Has anyone read the book by M.J.Akbar? Any opinions on it? I am told that it is a good book. I will appreciate any comments from someone who has actually read it. He is said to make an excellent argument for a very long and drawn out conflict, with a good chance that US will not be victorious in the end.
******************************************** http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=9642
Jihad, a state of mind, writes M.J. Akbar
Press Trust of India
New Delhi, April 25: In his new book, veteran journalist M.J. Akbar writes the fire of Islamic fundamentalism is fuelled by a perception of injustice and exploitation by the West and organisations like the Taliban and al-Qaeda can survive without a government or even a country for their recruitment is done in the mind.
In The Shade Of Swords-Jihad And The Conflict Between Islam And Christianity, to be released on Friday, Akbar notes that six months after America declared its war on the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and terrorism as an answer to September 11, the defeat of the ‘pariah’ authority and the terrorist mastermind is “complete, but not decisive”.
“The Taliban and al Qaida and many organisations with a similar dream (to blow up WTC), can survive without a government or even a country, because the recruitment is done in the mind,” Akbar says. “You cannot fight a battle in the mind only with special forces and cruise missiles,” he observes .
Providing an insight into the mindset of Muslim terrorist organisations behind the attack on America, Akbar notes that “the fire that is visible on the Muslim street today is fuelled by a perception of injustice and exploitation by West”.
Muslims possess a powerful and deep anger against the Christian West, which is provoked by slander against their prophet and now "nurtured by factors like Muslim impotence against Israel, Akbar writes.
“The Muslim street is convinced that most governments in Islamic nations are stooges of America and this hurts even more,” explains Akbar citing deep resentment for the Saudi ruling family, which has allowed American troops on its soil to safeguard vital oil installations.
Osama’s war against the US began way back in 1990 when he offered to raise a 10,000 strong Mujahideen force to defend Saudi Arabia in the wake of Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait. The Saudi ruling family, which is also the custodian of the holy places, however, declared that American forces would preserve the oil reserves of the country.
Osama was given a private reassurance that the Americans would leave once Kuwait had been liberated. When that didn’t happen, Osama went public with his resentment and declared that the Saudi Royals had betrayed the Muslims and would meet the same fate as the Persian Royals and “Americans would leave Saudi Arabia in coffins”.
Osama was ordered out of the country in 1990. His first stop was Pakistan, from where he went to Sudan in 1991. Al Qaida or the foundation became the vehicle for his politics, while his shrewd business acumen helped increase his wealth.
"Osama began to see himself as the new caliph or imam who would safeguard the Muslim interests across the world. His allies in the mission were groups like the Egyptian Gamma al Islamiya and al Jihad, who had conspired in the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The network grew.
The World Trade Centre was first attacked in February 1993. “The mastermind was a Pakistani Baluch, a veteran of the shadowy groups that were a law unto themselves in Pakistan.” But the Americans obsessed with Sadam Hussein chased shadows in Iraq.
Similarly, when Pakistan was made a frontline state in the fight against communism in Afghanistan against the Soviets, the Americans looked the other way when Islamabad backed the Taliban to power in Afghanistan.
At that time, Akbar writes, “It (USA) may have been influenced too by arguments of ‘larger interest’ and particularly those advanced by the oil lobby. It now lobbied for a trans-Afghan pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, whose security and therefore stability, would be guaranteed by an apparently impregnable Taliban.”
In February 1998, a meeting took place in Afghanistan between Laden, Ayman Zawahri of the Egyptian al Jihad, Rahman Khalil of Pakistani Ansars and Abdul Salem Muhammad from Bangladesh and Abu Yassir Ahmed Taha representing Magreb. They agreed to co-ordinate their efforts through an Islamic struggle front.
The 90s were marked by attacks on American centres across the world. When arrested from a hostel run by Osama in Pakistan in 1995, 27-year-old Ramzi Ahmed Yousef told his American captors that “he had wanted to kill thousands of Americans by making the twin towers topple over each other like dominoes”.
Writes Akbar: “Yousef dreamt of toppling those towers. He was arrested; but the towers came down, over eight years in September 2001, because that dream was never arrested.”
“A jihad is never over,” writes Akbar observing that the West perhaps became too complacent that the Arab regimes owed their survival to western patronage. “They underestimated the Muslim will to martyrdom. They did not recognise the child who could walk with complete calm under the shade of swords.”