In 1979 Afghanistan was in the middle of a civil war when it was invaded by the Soviet Union. The Russians found a most formidable adversary in the Mujahideen. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan referred to the Mujahideen as “freedom fighters” and both Presidents covertly supplied the Mujahideen with arms and aid in effort to help them defeat the Red Menace. The Russians were unable to conquer the Afghans and finally withdrew in 1989. Most of us applauded the defeat of the Russians. During the war, the best of the Afghan fighters- the Taliban- gained control of the country and instituted strict Islam in the wake of the war. One of the Mujahideen-Taliban was named Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden got around to thanking the US for its efforts in liberating Afghanistan in September of 2001.
A great many people in this country seemed pleased to see Hosni Mubarak step down from power recently in Egypt. Barack Obama said “Egypt Will Never Be the Same.”
Quite possibly.
Pew conducted a poll in the Middle East in 2010 and came away with some intriguing findings. Although 59% of Egyptians claimed to prefer democracy, 22% said a non-democratic form of government could be preferable with 16% not really caring either way. Nearly all polled said Islam played a role in government with about half saying that Islam played a large role. Islam’s role in politics was seen as positive by an 85%-2% margin among Muslims and by similar margins in Indonesia, Nigeria, Jordan and Pakistan. The role of Islam in politics in Turkey is growing.
The preferred method of punishment for crimes is telling:
About eight-in-ten Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan (82% each) endorse the stoning of people who commit adultery; 70% of Muslims in Jordan and 56% of Nigerian Muslims share this view. Muslims in Pakistan and Egypt are also the most supportive of whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery; 82% in Pakistan and 77% in Egypt favor making this type of punishment the law in their countries, as do 65% of Muslims in Nigeria and 58% in Jordan.
Following the “democratic” revolution in Egypt, a vote shows a disturbing trend. From Matt Bradley in the WSJ:
Egyptians’ embrace of a set of proposed constitutional amendments in this weekend’s referendum is the clearest sign yet that leadership of the country’s revolution may be passing from youthful activists to Islamist religious leaders, according to analysts.
…The results from Saturday’s referendum signal a shift in Egypt’s continuing revolution: The protest leaders, once celebrated as heroes and martyrs, are no longer the leading voice in Egypt’s transition to democracy.
In their place are popular religious leaders, whose strong backing of the amendments held sway. These leaders see approval of the amendments as an avenue to political power and a means of preserving the country’s Islamic identity. With their influence in what appeared to be Egypt’s first free and fair election, these political playmakers show how they are positioned to help define Egypt’s democratic future.
Iran experienced a revolution in 1979. A ruler was thrown out and replaced with a repressive Islamic rule. There does seem to be a pattern to all these events.
A Yemeni recently described the protesters in his country:
Some protesters dream of an Islamic caliphate, while the socialists believe they can achieve social justice. Others hope this revolution is the beginning of an Arab unity.
The question is- will we see a new Egypt or the next Afghanistan? Among those who see a struggle between Islamic fundamentalists and modernizers, 59% percent favor the fundamentalists. I am concerned that democracy will survive only long enough for the installation of Islamic fundamentalism and then it’s lights out. And the precedents are in favor of that outcome.
At RCP, David Warren writes:
As the days pass, and the intervention in Libya grows longer, my alarm also grows. The West digs itself into a position that is contrary to western interests, and can only advance the interests of our worst enemies in the Middle East. If I were to characterize the effect of the intervention – the actual as opposed to the stated effect – it would be, “Making the world safe for Islamism.”
Now we are trying to bomb Muammar Gaddafi out of Libya and replace him with- what? Warren opines:
But it is Gadhafi’s enemies that disturb me more. As Niall Ferguson points out, when the allied intervention was announced, it was proclaimed from the minarets of Benghazi. And the cry throughout the city was not “God bless America,” but rather, “Allahu Akhbar!”
The devil you know might be better than the devil you don’t know.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Doctor J we are at war with terrorism. The only reason our efforts in the middle east are turning out this way is due to a lack of leadership and strategic intelligence, not due to an excess of enemy’s. Non aggression pacts don’t work. Should the US have allowed poland to be invaded on 2 fronts by terrorists? The middle east is the modern day USSR and 1940s germany and nobody wants to define them as “enemy” or “terrorist”.
Its a poor choice to do nothing.
Many of the female protesters in Egypt were arrested by the ”transitional” government.
All of these ladies were stripped naked and forced to have their viginity tested.
Any who failed that test is to be tried as an adultress.
Will they be stoned to death for failing to have a hymen?
The army who are now in charge were also allowing men to come in and take photos of all these undressed females.
Lovely.
When females tried to have a celebration because Mubarak had been ousted, they were made fun of and slapped, pinched and grouped in the public square.
This is the ”new” Egypt.
Lets be clear. The days when Monarchies and Dictators will rule their people are ending.
On an only slightly lighter note. I’m for term limits in Congress.
@rich wheeler: Hey, we agree on something!
@Zac: Iraq has the best chance IMO, Zac, and that’s because we have boots on the ground. Afghanistan is going to be brutal because most who live there don’t give a hang about anyone over the next hill, let alone have a sense of national identity.
There are many places where we did nothing.
This is what I am afraid of:
Energized Muslim Brotherhood in Libya eyes a prize
Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
So tell me how you think this is going to end…..
I think Barack Obama has just taught Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood how to get Obama to do their work for them.
Doc maybe al quota should be our first enemy, but I think Saddam and Gaddafi are different and yet the same. Two muslim left wing dicktators, both have large chemical weapon caches, both support various forms of terrorism, both are oppressive to the people, both have a selection of tribes within there country, both hated Israel and the US.
I’m not sure what types of rebels we are dealing with, I’m no intel officer, if they are all al qaida I’m fine with Gadaffis crushing them but we need Gadaffi too.
Terrorists from places like Palestine and all over have received training, asylum and payment from Libya with Gadaffis blessings. Libya has quite a network of terrorist training camps. Gadaffi may not be al qaida but he is a terrorist and should be treated as such.
In 1981 Libya sent troops and arms like SAMs to aid the PLO in Palestine.
Gadaffi
In 1986 the bombing of a Berlin Disco, killed two US solders. Other US targets were hit in Lebanon and Italy.
Gadaffi
In 1988 the pan american airliner blew up over Scotland, 280 dead.
Gadaffi
In 1989, a French airliner exploded over the Sahara Desert, killing 170 passengers and crew.
-Gadaffi
In 1990 Invasion of Nitzanim and Ga`ash beaches in Israel.
-Gadaffi
And there is more where that came from. Its sickening we have let this guy live so long.
Zac, nations invading their neighbors… i.e. Germany in WWI, and Saddam Hussein in early 90s invading Kuwait… is not the same as stepping in on a civil war. Yes, he’s scum. But it’s bad foreign policy to go around murdering every despot/thug/scumbag leader. Libya and Gaddafi is one of several big time state sponsors of terror. But he not the biggest by far. That dubious honor belongs to Iran, who has launched direct attacks on the US via our troops in Iraq.
Yet we do not go there. Rather bizarre we pick on the peanut size state terror sponsors, don’t you think, and ignore the real humanitarian problems in Sudan/Darfur. Especially since Gaddafi was scared into dumping his WMDs in 2003, and was giving us *some* cooperation in intel and terrorism.
No more for that…
Gaddafi was never our concern beyond the fact that he was yet one more state sponsor of terror that had a penchant for attacking where westerners were present. Berlin, etal. Then again, he also attacked on Pakistan soil too with one of his two Pan Am attacks. Libya is a civil war problem, and an even bigger problem for the Arab League. As I pointed out in my Mar 21st post, I honestly believe we’ve been duped by the Arab League into doing their dirty work.
Slight history correction, drj… don’t get mad now. :0)
Bin Laden was not a Taliban fighter. He did go to fight against the Soviets, but returned to Saudi Arabia after that. When the royals refused his aid and pissed him off, they exiled him to Sudan where he and his band of not so merry men stayed until they were booted out of Sudan in the mid 1990s.
Nor was Mullah Omar’s Taliban a full time organized fighting force as they are now. The “taliban”, in general, used to ban together to do jihad battle, then go home when done. In fact, Mullah Omar wasn’t nearly as high on the leadership food chain. There were other true powerhouses then.
The US and western nations were funding The Islamic Party of Afghanistan , led by warlord Hekmatyar, not the Taliban. They were merely a temporary, supplemental jihad force, and unorganized. It was Hekmatyar’s forces that Bin Laden came to join, not a rag tag group of taliban.
In the wake of the Soviet loss, Hekmatyar and his warlords started assuming more violent power. Then Mullah Omar started rising to the cream of the opposition crop in leadership, battling back. You might say that Mullah Omar’s Taliban became the “new freedome fighters” to Hekmatyar’s rise to Aghan power.
At the same time, Bhutto, then PM of Pakistan, was also having problems with Hekmatyar raiding their convoys coming thru Afghanistan. So in 1994, Bhutto made Mullah Omar, a bud of Bhutto’s Maulana Rehman, and the Taliban in Afghanistant their official protection force in Afghanistan against Hekmatyar, giving them funding, credibility and birth to the monster it became. A few years later, Bin Laden was booted out of Sudan, and AQ found a new home with Mullah Omar’s newly powerful Taliban, thanks to Bhutto and Pakistan’s help.
This is why I was constantly harping on this Bhutto love fest shortly before, and after, her assassination back on my old shared blog from 2007-08. This was shortly before I came to FA as an author. That ultimately led to my 2nd Reader Post on FA, warning against the public cries to oust Musharraf.
This impromptu walk thru that history becomes interesting with my parallel Reader Post, similar to yours here, that I did in my early FA days about Pakistan and Musharraf. The story is the same, only the names have changed.
The difference between Musharraf’s ouster, and Mubarak’s in Egypt, is that Bush let the Pakistanis settle their own, and did not take sides …. which was, at that time between Bhutto (mother of the Taliban and supposedly the new face of Pakistan “democracy”) and Musharraf (US quasi ally in WOT).
Egypt and Obama? Well, current events there. Big difference in the handling of a quasi ally in the “overseas contingency” business by a very naive and inept leader of the free world.
So you are correct that Libya may be the new Afghanistan. Then again, it could be the new Pakistan, or Egypt, or even the old Afghanistan. It seems there are some lessons that are never correctly learned.
As you so rightly pointed at in your last sentence, sometimes the devil we know is better than throwing our military power and money behind the devil we don’t.
Sorry, Dr J. Bin Laden was never in the Taliban. Let’s get the bio of OBL correct before we use it for cheap political gain.
@Tom: It was an honest mistake and a great article, almost every socialist I know has told me that Osama Bin Laden is a taliban fighter, in fact I was taught he was taliban in school, didn’t find out otherwise till a few years ago. I don’t think political gain had anything to do with his mistake, unless Dr J is running for office.
@MataHarley: Yes, maybe you are right about Gadaffi. With his only being a peanut, we can’t become to outraged about libya, then cover our eyes when Iran is killing soldiers. Perhaps its wise to forget the peanut for the time being and support the protesters in Iran, we maybe don’t even need to have all this bombing in Iran, they already have citizens willing to fight, why not just pour gas on the fire with support and help by coordinating opposition and feeding strategic information, then while Iran is weak we can crush them. I’m not against using political struggle to weaken an enemy, especially one like Iran. After that we should ether use Gadaffi as a pawn in the war on terror or consider making peanut butter.
Syria’s leader, Bashad Assad I think his name is, is also a terror sponsor of groups like PLO and he is baathist. He’s not all that much different from Gadaffi, he is having uprisings too now. I’m still taking it all in, However his father killed off many MB members, so I think I know who is responsible for the Syrian uprising, maybe an even worse idea to get involved with that one -At least in Libya we may have a few allies.
@Tom: I’ll concede that point, Tom, but nothing really changes. Especially now:
Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
@MataHarley: In the zeal for “righteousness”, people often don’t consider the situation after the dust settles. They tend to look at things through the prism of the US.
@Zac:
Zac
This bothered me even more than the Libyan situation. We had all the evidence in the world that Iran was supplying the IED’s and all Democrats did was warn Bush not to strike Iran.
It’s not just me.
Why Is Obama Helping Al-Qaeda Terrorists Overthrow Gaddafi?
Of course it’s not just you, drj. That was the entire crux of my post about being duped by the Arab League a few days ago. Additionally, I’ve been saying all this rioting in the streets is not for “democracy” from day one. What a bunch of hoo hah talking points…
We are idiot pawns, being moved about the chess board, and readied for sacrifice.
Ain’t in nice to be in harmony for a change? LOL
@DrJohn:
I hold a deep grudge against those who refuse to avenge the deaths of solders against terrorists and for no other reason then keeping foolish political status. They don’t support the troops and they are not patriots.
Iran is an enemy to the republic and perspective is a bitch….
@MataHarley: OK, it’s not just us. 😉
And yes, it is nice.
The new Egypt continued:
Well, Dayam…..
@Tom, I already noted that in the post just above yours, and more in the historical revisiting in this post.
Despite drj’s incorrect history of both the Taliban’s power (forgetting it was Hekmatyar’s during the post Soviet era), the thrust of the story is correct…. Libya is not much different than the original support of the heinous Hekmatyar in the 80s. Arming or supporting the Libyan rebels is insane, and we are again proving we are the dupes of the Arab League, and doing their dirty work for them.
Must to drj’s surprise, I’m sure, I did correct his historical inaccuracies without destroying the base of his point.
You, on the other hand, added absolutely nothing… including any historical facts.. to the discussion. I’m wont to call that worthless talking points.
Ain’t gonna happen, Zac. No major oil interests involved… Libya is a war for oil, tho the lib/progs and the POTUS go to great extents to disguise that inconvenient fact.
The only way Syria will happen is if the Arab Leagues plays the US and POTUS for a fool yet again.
@MataHarley: Yes, I have been able to gain insight into the situation via flapping aces and a few other websites I belong to. I agree, its a war for oil. Everything Obama does is so unusual. I really enjoyed your posting of the Zawahiri interview. I just read all the excerpts I could find of Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner a few days ago, have you read it? I’m not the doom and gloom type and I never worry but our longtime enemy can outsmart the current flock of sheep in the whitehouse. I’m convinced of it. Like the debt, its a problem that’s going to be up to future generations and I think we are headed for more violence. I don’t intend to be negative but they use tactics that political correctness will not allow us to combat.
As an orthodox christian I feel it particularly necessary to fight such an enemy, for obvious reasons. That’s my personal frustration. I don’t want to live a life with no purpose only to arrive safely at death and explain to G-d why I did nothing about the problems facing our time. I’m a young man and have many battles to fight. Syria and Iran are trying to bring on the end of days. I would be happy to give it to them, its a fine choice of battles to pick. Bureaucracy on many levels gets in the way, putting off the inevitable, for now.