Terror's Greatest Recruitment Tool

lookout by Naomi Klein, The Nation Magazine
[from the August 29, 2005 issue]

Hussain Osman, one of the men alleged to have participated in London's failed bombings on July 21, recently told Italian investigators that they prepared for the attacks by watching "films on the war in Iraq," La Repubblica reported. "Especially those where women and children were being killed and exterminated by British and American soldiers...of widows, mothers and daughters that cry."

It has become an article of faith that Britain was vulnerable to terror because of its politically correct antiracism. Yet Osman's comments suggest that what propelled at least some of the bombers was rage at what they saw as extreme racism. And what else can we call the belief--so prevalent we barely notice it--that American and European lives are worth more than the lives of Arabs and Muslims, so much more that their deaths in Iraq are not even counted?

It's not the first time that this kind of raw inequality has bred extremism. Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian writer generally viewed as the intellectual architect of radical political Islam, had his ideological epiphany while studying in the United States. The puritanical scholar was shocked by Colorado's licentious women, it's true, but more significant was Qutb's encounter with what he later described as America's "evil and fanatic racial discrimination." By coincidence, Qutb arrived in the United States in 1948, the year of the creation of the State of Israel. He witnessed an America blind to the thousands of Palestinians being made permanent refugees by the Zionist project. For Qutb, it wasn't politics, it was an assault on his identity: Clearly Americans believed that Arab lives were worth far less than those of European Jews. According to Yvonne Haddad, a professor of history at Georgetown University, this experience "left Qutb with a bitterness he was never able to shake."

When Qutb returned to Egypt he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to his next life-changing event: He was arrested, severely tortured and convicted of antigovernment conspiracy in an absurd show trial. Qutb's political theory was profoundly shaped by torture. Not only did he regard his torturers as sub-human, he stretched that categorization to include the entire state that ordered this brutality, including the practicing Muslims who passively lent their support to Nasser's regime.

Qutb's vast category of subhumans allowed his disciples to justify the killing of "infidels"--now practically everyone--in the name of Islam. A movement for an Islamic state was transformed into a violent ideology that would lay the intellectual groundwork for Al Qaeda. In other words, so-called Islamist terrorism was "home grown" in the West long before the July 7 attacks--from its inception it was the quintessentially modern progeny of Colorado's casual racism and Cairo's concentration camps.

Why is it worth digging up this history now? Because the twin sparks that ignited Qutb's world-changing rage are currently being doused with gasoline: Arabs and Muslims are being debased in torture chambers around the world and their deaths are being discounted in simultaneous colonial wars, at the same time that graphic digital evidence of these losses and humiliations is available to anyone with a computer. And once again, this lethal cocktail of racism and torture is burning through the veins of angry young men. As Qutb's past and Osman's present reveal, it's not our tolerance for multiculturalism that fuels terrorism; it's our tolerance for the barbarism committed in our name.

Into this explosive environment has stepped Tony Blair, determined to sell two of the main causes of terror as its cure. He intends to deport more Muslims to countries where they will likely face torture. And he will keep fighting wars in which soldiers don't know the names of the towns they are leveling. (According to an August 5 Knight Ridder report, a Marine sergeant in Iraq recently pumped up his squad by telling them that "these will be the good old days, when you brought...death and destruction to--what the fuck is this place called?" Someone piped in helpfully, "Haqlaniyah.")

Meanwhile, in Britain, there is no shortage of the "evil and fanatic racial discrimination" that Qutb denounced. "Of course too there have been isolated and unacceptable acts of a racial or religious hatred," Blair said before unveiling his terror-fighting plan. "But they have been isolated." Isolated? The Islamic Human Rights Commission received 320 complaints of racist attacks in the wake of the bombings; the Monitoring Group has received eighty-three emergency calls; Scotland Yard says hate crimes are up 600 percent from this time last year. Not that pre-July 7 was anything to brag about: "One in five of Britain's ethnic minority voters say that they considered leaving Britain because of racial intolerance," according to a Guardian poll in March.

This last statistic shows that the brand of multiculturalism practiced in Britain (and France, Germany, Canada...) has little to do with genuine equality. It is instead a Faustian bargain, struck between vote-seeking politicians and self-appointed community leaders, one that keeps ethnic minorities tucked away in state-funded peripheral ghettos while the centers of public life remain largely unaffected by the seismic shifts in the national ethnic makeup. Nothing exposes the shallowness of this alleged tolerance more than the speed with which Muslim communities are now being told to "get out" (to quote Tory MP Gerald Howarth) in the name of core national values.

The real problem is not too much multiculturalism but too little. If the diversity now ghettoized on the margins of Western societies--geographically and psychologically--were truly allowed to migrate to the centers, it might infuse public life in the West with a powerful new humanism. If we had deeply multi-ethnic societies, rather than shallow multicultural ones, it would be much more difficult for politicians to sign deportation orders sending Algerian asylum-seekers to torture, or to wage wars in which only the invaders' dead are counted. A society that truly lived its values of equality and human rights, at home and abroad, would have another benefit too. It would rob terrorists of what has always been their greatest recruitment tool: our racism.

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ذهول في بيروت: إنهم يوقفون رجال لحود

إيلي الحاج من بيروت - إيلاف: أذهلت لجنة التحقيق الدولية في جريمة اغتيال الرئيس السابق للحكومة اللبنانية رفيق الحريري متابعي تطورات هذه القضية التي بات مستقبل لبنان رهناً لها، إذ أوقفت قائد الحرس الجمهوري وثلاثة من قادة أجهزة الأمن السابقين ووزيرا سابقاً للعدل كان يشغل موقع مدعي عام التمييز أيضاً، واستدعت نائباً لبنانياً سابقاً تردد أنه لجأ إلى دمشق . وأوقفت قوى الأمن اللبنانية في البدء صباحاً، تلبية لطلب اللجنة الدولية، الضباط الثلاثة : المدير العام السابق للأمن العام اللواء الركن جميل السيد، القائد السابق للأمن الداخلي اللواء علي الحاج، ومدير المخابرات العسكرية السابق العميد ريمون عازار. واستدعت قائد الحرس الجمهوري العميد مصطفى حمدان فسلم نفسه في مقر لجنة التحقيق الواقع في منطقة المونتيفردي القريبة من بيروت ، كما دهمت منزل النائب السابق ناصر قنديل في بيروت ولم يكن فيه، فتركت له إستدعاء إلى أحد المخافر الأمنية. وتردد أنه غادر لبنان على الأرجح إلى العاصمة السورية . وفي وقت لاحق أعلنت السلطات اللبنانية أنها أوقفت وزير العدل ومدعي عام التمييز سابقاً عدنان عضوم.

وتابع رئيس لجنة التحقيق الدولية القاضي الألماني ديتليف ميليس تنفيذ هذه الإجراءات قبل أن يتوجه إلى السرايا الحكومية ، حيث المقر الرسمي لرئيس الحكومة فؤاد السنيورة لإطلاعه على ما يجري. وكان العميد حمدان المشبوه الأول لدى لجنة التحقيقات الدولية في اغتيال الحريري وفق حديث لميليس إلى صحيفة "لو فيغارو" الفرنسية قال فيه أن الرجل حاول إخفاء الأدلة في مسرح الجريمة . ويُعتبرحمدان من أقرب القريبين إلى رئيس الجمهورية إميل لحود وصديقه الشخصي ولوحظ منذ مدة إنهما ما عادا يفترقان. وانتقد بعض السياسيين المؤيدين لتيار الحريري لحود لاصطحابه حمدان إلى المقر الصيفي للبطريرك الماروني الكاردينال نصرالله صفيرفي بلدة الديمان الشمالية، حيث أمضيا يومين. وقال صفير أن لا يد له في الأمر والمقر البطريركي مفتوح لكل الناس.


وواضح أن توقيف القادة الأمنيين هؤلاء ولا سيما السيد وحمدان وعازار سيشكل حرجاً كبيراً للرئيس لحود الذي يخوض بلا هوادة قتالاً سياسيا تراجعياً دفاعاً عن رجاله، ويؤشرتالياً إلى شبه استحالة إكمال ولايته المدد لها والتي تنتهي في تشرين التاني/ نوفمبر 2007.
ولفت أمس تصريح لشقيقة الرئيس الحريري ، عضو مجلس النواب بهية الحريري، أكدت فيه أن لبنان سيتقدم من الأمم المتحدة بطلب تشكيل محكمة دولية خاصة لمحاكمة المتهمين باغتيال شقيقها ، وسيكون هذا الطلب بإجماع اللبنانيين كافة ، على غرار ما تشكلت لجنة التحقيق الدولية.

ويعيش لبنان اليوم هواجس كبيرة جدا فيما تتحدث الصحف عن لائحة أسماء بسياسيين وإعلاميين مرشحين للإغتيال ، مما دفع عددا كبيرا منهم إلى النزوح من بيروت إلى باريس أبرزهم نجل الحريري، النائب سعد ، الذي انتقل إلى العاصمة الفرنسية من جنيف بعدما عاد ميليس منها إلى بيروت ، وكذلك رئيس الحزب التقدمي الإشتراكي وليد جنبلاط الذي وصل إلى فرنسا أمس مع وزير الإعلام غازي العريضي . وكان سبقهم الوزير مروان حمادة الذي سيخضع إلى جراحة ، من تداعيات محاولة اغتياله أواخر العام الماضي.

وفي باريس أيضاً نائب رئيس مجلس النواب فريد مكاري والنائب جبران التويني الذي قال أنه تلقى تحذيراً من ميليس ، والإعلاميان علي حمادة وهاني حمود المسؤول عن إعلام "تيارالمستقبل" الذي يتزعمه الحريري، فضلا عن قائد "القوات اللبنانية" سمير جعجع، برفقة زوجته النائبة ستريدا، ويبدو أنه قرر إرجاء عودته إلى بيروت التي كانت مقررة منتصف هذا الشهر في انتظار صدور تقرير ميليس النهائي ( الإتهامي) في النصف الثاني من شهر أيلول/سبتمبر المقبل.
ويرجح أن يبحث السياسيون المتجمعون في العاصمة الفرنسية في سبل التعامل مع الرئيس لحود في المرحلة المقبلة، علماً أن لا آلية في الدستور تتيح إقالته. وإن فتح أي أزمة على هذا الصعيد تستلزم موافقة البطريرك صفير لختمها، نظراً إلى حق الطوائف اللبنانية المكرس في "الفيتو" على القرارات التي تتعلق بمواقع كل منها في الدولة . والأرجح أن البطريرك صفير يريد أن يضمن طريقة لخروج لحود من الحكم لا تسيء إلى موقع الرئاسة وأن يضمن أيضاً خليفة له يكون مقبولاً من طائفته ورئيسها الروحي . علماً أن التوافق الداخلي على مرشح لتولي الرئاسة يستلزم في هذه المرحلة توافق أميركا والمملكة العربية السعودية وفرنسا عليه.
وكان جنبلاط سأل قبل أيام : "من سيحمي لحود بعد أشهر؟". كما أن زعيم "التيار الوطني الحر" النائب ميشال عون الذي دافع مدى أشهر عن قادة الأجهزة الأمنية السابقين وعهد لحود عموماً رافضاً "رمي التهم جزافاً في حقهم" ، كان قد "تنبأ" لرئيس الجمهورية الحالي بأنه لن يكمل ولايته التي مددها له النظام السوري بضغط مباشر على النواب والسياسيين واللبنانيين.
وفي لبنان يلزم رئيس مجلس النواب نبيه بري مقره في عين التينة ولا يغادره إلا نادراً ووسط تدابير حماية مشددة. والوضع نفسه يعيشه في مقر إقامته النائب العماد عون في محلة الرابية. وحتى البطريرك صفير عزز الجيش اللبناني قوة الحماية حول الدير الذي يقيم فيه فتحوّل أقرب إلى ثكنة.

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The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants

By Yassin Musharbash

If there is anyone who might possibly have an inkling as to what al-Qaida are up to, it is the Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein. He has not only spent time in prison with al-Zarqawi, but has also managed make contact with many of the network's leaders. Based on correspondence with these sources, he has now brought out a book detailing the organization's master plan.

There must be something particularly trustworthy about the Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein. After all, he has managed to get some of the the most sought after terrorists to open up to him. Maybe it helped that they spent time together in prison many years ago -- when Hussein was a political prisoner he successfully negotiated for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to be released from solitary confinement. Or is it because of the honest and direct way in which he puts his ideas onto paper? Whatever the reason, the result is that a film which Hussein made about al-Zarqawi has even been shown on al-Qaida affiliated Web sites. "That showed me that they at least felt understood," the journalist says.

Even for an Arab journalist it is no easy matter getting in touch with al-Qaida's inner circle. Nevertheless, Hussein, who is based in Amman, Jordan, has succeeded in turning his correspondence with the terrorists into a remarkable book: "al-Zarqawi - al-Qaida's Second Generation."

If you meet Hussein, as you might when he is relaxing in Amman's Café Vienna, you see he is calm and laid-back, without any of the glamour of a secret service spy. But what this small, slim man has to report is nothing less than the world's most dangerous terrorist network's plan of action: al-Qaida's strategy for the next two decades. It is both frightening and absurd, a lunatic plan conceived by fanatics who live in their own world, but who continually manage to break into the real world with their brutal acts of violence.

One of Hussein's most sensational sources for the book, according to what he told SPIEGEL Online, was Seif al-Adl. The Egyptian terrorist, who is suspected of taking part in the attacks on the American Embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998, has a ransom of US$5 million on his head from the FBI. Secret services suspect that al-Adl is now in Iran.

To prove that he really has had contact to al-Adl, Hussein includes in the first two pages of the book a copy of a hand-written letter the wanted man sent to the author. In the original document, which is 15 pages long, al-Adl describes the disagreements between al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden during the Afghanistan war. "Statements from Seif al-Adl have also crept into the chapter on al-Qaida's strategy," explains Fouad Hussein.

An Islamic Caliphate in Seven Easy Steps

In the introduction, the Jordanian journalist writes, "I interviewed a whole range of al-Qaida members with different ideologies to get an idea of how the war between the terrorists and Washington would develop in the future." What he then describes between pages 202 and 213 is a scenario, proof both of the terrorists' blindness as well as their brutal single-mindedness. In seven phases the terror network hopes to establish an Islamic caliphate which the West will then be too weak to fight.

* The First Phase Known as "the awakening" -- this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. "The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful," writes Hussein. "The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target." The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard "everywhere."

* The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community." Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaida wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an "army" set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.

* The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and should last from 2007 to 2010. "There will be a focus on Syria," prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and -- even more explosive -- in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida's masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.

* The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that "the creeping loss of the regimes' power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida." At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.

* The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaida hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.

* The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of "total confrontation." As soon as the caliphate has been declared the "Islamic army" it will instigate the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.

* The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as "definitive victory." Hussein writes that in the terrorists' eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the "one-and-a-half billion Muslims," the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn't last longer than two years.

A Serious Plan?

But just how serious is this scenario? "Al-Qaida makes no compromises," says the book's author Fouad Hussein. He obviously believes that this seven-point plan could well become the guiding principle for a whole range of al-Qaida fighters. Hussein is far from an hysterical alarmist -- in fact he is seen as a serious journalist and his Zarqawi book is better than most of the reports in Arabic on the subject. Only last year, the journalist made a film which was received with great interest and was shown on the German-French TV channel arte. In it he provided deep insights into al-Qaida's internet propaganda machine.

Nevertheless, there is no way the scenario he depicts can be seen as a plan which al-Qaida can follow step by step. The terrorist network just doesn't work like that anymore. The significance of the central leadership has diminished and its direct commands have lost a great deal of importance. The supposed master plan for the years 2000 to 2020 reads in parts more like a group of ideas cobbled together in retrospect, than something planned and presented in advance. And not to mention the terrorist agenda is simply unworkable: the idea that al-Qaida could set up a caliphate in the entire Islamic world is absurd. The 20-year plan is based mainly on religious ideas. It hardly has anything to do with reality -- especially phases four to seven.

But that doesn't mean that we should simply discount everything that Hussein has uncovered. A few of the steps in the agenda are plausible. The idea that Syria will become a focus for the Mujahedin is regarded by experts as highly likely. "Close ranks, concentrate on getting more recruits, set up cells," was the call to the "Mujahedin in Syria" which appeared on one Web site at the beginning of August. From the point of view of the jihadists, Israel and Turkey are also fairly logical targets for an escalation of the confrontation. "Al-Qaida views every fight as a victory, because for so long Muslims didn't have any weapons at all," says Hussein. He may not be far off. As for Jordan, al-Qaida leaders such as al-Zarqawi, have already made attacks on the country. They have also stated on numerous occasions that Jerusalem is the real target.

Equally, the idea that in the future al-Qaida could increasingly become a movement that attracts young frustrated men, is hardly a theory plucked out of thin air. The terror network puts a lot of effort into its propaganda -- assumedly in order to expand its support base.

Attacks on the West: a Means to an End

What is interesting is that major attacks against the West are not even mentioned by Fouad Hussein. Terrorism here cannot be ignored -- but it seems these attacks simply supplement the larger aim of setting up an Islamic caliphate. Attacks such as those in New York, Madrid and London would in this case not be ends in themselves, but rather means to a achieve a larger purpose -- steps in a process of increasing insecurity in the West.

Nowadays, it is harder than ever to truly understand al-Qaida: the organization has degenerated into branches and loosely connected cells, related groups are taken in, and people who hardly had anything to do with al-Qaida before, now carry out attacks in its name. It is hard to imagine orders which come right from the top because Osama bin Laden spends all his time struggling to survive. At the same time, the division between foot soldiers in the organization and sympathizers is becoming increasingly blurred. It is all too easy to fall prey to disinformation -- al-Qaida also excels in this area. Even Hussein's scenario should be judged skeptically.

His book should therefore be read for what it really is: an attempt to second guess how al-Qaida terrorists think, what they really want and how they propose to get there.

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2005 - All Rights Reserved

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Peter Jennings, 67: Canadian face of U.S. TV

Delivered nightly news for decades
Lung cancer claims veteran

DAVID BAUDER - ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK—Peter Jennings, the suave, Toronto-born broadcaster who delivered the news to Americans each night in five separate decades, died yesterday. He was 67.

Jennings, who announced in April that he had lung cancer, died at his New York home, ABC News President David Westin said late last night.

"Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways.

"None of us will be the same without him," Westin said.

With Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, Jennings was part of a triumvirate that dominated network news for more than two decades, through the birth of cable news and the Internet.

His smooth delivery and years of international reporting experience made Jennings particularly popular among urban dwellers.

Jennings was the face of ABC News whenever a big story broke. He logged more than 60 hours on the air during the week of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, offering a soothing sense of continuity during a troubled time.

"There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe," he told author Jeff Alan.

"I don't subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially — sorry it's a cliché — a rough draft of history. Some days it's reassuring, some days it's absolutely destructive."

Jennings' announcement four months ago that he would begin treatment for lung cancer came as a shock.

"I will continue to do the broadcast," he said, his voice husky, in a taped message that night. "On good days, my voice will not always be like this."

But although Jennings occasionally came to the office between chemotherapy treatments, he never again appeared on the air.

"He knew that it was an uphill struggle. But he faced it with realism, courage, and a firm hope that he would be one of the fortunate ones," Westin said. "In the end, he was not."

Broadcasting was the family business for Jennings, who was born in Toronto. His father, Charles Jennings, was the first person to anchor a nightly national news program in Canada and later became head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s news division. A picture of his father was displayed prominently in Jennings' office off ABC's newsroom.

Charles Jennings' son had a Saturday morning radio show in Ottawa at age 9. Jennings never completed high school or college, and began his career as a news reporter at an Ontario radio station in Brockton. He quickly earned an anchor job at CTV.

Sent south to cover the Democratic national convention in 1964, the handsome, dashing correspondent was noticed by ABC's news president. Jennings was offered a reporting job and left Canada for New York.

As the third-place news network, ABC figured its only chance was to go after young viewers.

Jennings was picked to anchor the evening news and debuted on Feb. 1, 1965. He was 26.

"It was a little ridiculous when you think about it," Jennings told author Barbara Matusow. "A 26-year-old trying to compete with Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley. I was simply unqualified."

Critics savaged him as a pretty face unfit for the promotion. Using the Canadian pronunciations for some words and once misidentifying the Marine Corps' anthem as "Anchors Aweigh'' didn't help his reputation. The experiment ended three years later.

He later described the humbling experience as an opportunity, "because I was obliged to figure out who I was and what I really wanted to be."

Assigned as a foreign correspondent, Jennings thrived. He established an ABC News bureau in Beirut, and became an expert on the Middle East. He won a Peabody Award for a 1974 profile of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

On the scene at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Jennings was perfectly placed to cover the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes by an Arab terrorist group. He and a crew hid in the athletes' quarters for a close-in view of the drama.

Jennings returned to the evening news a decade after his unceremonious departure. In 1978, ABC renamed its broadcast World News Tonight, and instituted a three-person anchor team: Frank Reynolds based in Washington, Max Robinson from Chicago and Jennings, by then ABC's chief foreign correspondent, from London.

Following Reynolds' death from cancer, ABC abandoned the multi-anchor format and Jennings became sole anchor on Sept. 5, 1983.

Starting in 1986, Jennings began a decade on top of the ratings. His international experience served him well explaining stories like the collapse of communism, the first Gulf War and the terrorist bombing of an airplane over Lockerbie, Scotland. He took pride that World News Tonight, as its name suggested, took a more worldly view than its rivals. Fans responded to his smart, controlled style.

"When it's clearly an emotional experience for the audience, the anchor should not add his or her emotional layers," Jennings said in an interview with the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

Two-thirds of local broadcasters responding to a 1993 survey by Broadcasting & Cable magazine said Jennings was the best network news anchor.

Washington Journalism Review named him anchor of the year three straight years.

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