Posted on 04/25/2006 1:32:52 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Why the West should never kowtow to al Qaeda's demands on Darfur.
IN HIS MOST RECENT audio taped message, Osama bin Laden succinctly restated his rationale for international terrorism. This is worth understanding for several reasons, not the least of which being that it provides a much-needed refutation to the often-stated argument that al Qaeda and its supporters are driven and strengthened only by the actions of the United States in general and, more narrowly speaking, the Bush administration.
As bin Laden makes clear, his grievances are by no means limited to the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or the now-familiar litany of the Israeli-Palestinian, Chechen, and Kashmiri insurgencies. Indeed, he includes accusations that Western nations were involved in "barring arms from the unarmed people in Bosnia and letting the Serb army to massacre Muslims and spill their blood for years under U.N. cover," that the United States "sought to reach southern Sudan, recruited an army of southerners, supported them with weapons and funding and directed them to seek separation from Sudan," and the bizarre charges that "a Zionist-Crusaders war" resulted in "the humiliation of Muslims in Somalia and killing 13,000 Muslims . . . along with torching Muslims' bodies."
Those who argue that bin Laden's complaints represent an honest assessment of international politics (as he sees it) will be hard-pressed to hold to this position. At some point, even the most adamant defenders of the view that bin Laden is a rational actor will have to acknowledge that someone with a sophisticated understanding of international politics would not believe that America deliberately allowed Serbia to carry out its massacres in the Balkans, while it was creating the Sudan People's Liberation Army and killing 13,000 Somalis. These are not the views of a rational actor.
THE LACK OF RATIONALITY ASIDE, the most notable change in bin Laden's rhetoric is a focus on Sudan, and in particular the Darfur region. While giving no indication that he intends to abandon his support for the Iraqi insurgency (indeed, he explicitly says that "The epicenter of these wars is Baghdad, the seat of the khalifate rule" and notes favorably that "They keep reiterating that success in Baghdad will be success for the US, failure in Iraq the failure of the US"), bin Laden is now keen to side with Sudan when it comes to Darfur and is advising his followers to do this same. The message is simple: If there is any international intervention in Darfur, al Qaeda will be there waiting for them.
Bin Laden's relationship with the Sudanese government is best characterized as love-hate. He's eager to defend Sudan, despite its actions against the Muslim population of Darfur, but at the same time he chastises the Sudanese government for backtracking on its pledge to implement sharia throughout the country. But bin Laden has never been without allies--most notably the "pope of terror," Hassan Turabi--in Sudan, where al Qaeda was harbored from 1991 to 1996.
As Rohan Gunaratna noted in Inside Al Qaeda in 2002, "the threat posed by Islamists has not diminished in the Sudan and is likely to re-surface from time to time. Parallels are often drawn between Osama and his Sudanese precursor, the Mahdi, who fought a jihad against the British in the late nineteenth century." Indeed, as early as July 2004 a group calling itself Mohammed's Army distributed leaflets at a central mosque in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. They seemed to have been very much in tune with bin Laden's sentiments, saying "There is no doubt that this [international intervention in Darfur] is a Crusader war . . . we call upon you to speedily head toward Darfur and dig deep into the ground mass graves prepared for the Crusader army."
As Western and African governments weigh the costs and benefits of supporting international intervention in Darfur, they should not be deterred by bin Laden's threats, but neither should they view them as empty. Indeed, bin Laden's call to arms at the behest of Sudan is strikingly similar to his February 2003 statement in support of Iraq, even to the point of offering tactical advice for prospective Sudanese jihadis.
But should bin Laden's threat be seen as sufficient deterrence against international intervention--even if only temporarily--it will only serve to further raise his stock, both inside Sudan and throughout the Middle East. It would show that the core of bin Laden's message is fundamentally correct: that Western nations, while powerful, are easily intimidated and can be defeated.
This is why, contrary to the assertions of some academics, shifting policy decisions in an effort to deter violence is not only foolhardy, but, in the context of al Qaeda, might actually be chumming the water. In the case of Sudan, the issue of Darfur appears moot: violence is already occurring at the behest of the Sudanese government and its proxies, the issue at hand is whether or not the people of Darfur will have anyone to assist them in deterring the individuals perpetrating most of the violence.
Ultimately, bin Laden's wholehearted embrace of the Sudanese view of Darfur should not deter international intervention in the region. Instead, it reminds us of the longstanding relationship between the Sudanese government and international terrorism, in particular with regard to individuals like Hassan Turabi. The humanitarian case for intervening in Darfur was already a strong one--all bin Laden has done is highlight the national security implications, as well.
OPINION: Bin Laden's real message is jihad.
Period.
ON THE NET...
http://mk.mucadele.com/mkportal/malzemeler/ozelhaber/usamesaj.jpg
http://mk.mucadele.com/index.php?ind=news&op=news_show_single&ide=266
http://www.aljazeera.net/mritems/streams/2006/4/23/1_613432_1_12.wmv
If this is the case, then we should do ourselves a huge favor and take out anyone in Sudan who might be connected with Al Qaeda now before it gets any worse, and before people are watching as they are in Iraq where we're stuck with that fat little terrorist Muqtada al-Sadr.
Ping for later.
Bump for later.
One comment, without reading through. Any Muslim who mouths these same talking points over Muslim grievances can't turn around and claim they do not support bin Laden and terrorism.
"If this is the case, then we should do ourselves a huge favor and take out anyone in Sudan who might be connected with Al Qaeda now before it gets any worse,"
They should be taken out regardless. A couple hundred thousand people have been murdered there.
The fact that bin laden stated that the west assisted serbia proves that bin laden is mad
My opinion is that he wants another Somalia. He wants to suck us in, and have media footage of us killing dark-skinned Africans (Both sides, "Arab" and "Black", are both dark skinned, differing in less degree than light and dark-skinned blacks in the US), and use Nation of Islam to ignite our inner cities
Good point. Long overdue.
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