Russia is the root of Islamist proliferation

Submitted by sara (United States), Mar 24, 2012 at 16:35

I enjoyed reading your post and I would add that it only serves to remind me of what we should all be mindful of, the tactics and the consequences of Russian influence. It was Russia who created Arafat by plucking him out of his Egyptian element and training him, building him to be the spokesman for the resident Palestinians at the time (Note: I wonder if there is a detailed book or description of exactly how that was done).

The Russians increased the already bad friction between Israel and her neighboring Arab countries and stirred up a lot of unrest and agitprop in the region. I therefore do not believe that initially there was a religious component to the 'struggle' but rather a communist/nationalist one. That was what the Russians taught the nascent Palestinians. Those were the days of the PFLP, the Liberation Fronts, People's party, Habash, all with a decidedly non-religious bent.

Then, the crowning piece to the whole mess was executed when the Russians invaded Afghanistan. They inadvertently in their pathetic attempt to counter chess move the US, created a monster, the Muslim Mujahedeen. Word spread that Muslims and (more importantly) Muslim Land were under attack and the modern Jihad ideology emerged. (No, I;m not saying it did not exist previously, but it was not as popular and the advent of the internet rocketed it into the stratosphere).The Iranian Mullahs cemented the deal and voila, modern day Islamist fanaticism was born. It was surely unforeseen by the Russians, as well as the Americans who took advantage of it to battle back against them.

It is a pitiful truth that all this came about to shape the way things stand today. I hold the Russians responsible. And for those of you who still argue that there was Jihadism way before this all happened, I would agree, but my point is that it was relatively dormant, some populations were generally moving towards secularism, or at least it was not nearly predominant as it is today.

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