Abu Dharr
Caution! This article is not written for the rationally disabled or for those who are reproach-free.
In the past month, the world was abuzz with the announcement of the American president that US forces had killed Osama bin Laden (OBL). We seriously doubt that Osama bin Laden was killed at the time, in the manner, or at the place they officially said he was. Many alternative news media have done the job of debunking and repudiating the official US version of Osama’s death. At this point, we take a moment to look beyond statements of the ruling class in Washington, at this Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda political widget.
Before OBL and al-Qaeda sprang into the public mind (this was in the early to mid-1990s) there was an Islamic leadership and an Islamic heroic sacrifice that had Washington and Tel Aviv politically hypnotized and militarily confounded — and that is the Islamic Revolution and its political administration in Iran. All Euro-American and Ziono-American policies were for more than a decade preoccupied with policies and in fact haunted with strategies of how to diminish or defeat in a conclusive manner the first burst of Islamic self-determination in the contemporary world.
Their proxy in Baghdad failed through a long and drawn out war to bring the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic purpose in Iran to its knees. Parallel to that, the Zionist military in occupied Lebanon was taking a beating at the hands of Hizbullah and the Islamic resistance until they finally had to withdraw their occupation forces in ignominy (May 2000). The ruling elites in Washington and Tel Aviv were sitting on thorns as they watched their incompetence and deterioration unfold from an ascending Iran to an aspiring Hizbullah. The new set of anti-American and anti-Zionist circumstances demanded a “stroke of genius”. Enter the Taliban and al-Qaeda. To refresh one’s memory, Afghanistan for a decade and a half (1979–1995) was swarming with mujahidin from many corners of the earth, particularly those who marched there from Arabia to the cadence of an American-Arabian master plan for jihad to defeat the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of mujahidin were all over Afghanistan fighting valiantly against the brutal Soviet occupation not knowing they were being used by the Saudis, who themselves were being used by the Americans, who in turn were being used by the climactic interests of the Yahud. As long as these credulous and trusting warriors in Afghanistan were fighting the evil empire they were heroic mujahidin in the political literature of Arabia and America, until finally the Soviets were defeated. Now that the Soviets were out of Afghanistan, what do you do with a reserve of hardened combatants who were on the warpath in Afghanistan? Combatants who were motivated to take on an Islamic enemy militarily? Behold the kickoff of al-Qaeda and OBL. To set the stage for that we had tens of thousands of Taliban (religious students) acting like professional soldiers, experienced commanders, and competent armed forces moving from Pakistan into Afghanistan at a time when the Afghans were slugging it out against themselves (remember the major polarized “Islamic” forces around Ahmad Shah Mas‘ud and Gulbuddin Hikmatyar?)
Well now there was a new kid in town. The Taliban became the rulers of Afghanistan with the support and recognition of three US satellite nation-states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In this Taliban enclave we had the bourgeoning of al-Qaeda and its leader OBL. Let us make it very clear that many if not all the Islamic foot-soldiers in al-Qaeda and to a lesser extent in the Taliban are sincere and single-minded Muslims. In their heart they went out on a course of jihad for the sole purpose of raising the banner of Islam high and eminent. The problem with them was not in their heart and motivation; it was in their mind and cognition. Little were they aware of the fact that they were pawns on a global chessboard of duplicity, chicanery, and enmity.
What were the consequences of this “Emirate of Afghanistan”, an emirate whose emotions were running ahead of its mind? In the first instance, we had the implementation of “Shari‘ah” in what may be described as a premature manner. Remember, Afghanistan was a country devastated by war; hunger and poverty were rampant and all around. Families were torn apart and dislocated. State institutions were not present. A civil war was still brewing. And in the middle of all this, without any forethought, the Taliban-al-Qaeda duo began implementing Islamic law on a population that is living at a sub-society level and with social and economic conditions that are akin in some aspects to the society in Madinah and Arabia when ‘Umar (d) suspended “legality” to relieve people who were living at the survival level. But you can’t tell that to these emotionally charged but rationally bereft officials. Then came their oddball and madcap act in which they blasted the stone chiselled image of the Buddha. As if all the previous Muslim generations dating all the way back to the days of the sahabah did not discover this “idol” but these Taliban and al-Qaeda types did. And boom! Even a delegation of Muslim scholars headed by none other than Shaikh Yusuf al-Qardawi could not convince them otherwise. These emotions-first, thoughts-last types were passionately programmed to “enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil” as they saw it, and only as they saw it — as they are al-fi’atu al-najiyah (the saved and redeemed faithful) — in reference to their oft-quoted hadith about the Ummah disintegrating into 73 groups all of them condemned except one.
And to further prove their mettle, they went to Mazar-e-Sharif to kill Shi‘i Muslims there and to make sure they kill Iranian Shi‘i Muslims, some of whom had “political immunity” — if that ever was any consideration in their vocabulary and definition of rawafid! These Zionist and imperialist, well-monitored specimens of “Islamic Fundamentalism” passed their test with flying colors. They proved that they have what it takes to plunge the whole Muslim world into a dark age of obscurantism and Islamic civil wars that will extend imperialism’s looting of Muslim resources and Zionism’s occupation of Islamic lands. Before the grand performance of 9/11 there had to be some feats-of-camouflage. So we had the American embassy bombing in Africa and the USS Cole attack off the coast of Yemen. As this imperialist and Zionist media-sponsored presentation of OBL and al-Qaeda eclipsed to a large extent the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Islamic liberation in Lebanon the show went on and the denouement took place on 9/11. OBL, after initially denying any involvement, emerged as an iconic hero or sensational villain to all those who also had their emotions trumping their thoughts. And the rest is history as they say.
Having said all of the above — and there is much more that you can fill in with the information that a Muslim mind can glean — we do not for one moment mean to say that OBL and those with him were CIA agents or imperialist toadies. Such is the role of Turki and Bandar among a cabal of Saudi others. Rather OBL in ways that were unknown to him became an executor of necessary movements that would justify imperialist wars and occupations. In his wildest dreams he probably never knew that he was being set up and prompted to do, more or less, exactly what he and his vacuous brethren-in-arms were doing. This is what happens when individuals are brought up in the tedious and deadening religious climate of an American Saudi Arabia. Uncommon and remarkable as it is, we have a person (OBL) who deep down inside of himself thinks that he is taking on the enemies of Islam — and this is attested to by his sermons and statements — while at the same time he becomes the imperial instrument in setting off a chain of events that are needed by imperialists and Zionists to justify their military occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and their political movements to unseat rulers who are outdated and no longer useful in the broad imperialist schemata of things.
The takfiri soul of the salafi body of Saudi sponsored zealots was used to the hilt by Zionists and imperialists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Persian Gulf, and elsewhere to bleed the Muslim body into imperialist submission. There are many Muslims around the world who cannot see how manipulative-prone other Muslims become when they have not thought through their God-given responsibilities. The Saudi kingdom by taking the Muslim mind out of the Qur’an and Sunnah has provided imperialism and Zionism with diehards who think they are doing Allah’s (swt) will, not realizing they are undeclared proxies of the enemies they are purportedly fighting against.
Say, “Shall We tell you who are the greatest losers in whatever they do? [It is] they whose efforts have gone astray in this world’s life, and who nonetheless think that they are doing good works: it is they who have chosen to reject their Sustainer’s power illustrations and encounter.” Hence, all their [good] deeds come to nought, and no weight shall We assign to them on Resurrection Day (18:103–105).
The Islamic Revolution and Islamic liberation have weathered this attack from within — by the Saudi regime directly and by the Israeli and American regimes indirectly.
