For a Muslim Legion

October 1, 2001
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
WASHINGTON

How do we get the best intelligence within Afghanistan about the whereabouts of the bin
Laden terrorists? From local villagers, of course, some of whom know where caves and
camps are. 

How do we encourage frightened Afghans to be our commando units' eyes and ears? First,
by identifying our antiterrorist cause with that of mainstream Muslims around the world. 

We are failing to do that now. One reason is that the seat-warmer at the Voice of America
could not restrain its news directors from broadcasting the incendiary diatribes of Taliban
leaders. The White House will today appoint Robert Riley, at Senator Phil Gramm's urging,
as V.O.A. chief. But there is still no overall boss of U.S. official broadcasting because the
Bush administration thinks an aggressive Radio Free Afghanistan has no priority. 

The second reason we are not competing for the "hearts and minds" of frightened Afghans is
the reluctance of well-known Muslim clergy to preach more than "don't blame Muslims;
we're loyal Americans and deplore the mass murder." 

That's quite true, and we do rightly to condemn religious profiling. But it often falls short of
the courageous message that would give pause to terrorist recruits — that radical Islam's
terror is a perversion and an abomination before God, and such blasphemy will forever deny
them access to paradise. Then it would be up to our government broadcasters to pump that
truthful message into the transistor radios in villages that contain the human sources of our
intelligence about where terrorists are hiding. 

The suicide bombers were motivated to mass murder by the false promise of eternal joy after
death, and it is up to Muslim clergy — who know their Koran and have special credibility
— to publicly and repeatedly refute that cultish brainwashing. 

Another way to learn about terrorist redoubts in Afghanistan and other countries — and to
undermine the worldwide anti-Christian, "Crusader" appeal of the radicals — is to work
with our Islamic allies to form a Muslim legion. 

The Kurds under our protection in northern Iraq are an example. Last week, from his hiding
place in Biyara, Al Qaeda's Abu Abdul Rahman, financed by bin Laden and armed by
Saddam Hussein, ordered an ambush of Kurds in Halabja, scene of Saddam's poison gas
attack in the 80's. Thirty-six Kurds were killed and many ritually beheaded, their bodies
mutilated. (Our top N.S.C. officials were unaware of this engagement until they read it in
The Times.) 

This atrocity angered the Kurds, who counterattacked and took the town and 19 terrorist
prisoners. Under what must have been vigorous interrogation, the captured terrorists gave up
the names of 34 bin Laden leaders who trained them in Afghanistan. Reached in Ankara,
where he is on the way to Washington, free Kurdistan's prime minister, Barham Salih, says
this data may help provide intelligence links. 

Asked if some of his fierce compatriots, versed in arduous mountain fighting, would join a
force of Muslims from Kosovo, Bosnia, Kuwait and other lands where Western intervention
recently saved Muslims from sure death, Salih replied, "Why not?" 

U.S. and British special forces would worry about communication in a variety of languages,
but groups of fighters, working under our unified allied command and with an anti-Taliban
underground, could be airlifted to discrete regions for search missions. 

Of course, the non-Arab Muslims that worry bin Laden and Saddam most are the Turks.
When Syria refused to eject the anti-Turkish terrorist headquarters from Damascus, Turkey
massed a powerful army on the border — and Syria promptly caved. 

"The Turks are smart," says a Kurdish friend. "Once they are certain that the U.S. is
seriously engaged, they will help you in Afghanistan. More important, Turkey's regional
policy is changing. It will be strongly at your side in the removal of the source of world
terror in Baghdad." 

A Muslim foreign legion including Westerners would be a powerful symbol of Islam's
enlistment in the campaign against terror. Then, if our government broadcasters ever get
organized and realize there's a war on, we will have a story to tell the world that will counter
the appeal of Islam's murderous fringe.   
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