Afghan Boomerang America's nurture of militant Islam and the miscalculations of Osama Bin Laden
Yacov Ben Efrat
Introduction: Made by the USA
Until recently, the name "Afghanistan" had an exotic ring to many, but not to US policy-makers. For a decade (1979-1989) they backed the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, contributing to the latter's collapse. The new world order had its start, one might say, in this desolate country, although it reached its heyday a short time later in the Gulf War.
Among the "Mujahidin" who fought the Soviet Union were some who refused to accept the new world order. They saw the Afghan victory as a sign of Islamic superiority. The anti-Soviet war was a struggle against an Infidel Empire. The support they had received from America seemed to them merely a temporary conjunction of interests.
The existence of these maverick groups, with their offbeat interpretation, aroused no misgivings in Washington. There were two reasons for complacency. One was the lopsided balance of forces: a great world power could hardly feel threatened by scattered bands of lightly armed fighters. Secondly, these former allies continued to collaborate in the US campaign to smash the Yugoslav federation, first in Bosnia, later in Kosovo. They also inflamed the war against Russia in Chechnya; here they cooperated with American oil companies, which sought to secure the energy resources of the Caspian Sea.
In Afghanistan, one of these groups, the Taliban, took power by force in 1996. It sheltered and sustained Osama Bin Laden, who issued a religious decree in 1998 calling for jihad, holy war, against the US. Yet here an additional factor blinded Washington: its regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, all supported the Taliban with arms and money. Indeed, the sole recognition of the Taliban government came from these three.
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