200 ISLAM AT WAR
In a mad rush to escape, thousands of enemy soldiers were massacred by
concentrated air attacks on the “Highway of Death” leading to Iraq from
Kuwait. Thousands more surrendered to anything remotely resembling an
American presence—including the media.
Despite the crushing defeat there were instances of skillful Iraqi opera-
tions and generalships. The technological gap in war-fighting capabilities
was, however, too great for any Iraqi general to overcome. The conventional
war ended after 100 hours in a negotiated settlement. Sadly, the peace that
followed has gradually eroded into a meaningless farce as Saddam Hussein
thumbed his nose at an irresolute West. When the fighting stopped, the
American doves reasserted themselves, and Iraqi failure to comply with
peace terms has been met with pointless sanctions and random bombing
attacks. In 2003 this would lead to a new and more devastating confron-
tation with the United States.
The Gulf War was at least comprehensible to Western minds, in that it
was a conflict in which nations were contestants for understandable na-
tional goals. The next major United States military involvement into the
Muslim world would pit the freedom of the modern world against the dark
medievalism of fundamentalist hatred.
The destruction of the World Trade Center is still fresh in the mind of
the world, as is President Bush’s demand to the Taliban that it surrender
Osama bin Laden for prosecution by the U.S. government. When the
Taliban refused, President Bush ordered military action that began with
air strikes first aimed at the elimination of Afghanistan’s primitive air
defense system and then focused on tactical bombing of the Taliban’s field
army facing the Northern Alliance.
The war itself was militarily interesting, in that it included no great
maneuvers and battles of the old style. However, it provides some lessons.
Afghanistan, as mentioned earlier, functions on a tribal basis. Alliances
between weak tribes are the basis on which all Afghan governments are
built. Just as with the Arab tribes that Muhammad organized into a single,
nominally unified mass, these alliances produce something resembling a
sense of national unity for Afghanistan, but one infinitely more fragile
than the Western sense of nationalism provides.
As discussed in Chapter 1, Muslims view victory as an indication of
Allah’s support of the victor and defeat as a sign of Allah’s disfavor. When
Muhammad won at Badr he was perceived as having Allah on his side,
and the tribes, wishing to be on the winning side, flocked to his banner.
When, in 2001, the American bombing had broken the Taliban forces’
ability to resist the Northern Alliance and organized Taliban resistance
collapsed, the various alliances it had with the numerous tribal groups also
collapsed. Allah was no longer on the side of the Taliban, because the