Divide and Conquer - (part III) What Do We Know About The Enemy?

The first thing that we know about the enemy is that he [sic] has taken a sect of Islam, a philosophy or teaching or school of thought, and turned it into his ideology, his political statement and, finally, into his goal for a future of Pan Islamic Unity. With his view of Islam as the controlling force in this bizarre future utopia, loosely reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire, without a king like Saladin mucking up the relationship between the Ulama(religious governing body) and the people (ummah).

I had a conversation with a man in Saudi Arabia. Go to the inner sanctum to read about my conversation...

I've noted this before, Osama bin Laden nor Zawahiri have set themselves up as the "savior" of the people. They continue to pose themselves as nothing but fighters, holy warriors, on behalf of the only great and infallible leader, Allah. You must understand that, regardless of what happens, either victory or defeat, the Qu'ran instills the belief that it is all Allah's will. Allah is perfect, therefore, whatever happens is perfect. Further, anything that OBL or Zawahiri do, regardless of mistakes or less than sterling behavior on their part (such as killing 3000 people) must be good or, if not exactly good, will be forgiven by Allah as they fight on his [sic] behalf.

The most interesting thing about bin Laden and Zawahiri is that, people who have similar beliefs, but are not part of the inner circle, do not believe that bin Laden or Zawahiri perpetrated this deed. I personally had an internet conversation approximately three months ago with a person named Zahir (I've since been informed that this is a man's name by Mahmood from Bahrain) in which they insisted that bin Laden had no part in this horrible deed. He is a pious Muslim. Further, they informed me that they believed that no such thing took place. It was a movie created by the American government to give them an excuse to bomb the Taliban who were good people and only built schools and roads and brought peace to Afghanistan barbarians.

I first made this person give me information so that I could ascertain whether they were for real or not. I was able to confirm they were posting from a Saudi Arabia connection (we were on a Saudi blog which has since been shut down, probably because the writer was not kind towards the Saudi government - no news as to yet what happened to the writer, except that he gave one ominous post that somebody was too close to him). After confirming the commenters location, I proceeded to tell him he were being lied to by their media. I saw it happen live. I have friends that live there and confirm there was a giant hole in the ground where once two towers stood. There were thousands of funerals. This was no movie. It was real.

He answered back that, even if that was so, bin Laden could have no part in it, he was a pious man who would not murder people. (I loved the references to "pious" as if no Muslim would ever think to perpetrate such a crime because he believed in Allah. This must be why we continue to hear the Muslim population decry the terrorist actions as "not Islamic").

I answered back that there were videos of bin Laden meeting with other members and laughing about his unexpected success. The return answer was that it was a dubbed tape; a creation of the American CIA. No pious Muslim would make such a film of himself. I reminded Zahir that Osama was in the habit of making and releasing films of himself speaking to his Muslim brothers, did he not see them on Al Jazeera? I also asked if he thought our CIA was so powerful, was he afraid to be on the blog with me? There was no return answer to that.

I then commented on the "goodness" of the Taliban. I told "Zahir" that the Taliban might have built schools, but they prohibited females from attending. They threw women out of the government and put them out of business forcing them, many widows, to go begging because they had no other resources. Zahir informed me that he knew some Taliban and they were good people and would have taken care of these unfortunate women. Further, they should be taken care of by their male relatives or seek another marriage. I reminded Zahir that many men were killed in the wars in Afghanistan and many women were left with no male relative to care for them. Afghanistan was poor and that the Taliban did not have the resources to care for them, either.

My last comment to Zahir was if he had seen any pictures or films about the "good works" that the Taliban had performed. No, he said, but he had Taliban friends and they had told him all about their good deeds. I proceeded to tell him about the film of the Taliban taking a woman, who had been beaten nearly to death by her husband and had hid with some friends, to the soccer field, forced to kneel in the middle and, in front of her family and children, was executed with a shot in the back of the head. Is that the goodness of the Taliban that he spoke of?

Zahir became obviously agitated and responded that he did not want to talk about the Taliban anymore. He knew them to be good. He would believe me about 9/11 being real, but he insisted that bin Laden was not responsible for it. Somebody else was (Zionist maybe?). Then he went off line.

So, here we have our first difficulty. Osama and friends have taken on a cult following like the mythical Robin Hood or Jesse James. Fighting against the evil governments of the world (including theirs) for the good of the people. While he continues to place himself as nothing but a humble warrior in Allah's army, he has gained a following that seems to believe him to be possibly the Mahdi, the savior of the Muslim people prophesied by Mohammed.

For those who read my four part series on "Mohammed the High Jacker", you will note that all religions believe that a savior will come and save them from whatever woes they will suffer in the future. Of course, it is always the future and there are always those that are prophesizing the imminent return of such a person. Sort of like the Arthurian legends of England. I guess it is hard for some to believe that this is what we have sown and this we must reap alone.

So, the first thing that we know is that, while some will participate directly in the actions of the enemy (bombings, kidnappings, high jackings, etc), there are those that are passive enablers. They might not participate directly, but will give approval and support. Both financially and morally. Fully believing that they are financing what amounts to an armed religious mission and it is only armed because evil powers (namely the United States) are after the poor missionary soldiers of Islam who are only trying to protect and serve their Muslim brothers.

What else can we learn from this conversation?