General Mahood Ahmed, head of the ISI, sat with the Taliban at Kandhahar andintimated that if bin Laden is not given up, the bombardment will surely begin.The Taliban is clear that it will not act unless the Organization of Islamic Countries makes a formal demand, and if it is shown certain evidence of a linkbetween the WTC and bin Laden. In Pakistan, foreign minister Abdul Sattar hopes for a miracle.
It is being argued that at least Bush had the decency to ask for bin Laden. Clinton's administrationrained hellfire on Afghanistan on 20 August 1998 without permission from anyone.
Meanwhile the media has begun talking, inevitably, about the madrassas, thoseinstitutions of learning set up in Pakistan to impart theological education. Itis here, we are told, that the hard-core Islamists are being produced, peoplesuch as the Taliban, but also those who are self-proclaimed jehadis in Kashmir,Chechnya and elsewhere. The madrassas, in the eyes of the media and ofUS-Europe, becomes one of the manifestations of evil incarnate, of Islam as thehighest form of contemporary fanaticism and primitivism.
But only last year, an influential US policy analyst and former State Departmentman, Stephen P. Cohen wrote this in the Wall Street Journal (AsianEdition, 23 October 2000): "some madrassas, or religious schools, areexcellent." Admittedly he said that "others are hotbeds for jihadistand radical Islamic movements," but these are only about twelve percent ofthe total. These, he said, "need to be upgraded to offer their students amodern education."
And why shouldn't Cohen, who is in the news again as an expert on fanaticism andSouth Asia, write like this? After all, then presidential candidate G. W. Bush(and vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman) went on and on about faith basededucation, about vouchers and school choice.