The U.S. Promoted Islamic Violence

Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) said, ``The war is an another form of politics.`` and defined, ``The war is a planned act of violence to enforce our will onto others.``

Then, what is the will of America to impose onto the Taliban government of Afghanistan through this war? The U.S. wants to eradicate the evil, terror, for `enduring freedom` (the name of American military operation) of humankind. Where did this evil originated from?

In the disturbance of the series reports on military attack, this book, Unholy Wars, inquires into the cause of the `war against terrorism` from the calm perspective of journalism. This book provides an acute perspective penetrating into the nature of the current affairs by combining the scattered pieces of information known from the recent reports.

A very simple conclusion is drawn from the deep coverage of the author, an ABC news correspondent now based in Cyprus and an expert on the Middle East conflict. In reality, the U.S., the biggest victim of terrorism, promoted the rampancy of Islamic terrorists. America is now paying the cost of the `unholy wars`.

The Islamic combatants who had been trained in America became the core forces of the various Islamic armed struggles in Northern African countries such as Sudan, Egypt, and Algeria during 1990`s. The emergence of Taliban was the result of the unholy liaison between the U.S. and Islamic extremists. Taliban took over the controlling power of drug production, which had been nurtured by CIA as the money source for `anti-Soviet Jihad operation` from America and turned its gun point to the U.S.

These armed groups chose the U.S. as the main target for the construction of `Islamic Utopia`. The terrorist attempt on the World Trade Center in 1993 was nothing but a tip of iceberg. The book illustrates in details various terrorist attempts. The `unholy wars` held by the U.S. became a boomerang that struck the heart of the New York city.

The author warns with a prophetic voice that ``The westerners should not make a fatal mistake that regards the Islamic faith as the manifestation of the evil, which must be eradicated.``

Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, by John K. Cooley.

Yun Jeong-Hoon digana@donga.com