism, it will take some ugly practices, including assassination, coercive interrogation, and in some cases, even torture, to prevent cataclysmic attacks such as at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Worse attacks could eventuate. Taliban & Afghanistan: This is "Round Three" of the old "Great Game" for control of Afghanistan's important trade routes. Imperial Britain and Czarist Russia waged Round One; the Soviet Union attempted Round Two. The Taliban or "Student" movement arose among a Sunni Muslim circle of religious leaders in the Pathan (also Pashtun or Pushtun) ethnic group, which straddles the Pakistani-Afghan border (what the British named "The Northwest Frontier"), in the high mountains. Some 10 million of Afghanistan's 27 million people are Pathans, and there are another 25-30 million Pathans among Pakistan's population of 150 million. This spring, Arnaud de Borchgrave of UPI-The Washington Times visited the Taliban's main university and filed a news dispatch in the Washington Times of June 9, 2001; "Campus is an institute for Islamic Jihad." The school is in Khatak, north Pakistan, 29 miles from Peshawar and two hours from the Afghan border over the Khyber Pass. Mr. de Borchgrave noted that there were some 2500 students at the Darul Uloom Haqqania (University for Education of Truth). Its students, as graduates, become mullahs for the rebel movements, a peculiar combination of chaplain and political commissar. Nine of the ten senior leaders in Afghanistan are graduates of this school. Significantly, de Borchgrave confirmed that the school is preparing mullahs from four of the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia: Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. It will be an interesting confirming signal if Pakistan shut down this University. Taliban's Imperial Game: Taliban is threatening to invade any neighbor that supports a US-led coalition against them. But Taliban is already the springboard for invading its neighbors, particularly Uzbekistan and China. What a non-threat. At the same time, the terrorists were prepared to mount a retaliatory round of attacks to a hasty American retributive response --on Sunday, China arrested terrorists in Macao. This is an ongoing situation. Taliban is engaged in a political game to control territory, trade routes, resources and people. Taliban appears to want to erect a religiously homogenized empire in its region. Yet, though it appears to be based in religious doctrine, it is just as malignly dogmatic as any extremist political ideology, In the final essence, Taliban is a political movement attempting to erect an empire in its region, controlled by the Pathans, particularly the Taliban mullahs. That empire would straddle key trade routes from north-south and east to west, especially the ancient Silk Road. These would be important to China, which would like to build an oil-gas pipeline from Kazakhstan. If they ever took control of Turkmenistan, they would then be in position to attempt to wrest control of Kazakhstan, and thus, establish themselves atop some of the largest oil and gas resources in the world. It would also bring Taliban into a neighborhood the Chechen gangsters are trying to control, also in order to control oil-gas and smuggling routes. Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, did play a major role in the CIA-Pakistan backed Mujaheddin campaign against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But Omar developed the Taliban movement after the Gulf War between the United States-led alliance and Saddam Hussein. Omar and Osama met during the war against the Soviets. Taliban is attempting to impose a religious Universalism over the wider region, even extending to the four ex-soviet republics and to the Uighurs of western China. They are using a Saudi orthodox school of Sunni thought, "Wahabi." Saudi Arabia's Wahabis are the core who supported the rise of its royal family, the Sauds. Crown Prince Abdullah has been something of a sympathizer until recent events. Thus, Sunni-Wahabi orthodoxy puts Taliban in opposition to Iran, and a couple years back, Taliban was busily massacring villages of Shiites, Taliban forces butchered even some Irani diplomats. At the same time, Taliban has targeted the Sufi mysticism that is based in Uzbekistan and the Ismaili sect that is spread through the region. Osama's Role: There have been interesting reports in The Guardian (Sept. 5) and The Financial Times (Sept. 14), about Osama's training programs. Al-Qaeda has been building a "Foreign Legion" in Afghanistan, now numbering some 12,000 of Taliban's estimated 50,000 fighters. The most conspicuous training programs are for Uzbeki rebels for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and Uighurs to mount an insurrection in Xinjiang. (which also has large oil-gas deposits). The Uighur movement also trades guns and drugs to Chinese gangs in Gansu and Yunnan provinces. Al-Qaeda also attracts volunteers from Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other Muslim countries. --Another reason why it is important to view this as a political, not religious, "struggle." Obviously the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks have led us to re discovery that his best people are training in American, Canadian and European flight schools; other specialists must surely be gaining other advanced skills in Iraq and elsewhere; also getting intelligence and other important support. This is why China and Russia co-sponsored the creation of the "Shanghai Group" this year. They have pledged to support the former Soviet republics of Central Asia against Taliban sponsored terrorism and insurrection. Of the members, only a highly politicized Tajikistan is wobbly on its willingness to stop Taliban. That is why being patient with President (General) Mussareff of Pakistan has been important as he calmed down Pakistan in the last two years. He has responded clearly on the side of the civilized world in the set-up for this conflict with Taliban. Pakistan has 150 million people --it is now more populous than Russia-- of whom, 20 million are Pathans, who support Taliban. Mussareff has made good strides towards peace with India, but his government also controls 10-15 nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them into Iran, India or Afghanistan. That's a factor that must be managed. His capital, Islamabad, is only about 100 miles or less from Pathan territory and some 20% of his Army is ethnic Pathan. Give him a few days. Less than two months ago, in attempting to build peaceful relations with India (whose Muslim minority is even more populous than Pakistan's) the general confirmed that Pakistan's greatest enemy is not India, but "the enemy within." Setting the Stage: Pakistan is delivering the first credible ultimatum to Kabul: "Give up Bin Laden." Meanwhile, rather than lashing out with Tomahawks, the Bush Administration is very thoroughly going through all the Constitutional and diplomatic steps of lining up allies and agreements. Washington is trying to behave in a non-hegemonistic manner. The Pentagon will need time to build an inventory of munitions, parts and deployed troops. Do not expect the US government to identify target countries overnight; but the audit trail is increasingly clear if we read the "sheep's entrails" of American punditry --strategic leaks prepare public sentiment and opinion to support a prolonged campaign. Those who do not cooperate will face consequences. Here's how things stack up, for now, as understood at SIRIUS. Targets: Afghanistan: Taliban's Afghanistan, as a platform for "fundamentalist" terrorism, will be squeezed first. They are already surrounded by the former Soviet Republics (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, etc), China, Pakistan and Iran. Taliban has slaughtered ethnic Persians and Irani diplomats. Taliban is a Wahabi-Sunni enterprise of the Pathan (Pashtun) ethnic group. Afghanistan is important because it straddles important north-south and east-west trade routes, particularly the "Silk Road" from China to the West. That route is important again because China could build an oil-gas pipeline from Kazakhstan and Pakistan wants the north-south route open for its trade with the former Soviet republics of Muslim Asia. Quietly, Russia, the US, Iran and others have been assisting Mohammed Shah Massood's rebel movement in the anti-Taliban north. Massood was very effective against the Soviet Union's occupation, but he, Moscow, Washington and Tehran are now in accord that Taliban is the threat. A week ago, Taliban sent a suicide bomber into Massood's headquarters in an assassination attempt. He died a few days later. Massood was the only opponent of Taliban capable of building effective coalitions among the country's diverse ethnic groups. Iraq: As we observed in Gulf War One, the Iraqi Army is not an obstacle, only a detail. The Iraqi people will be ready for liberation and America will not have to provide a long-term occupation force, there. The neighbors can take care of that. If the alliance thinks it through, they may find that they can blitz Iraq and let the Iraqi Army and People provide their post-Liberation occupation, while experts from the Arab world help develop more modern policies and government. Iran and Syria: will cooperate to the extent that the US can require Israel gives Palestine its rightful independence, in exchange for Israel's security. Possible Good News: Peace for Israel. Peace for Palestine. Iran: We may well find that the Irani People and their President are about ready to curtail the influence of their religious dictator, Ayatollah Khameni. Iran has had enough of Shiite fundamentalist "sacrifice" and are increasingly ready to enjoy the 21st century. Syria: This country too, wants to join the new century, but needs to get the Golan Heights, and control of its water resources back from Israel. As the Bush Administration seeks to complete a peace agreement for Israel and the Palestinians, Syria may rapidly shut down the terrorist organizations operating in Syria and Lebanon. © Copyright 2001 by Benjamin C. Works - SIRIUS www.siri-us.com Recipients of this report may re-post it, in whole or in part, to Internet web sites and address lists, so long as the copyright notice is included, and "for fair use only."