The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

such an extent that the International Institute for Strategic Studies now estimates that the group’s supporters number over 18,000 and that over 100,000 potential fighters have undergone training in Afghanistan and elsewhere. A “Reverse Crusader” Accordingly, al-Qaida — esti- mated to have a presence of some kind in over 60 countries — is the chief threat we need to concentrate on and choose the appropriate weapons to combat. There simply is no alternative to treating it as a continuing and fundamental threat to our security, as the network has demonstrated by a succession of costly blows, culminating in the 9/11 attacks. Al-Qaida is not a new phenomenon. At least four previous, religiously-inspired movements in history have justified terrorism in God’s name — and all have given synonyms for terror to our language: the Zealots, Jews who fought pagan Rome from A.D. 66-70; the Crusaders, who created a swath of destruction in Europe and the Middle East during the 12th century; the Assassins, an Islamic sect that wreaked havoc from the 12th to the 14th centuries; and the Thugs, Hindu sects that terrorized South Asia throughout the 18th century. Of those precursors, by far the strongest parallel with al-Qaida comes from the Crusaders, who respond- ed to Pope Urban II’s 1095 call for a “holy war” to expel the “Infidels” from the “Holy Land.” The pope pro- claimed that it was a Christian obligation to respond militantly to Islam’s influence, which was rapidly spreading following the Turkish victory in the Battle of Manzikert (1071). He even offered absolution from sin and special merit in heaven to those answering the call, and the Crusaders went forward under the banner of “Deus Volt” (God wills it). The First Crusade reached Jerusalem in 1099 (the only one of the nine Crusades to do so), and led to a bloody massacre in which thousands of inhabitants were indiscriminately killed — Christian, Jew and Muslim alike. Crusader horses were said to be up to their fet- locks in blood and body parts. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was established under European rule and lasted until 1187, when a Kurdish general, Saladin, expelled Crusaders from the city. The Crusaders eventually lost their religious focus, and in 1204 they ran- sacked Constantinople, then a Christian city. Osama bin Laden seems to me to be a kind of “reverse Crusader,” answering a call of God to expel Western influence from Muslim lands (in 1998 he issued a fatwa that, in effect, declared war on the United States). Indeed, there is a family resemblance among all religious fundamentalists. Whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Hindu, they have a lot in common: adherence to scriptural literal- ism, rejection of pluralism (if we “know” the “truth,” dissent serves no function and shouldn’t be tolerated), an apocalyptic embrace of violence, a taste for con- spiracy theories and the often vicious repression of women. Its members often regard their own lives as expendable and believe “martyrdom” is even to be welcomed. President Bush insists that the main motivation of al-Qaida and its followers is their hatred of freedom, pure and simple. It would be hard to come up with a shallower assessment — though the administration’s blithe assumption that any government that does not unquestioningly and wholeheartedly support the United States in the war on terrorism is “against us” comes a close second. Still, the administration is correct that al-Qaida’s aims, insofar as we can understand them (they have morphed over time), are not ones that we can accom- modate. Bin Laden’s first declared objective was to force U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia (their “Holy Land”). He expressed outrage that “infidel” forces were “occupying” Muslim lands and held that the deca- dent Western culture they brought with them was con- taminating Islam. U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia were withdrawn as no longer necessary during the current Iraq war, but that has not diminished al-Qaida’s hostili- ty; bin Laden now cites the fact that the same “infidel” troops attacked Iraq, another Muslim nation, and remain there. F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 45 Osama bin Laden is a kind of “reverse Crusader,” answering a call of God to expel Western influence from Muslim lands.