Daniel Pipes - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia: On Whose Side?

Hey,

Ik zit nog niet zo lang op deze mailing list, en sta versteld van hoe
slecht geïnformeerd men soms is alvorens een mening te verkondigen.
Ik wil avast één belangrijke bron omtrent islamterreur even in het
voetlicht plaatsen : Daniel Pipes. Onder een transcript van een recent
interview met hem op MSNBC.Bekijk vooral ook de artikels op zijn site,
http://www.danielpipes.org, maar je kan ook intekenen op zijn
mailinglist en dan krijg je alles netjes in je inbox. Het is in elk
geval een betere start dan het VTM nieuws...


Pakistan and Saudi Arabia: On Whose Side?

MSNBC: Connected Coast to Coast
July 25, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2812

Monica Crowley: Let's bring in two experts to explore the Pakistani
connection. Daniel Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum and
the author of a book, Militant Islam Reaches America. He joins us now
from Philadelphia. Welcome Daniel.

Daniel Pipes: Thank you Monica.

Crowley: And also joining us, Azzam Tamimi. He is the director of the
Institute of Islamic Political Thought and a senior member of the
Muslim Society of Great Britain. He says it is a mischaracterization to
single out countries like Pakistan when it comes to terrorist
activities. He joins us from London. Nice to see you as well.

Azzam Tamimi: Thank you.

Crowley: Daniel, I begin with you on the question of Pakistan. How
reliable are the Pakistanis as an ally to the United States in this
war?

Pipes: Well, the government of Parvez Musharraf has said the right
thing, makes the right noises, but has not cracked down. And so there
is a problem. And the problem is a deep problem, because in fact the
forces of radical Islam are popular in Pakistan. The clip you saw with
Tom Brokaw suggests, he would be in danger fear he took steps against
radical Islam. So, to call the government an ally is to give it the
benefit of the doubt, but it is not an ally in the war. It is caught
between us and its constituency of Islamists.

Crowley: Azzam, Pakistan has long been known to be a hotbed of
terrorist activity, particularly when it regards al Qaeda. How
cooperative do you believe Musharraf's government has been in aiding
the United States and the West more generally in fighting terrorism?

Tamimi: Well, he is accused in his own country of being a lackey of
America. He is actually perceived as doing too much. The problem is
that he is only cracking down on people suspected of corrections with
al Qaeda. This is not the way you deal with this phenomenon. There has
to be a lot of other work that nobody is recognizing. For instance, how
can you not expect people to sympathize with Bin Laden when Musharraf,
who came to power who came to power through a coup d'état, is not a
democrat, does not respect human rights does not deal with the core
issues that matter to the people in terms of equal distribution of
resources in terms of improving the conditions of people, and in terms
of making them realize or feel that they are a dignified nation. And
the same thing applies to every single other Muslim countries that is
considered to be a loyal friend of the United States of America.

Crowley: Daniel, you mentioned earlier that Musharraf is walking a
political tight rope here because his country has a huge constituency
of radical Islamists who are certainly engaged in terrorist activity,
he's got the fundamentalists he has to worry about, and pressure from
the United States and from the west to crack down on the groups and
individuals. It's amazing to me that Musharraf has been able to survive
for so long. How has he been able to manage that? And is that tenable
into the future?

Pipes: He has been able to survive in part through luck. There have
been significant attacks on him and some people have died in the course
but he has survived. I am a little surprised that Mr. Tamimi looks to
socio-economic reasons and talks about dignity and the like, when he
lives in London and London just some days ago had rounds of explosions
killing 55 people. It had nothing to do with dignity and poverty and
humiliation or lack of democracy. Britain is a democratic, rich
country. The point is that the ideologues in Leeds or the ideologues in
Pakistan seek to overthrow whatever government and impose Islamic
order, a radical Islamic order. And they are not people who can be
bought off through concessions; they are people who have to be
defeated. Either Mr. Musharraf is someone who will defeat him or he is
not. I think we have to put him to the test. We have not done that yet.
We have accepted his good will but have not pushed him hard enough to
take the steps to crack down in a way required in Pakistan.

Crowley: Daniel, do you believe the will exists in Pakistan for
Musharraf to do that even if he wanted to?

Pipes: I think that if he is a supple and cautious and long-range
strategic politician and general he can manage it. It won't be easy,
but he needs to do it for his own survival as well as for our
interests.

Crowley: Azzam, what about the question of General Musharraf's
survival? As I mentioned to Daniel, it seems he is walking this
delicate tight rope every single day between balancing the
fundamentalists who seek to overthrow if not assassinate him. General
Musharraf has been the target of a number of assassination attempts
over the last couple of years. And also the interests of the West where
is he also drawn. I am curious about the roles of madrasas in this
calculation. A lot of the religious schools in Pakistan, we know, are
hotbeds for preaching hatred and terrorism and violence and jihad.
Should General Musharraf take a more aggressive approach in cracking
down on those schools?

Tamimi: Well, you're making the assumption, and on the basis of that
assumption, which in my opinion is totally erroneous, you are proposing
a solution. Who said that the madrasas are a hotbeds for hatred? These
madrassas are very simple intuitions that teach the Koran and basic
Islamic teachings. There is no evidence --

Crowley: Excuse me Azzam, we do know that madrasas have been hotbeds of
this type of activity where the individuals who are in control of the
schools are getting funding from Saudi Arabia, from the Wahhabis, to
preach this kind of violence and jihad. We know that for a fact.

Tamimi: No, you don't know that for a fact.

Crowley: Yes, we do.

Tamimi: No, we don't know that for a fact. That is not true. And this
is not about ideology, this is about people disgruntled with politics.
There is a political crisis across the world in the Muslim world. And
it is true the people came from Leeds are not impoverished, they do not
have socio-economic problems, but they've been engaged by what they
perceive by a war on Islam. This war on terrorism launched by George W.
Bush and allies in the West is perceived by many of them as a war on
Islam itself. So long as you don't see this --

Crowley: Azzam, let me clarify something here. The United States has
been under attack from these radical Islamists long before the war in
Iraq, long before the war in Afghanistan. They were engaged in a jihad,
and there was nothing involved in American foreign policy that would
have set them off that pre-9/11. They engaged in that kind of jihadist
activity against the United States long before we acted against Saddam
Hussein. So Afghanistan and Iraq are essentially pretexts. They are
just excuses. This active has been going on long before that.

Tamimi: Well if you think that 9/11 was the beginning of history, you
are mistaken. For 10 years the Americans have been imposing sanctions
on Iraq. Half a million children died as a result of the sanctions. The
Americans bombed Sudan, bombed Afghanistan. The Americans had a policy
that is so biased towards Israel which oppresses the Palestinians; you
cannot forget all of this.

Crowley: All right, let me bring in Daniel Pipes on this question. It
seems outrageous to me that they would be suggesting that American
foreign policy or Western foreign policy was somehow to blame for the
terrorist activity we are seeing now. These terrorists are engaged in a
jihad, are they not?

Pipes: Of course it is jihad, Monica, you are exactly right, and what
we are hearing is essentially a two-faced explanation. Within the own
councils at the Muslim Association of Britain they know this is a
jihad. In fact, my fellow panelist today has just a year ago indicated
that he himself would be willing to be a suicide bomber in the right
circumstance, he said this much on the BBC on Hardtalk. So, it's not a
matter of deprivation, it's a matter of envisioning an Islamic order
where Islamic rule prevails, Muslims are in charge and non-Muslims are
underneath without power. When he comes on television, Mr. Tamimi
denies all of this and says that well, it's just about anger and this
and that. It is not about anger it is about wanting to create a new
world order. It is like the Nazis wanted, it's like the Communists
wanted and now the Islamists want it. It has nothing to do with one's
personal circumstances. It's a dream, it is a vision of the future, of
how life can be. In short, it would be as life was in Afghanistan under
the Taliban. That is the dream.

Crowley: All right gentlemen, please stand by. Lots more to talk about
with regard to this issue and our conversation continues in a moment
when we are going to take a look at what role Saudi nationals are
taking in the war on terror. And remember, we always want you to join
in, just go to our website at 'connected.msnbc.com'. Stick around.

________________

Crowley: Bloggers are talking about Pakistan's involvement in the war
on terror. The blogger over at Terror for Justice says the radical
Pakistanis who have been uncovered as suspects in the recent terror
attacks in Egypt and Great Britain are putting Pakistan's moderate
majority under massive pressure. And the blogger over at Mental
Meandering says Pakistan is clearly a nation through which funding for
terrorism flows, from which the terrorists emerge, and given its
geographical location, this blogger says, terrorists probably pass
through it quite a lot.

Well, Pakistan isn't the only country that some argue could do much
more to fight the war on terror. Saudi Arabia is another. Let's bring
in MSNBC terrorism and national security expert, Juliette Kayyem.
Juliette is the executive director of the national security program at
Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Great to see you
Juliette.

Juliette Kayyem: Thank you Monica.

Crowley: So Saudi Arabia we do know now that a large number of the
terrorists operating on the ground in Iraq are Saudi nationals. Do you
think the United States needs to take a more aggressive approach
towards Saudi Arabia?

Kayyem: I think it does. If you look at the websites and at least some
tracking that Western journalists have done, anywhere from 40% to 60%
of the suicide bombers, that is important, the suicide bombers, are
Saudi nationals. What that means, is likely what is happening in Iraq
is that the insurgency is split. You have some people who are Iraqis
and willing to bomb things but not to commit suicide on themselves. But
then you have the foreign nationals willing to come in, probably
followers of Zarqawi, and kill themselves in pursuit of getting America
out of Iraq and undermining Iraq's process.

The fact the numbers are so high for this one country, Saudi Arabia,
means that either Saudi Arabia has no control over its borders, or has
no idea what is going on in its own borders, or more likely simply just
doesn't know what to do with it. As we know, unlike Pakistan, as we
know Saudi Arabia has been the focus of its own terrorist threats since
they focused on Saudi nationals and killing Saudi nationals in the last
3½ years. They have cracked down significantly. Certainly looking at
the numbers in Iraq it looks like not enough. And here is the irony of
the discussion previously, the more we demand of the countries to crack
down on the internal terrorist threats, the less likely it is that they
are going to be able to reform towards the democracy that the Bush
Administration talks about. Because what we are talking about in
Pakistan, the rounding up or Saudi Arabia, certainly the beheadings
moments after a terrorist attack, is not the democratic process that
you and I envision when we think about can democracy in the Arab world.
So there is a tension between being tough on the countries and saying
the long term goal is democracy.

Crowley: Daniel Pipes, let me turn to you on the question of
cooperation that we are getting. Not just Pakistan, but also Saudi
Arabia. It seems both countries are cooperating just enough, just
enough to placate the United States. But not so much that they get
overthrown or the leaders get assassinated. It seems like it is an
incredibly difficult balancing act.

Pipes: You are right Monica, it is a tough balancing act. And the
Saudis have learned to do it to perfection. They make significant
concessions to the even more radical elements at home and keep things
on an even keel as best they can with us. The question is how long can
they continue this, in effect double game? At what point will it be
necessary for them to crack down? And from the American point of view,
at what point are we going to start making demands of them? I realize
Ms. Kayyem doesn't think we should make demands, but I do think we
should. And if it delays the democratic process, so be it. As she
pointed out, it is a long-term process, not something to happen in a
year or two. Let's get these countries cleaned of their terrorist
infrastructure and then we can begin to talk about real steps towards
democracy.

Crowley: Daniel there's been a lot of discussion after the London
bombings that perhaps the United Kingdom has coddled the extremists and
allowed them to flourish and allowed them to preach their kind of
hatred and terrorism and violence. Has Pakistan also coddled
extremists, and therefore, could Pakistan face the same kind of problem
that the U.K. and Saudi Arabia are facing in that the extremists in the
whole approach is coming back to bite them?

Pipes: Definitely. As we all noted before there have been attempts on
the life president Musharraf. But the big difference between Britain
and Pakistan, in Pakistan it is going to be difficult for the
government to crack down. There are real sources of power. In Britain
it is just lassitude, it's laziness, it's over-confidence, I don't know
what verb or adjective to use. It is not that they can't do it they
haven't chosen to do it. Now, perhaps in the last few weeks we see a
change, but it is not clear to me yet that what we in the trade call
"Londonistan" has yet seen its final days. It has been-of all of the
Western countries there is nothing like the United Kingdom in terms of
allowing a radical Islamic infrastructure to develop and even allowing
terrorism. Did you know some eight countries have been attacked by
terrorists in Britain, including the United States? Richard Reid was a
British-based terrorist who almost blew up an American airline. The
United Kingdom has a lot of changes to make and it can at will.
Pakistan is a much more difficult question.

Crowley: Azzam, General Musharraf recently said the terrorist acts in
London could not have possibly come from al Qaeda, at least not al
Qaeda in Pakistan because he believed al Qaeda is not continuing to
operate in Pakistan. Do you believe that?

Tamimi: Well, al Qaeda is a phenomenon. Al Qaeda is no longer an
organization. There is no central command. This is like something that
is mushrooming in response to world politics. You don't want to believe
this in America, it's up to you. But I very strongly believe in it. The
attitude of governments, whether in the region or the attitude of your
own government, or your own attitude. You don't want to enlighten the
American people about what actually goes on in the world. And you bring
in the likes of Daniel Pipes to continue to keep the American people in
the dark. You should listen for a change --

Crowley: You know, excuse me Azzam, I'm sorry I try to be respectful of
all of my guests, it seems you are grossly --

Tamimi: You have not respected me from the beginning. You called my
statement outrageous --

Crowley: That is because you are blanketing us with untruths and I
just, I have to put a stop to it on my program. I'm sorry.

Tamimi: See, you are not even objective.

Crowley: No, in this war actually I'm not objective Azzam.

Tamimi: I am your guest. You invited me on the show. I did not impose
myself on you.

Crowley: I have I to go to Juliette.

Tamimi: You are not-

Crowley: I to go to Juliette. What do you believe the extent of the
terrorist active is in Pakistan? Are you believing what the General
Musharraf has to say, or is al Qaeda still very operative in that
country?

Kayyem: I think Musharraf is maybe telling the truth as he believes it.
I mean, I am not convinced that Musharraf knows what is going on in his
country anymore. He has significant numbers of his secret service or
the equivalent of his secret service and certainly military who are
probably, if not members, but are sympathetic to terrorism. They
probably keep him in the dark. I think there are probably members of
his outer circle who likely know where Bin Laden is.

It is not even clear to me that Musharraf, he is holding it together,
but whether he is fully in the know is a question mark. I think here is
the interesting part. You and Daniel were bringing up Iraq before and
you said that they didn't have-that this was happening before Iraq.
Before the war in Iraq. Clearly it has been happening for decades. The
question now is not so much Iraq, but why is it still happening? What
is going on- and so a lot of people look to Iraq and say is that
engendering a lot of ill will towards the United States? If the links
in Britain and if the links in Egypt bring us back to Pakistan, it does
at least give some credence to the argument that the war in Afghanistan
and the attempts to control the border between Afghanistan and
Pakistan, which were basically abandoned, even the C.I.A. admits it,
basically abandoned for the war in Iraq did take a toll on the war on
terrorism on September 11. So I think they are related even if you make
the argument as you do, that you know, this was here before the war in
Iraq, and it will be here after. I think that is clearly true but I
think there is something triggering this now that I think we have to
understand. And there will be debate about what it is. But I think we
have to understand it.

Crowley: All right, we have to leave the conversation there but I
appreciate the time of all three of my guests. Daniel Pipes, Azzam
Tamimi, Juliette Kayyem. Thank you so much.

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--------------------------

Merk op dat Azzam Tamimi iemand is die zijn eigen bereidheid om
zelfmoordbom te worden reeds verklaard heeft op de Amerikaanse
televisie.

AE.