Insight

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When •

The Gathering Storm

From the pages of the Jewish News for
this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.

Former CIA director foresees a long struggle against terrorism.

The Metropolitan Detroit Federation
of Reform Synagogues adopts the
Jewish congregation of the city of
Minsk in the Republic of Belarus.

HARRY KIRSBAUM
Staff Writer

la

clouds gathering," he said of the stu-
dent uprising in Iran.
Woolsey said he believes that the
West will be able to deal with this par-
ticular Islamist movement, "just as we
will be able to deal with the fascists."
He just isn't sure how.

e laid out the situation
matter-of-factly, used his-
torical references and
peered into a bleak future.
James Woolsey, CIA director for for-
mer President Bill Clinton,
spoke of Islamists, fascists —
and a war on terrorism that
could take decades — to a crowd
of 750 at the annual Michigan
AIPAC (American Israel Public
Affairs Committee) event at
Temple Beth El on June 12.
The war on terrorism is
between three enemies, he said.
Fascists, like the Baath party in
Iraq; Shia-Islamists, like the
Mullahs in Iran; and Sunni-
Islamists, like the Wahabi move-
ment in Saudi Arabia and Al
Qaida.
"They hate each other. They
kill each other from time to time
and they insult each other all the
time," he said of the enemies he
compares to three Mafia families.
"But they're perfectly capable of
Ex-CIA chief James Woolsey address the local
working together where it is neces- AIPAC event.
sary in order to bring as much
peril and death and destruction as
War To The Death
they can to Israel and the United
The biggest worry he has is with the
States and the Western world in gen-
eral.
Islamist Sunnis.
"I fear we will be in this war for
The Wahabi movement has been
many years," he said, grimly.
around since the 18th century, and
aligned in one way or another with
"Hopefully, not as long as the Cold
War of 4 1 / decades, but decades."
the House of Saud, he said. The
Saudis struck a "Faustian bargain"
His grim observations are those of
with the Wahabis in the mid-1980's:
an insider, someone who held the
Go ahead and set up madrassas that
world's secrets for a time.
teach hatred of Christians and Jews;
The Shia side of Islam has generally
print your textbooks for the
had a history and tradition of not
Indonesian school children teaching
mixing mosque and state, he said. Not
them to hate; go ahead, just leave the
until Ayatollah Khomeni was in exile
Saudi royal family alone.
in the 1970s did the notion of the
The war against the Islamist Sunnis
rule of the clerics appear, causing the
won't end the way the Cold War
theocracy that now rips Iran.
ended, he said. "It's not going to end
"If these mullahs, Khamenei,
with arms control agreements. It's not
Rafsanjani and the others, have a
going to end with an Al Qaida
brain cell working they will look out
Gorbachev. It's not going to end with
on the horizon and see the storm

Islamist perestroika," he said. "This is a
war to the death. We need to get this
into our heads and fight it that way."
The United States has not dealt
firmly enough with these enemies in
the past 25 years, starting with evacu-
ating Beirut in the early 1980s when
the embassy and Marine barracks were
blown up, he said. "We have
effectively hung a 'kick me' sign
on our backs."
In 1991, the United States
allowed Saddam Hussein's
Republican Guard to slaughter
the Kurds, he said. "We effec-
tively told the people in the
Middle East that we really don't
care about you once the oil
from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
is secure.
"If you were an Al Qaida
member, Baath member or rul-
ing elite in Iran — if you took
a hard look at over 20 years of
history — you would say about
the United States, 'This rich
spoiled feckless country will not
fight,"' he said.
The war on terrorism
includes not only defeating
these three groups, but making
changes as profound as those that
Europe has undergone in the last
86 years. After three world wars, two
hot and one cold, Europe — except
for Belarus and Ukraine — is effec-
tively democratic.
"We convinced people over the
years that this was not a clash of civi-
lization, not a clash of countries. This
was a war of freedom against tyranny
and we were on their side," he said.
"We have to do the same thing in the
Muslim world."
He spoke of years of terrorism, of
setbacks and lots of death and killing.
"This is not an easy path," he said.
"However, it is the only one that is
really available."
As CIA director, Woolsey once held
the world's secrets. Now he's telling us
what's ahead, and that is most fright-
ening. ❑

1993

Julie A. Borim is installed as presi-
dent of the Jewish Welfare
Federation's Junior Division at its
recent annual meeting.
Flora Miller Winton is elected
the first woman president of
Temple Beth El at its annual meet-
ing.

1073

A three-acre park abutting the
Detroit River in Trenton is named
the Meyer Elias Memorial Park to
honor the community leadership of
the former Palestine Colony farmer.

1963

The Temple Israel Choral group,
under the direction of Cantor Harold
Orbach, will represent Jewry in the
special religious freedom observance
held as part of the International
Freedom Festival in Detroit.
Rabbi Irwin Groner, assistant
rabbi of Congregation Shaarey
Zedek, is appointed chairman of
the youth commission of Central
Region United Synagogue Youth.

1963

Groundbreaking ceremonies take
place for a new unit at the Jewish
Home for Aged in Detroit that will
bring expanded kitchen and dining
facilities.

Detroit Judge Harry B. Keidan of
Wayne County Circuit Court is hon-
ored at Wayne University commence-
ment with a Doctor of Laws degree.
Temple Israel purchases land near
Palmer Park in Detroit where a syn-
agogue will be built as soon as
wartime conditions allow.

— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Rabbi Leo M Franklin
Archives of Temple Beth El

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6/27
2003

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