If you want to know how and why the administration of
President George W. Bush (43) went so horribly wrong, read the article that was
written by two of its advisers, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon. They wrote: “Don't
Create a New Al Qaeda” and had it published in the New York Times on January 7,
20 14.
Even if you're only a casual observer of the Middle Eastern
situation, you'll wonder why these two characters, and all those like them are
not asked to reimburse the government for the moneys they received in exchange
for giving informed advice but gave ignorant advice instead as they do now.
They caused immeasurable calamities at the time to American soldiers and to
foreign civilians, and they seem undeterred now about giving the same sort of
advice knowing full well that, if taken, the advice will lead to the same sort
of calamities.
You will understand how badly these people shred and
mutilate history when you read the title and follow that with the first sentence
in the article for, it is at this point that you realize they are saying Al
Qaeda was started in Egypt even if they are not using these exact words. In
fact, they speak of Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood almost interchangeably
throughout the article as if the two were one and the same. If amateurs made a
mistake of this sort, they would be thrown out of any office where advice is
taken. But to give advice that is based on this much ignorance is downright
criminal.
The truth is that the Muslim Brotherhood was started in
Egypt in the 1920s in response to the fanatic Jews who invaded Palestine next
door, ransacked the place, murdered the helpless and robbed them of their
properties – all in the name of the Jewish religion. Seeing this, a number of
people in Egypt decided that they can only fight fire with fire, and can only
fight fanaticism with fanaticism. And so they founded the Muslim Brotherhood to
stand as antidote to Jewish fanaticism.
As for the founding of Al Qaeda, it was suggested by none
other than Ronald Reagan when he was President of the United States of America.
His administration asked the likes of Usama Bin Laden (UBL) to assemble an army
by gathering together a group of extremely religious and very devout Muslims
who will want to fight the godless Soviets in Afghanistan. They will have to
fight as if practicing Jihad the way that authentic Mujahedeen (Arabic for
Jihadists) would fight. This is how and why UBL founded Al Qaeda, something
that happened decades after the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The professionals, even the regular observers of the Middle
Eastern situation know this history by now. But something happened along the
way, and a few things were said in the meantime – all of which confused the
ignorant amateurs. You might shrug such development, and pay no more attention
to it till you discover that these confused ignorant amateurs were hired by the
Bush administration to give the sort of advice that led to calamity, horror and
crimes against humanity.
What happened was that UBL was able to attract people from
everywhere in the Muslim world to fight in the name of Islam, and many joined
him, each for a personal reason that could have ranged from boredom to
disaffection with their government. One of those who joined UBL came out of
Egypt and was named Ayman al-Zawahri. He claimed to have been treated badly in
Egypt because he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And this is how it
happened that confused ignorant amateurs such as Daniel Benjamin and Steven
Simon conflated the two organizations. To this day and despite evidence to the
contrary, they continue to maintain that there is little or no distinction
between the two organizations.
What is happening in the world today is far from being that
terror organizations are coming together to form an integrated fighting force.
Like President Obama has said, Al Qaeda has been decimated. What is happening,
in fact, is that the organizations are splitting from each other, and turning
against one another as can be seen in Syria and Iraq. Fighting for a turf that
each can call its own, they operate like urban gangs in any big city. They
metastasize and infect a number of neighborhoods but do not form a single group
that can challenge a well equipped local authority.
This is why – as observed by the two authors – American and
European leaders are keeping their distance from the crackdown they see
undergoing in Egypt against groups that claim to be members of the Brotherhood
but that the Brotherhood denies they are a part of it. Instead of leaving it to
each locality to deal with its situation the way it sees fit, Benjamin and
Simon argue that only a concerted effort called a world war can deal with a
phenomenon that does not exist the way they describe it.
But what they advocate, if taken seriously, has the
potential to lead to the creation of a common cause among many of the
organizations, a development that will give them the incentive to come together
under one umbrella if not one unified command. In effect, the two authors – or
whomever is behind them – will have created what they say is a threat to
Western interests as well as a never ending war between the West and a
worldwide organization that will never run out of young recruits who will be
eager to join it, and live the experience as well as the thrill of a lifetime.
A development of that kind will serve the interests of an
Israel that will claim to be the indispensable nation the world cannot do
without. It will also serve the interests of people like Benjamin and Simon who
will claim to be the indispensable advisers America cannot do without. For all
these reasons, the two authors go on to make a set of predictions that start
with this: “The belief that the conflict will play out solely within Egypt's
borders is false.”