November 26, 2003Security

The Beehive of Terror

Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew to Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria:

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

Americans, however, make the mistake of seeking a largely military solution. You must use force. But force will only deal with the tip of the problem. In killing the terrorists, you will kill the worker bees. The queen bees are the preachers, who teach a deviant form of Islam in schools and Islamic centres, who capture and twist the minds of the young. Full Article from Newsweek

He also points out that the solution to Islamic terror lies in the hands of moderate Muslims, who have to stand up and face down the extremists.

I think the United States can lend a hand to moderate Muslims by getting serious with the likes of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who are the fountainheads of extremism.

Another article from Newsweek - this is where the big beehive is

Hardscrabble madrassas like his, in the north Waziristan town of Mirali, are where many Taliban leaders got their start two decades ago during the CIA’s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Today, those jihad academies continue to indoctrinate new generations of holy warriors, passionately loyal to the banner of radical Islam and inured to lives of hardship. Such schools pose a grave challenge to the Bush administration’s plans for the region. “How do we stop those who are financing the radical madrassa schools?” asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a recently leaked memo. “Is our current situation such that ‘the harder we work, the behinder we get?’ ” More than a year ago Pakistan’s leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, promised to defang the madrassas. Instead, he formed a political alliance with the schools’ radical Islamist supporters against the mainstream secular opposition. “Musharraf talks a lot, but nothing happens,” says Maulana Abdul Qadr, principal of the Darul Uloom Zuberia madrassa, near Peshawar.

And Asia Times reports that Taliban recruitment scouts are still active in Pakistani madrassas - with the connivance of Pakistan’s ISI.



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