http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Musharraf_blames_U.S._West_for_extremism_0913.html

Quote :

"Musharraf blames US and the West for importing, breeding extremism into Pakistan In a speech to the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Tuesday, Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf blamed the United States and the West for "breeding terrorism in his country by bringing in thousands of mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and then leaving Pakistan alone a decade later to face the armed warriors," according to an article at Pakistan's Daily Times published on Wednesday. "Musharraf told the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Tuesday that Pakistan was not the intolerant, extremist country often portrayed by the West, and terrorism and extremism were not inherent in Pakistani society," the Daily Times article continues. Excerpts from article: “Whatever extremism or terrorism is in Pakistan is a direct fallout of the 26 years of warfare and militancy around us. It gets back to 1979 when the West, the United States and Pakistan waged a war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” Musharraf told EU lawmakers. “We launched a jihad, brought in mujahideen from all over the Muslim world, the US and the West…We armed the Taliban and sent them in; we did it together. In 1989 everyone left Pakistan with 30,000 armed mujahideen who were there, and the Taliban who were there,” he said, adding that Pakistan had “paid a big price for being part of the coalition that fought the Soviet Union.”"

I'm unhappy about having to rely on the equivalent of a Drudge Flash, but the source is provided. The story isn't "Developing..." Anyone with Bug Me Not who cares to find the rest of the article can do so here: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\09\13\story_13-9-2006_pg1_1 .

The problem is that this minority view happens to reflect a historically accurate picture of Al Qaeda. Its leadership and other related elements spent a lot of time training under the wings of our intelligence services, learning about how to structure an operational intelligence organization. What we didn't anticipate was that after learning how to defeat the Soviets, they might turn their attention to us.

Anyway, for all the source crybabies out there, the tone of the article isn't what interests me at all. It's the fact that the Head of State for a critical ally of ours in the War on Terror, on a key front in the battle, is delivering a speech to the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee dating the "extremism or terrorism" in his country back to the Soviet Afghan conflict.

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 12:24 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 12:24 AM. Reason : ...]

9/14/2006 12:14:57 AM

The enemy of our enemy is our friend...and eventually our enemy.

9/14/2006 12:28:36 AM

How quickly and conveniently we forget.

9/14/2006 12:33:08 AM

It's only a minority view because the majority is completely ignorant of history. Any basic study of afghan history will lead to Musharraf's conclusion. It's not even political -- it's a simple statement of fact that can exist without a value judgement.

9/14/2006 12:37:03 AM

Suffice it to say that it's not a highly acknowledged or widely discussed element of the debate over the origins of Al Qaeda.

9/14/2006 12:46:23 AM

ah yes, the sloppiness of arrogance

9/14/2006 12:48:13 AM

Didn't Musharraf just surrender to the Taliban last week?

Quote :

"Musharraf's peace deal may hurt Americans: US daily By Arun Kumar, Indo-Asian News Service Washington, Sep 14 (IANS) Even as a leading US daily suggested that Pakistan's peace deal with tribal leaders in North Waziristan may be at the expense of Americans, the White House defended President Pervez Musharraf as a 'valuable ally'. 'Musharraf has been very helpful in the war on terror, and he's taking considerable political risks to do so. We appreciate that. He is an extremely valuable ally in the war on terror, and we consider him such,' White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters Wednesday. As the hunt for Osama bin Laden and others has been filtering across borders, US understands the obligations of sovereign governments, and is working with General Musharraf to do what he can, he said in reply to a question about what Musharraf was doing to help find the Al Qaeda leader. However, Washington Post suggested that the cost of Musharraf's peace deal will be borne by American and NATO troops in Afghanistan, whose commanders already say that the ability of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to retreat to Pakistan greatly complicates the challenge of defeating their escalating attacks."

9/14/2006 12:50:53 AM

pryderi doesn't need porn as long as there's:

1) the opposite party in power
2) intense suffering somewhere as a result of that


fwapfwapfwapfwap

9/14/2006 12:54:19 AM

So is one of the prices we are paying for defeating the soviets is perpetual muslim terrorism?

9/14/2006 1:06:16 AM

I don't know.

Does it have to be?

9/14/2006 1:10:26 AM

It would have been a huge disaster if the soviets were able to take over afghanistan!!!!!!

9/14/2006 1:18:54 AM

think of the US as the King,

Israel is the Queen (it can pretty much do what the fuck ever it wants)

UK is the Knight (it leaps over/past continental Europe's paralyses)

the ROW (rest of world) is a Bishop (always plays with a slant)

India is the rook (the world's largest democracy--no other player moves straighter than that)

To avoid a check, plz see the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling

9/14/2006 1:22:54 AM

^^ That's nice. What exactly can be done about that today?

Right, nothing.

My question was directed at EarthDogg. Does one of the prices we pay for defeating the soviets have to be perpetual Muslim terrorism?

^ Brilliant model. Incomplete, but chessboards are very useful. For instance, I disagree with assigning the ROW exclusively to the Bishops.

Quote :

"Castling is only permissible if all of the following conditions hold: 1. The player must never have moved the king; 2. The player must never have moved the rook involved in castling; 3. There must be no pieces between the king and the rook; 4. The king may not currently be in check, nor may the king pass through squares that are under attack by enemy pieces. As with any move, castling is illegal if it would place the king in check. 5. The king and the rook must be on the same rank. [1] It is a common mistake to think that the requirements for castling are even more stringent than the above. To clarify: 1. The king may have been in check previously, as long as it isn't in check at the time of castling. 2. The rook involved in castling may be under attack. 3. The rook involved in castling may move over an attacked square. (This situation is only possible with queenside castling.)"

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 1:27 AM. Reason : ...]

9/14/2006 1:24:00 AM

Quote :

"Does one of the prices we pay for defeating the soviets have to be perpetual Muslim terrorism?"

No. But it will take some adroit diplomacy on our part to patch things up. A combination of apologetic-for meddling in the Mid-east in the first place, a sharp decrease in that meddling, and a stern warning to the world that we will track down those who attack us as well as the countries harboring them. We are sorry for the clumsy and mis-guided foreign policies of the past 50 years, but we will not tolerate reprisals for those policies.

9/14/2006 2:03:36 AM

I'm going to disagree with your interpretation of history.

Musharraf states that Pakistan has “paid a big price for being part of the coalition that fought the Soviet Union.” I would argue that Pakistan is paying a big price for geographical location. Being located next to Afghanistan, Pakistan had a very large self-interest in supporting resistance against the Soviets to ensure that Pakistan itself was not next to be targeted by the Soviets. Pakistan sought and received aid both from the West (namely the US and UK) and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia). Pakistan didn't just happen to get caught up in Afghanistan as a coalition member; they were a key participant in and facilitator of Afghan resistance.

Also, while it is certainly true that al Qaida itself has its roots in Afghanistan and received substantial training and materiel support from the US, their brand of extremism was not forged in Afghanistan. Modern Muslim extremism towards the west has it's roots further back, most recently Iran in the 50's and Israel's post-war formation. You could probably go further back to British dealings in the Middle East in the early 1900's. bin Laden's fatwah cites the US "occupation" of Saudi Arabia during Gulf War I--not US operations in Afghanistan--as a major reason for his group's actions against the West. Violent Muslim-Muslim extremism/conflict (e.g. Shia-Sunni) goes back to the formation of Islam itself. Wahhabism, of which bin Laden is a part, is several centuries old.

Finally, Western involvement in Afghanistan needs to be viewed in the context of the Cold War. The Soviet Union uses political unrest in Afghanistan as a reason to invade. What do you do? Do you do nothing and hope the Soviets stop there? That's not a chance Pakistan was willing to take. Do you intervene directly with military force--i.e. do Western troops directly confront Soviet troops, possibly leading to wider conflict? Or do you intervene indirectly by supporting the Afghan resistance, even though you know that many of the fighters are not big fans of the West? Obviously, both Carter (who began US support) and Reagan (who continued it) judged the Soviets to be a larger threat, and it could certainly be argued that the Soviet's eventual failure contributed to the Soviet Union breakup.

I will agree that everyone simply leaving in 1989 was a bad idea. However, I'm at a loss to come up with a politically viable way to intervene in a conflict the West had no direct involvement in.

9/14/2006 10:42:45 AM

In some ways, I agree with Musharraf's speech: I do think that a lot of the modern Islamic terrorism that we face today was in large part, our fault. Following the Cold War, we were so caught up in celebrating the fall of the Soviet Union and the return of international "peace" that we didn't bother to clean up the messes we left. Messes like Afghanistan where we supported groups in driving out the Soviet Union and then failed to make any serious attempt to rebuild the country afterwards. If the Cold War had gone for just a few more years, I imagine that the United States and her western allies would have made much more aggressive efforts to establish some sort of stable regime in Afghanistan to counter Soviet influence in the region (afterall, how could resist such a strategic position right against the Soviet border?). Unfortunately for the Afghanis, the Berlin Wall fell the same year as their liberation, and the West decided to simply decided to abandon them, allowing the chaos to fester and become a breeding ground for extremists.

Think about it, it's not as if the Taliban came into power right after we left or that al Qaeda quickly turned on us right after Afghanistan or even the Gulf War. It took nearly seven years of instability and constant warfare in Afghanistan to beat people down enough to accept an ideology as crazy as the Taliban or accept training camps for then-fringe groups like al Qaeda.

Perhaps it was the naive assumption that once Soviet influence disappeared, that her client states overthrew their Communist-backed governments, all the troubles of the world would automatically resolve themselves and peace will reign. "The End of History" and all that nonsense. Instead, we've left pockets of instability that have and will come back to bite us in the ass: Afghanistan, Somalia, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) to name just a few. Now we have Iraq which, if we're not careful, is going to become an even bigger problem for us than it already is...

9/14/2006 11:22:11 AM

durka durkas were blowing shit up long before we helped the afghanis fight off the soviets

they always blame what we've done lately as their reasoning for their terrorism and you liberals jump right in and agree with them instead of admitting that they just like to blow shit up that isn't muslim

the national geographic show about Ali Muhamed was interesting and didn't dispel any notions I already had... it did make me realize that YEARS of bureacracy eventually led to what we have now

9/14/2006 11:35:24 AM

^^ You bring up an excellent example with the Congo. With the Congo, and especially Rwanda, the French and the Belgians granted independence by simply leaving the country after little to no meaningful government transfer. In the case of Rwanda, the country slipped into genocidal warfare withing days of the Belgian's departure. Fine examples of the downside of power vacuums, and certainly a lesson which should have been applied to Afghanistan and should be applied to Somalia.

9/14/2006 11:59:05 AM

Quote :

"durka durkas were blowing shit up long before we helped the afghanis fight off the soviets"

White, Catholic Irishmen and creepy Basque Spaniards were "blowing shit up" left and right about a decade ago. That's a side point though.

Quote :

"they always blame what we've done lately as their reasoning for their terrorism and you liberals jump right in and agree with them instead of admitting that they just like to blow shit up that isn't muslim"

They certainly do bear the ultimate responsibility for their actions; I don't deny that. However, we should be mindful that we helped to create the chaotic breeding grounds that allow the crazies to convince the normally rational masses that strapping explosives to oneself and slamming passenger aircraft into the side of buildings isn't such a bad idea. If we deal with these power vacuums and thus keep the radicals from gaining a foothold, it'll go a long way in helping reduce the number of people who try and blow stuff up.

9/14/2006 4:20:55 PM

RedGuard got my point on the first try.

It's historically egregious to suggest the power vacuum left in Afghanistan in the time Musharraf is referring to didn't significantly influence and empower Al Qaeda into the globalized, technologically, and operationally capable organization that it is today. The substantial training and material support which you correctly admit we gave them in the context of the Cold War (and so did I) is precisely what permitted this organization to flourish after 1989.

The effects of that cannot be understated, even in the context of the Cold War. We effectively created an Islamic extremist intelligence agency operationally indistinguishable from our own in order to help fight the Soviets, and then abandoned them. Presuming once the Communist threat was diffused, they would simply dissipate.

Within three years Al Qaeda was claiming responsibility for bombings in Yemen.

Within four years Ramzi Yousef, most probably not yet an Al Qaeda member, masterminded the bombing the World Trade Center.

Within twelve years Al Qaeda brought the damn thing down.

In this case it took a Head of State, a military dictator, and tenuous ally in the War on Terror to point the finger at the West. I'll be more than curious to see how the United States State Department responds to the charge...

9/14/2006 7:05:50 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060913/ts_alt_afp/usattackseurope

Quote :

"Kissinger warns of possible "war of civilizations" WASHINGTON (AFP) - Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that Europe and the United States must unite to head off a "war of civilizations" arising from a nuclear-armed Middle East. In an opinion column in the Washington Post, the renowned foreign policy expert said the potential for a "global catastrophe" dwarfed lingering transatlantic mistrust left over from the Iraq war. "A common Atlantic policy backed by moderate Arab states must become a top priority, no matter how pessimistic previous experience with such projects leaves one," Kissinger wrote. "The debate sparked by the Iraq war over American rashness vs. European escapism is dwarfed by what the world now faces. "Both sides of the Atlantic should put their best minds together on how to deal with the common danger of a wider war merging into a war of civilizations against the background of a nuclear-armed Middle East." Kissinger wrote that the big threat lay in the erosion of nation states and the emergence of transnational groups. Iran was at the centre of the challenge, he said, with its support for Hezbollah, radical Shiite groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Washington must accept that many European nations were more optimistic about talks designed to convince Iran to halt uranium enrichment -- a process Tehran denies is aimed at making weapons, he wrote. But in return, he said, Europe should accept the process must include a "bottom line" beyond which diplomatic flexibility must not go and a time limit to ensure talks did not become a shield for "developing new assaults." In the article, Kissinger, national security adviser for former president Richard Nixon, and secretary of state for Nixon and his successor Gerald Ford, warned the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah was still dangerous, after its month-long conflict with Israel. "Hezbollah's next move is likely to be an attempt to dominate the Beirut government by intimidation and, using the prestige gained in the war, manipulating democratic procedures," he said. He concluded by noting that observers wondered whether, after the Cold War, trans-Atlantic ties could survive the loss of a common enemy. "We now know that we face the imperative of building a new world order or potential global catastrophe. It cannot be done alone by either side of the Atlantic. Is that realization sufficient to regenerate a common purpose?""

Henry Kissinger knows his shit. And I've got to agree with his assessment. A coalition between the U.S., whatever European allies we can manage, and India would probably be the aim of that common purpose. One can only hope we move in a similar direction.

9/14/2006 7:50:38 PM

as a general rule, democracies do not attack other democracies

9/14/2006 9:09:22 PM

Palestineans in Gaza kidnapped Israeli soldiers triggering a war between Israel and Lebanon. Does the Gaza's act of war count as an example to the contrary?

I know it's pretty rare.

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 9:16 PM. Reason : ...]

9/14/2006 9:15:14 PM

I'm not downplaying or dismissing the role of 70's/80's Afghanistan in the rise of al Qaida. I'm simply saying that al Qaida, the organization, was created there. Islamic extremism existed prior to Afghanistan; it was not conceived there and it was not the result of US actions in Afghanistan (though US action certainly influences extremism). I also think that you are downplaying Pakistan's role in removing the Soviets from Pakistan.

9/14/2006 9:21:14 PM

I'm not at all. They were clearly our allies in the Soviet-Afghan conflict. Just as the Saudis were our allies in Gulf War I. I just don't particularly see the relevance.

As for the debate over historical punctuation, I understand your point. I just think it's a little unfair to suggest that though Al Qaeda formed in Afghanistan during that conflict, it is not a credible place to punctuate the history of anti-Western extremism at all. That's where our intelligence services armed and trained these organizations. We taught them their most dangerous capacities: namely the concept of decentralized intelligence. Inarguably, that made the organization more deadly in terms of its capabilities. That was expressly why we trained them that way, after all.

Another point worth punctuating, would be the 1989 pullout.

Again, neither Musharraf nor I have suggested Islamic extremism didn't exist before the conflict. That was Raw Story's headline for the article. I noted already that the tone was irrelevant to the substance which was significant.

9/14/2006 9:57:52 PM

Quote :

"Islamic extremism existed prior to Afghanistan; it was not conceived there and it was not the result of US actions in Afghanistan (though US action certainly influences extremism)"

Where did it originate from?

9/14/2006 10:10:04 PM

umm... it been going on since before there ever was a USA


check out the national geographic show about Ali Muhamed

9/14/2006 10:19:27 PM

Yeah, it has. But it isn't inherent to the religion. It was spawned by the Crusades, and is a legacy of that.

9/14/2006 10:21:36 PM

^^^ from my earlier post

Quote :

"Also, while it is certainly true that al Qaida itself has its roots in Afghanistan and received substantial training and materiel support from the US, their brand of extremism was not forged in Afghanistan. Modern Muslim extremism towards the west has it's roots further back, most recently Iran in the 50's and Israel's post-war formation. You could probably go further back to British dealings in the Middle East in the early 1900's. bin Laden's fatwah cites the US "occupation" of Saudi Arabia during Gulf War I--not US operations in Afghanistan--as a major reason for his group's actions against the West. Violent Muslim-Muslim extremism/conflict (e.g. Shia-Sunni) goes back to the formation of Islam itself. Wahhabism, of which bin Laden is a part, is several centuries old."

^^^^ I'm not attempting to say that it's not important; I'm simply saying that it's not the birthplace of anit-Western Islamic extremism. The relevance of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc is that the US did not act alone in Afghanistan. You can not point a finger at the West (read the United States) as the exclusive progenitor of al Qaida.

[Edited on September 14, 2006 at 10:28 PM. Reason : ^^^^]

9/14/2006 10:27:36 PM

Certainly not. The causes of terrorism, and especially the current extremism centering from Islamic organizations, are complex and involve a long history, and plenty of other state actors as well as the United States. The intimate involvement of the United States in Al Qaeda's propulsion from the loosely armed radicals in the Mujahideen into an effective, operational, intelligence-like organization in Al Qaeda is what think Musharraf's referring to.

Quote :

"moron: Where did it originate from?"

That's a very, very hard question to answer. You could try Wikipedia, but I bet all the articles are obscured all to hell by vandalism. The short answer is that it originated from a long succession of tit-for-tat between fundamentalist Jews and fundamentalist Muslims in the Middle East throughout history. It goes back pretty damn far. And honestly, where you punctuate how far back to take it is usually the best predictor of whether you'll be viewed as a pro-Israel/US groupie or a pro-Arab/terrorist groupie.

That, I think, more than anything is why most academics shy away from looking at the question. The best I can figure, and I don't claim to be right at all, is that after many years of the tit-for-tat between Palestineans and Israelis sufficiently radicalized one another, the balance of power in the world changed dramatically in the last century. For better or worse, the Israeli state was chartered in 1948 and it all went to hell from there.

However radicalized the Islamic extremist movements were before that time, they definitely became moreso after it. Both acted and reacted to one another more and more aggressively until the Six Days War broke out in the pan-Arab region (1967?). In that war, Israel practically doubled in size. Again, this led to more inflaming of tensions between the two ideologically divided groups.

In my mind, this post-war environment is where the state of perpetual ideological warfare was firmed. Not the formation of the Jewish state. I make no value judgments on the matter, and others are free to disagree. I welcome new information on the matter.

Mind, that's a broad view of history that was actually represented by far more detailed and specific events than described. If you want specifics, crack open a book.

9/15/2006 3:01:00 AM

The book salesman hits the Daily Show on his publicity circuit...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/27/musharraf.dailyshow.ap/index.html

Quote :

"Musharraf talks Osama, Iraq on 'Daily Show' NEW YORK (AP) -- Jon Stewart welcomed Pakistan's president to "The Daily Show" on Tuesday with tea and a Twinkie. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's tete-a-tete with Stewart on the Comedy Central program was even more unlikely than the much-anticipated meeting between Musharraf, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush, planned for Wednesday. As a gesture mirroring Pakistani hospitality, Stewart welcomed Musharraf with a cup of jasmine green tea, and offered the more American delicacy of a Twinkie. Musharraf chuckled and thanked the host, though Stewart promptly changed the subject. "Where's Osama bin Laden?" he asked suddenly. "I don't know," replied Musharraf. "You know where he is? You lead on, we'll follow you." Musharraf's appearance on "The Daily Show," which was taped late Tuesday and was to air Tuesday evening, was the first time a sitting head of state appeared on the program, a show spokesman said. The comedy show, though, has frequently drawn major political figures, including former President Clinton last week. The Pakistan president, who is on tour of the U.S., appeared on the program to promote his new memoir, "In the Line of Fire." The book has drawn headlines for, among other things, the Pakistan president's claim that after the September 11 attacks he had no choice but to support the U.S. led war on terror groups or face an American "onslaught." (Watch On balancing the wishes of the U.S. and Pakistan, which is largely anti-American, Musharraf told Stewart: "I've had to learn the art of tightrope-walking many times, and I think I've become quite an expert of that." Stewart, himself, has also proven deft at balancing both humor and seriousness on "The Daily Show." At one point, he asked Musharraf if he had omitted any mention of the war in Iraq in his memoir because it has "gone so well." Musharraf again laughed, but said: "It has led certainly to more extremism and terrorism around the world." To conclude the interview, Stewart put Musharraf on the "Seat of Heat," a new feature for the program in which red lights flash around the studio and the guest is asked a final question. "George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden -- be truthful -- who would win a popular vote in Pakistan?" asked Stewart. "I think they'll both lose miserably," replied Musharraf, an answer met with raucous laughter by the "Daily Show" audience. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed."

9/27/2006 12:05:03 PM

I love it when leaders of foreign nations bash our leaders on our own shores!1!

9/27/2006 1:20:32 PM

if you actually read up on your history of the non-western world, you notice that there has been, in their minds, a constant struggle going on against the west ever since the first incursions into their territories. just read about (pick one) the crusades, early colonialism (spain, portugal, britain, france, holland), the slave trades, high colonialism (france, britain, germany, belgium, united states), involvement of the colonies in WWI, the Japanese Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (which invokes quite a few of the same ideas being spoken of by Musharraf here), the Southeast Asian conflicts, the Latin American civil wars, the African revolutions, I could go on...

in our age, its taking the form of an islamic-backed struggle against the west. in past generations, it was nationalist-backed, or communist-backed. the beat goes on...

at the same time, while western incursion can be blamed for extremism/violence in many historical cases, it is important to treat each instance separately.

[Edited on September 27, 2006 at 1:29 PM. Reason : .]

9/27/2006 1:27:25 PM

^ A-greed.

9/27/2006 1:37:32 PM

Quote :

"I love it when leaders of foreign nations bash our leaders on our own shores!1!"

Infinitely more civilized and humane than American leaders killing foreign leaders (and citizens and infrastructure) on their soil, wouldn't you agree?

9/27/2006 1:49:27 PM

We gave them that right already. The UN is on our shores for a historically establishable reason, right? What reasons are they?

9/27/2006 1:53:59 PM

I don't care how Bush has fucked up etc etc

I do care about leaders of foreign countries that do not extend the same privilidges to their citizens coming over here and making a mockery of us

9/27/2006 2:25:05 PM

Yeah. That's an cultural extension of Tom Friedman's Lexus / Olive Tree concept come to life within the confines of media. Our government allows it. Our capitalism encourages it. Voila.

9/27/2006 2:30:01 PM

yep... so there ya have it

9/27/2006 2:36:24 PM