[iwar] [fc:War.on.Terrorism,.or.War.on.Islam?]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-09-26 22:09:52


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:War.on.Terrorism,.or.War.on.Islam?]
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Wednesday September 26 12:20 AM ET
War on Terrorism, or War on Islam?
By Terry Friel

JAKARTA (Reuters) - The U.S.  vow that war against terrorism is not war
against Islam may have fallen on deaf ears as cries of jihad, or holy
war, resound across the Muslim world. 

The accompanying threat to strike Afghanistan in the hunt for Osama bin
Laden, the chief suspect in the devastating September 11 attacks on New
York and Washington, risks triggering a violent backlash among the
world's billion Muslims. 

``If they act without clear evidence and outside the U.N., then the
danger is that this will be seen as a war against Islam,'' said Emad
Gad, a political analyst at the Cairo-based al-Ahram Centre for
Political and Strategic Studies. 

``It's a kind of arrogance of power.  They say you are either with us or
against us...''

Some Islamic leaders say the planned U.S.  retaliation over the attacks
which may have killed about 7,000 people is nothing more than an
undisguised crusade against Muslims.  President Bush's call for a
crusade against evildoers revived for some images of Christian crusades
against Islam. 

``They've created an atmosphere of hatred toward Muslims because they
need to search for a victim, any victim...,'' said Lebanon-based Sheikh
Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. 

``We find that the Muslims are exposed to an American attack in the name
of a coalition 'war on terrorism' that has no credible basis,'' said the
former Hizbollah spiritual adviser, regarded as an authority for Shi'ite
Muslims around the world and who has forbidden Muslims from joining any
U.S.  reprisals. 

ISLAMIC SUPPORT CRUCIAL

Islamic support is important to American success for several reasons:
Afghanistan is surrounded mainly by Islamic countries; it broadens the
coalition behind the United States and it brings with it some of the
world's biggest countries. 

``The United States should know that without Islamic support, the
obstacles will be dangerous,'' said Saudi Arabia's Arabic language
al-Riyadh newspaper in an editorial.  ``The United States should be
aware of how entwined its position and interests are with the Islamic
world in times of war and peace.''

As moderates seek to reassure their followers Washington is not on an
anti-Muslim crusade, hard-liners from Europe to the Middle East to Asia
are readying for a fight. 

``There have been attacks and violence for years in the Arab and Muslim
world as a result of the U.S., so there was a reason that this
happened,'' said an angry young Sudanese at the central mosque in Paris. 
``If there is a war, I'm ready.''

In the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia, young men denouncing
U.S.  aggression are signing up to go to Afghanistan to fight a jihad
while others hunt for American citizens. 

The country's main Muslim clerics' organization, the Council of Ulemas
(MUI), has condemned both the attacks on the United States and any
retaliation against a Muslim country. 

``So, we call on Muslims in the world for a jihad fie sabilillah (holy
war for truth) should aggression by the U.S.  and its allies against
Afghanistan and the Islamic world occur,'' said MUI secretary-general
Din Syamsuddin. 

Calls for jihad if the United States strikes are echoing around the
Islamic world, including the Middle East, Malaysia and Pakistan, where
four people died in weekend anti-U.S.  protests. 

Bin Laden has described the dead Pakistani protesters as ''the first
martyrs in the battle of Islam of this age.''

MODERATES MAY JOIN RADICALS

However, Indian Islamic scholar and head of the powerful Muslim Personal
Law Board Kalbe Sadiq said Muslims could not support Afghanistan's
ruling Taliban if they were proved guilty. 

``But we can't support the United States because their previous record
isn't good, either,'' he told Reuters.  ``So this is a battle between
two thugs.'' India's Muslim minority of about 120 million approaches the
population of Pakistan. 

Analysts say while extremists are a tiny fraction of the Islamic world,
a long and bloody U.S.  campaign with heavy civilian casualties, and any
failure by Washington to reassess its own foreign policies, may swing
some moderates behind them. 

``If there is a war in Afghanistan and the powers of the West are pitted
against the Taliban, and if that war goes on for a few years, the
Taliban would be seen by a lot of Muslims as defenders of Islam,'' said
Malaysian opposition politician Chandra Muzaffar. 

Saudi social anthropologist Mai Yamani said she was worried about the
fallout from any American military reprisals. 

``That could strengthen the radical trend that we have here in the Arab
Muslim world and crush the moderate trend,'' she said.  German-born
Indonesian Catholic priest Franz Magnis-Suseno said: ``It's safe for us
now here...  but these small groups can change everything.''

Resentment at U.S.  actions in the Middle East, especially its support
for Israel and the sanctions against Iraq, is the common thread linking
the most moderate Muslims to the most radical. 

``America helps Israel in attacking Palestinians,'' said Ubaid-ul-Haq, a
32-year-old painter in the Indian capital, New Delhi.  ``America must
understand why people want to attack it.''

Professor Amin Saikal, from the Australian National University's Arab
and Islamic studies center, told Reuters a military campaign with clear
objectives and a marked foreign policy shift were vital to easing
Islamic suspicions. 

But he also believes ethnic, cultural and political divisions mean the
Islamic world cannot sustain a united opposition. 

``If they could, they would have done so by now over Israel,'' he said. 
``But there are groups in the Muslim world that in the short term may
act against the U.S.''

Islam varies dramatically in geography and teaching, from its softer
face in the vast Southeast Asian archipelago of Indonesia, built on
animist and even Hindu beginnings, to the Taliban's own ultra-strict
interpretation in Afghanistan. 

But as the world waits for any U.S.  strike, Afghani-American writer Mir
Tamim Ansary warns a devastating conflict between Islam and the West is,
in fact, bin Laden's ultimate aim. 

``We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West,'' he wrote
in a widely-circulated email.  ``And guess what: that's bin Laden's
program.  That's why he did this. 

``Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does.  Anyone else?''


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