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Radical Republicans Created Vast Terrorist Network
excerpts from a report by Juan Cole. August 2, 2005
Once upon a time, a dangerous radical gained control of the US Republican Party. Reagan increased the budget for support of the radical Muslim Mujahidin conducting terrorism against the Afghanistan government to half a billion dollars a year.
Not content with creating a vast terrorist network to harass the Soviets, Reagan then pressured the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to match US contributions. Fahd gave in to enormous US pressure.
Fahd not only put Saudi government money into the Afghan Mujahideen networks, which trained them in bomb making and guerrilla tactics, but he also instructed the Minister of Intelligence, Turki al-Faisal, to try to raise money from private sources.
Turki al-Faisal discovered that a young member of the fabulously wealthy Bin Laden construction dynasty, Usama, was committed to Islamic causes. Turki gave Usama the task of raising money from Gulf millionaires for the Afghan struggle. This whole effort was undertaken, remember, on Reagan Administration instructions.
Bin Laden not only raised millions for the effort, but helped encourage Arab volunteers to go fight for Reagan against the Soviets and the Afghan communists. Bin Laden kept a database of these volunteers. In Arabic the word for base is al-Qaeda.
In the US, the Christian Right adopted the Mujahideen as their favorite project. They even sent around a "biblical checklist" for grading US congressman. If a congressman didn't support the radical Muslim Muj, he or she was downgraded by the evangelicals and fundamentalists.
You have been reading excerpts from "Fisking the 'War on Terror'" by Juan Cole. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/a3czn. Thanks to Juan Cole for this and much more. We visit his excellent blog, juancole.com, often, and we hope you will too.
excerpts from a report by Juan Cole. August 2, 2005
Once upon a time, a dangerous radical gained control of the US Republican Party. Reagan increased the budget for support of the radical Muslim Mujahidin conducting terrorism against the Afghanistan government to half a billion dollars a year.
Not content with creating a vast terrorist network to harass the Soviets, Reagan then pressured the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to match US contributions. Fahd gave in to enormous US pressure.
Fahd not only put Saudi government money into the Afghan Mujahideen networks, which trained them in bomb making and guerrilla tactics, but he also instructed the Minister of Intelligence, Turki al-Faisal, to try to raise money from private sources.
Turki al-Faisal discovered that a young member of the fabulously wealthy Bin Laden construction dynasty, Usama, was committed to Islamic causes. Turki gave Usama the task of raising money from Gulf millionaires for the Afghan struggle. This whole effort was undertaken, remember, on Reagan Administration instructions.
Bin Laden not only raised millions for the effort, but helped encourage Arab volunteers to go fight for Reagan against the Soviets and the Afghan communists. Bin Laden kept a database of these volunteers. In Arabic the word for base is al-Qaeda.
In the US, the Christian Right adopted the Mujahideen as their favorite project. They even sent around a "biblical checklist" for grading US congressman. If a congressman didn't support the radical Muslim Muj, he or she was downgraded by the evangelicals and fundamentalists.
You have been reading excerpts from "Fisking the 'War on Terror'" by Juan Cole. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/a3czn. Thanks to Juan Cole for this and much more. We visit his excellent blog, juancole.com, often, and we hope you will too.
