Letnik 9/2, september 2007 - Slovenska vojska

KAJ BIN LADNA DRŽI POKONCI
Afghan Mujahideen, but declined. Ask former Afghan Commander Akhtarjhan
his opinion of these Arabs. One remarkable photograph of a passing Mujahideen
vehicle sums up the Afghan contempt of the Arabs with a sign stating, “We are not
Internationalists.”
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the relationship between the Afghans
and the Arabs resembled the dynamics of a varsity sports team; there are players
who are essential to the winning of the game and there are “scrubs” − players who
warmed the bench. The Afghans fought their own war and outsiders of any stripe
− CIA paramilitary case officers, ISI intelligence operatives or internationalists −
were kept on the sidelines. The Bin Laden’s of the Afghan conflict could build and
guard roads, dig ditches, and prepare fixed positions; however, this was an Afghan
Jihad, fought by real Afghans, and eventually won by real Afghans. Bin Laden was
forced to sit out the “big game” − the real Holy War.
To reconcile this profound psychological set back, Bin Laden recognized that he
needed to start his own “jihad.” 3 In August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Bin
Laden proposed to the Saudi royal family that he summon his Arab Mujahideen
to retake Kuwait from Saddam’s army. For this puerile, militarily unsound and
egocentric proposal, he was smartly rebuffed and banished by the Saudi leadership.
However, over time in Bin Laden’s mind, the United States had now become
to Saudi Arabia and the Ulama what the Soviet Union had been in Afghanistan.
The Americans were occupying the lands of Islam in its holiest territories; the
Americans were slaughtering the Muslims; and, the Americans served the petty
state, Israel, which occupied Jerusalem. Now Bin Laden had his own “jihad.” He
was finally alone on center stage.
Today, Bin Laden sees the evil hand of America everywhere, from Serb ethnic
cleansing of Bosnian Muslims, to Central Asia and to the US liberation of
Afghanistan and Iraq. Even after his escape from Afghanistan and the defeat of
his Taliban hosts, he continues to direct his Al-Qaeda operatives by financing and
supporting groups from Algeria to the Philippines. How direct and powerful his
control is irrelevant; what counts to Bin Laden is that this activity is attributed to
him and it is his “jihad”.
Wherever he hides, he basks mentally in the limelight that was once the exclusive
domain of great Afghan warriors: commanders like the late Abdel Haq and Ahmad
Shah Massoud. At the moment, Bin Ladin reclines against some mud hut wall, his
3
I use the term “jihad” here not in the correct Islamic sense. Bin Laden is fighting a “hirabah”, an unholy war, and
a forbidden war against society.
166