Stomach full of stones:My life as a fanatic

insightful piece; thanks for the link. the implication that the west "winning" the cold war sowed the seeds for Islamic extremism is disturbing.

i wonder what muslims think about it.

I'll have to go look at the article, but before doing so, if it posits that the "West" can be said to have "won" the cold war, that much of it is horsie poop. The Soviet Union and its "bloc" lost their coherence, in part, but not even in major part, due to the pressure of Western militarism--but by no plausible historical means is it reasonable to assert that the West "won" the cold war--that implies effective, intentional action leading to a desired conclusion. Rather like finding a dollar on the sidewalk and claiming you "earned" it because you stooped to pick it up.

Islamic extremism was always there, but, more than any other single condition, the existence of the state of Israel provided the fuel for the fires demagogues lit, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent "resistence" movement conditioned (as in "racicalized") extremist "jihadists," helped to train them, and taught them both the idea and the methods to act upon the idea that modern technological states are not invincible.

The author is right on to point to radical Islamic proselytizers in the central Asian highlands. But the author is poorly educated in the history of Arabs and of Islamic extremism. The Wahhabis become important in the history of Arabia by intermarriage with the clan of Ibn Saud in the 18th century. The Wahhabis are Sunni Muslims with an extremist, fundamentalist view of the world, and the Saudi clan chieftans used their religious credentials to assert their clans claim to supremacy of leadership in the Arabian penninsula. It was a devil's bargain.

Pan-Arabism was one result of the collapse of the Osmali Turkish Empire after the Great War, when it began to seem possible to Arabs and the Arabic-speaking populations of the middle east that they might take their separate and collective destinies in their own hands. Initially, this was expressed in secular organizations, such as the Young Officers movements which became crucial in the Egyptian rebellion agains their western puppet King, and in Syria, and in Iraq agains their western puppet King.

The bin Laden (or Ibn Laden) clan are adherents of Wahhabi fundamentalist Islam, and Osama's significance in financing and administering the "base" (al Qaeda) upon which foreign jihadists coming to Afghanistan to fight the Russians accounts for the apparently (but not actually) suddenly occuring and rapid spread of radical and militant Muslim fundamentalism. But the Persians have their own place in the equation and they are neither adherents of the Wahhabis, nor even Sunni Muslims--they are Shi'ite.

I suggest for topics to research and read about:

The Wahhabi Clan and the Saud Clan.
The Young Officers movements in the post-World War II middle east.
Pan-arabism.
The modern Shahs of Iran (as in re: a western puppet dynasty).
The government of and the overthrown of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 (a CIA-engineered coup with a concommitant British embargo of Persian petroleum) in Iran.
The western puppet King of Afghanistan and the civil war which has raged since 1963 (in the late 1950s and early -60s, the United States propped up the King and attempted to westernize Afghanistan--the effort failed, and a civil war began in 1963 which has never really ended. The Afghans have been at war with one another, or invaders, there for the last 43 years--the Taliban was originally a fundamentalist student movement which is just the most prominent production of the ongoing instability.)
The Bosnian War (between the end of the Afghan-Soviet War and the attack on September 11th, many of the radicalized "jihadis" went to fight in the former Yugoslavia--which was ironic given the degree to which Bosnians were secular rather than Muslim).

The causes of the rise of militant fundamentalist Islam are manifold, and largely have no reference to what people are pleased to call the cold war. The establishment of the state of Israel and its military successes over "Arab" states (which usually means nations in which the population speaks Arabic, if not actually comprised of the descendants of ethnic Arabs to any significant extent--Egypt and Iraq come readily to mind) gravely embarrassed the Arab World, and provided immense fodder for demagogues in Arabic-speaking nations, and increasingly, in non-Arabic-speaking nations which are nevertheless Muslim (Afghanistan and Indonesia come readily to mind, with a nod to the large Muslim minority in the Philippines).

article didn't say that, set--if it's ok to address you as such--which is why i put "winning" in quotes. technically, it might have been more accurate to say Russia "losing" the Cold War, but again, it "lost" only to the extent that post-Soviet Russia is poorer, weaker, etc, compared to cold war Russia.

Yeah, Boss, no problem--i've read it now and responded, as i'm sure you noticed. People in the west are commonly woefully ignorant on this subject, and the article is a very valuable look at the state of Muslim populations in central Asia in what was once the Soviet Union.

On the subject of the "weakness" of post-Cold War Russia, it is worth noting that Soviet Russia was larger and was "kiting checks," so to speak. It is a commonly repeated canard that the West defeated the Soviet bloc economically. That ignores that the Soviet Union, and many the satellite nations of eastern Europe, constantly floated loans with the West, for which they did not even reliably pay the financing, never mind the principal. Western lending institutions showed no signs of slowing down or ceasing to play a credit game which was an economic house built on sand. Because of the collapse and fragmentation of the Soviet Union, those chickens have come home to roost. There is no good reason, however, to assume that the Soviet Union could not have continued to play the game indefinitely, so long as social conditions were sufficiently stable to prevent the sorts of non-violent rebellions which eventually lead to the break up of the Soviet bloc.

Israel's military successes and US support for Israel accounts for much of Middle East conflict, certainly. on the other hand, US involvement with the Shah of Iran, the Muhajedeen, and the Gulf War, while not directly linked to Israel, were also significant factors contributing to militant Islam, and while it's probably fashionable in the Islamic world to denounce the West and Zionism in the same breath, parts of the Islamic world far removed geographically from Palestine--which by population comprises the bulk of the world's muslims--might not share the same anti-Israel fervor, and it's my impression that Bin Laden's avowed solidarity with the Palestinian cause is mainly public relations lip service.

I do not posit a sole cause, and have, of course, pointed to many others.

yes you have, and i was mainly expanding on your astute observation that "the causes of the rise of militant fundamentalist Islam are manifold."

Once again, no problem, Boss. I frankly don't think, myself, that Israel ever meant squat to bin Laden.