Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg

DATE October 10, 2001 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Jeffrey Goldberg discusses his experiences interviewing
Egyptian intellectuals and visiting a radical Muslim schools for
boys in Pakistan
TERRY GROSS, host:

Yesterday, Osama bin Laden's organization released a videotape in which a
spokesperson said that Americans must know that the storm of airplanes will
not stop and that the battle will not leave its land until, quote, "America
leaves our land; until it stops supporting Israel; until it stops the blockade
against Iraq."

My guest, Jeffrey Goldberg, is a staff writer for The New Yorker and is
currently writing a book on the Middle East. He's also written for The New
York Times Magazine and the Jerusalem Post. This morning I spoke with him
about the al-Qaeda videotape and the subjects of two of Goldberg's pieces:
His visit to a madrassah, an extremist religious school in Pakistan; and how
Egyptian intellectuals were responding to terrorism.

Although on the videotape, al-Qaeda doesn't exactly assume responsibilities
for the attacks of September 11th, it does, at the very least, endorse the
attacks. Goldberg met several intellectuals in Egypt who didn't think bin
Laden could be behind the attacks. They believed alternative scenarios.

Mr. JEFFREY GOLDBERG (The New Yorker): Well, one of the scenarios that was
in--racist, I mean, to put it plainly--and I heard this from a number of
Muslim leaders--was that Arabs wouldn't be capable of pulling this act off,
not for moral reasons, but because--and not--this is a quote--"because they
can't show up to airplanes on time." They're not coordinated enough to hijack
four airplanes simultaneously. I reminded them that Egypt launched a pretty
effective surprise attack on Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and they got
all the planes up in the air at the same time.

One thing I heard over and over again were, you know, references to something,
you know, we here in America think is kind of a dead-letter issue; the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, you know, where what's happened is very
archaic, European forms of anti-Semitism have been adopted wholeheartedly by
much of the intellectual class in places like Egypt. So the overwhelming
theory that I heard was that the Jews did this. And there were all kinds of
proofs offered that Israel told all the Jews in the World Trade Center to stay
home on September 11th and things like that. So I heard various forms of that
conspiracy.

And then the usual America did it to itself in order to have the excuse to go
kill Muslims and that sort of thing. But it was really fascinating and, if I
might editorialize, quite depressing to hear this kind of stuff being said
because it was people--it was coming from people who have otherwise, one would
call, a fairly good grasp on reality.

GROSS: Well, somebody who writes op-ed pieces for newspapers told you that...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Not just newspapers, by the way. Not just newspapers, but
government-run newspapers. And remember, the government in Egypt is our ally.
The government of Hosni Mubarak is, ostensibly, an American ally. And that,
to me, is more significant than the mere fact that there are newspaper columns
being run. These are newspapers whose editors were appointed personally by
the president of Egypt.

GROSS: OK. Well, this person who writes for the government newspapers told
you that the World Trade Center attacks were probably done by Branch
Davidians, the McVeigh people...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: ...with help from the Massad(ph). That strikes me as a particularly
outlandish...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, you know, I explain...

GROSS: ...theory.

Mr. GOLDBERG: I heard that from...

GROSS: Besides, Timothy McVeigh isn't a Branch Davidian. I mean, he doesn't
get that, either.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, you know, the nuances of the American far right escape,
you know, even Americans, so don't expect Egyptians to get that. But what I
do expect Egyptians to get and what this guy and some others didn't get--I
said at one point, you know, the neo-Nazis in America might actually have an
ideological program working with a Jewish intelligence agency. And the
response to that was, `Aha, that shows how clever this conspiracy is because
that's what they want you to think.' And at that point, you know, you're kind
of--you're arguing in a circle and you just say--I mean, as a reporter you
just kind of open your notebook and say, `OK,' and, you know, `What else do
you got?' because there's no arguing with that. But this is what you're faced
with.

You know, it's interesting. There's a very, very smart Egyptian playwright I
sat with one day named Ali Salem, who is an Egyptian peace--one of the few
Egyptians left who still advocates for peace with Israel. And he said, `You
know, the wonderful thing about you Americans is you're trying to understand
this situation using logic, but using logic in this case is like trying to
measure distance in kilograms. You know, your rational approach, your
fact-based approach is not the right tool to try to understand everything
that's going on here.'

GROSS: Let me quote something else that this person said to you. You quote
him in The New Yorker article that you wrote recently. He said...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: He said about the attackers, "These are people who are afraid of
America, afraid of life itself. These are people who are envious. To them,
life is an unbearable burden. Modernism is the only way out, but modernism is
frightening. It means we have to compete. It means we can't explain
everything away with conspiracy theories." What do you think of those
comments?

Mr. GOLDBERG: I think they're profound. I think they're profound. And when
he was saying this to me, I was brought back very quickly to the last time I
was in Afghanistan, which was a year ago. And I spent most of that time in
Kandahar, sort of the spiritual capital of the Taliban, which is now being
bombed, I think. I was struck by two things about Kandahar. One was
something I heard. One was something I saw.

The thing I heard, which was so horrifying, was that women are inordinately
the victims of car accidents when they're pedestrians because they're wrapped
in these burquas, these head coverings that deny them peripheral vision. So
they can't see when they're crossing the street and so they're hit by cars
with a much greater frequency than men are hit by cars. And that was sort of
horrifying to me and that sort of symbolized the place--the role women play in
that society.

The thing I saw that was just so fascinating--when you drive into town you
begin to see the trees--you the this kind of thick, black ribbon around trees,
around tree limbs, around poles. And I couldn't, at first, identify what this
was. And then the guy I was with said, `It's cassette tape.' And I asked him
to explain. And he said, `Well, when the Taliban catches someone listening to
music, they arrest the person listening to music; they take the cassettes and
they rip out all the black tape--you know, the thin, black tape and wrap it
around trees as a warning to other people not to listen to music.'

I mean, these are people we're dealing with who hate everything. You know,
there's no music. There's no art. There's no drama. There's no acceptance
of anything other than the things they decide the Koran accepts. And
Afghanistan is obviously an extreme example of this, but you find this
through--you know, unfortunately, you find this through--in many pockets of
the Muslim world, a fear of the future, a fear of modernity and all that it
stands for. And I think what he was saying is fairly profound because he's
saying, `Look. This is not about Israeli settlement. This is not about
Indian policy in Kashmir. This is about jealousy.'

GROSS: Jeffrey Goldberg is my guest. He writes about the Middle East for
The New Yorker.

You went to a madrassah...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: ...which is a religious--an extremist, religious school in Pakistan.
The one you went to had about 2,800 students, and this was the school you said
that graduated more leaders of the Taliban than any other school. And, in
fact, Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, was given an honorary degree.

Mr. GOLDBERG: That's right.

GROSS: You actually enrolled in the school?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, I sort of presented myself one day and met the director
of the school. This is on the Grand Trunk Road between Islamabad and Peshawar
in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan. I presented myself there and
I said, `You know, I want to find out what you guys are teaching.' And so I
spent, you know, a bit of time in this institution. And I basically saw how
these minds are shaped.

GROSS: What year was it that you enrolled?

Mr. GOLDBERG: This was last year. This was 2000.

GROSS: What was the curriculum at this religious school?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, there wasn't a whole lot of art or drama. Let me tell
you that. There was--there's something that was very fascinating and
that--mostly centered on memorization of the Koran and of the Hagiv(ph), the
sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. And what's so interesting about this is the
memorization was done in Arabic. And Pakistanis and Afghans, these people
were mostly Pushtun speakers, so these kids, 10 years old, 12 years old, 13
years old, they don't know any Arabic, so they're memorizing a book in a
language they don't understand. So--and when I sat in these classes, I saw
over and over again, it was simply a teacher sitting on the floor and the
students around him reciting passages from the Koran and then the students
mimicking that recitation. Not a whole lot of deep, intellectual inquiry was
going on, but, you know, one could argue that this is the way that people are
brainwashed. I mean, these students--I wouldn't even hesitate to say now that
many of the students I met are probably now on the front lines of the Taliban
ready to confront American troops.

GROSS: My guest is Jeffrey Goldberg, a staff writer for The New Yorker, who's
writing a book about the Middle East. We'll talk more after a break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Jeffrey Goldberg, a staff writer for The New Yorker. He's
writing a book about the Middle East. When we left off we were talking about
the time he spent at a madrassah, an extremist Muslim school in Pakistan.

I thought it was interesting. You say some of the students approached you for
sex. They propositioned you?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah. Yeah, and the photographer I was with, as well. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, this is...

GROSS: I thought that was so interesting because it's such a sexually
repressed society. I mean...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well...

GROSS: ...certainly that's my impression of it.

Mr. GOLDBERG: ...they don't see women. I mean, it's...

GROSS: Right.

Mr. GOLDBERG: ...it's--you know, it's--they never see women.

GROSS: It's not like they approve of homosexuality.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Oh, no, no, no. And, as a matter of fact, the punishment for
homosexuality is death. That said--and, you know, I'm no expert on this, but,
you know, I imagine when you take 2,800 young men and keep them entirely away
from women, even their own sisters--and, parenthetically, let me mention that
I met one young mullah in Kandahar who told me that he hasn't hugged or kissed
his mother since he reached puberty, because that would be impermissible. So
you're dealing with--I don't know--almost like a prison environment in a kind
of way, so it came as some surprise, but not a great surprise.

The other thing is is that they have--and this goes to the way they view
America. They have all kinds of ideas about the way we Americans behave. And
the assumption was that we are allowed to be--this is the way it was phrased.
We are allowed to be heterosexual and homosexual at the same time. I was
asked if American law allows the keeping of boyfriends and girlfriends
simultaneously. So they expect that in the anything-goes American climate
that, you know, I'd be ready and the photographer I was with--who was French,
actually--we'd be ready to--I don't know--have sex with everybody. You know,
it was one of the more disconcerting aspects of my visit to this madrassah, I
must tell you.

GROSS: I see it actually as a very hopeful sign in the sense that if they
could be taught such sexual repression and still want to approach somebody
about having sex; approach them, you know, on the quiet, you know, obviously,
and very covertly, that, still, it means that all of their impulses aren't
being killed; that there's still something there, some impulse that wants to
express itself in spite of all of the repression. So maybe there's...

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, I mean, religious fundament...

GROSS: ...also hope for other impulses.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, religious fundamentalists have spent most of the time
trying to kill the sexual impulse. And religious fundamentalism has always
been unsuccessful in killing that sexual impulse, so I guess if I had a little
more distance from it I would probably agree with you.

GROSS: Did the students seem anxious to want to grow up and become suicide
bombers and to die for the cause?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah. You know, in that there was a great similarity. I
spent a lot of time in Gaza, in particular, with would-be suicide bombers.
And I noticed a great--it's fascinating when you can go 1,000 miles and hear
the same exact words, you know. And I think we actually heard this in the
statement yesterday. I heard a lot of I guess you would call it bluster, in a
way; these sorts of statements--you know, the difference between us--between
Islam and the West is you, in the West, love life, but we love death. I've
heard that in Pakistan and I've heard it in Gaza. It's an interesting--it's a
concept that I think gives us at least a sliver of understanding about, you
know, what we're facing.

I was once in a--I think I wrote this in the piece. I was asked to--after I
hung out there for a while, I was asked to speak to some classes and answer
questions, which was a very fascinating thing. And, you know, I would ask
things like, `Who's ready to die for Osama bin Laden?' And all the hands
would shoot up. `And who believes that Osama bin Laden should have nuclear
weapons?' And everybody would cheer, you know. There's a great
amount--I mean, these are teen-agers, also, and so they're gonna swagger a
bit. Does that mean that I think they emphatically don't want to be suicide
bombers? I don't know. You know, we'll be finding out, I'm afraid, in the
coming days how committed they are to this particular vision of Islam.

GROSS: This statement that you've said you've heard repeated, you know,
1,000 miles apart that Americans want to live for their cause, but Muslims
want to die for it. And the echo that it had in yesterday's tape released
by the bin Laden organization was this. This spokesperson said, `There are
thousands of young people who are as keen about death as Americans are about
life.'

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: You know, that there's a lot of Muslims who--they want to die for the
cause.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, this is what we're facing in any number of spheres. In
one interpretation of the rules of martyrdom, I guess you would say, it's
considered a holy mission to go sacrifice your own life while killing the
infidel. And, you know, we'll--I guess we'll really find out if--how
committed the Taliban is to this idea.

GROSS: You made no secret of the fact that you were Jewish while you were
visiting this extremist religious school in Pakistan.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Kind of hard to disguise the name. It's kind of hard to...

GROSS: Yeah. It's hard to...

Mr. GOLDBERG: The Goldberg usually means one thing.

GROSS: Right. To the students who knew you were Jewish, you kind of, you
know, embodied the infidel, the Jew, the enemy, at this religious school, but
here you were, a particularized individual. It's often a lot easier to hate a
whole group of people who aren't in your presence than it is to hate one
individual who is.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Absolutely. I--yeah.

GROSS: So what was their response to you as Jeffrey Goldberg, as an
individual human being?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, fascination. I mean, they don't get a lot of Americans
cycling through their part of Pakistan or--and Afghanistan. So they were
curious. I mean, they were curious about a whole range of things. Sexuality
being one of the leading things. Part of it has to do with simple
hospitality--I mean, Muslim hospitality. I'm sitting there and I'm their
guest and they're not gonna be rude to me. You know, one guy in particular,
one of the teachers, didn't know I was Jewish and was ranting at one point
about some conspiracy. And I told them, `I'm Jewish.' And he was apologetic.
It was fascinating to see. He was apologizing and saying, you know, `Well,
all people are, you know, created in God's image.' It was actually a very
hopeful kind of moment where he was sort of abashed that he was attacking my
people without knowing that it was my people. So you're right. In the
abstract, it might be marginally easier to demonize a group of people than it
is when they're sitting right in front of you. That's a very American notion,
of course. If we get to know our enemies, they won't be our enemies any more.
And a lot of Muslims don't ascribe to that theory, but it was an interesting
moment.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Jeffrey Goldberg. He writes
about the Middle East for The New Yorker.

You know, you've been traveling through the Middle East for how many years?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Oh, on and off for I guess 12 or 15 years.

GROSS: Does it seem to you that anti-Semitism is on the rise; that
it's--that there's more of it now or that it's of a more extreme form than
when you started writing about the Middle East?

Mr. GOLDBERG: You know what's different--the short answer is no. It's
ubiquitous. What's different is--what I see is a lot of people adopting very
European ideas of anti-Semitism. I mentioned before, you know, the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion. These books are translated and sold on street corners.
And I found my first copy of that in Jordan, I think. And it's interesting
and terrifying, obviously, the grafting of these archaic and very pernicious
European models of anti-Semitism onto Muslim culture and Arab culture that
was, in comparison to Christian European, not very anti-Semitic at all. And
that's what I've noticed more than anything else.

GROSS: You know, you're conclusion about the madrassah, the very orthodox,
Muslim school that you attended in Pakistan, was that the students, the boys
in the school were kept entirely ignorant of the world and, for that matter,
largely ignorant of everything but one interpretation of Islam. You describe
them, therefore, as perfect jihad machines.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah. I mean, I would say that they go through an extensive
process of brainwashing. And, you know, it's interesting. The students from
this school, in addition to staffing the top levels of the Taliban, also make
up some of its foot soldiers. And at key moments over the last four or five
years, as the Taliban was fighting the Northern Alliance, a call went out to
the madrassah of northern--of Pakistan of the northwest province and in
Quetta--also, Baluchistan that the Taliban needs help. And so hundreds of
students at a time would be dispatched to the front. And they, from
everything I heard, went entirely willingly to, in many cases, their
slaughter. So it was a very--obviously, a very effective place to
indoctrinate these young men into the cause.

GROSS: Jeffrey Goldberg is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He's writing
a book on the Middle East. He'll be back in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Jeffrey Goldberg.
He's a staff writer for The New Yorker and he's writing a book about the
Middle East.

American TV viewers are starting to see a lot of the Arab news station
Al-Jazeera. It's a TV station that's considered to be the CNN of the Arab
world.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Right.

GROSS: And it's through Al-Jazeera that the bin Laden tapes--videotapes have
been released. What are your impressions of the TV network, you know, both
what it broadcasts and the impact those broadcasts have?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Al-Jazeera has an enormous impact. It's really quite
astonishing. It's one of the main reasons the Palestinian uprising of the
last year has so inflamed Arab opinion, you know, from Morocco to Yemen to
Iraq, because that station is showing, over and over again, footage of Israeli
soldiers attacking Palestinians. And that has really affected the way Arabs
view that conflict. You know, I haven't seen it lately, and I don't know how
they are spinning this new conflict between America and Afghanistan. I know
that Secretary Powell, a few days ago, asked the leader of Qatar, where
Al-Jazeera is based, to tone it down. And this caused a great deal of anger
because Al-Jazeera is nominally an independent station. So it was a strange
request put to the leader of Qatar by Powell.

GROSS: So the broadcasts that you have seen, and I understand you haven't
seen it in a while--though I should say here that CNN and MSNBC have been
taking feeds from Al-Jazeera.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I see little snapshots of things, you
know?

GROSS: And it's very interesting to see, but what were your impressions of
its journalistic fairness when you did see it?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Well, I mean, journalistic fairness isn't the right term. I
mean, it's unabashedly pro-Palestinian. It's fairly critical of American
policy, in many manifestations of American policy, particularly on sanctions
in Iraq, support for Israel and that sort of thing. So you know, in much the
same way that the Arab world views CNN as hopelessly pro-American, I think
Americans would see Al-Jazeera as hopelessly pro-Arab. I mean, there's a
pretty big gulf between--you know, in our understandings of journalistic
fairness, let's say.

GROSS: In the United States, there's a lot of belief in multiculturalism.
And where there isn't belief in it, there's usually at least lip service
that's paid to it.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Yeah.

GROSS: So even people who don't truly practice a multicultural way of seeing
the world don't feel comfortable just casting aspersions on a particular
ethnic or racial or religious group, whereas right now, in more extremist
parts of the Islamic world, it's perfectly acceptable to say, `I declare war
on Jews and Americans,' you know?

Mr. GOLDBERG: Right.

GROSS: So I'm just wondering what it's like for you to go back and forth
between those different mind-sets?

Mr. GOLDBERG: It's interesting, because there's more clarity on their side
than there is on our side. I mean, we keep talking about this is not a war
against Islam but a war on terrorism. Well, terrorism is a tactic. Terrorism
isn't an ideology. It's a tactic used by adherents to a particular ideology
to meet their goals, to achieve their goals. So I think we're kind of
deluding ourselves. This is not to say that we're at war with all of Islam.
There's a billion Muslims. And God knows, I hope most of them aren't on Osama
bin Laden's side. I have no reason to believe that they are. But there are
groups like Osama bin Laden's and there are millions of people who support
those groups, and they are in a very frank culture war with the United States.
And we here in the US are bothered by that idea, because we'd prefer to limit
our anger to the 19 hijackers who hijacked those planes and to their immediate
supporters and leaders. But people have to understand that. It's almost
condescending, in a way, to the Muslim world when we say, `This isn't about
Islam,' because for millions of Muslims, it is about Islam.

And we have to understand that not--you know, this is a very sensitive
area--but, you know, in--the multicultural world view holds that everybody's
the same, you know, that all religions believe in essentially the same thing,
all people are good, etc., etc., etc. Well, they have different definitions
of love and goodness and the responsibilities and requirements of religion.
I'm not saying that of all Muslims certainly, but certainly the ones where the
Americans are currently bombing have that. And so we have to sort of confront
a little bit more frankly the fact that these are people who aren't simply
nihilistic but have very specific ideas about the superiority of their
ideology and the inferiority of our ideology and our culture. And if we do
that, then we go a little bit further in the direction of understanding
exactly what we're confronting.

GROSS: Well, Jeffrey Goldberg, I thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. GOLDBERG: Thank you.

GROSS: Jeffrey Goldberg is a staff writer for The New Yorker who's writing a
book about the Middle East.

Coming up, we call Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Journalist Ahmed Rashid discusses the Taliban and the
US attacks on Afghanistan
TERRY GROSS, host:

My guest, Ahmed Rashid, is a Pakistani journalist who has been covering
Afghanistan for 20 years. He's the author of "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil
and Fundamentalism in Central Asia." In addition to writing for the Pakistani
press, he's the Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review
and the Daily Telegraph of London. This morning we called him in Lahore,
Pakistan, and asked him first for his interpretation of the videotape released
yesterday by the bin Laden organization, in which a spokesperson promised that
`the storm of airplanes will not stop' and said, `America must know that the
battle will not leaves its land until America leaves our land, until it stops
supporting Israel, until it stops the blockade against Iraq.'

Mr. AHMED RASHID (Pakistani Journalist): Well, it's really a call to war. I
mean, I think, you know, he's come out of his hiding, as it were. He's come
out of his secrecy and the veils that surrounded him and he's calling for a
jihad against the West and against the Muslim regimes, such as Saudi Arabia's
regime, which he considers as being as infidel as the West. And, you know, it
really is a call which is supposed to kind of rouse the passions of Muslims
around the world and to take up arms.

GROSS: I think the intention also is probably to terrify Americans.

Mr. RASHID: Oh, certainly. I mean, you know, he's certainly done that, I
think, and, you know, he's threatening more terrorist strikes and, you know,
he is also--now we've heard today that, in fact, he has--the Taliban has given
him full freedom. They had said earlier that they had controlled his
movements, which was very doubtful anyway. But the Taliban have now totally
committed themselves to his call for a jihad.

GROSS: You're speaking to us from Lahore. What's the popular reaction to
that tape that you've seen so far?

Mr. RASHID: Well, Pakistan is very polarized. I mean, there is minority
support for bin Laden, for the Taliban. It's--they have--you know, people
have been out in the streets protesting the American bombing of Afghanistan,
criticizing the present regime. The vast majority of people, I think, are
extremely upset with the Americans but they're not in support of the Taliban
and they're not willing to go out in the streets, certainly, to demonstrate in
favor of either the Taliban or bin Laden. There is a lot of anti-American
feeling, but generally it's not been translated into support for the Taliban,
except for the religious fundamentalists, the people who attend the mosques of
these religious parties or study at their schools. So what you have is a kind
of mullah student kind of demonstrations going on in a lot of cities. But
these are small. The general public has generally not joined them.

GROSS: I'm wondering how Muslims who aren't extremists--and that's the
majority of Muslims--how they're reacting where you are, in Pakistan, to the
call for Muslims--for all Muslims to participate in jihad. The spokesperson
from al-Qaeda said yesterday, `Jihad is the religious duty of every Muslim,'
and he seemed to be calling on every Muslim to do what they can to attack
America.

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think, you know, many sensible Islamic leaders and
scholars have pointed out that, you know, not every Tom, Dick and Harry can
stand up and give a fatwa--that is an Islamic ruling--nor can anyone just
stand up and declare jihad. You know, there's a means and a way to do this.
And, for example, I mean, jihad in the past during the Crusades, in the 13th,
14th century, you know, was declared only after a meeting of all the Islamic
scholars of that country or region which represented all the sects of Sunni
Islam. And, you know, bin Laden is neither a scholar nor is he a preacher nor
does he have any kind of religious education as such. And, of course, the
other big issue is, you know, what is jihad? And the prophet Mohammad has
described jihad in two ways. The greater jihad is the struggle of the self to
be a good Muslim, to practice Islam fully. And the lesser jihad is the jihad
where you take up arms against foreigners who may have invaded your country.
So you know, the Prophet differentiated between these two jihads and the fact
remains that the greater jihad is a struggle within yourself.

GROSS: I've been hearing a lot of people saying, `Why aren't Muslims who are
opposed to bin Laden taking a more forceful stand against him and making sure
that Islam isn't co-opted by his extremism?' What are your thoughts on that
and your observations?

Mr. RASHID: Well, generally speaking, I would tend to agree with you. You
know, I think the problem has been that many of the Islamic regimes around the
world are either authoritarian or dictatorial. They have their own problems
with their people. Now what, of course, bin Laden is doing is trying to
appeal to the people directly and to overthrow--and that the people should
mobilize and overthrow their regimes. The problem in the Islamic world is
twofold. I mean, you know, you have a terrorist problem but you also have a
problem of these regimes who, in many ways, have not seen the light, as it
were, to the end of the Cold War in 1991 and gone in for economic development
and democracy and greater freedom and press freedom and issues like that. And
these are not--you know, I mean, Muslims don't consider this as a so-called
Western agenda. I mean, this is an agenda of the world. It's the agenda of,
if you like, globalization, which cuts across, you know, religion and culture.
And many of these regimes really don't have their populations alongside them
and that is the problem.

GROSS: Do you think the Musharraf presidency is in trouble?

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, Musharraf certainly--this is a military regime
and he's heading it and it's certainly facing very severe problems because of
this acute polarization in Pakistan. So far I will say, despite the
demonstrations and the pictures you've probably seen on television, he is
holding the line. The demonstrations have been violent but they've been very
small by Pakistani standards. You've had several thousand people in the
streets. You haven't had hundreds of thousands of people in the streets as
yet. And he has reshuffled his army top command. He's got rid of some
generals who are not supporting his alliance with the United States and the
West. So he is in a stronger position, but, of course, it still remains very
unpredictable and that all depends on the nature of the war in Afghanistan.
We don't know how long this campaign is going to last. You know, is Pakistan
going to get inundated with a million, two million refugees? What happens,
you know, inside the country? Will the Islamic parties actually succeed in
bringing out the general public, which has so far refused to come out into the
streets? So all these questions are very much there.

GROSS: How would you describe the Musharraf presidency? I mean, he seized
power in a military coup. Would you consider him a fairly democratic leader
in terms of human rights and freedoms for the people in Pakistan or would you
consider him more dictatorial in that regard?

Mr. RASHID: Well, this is a military regime but martial law has not been
declared. Now we don't have a constitution. The constitution has been
abrogated for the time being. There's no parliament and there's a--great
restrictions on political activity. But at the same time, there are pluses in
the sense that he hasn't interfered with the media. The media is as free as
it was, you know, under democratic regime. And he hasn't much interfered with
human rights and the legal system. So it's a mixed bag, basically, but
clearly with this present threat and the war going on next door, there are
going--and there have been already many arrests of politicians, Islamic
leaders who've been protesting. You know, he has toughened up his act a lot.

GROSS: Pakistan is a nuclear power. Are you worried about the possibility of
nuclear weapons getting into the hands of extremists?

Mr. RASHID: I don't think that that is a real problem. I think--I know it's
been played up a lot in the West, but, you know, the nuclear program here has
always been very tightly controlled by the army. This is a very hierarchical
army under the--you know, it's been trained by the British and the Americans.
The chief is the chief, you know, and if he reshuffles the generals, other
junior officers may be upset but there's not a peep out of them. This is not
an army which has had, you know, coups within from junior officers and things
like that. So I think, you know, clearly the nuclear program has been kept
under tight lock and key by the military and what we've seen, of course, since
September 11th is much greater cooperation from the United States. In fact,
there have been reports that the US has actually supplied now for the first
time a mechanism--a safety mechanism for Pakistan's nuclear program. The US
was unable to do this in the past because there were US sanctions against
Pakistan, but these sanctions have now been lifted and, you know, the US is
also involved now in securing the nuclear program. This information has not
been made public by either side because it's a kind of embarrassment in a
way, but I think it's kind of reassured at least the US administration.

GROSS: I think that the way what's happening now is being framed is that
you're either for the United States and the coalition in the war against
terrorism or you're for bin Laden and the terrorists. From what you're
saying, it really sounds like there's a lot of people who aren't for either.
They oppose the bombing, and at the same time they oppose bin Laden. Is that
group that isn't happy with the United States or bin Laden being vocal in any
way, in expressing a third way?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I mean, as in the United States, I think that, you know,
they are expressing indignation at the bombing and they are the sort of
incubators of a peace movement here, if you like. But it's a mixed bag in the
sense that they're not particularly clear about how to deal with terrorism.
They know they don't like the bombing of Afghanistan by the Americans and the
civilian casualties that this is almost certain to create. But, you know,
they are trying to be neutral but this is a very difficult issue to be neutral
about. The kind of polarization that you talked about was actually set by the
Bush administration on the very first day when they told--when President Bush
told the world that either you're with us or against us. Now what we've seen
in the Muslim world, of course, in subsequent weeks has been many countries
taking this neutral stance. Iran has condemned the terrorism but has refused
to back the American attack on Afghanistan. Many of the Arab regimes are
taking a similar kind of position. They haven't given bases to the Americans.
Even Saudi Arabia, which is a very close ally of the United States, has not
allowed its command centers, which were built by the Americans, to be actually
used by the Americans, even though the American troops, you know, defended
Saudi Arabia against Iraq in the Gulf War in 1991. So you do have now many
Islamic countries taking, if you like, a kind of semi-neutral position. They
have condemned terrorism and they've said that bin Laden has to give himself
up but they have not backed, if you like, the bombing of Afghanistan.

GROSS: I'm wondering if you're hearing anything that you're finding
disturbing either in the streets or in the press, myths or conspiracy
theories.

Mr. RASHID: Well, yes. I mean, all the--you know, there have been
incredible conspiracy theories in the local press here and in the Arab world
about the bombings--that the World Trade Center was bombed by the Israeli
Intelligence, that 4,000 Jews in New York did not go to work that day because
they had somehow been tipped off, so there were no Jewish casualties amongst
the dead and wounded in the World Trade Center. You know, I mean, these are
conspiracies that have done the rounds. And, you know, they fit in a--some of
them are completely outrageous, of course. They all are and they've been, you
know, widely condemned in other newspapers, so there is a kind of, you know,
rush to judgment by many people and by the media here, who perhaps are
sympathetic to the horrible murders of so many people in New York and
Washington but cannot possibly believe, or want to believe, that a Muslim
could have carried that out.

GROSS: Well, do you think the tapes that the bin Laden organization has
released in the past few days might convince skeptics that it really was
possible for Muslims to have organized those attacks?

Mr. RASHID: I think it's done two things. I think it has convinced many
skeptics because now, if you like, bin Laden is out of the closet and we know
exactly where he stands. And this denying--you know, he denies everything.
These last 10 years, he's denied everything. But now there's no question of
being able to deny. But on the other hand, he's also raised many issues which
go to the heart of Muslim feeling. He's talked about the Palestinian issue
and he's talked about Iraq and the children of Iraq now. You know, many of
these issues, if you minus the threat to the US and the fact that he's willing
to carry out more terrorist bombings, many of these issues and the other
issues he talks about go to the heart of many Muslim feelings. So you know,
it's been--I think in the Muslim world there's been a, you know, mixed
reaction to what he's said.

GROSS: My guest is Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and the author of a
book about the Taliban. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Let's get back to the interview I recorded earlier today with
Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. He writes for the Pakistani press and
for the Daily Telegraph of London. We called him in Lahore.

You've written a very good book about the Taliban. If the Taliban fall as a
result of the military actions there that the United States has taken, what
are the possibilities afterwards?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I am very hopeful that the Afghan factions are going to
get together and be able to set up a sort of--an interim government which
will include all the factions and all the ethnic groups. Now this is a very
long shot. It's been--you know, many people have tried to do this over the
last 10 years of civil war since the Soviets left and they haven't succeeded.
But I think, you know, there are several factors now which are coming into
play which could make this possible. The first is that there's total
exhaustion by the population and the faction chiefs know that, you know, if
they go in for another power-grabbing, land-grabbing kind of adventure,
they're not going to get supporters to fight for them. They're not going to
get the population with them. The other issue is that there's a chronic
humanitarian crisis. Most Afghans are presently starving and, you know, the
faction leaders know that--I mean, the country has completely been, you know,
driven down into kind of minus zero, if you like. So you know, that is--you
know, and it's a crisis that everyone sees. All the Afghans see that and they
all need peace. And what has been encouraging is that all the anti-Taliban
factions, you know, are getting together and are calling for a peaceful
settlement at the end of the war.

GROSS: Any final thoughts you want to leave us with?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think, you know, the most important thing is, I think,
you know, whether it's the peace movement, whether it is people in the United
States who are supporting the present war in Afghanistan, I think the most
important thing is to get Americans to be interested in this issue and to
convince the ordinary American public and congressmen and legislators, and
people who really don't know very much about this part of the world, that the
US has to remain engaged in this region once the war is over. It has to do
certain things, help rebuild Afghanistan. It has to help mediate between
India and Pakistan over Kashmir. But above all, it has to address the issue
of the Middle East in a more fair way. It cannot just be seen as a partner of
Israel, as many Muslims see the United States as a partner of Israel in
crushing the Palestinians. The Middle East problem is the core of the Muslim
anger at the moment and unless this is addressed in a more fair and equitable
way, this will ...(unintelligible) anger against the United States, which will
take many forms--I mean, not just terrorism. It'll take many forms, but it
will continue and the US, you know, has to address the Middle East issue to be
ensured that it can defuse this anger.

GROSS: The impression I get is that the tone might be shifting now to a peace
in the Middle East--from that to `We don't want the state of Israel.' You
know, Israel shouldn't exist at all, that sentiment is getting more extreme
against Israel.

Mr. RASHID: Well, certainly. I mean, you know, I think, you know, the fact
you had an uprising in the Palestinian territories for so many years, the fact
that there's been such an enormous radicalization, both of the Palestinians
and the Israelis--I mean, the extremist Israelis now are more in number than
ever before. There is a deep, deep polarization and radicalization on both
sides of the divide and it's going to need, again, I think, you know,
international pressure and international engagement to try and defuse this.

GROSS: Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and the author of "Taliban:
Militant Oil, Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia." He spoke to us
earlier today from Lahore.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
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