| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| von_Guo |
Posted - 09/28/2007 : 16:55:13
1979年11月20日，伊斯蘭武裝分子走私武器進入麥加大清真寺---伊斯蘭教聖地---並接管了它。 即使像本書作者在事發當時一名心不在焉的高中生也記得些許往事，但其更廣泛的背景---長期被列管的機密經由本書引人地揭露---至少也與攻擊行動本身一樣地引人入勝。
Trofimov（作者）將1979年的麥加危機置於一些重要、持續發展事件的交叉點上。 沙特武裝分子襲擊時，正當伊朗革命推翻了巴勒維，並如火如荼地引進一個伊斯蘭共和國。 大多數美國人會假設兩個危機息息相關，但它僅是一個偶然。 今天如眾所周知地，沙特阿拉伯本身的官能失調即足以挑起它自己的危機，毋需任何海外的助力。
1979年麥加事件的諸武裝分子屬類賓拉登型之虔誠回教徒，他們供稱厭惡奢華，世俗的沙特阿拉伯王室的品味，並認為佔領神聖麥加清真寺會發出一項有力的聲明。確實，它達到了目的。
卡特政府---已在伊朗革命被趕出場---此刻又面臨失去在盛產石油的波斯灣其最後"支柱"，沙特阿拉伯王國，的威脅。 襲擊清真寺的帶頭者烏提比（Juhayman al Uteybi）是個瘦削，眼神狂野的43歲貝度因（Bedouin）傳道人。 他和他的同夥藉棺木走私AK-47、比利時機槍、額外子彈帶和彈夾進入神聖清真寺。 一旦入內，烏提比撬開棺木，武裝同夥，佔領清真寺，挾持朝聖徒眾作為人質。 隨後出現一個怪異的場景，似乎只有對今天疲累的諸伊拉克觀察家們再熟悉不過： 人質和綁匪腳趾對腳趾站著，互相大喊 “Allahu Akbar!” --- "真主是偉大的！"
這個稍微vaudevillian （？式的）危機引起卡特政府的迫切關注，因為烏提比，像賓拉登一樣，要掃除貪腐的沙特阿拉伯王室而代之以一個虔誠的穆斯林國協（commonwealth），而其將成為億萬穆斯林世界超級大國的一個核心，自然也會斷絕了其向邪惡西方的石油輸出。 卡特指稱整個事件乃一項 "政治性痙攣的恐怖主義（spasm of political terrorism）" ，並派出兩個航母戰鬥群到波斯灣，以阻止伊朗試圖將該痙攣轉變成一場全規模的癲癇（to deter the Iranians from trying to convert the spasm into a full-blown seizure）。
卡特慫恿沙烏地展開反革命的打擊。 一連串的事件被本書作者靈巧地敘述。 首先，國王哈立德（Khalid）促使他的神職人員就範，核准由政府軍依憑一個對武裝份子---惟其顯較沙特王胄更虔敬有加---譴責的回教判決（fatwa）對大清真寺行攻堅，理由是暴徒們攜帶武器進入神聖的清真寺，此舉被一些聰明的神職人員認定違反可蘭經。 隨後人們才發現可蘭經只把異教徒攜帶武器入寺稱做犯罪，所以穆斯林學者又回去工作，並得出結論，認為烏提比和他的武裝分子"舉止像異教徒。"
政府軍士兵邊放槍邊衝鋒闖進了大清真寺，穿過神殿和建築物的走廊追逐綁匪。 主要使用的是手榴彈，其在大理石和水泥材質的會堂內作用甚佳。 當逐一被炸成碎片時，烏提比與其一干"金剛不朽（immortals ）"之身的手下，證明畢竟還是會朽的（mortal）。 C.I.A.幹員也參加了攻擊，為獲准進入天房（Kaaba）而 行改宗伊斯蘭教一天，其為任何異教徒都能輕鬆作出的聲明 "只有阿拉是真主，而穆罕默德是他的先知（there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his Prophet）“。 最後的一股綁匪被由法國總統Valery Giscard d’Estaing ---應哈立德國王的要請---秘密派出的法國特務隊沖洗出來。 他們用CB氣癱瘓或殺死了剩下的激進分子，其曾在藏身處堆起類似硫黃島的最後據點。
沙特下議院奪回了麥加---其日漸式微的主要統治法源---但付出的是一個什麼樣的代價！ 作者認為沙特 "顯示著一個令人生厭、傲慢、殘忍無能、和手足無措忽視事實的混合物" 。 好了，他們不就一向如此嗎？ 但這一回，憤怒的年輕一代如拉登者在冷眼旁觀和焦急懊惱。
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%A1%E5%B7%B4%E5%A4%A9%E6%88%BF
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kaaba1.jpg
卡巴天房
On November 20 1979, Islamist Militants smuggled weapons into the Grand Mosque of Mecca --- Islam’s holiest place --- and took it over. Even greatly distracted high school students like the writer remember that much, but the broader context --- long classified and grippingly revealed by this existing book --- is at least as compelling as the attack itself.
Trofimov places the Meccan crisis of 1979 at the intersection of some key, lasting developments. The Saudi militants struck while the Iranian revolution to depose the Shah and implant an Islamic republic was in full swing. Most Americans assumed a tight connection between the two crises, but it was more of an incidental one. As we all know today, Saudi Arabia is sufficiently dysfunctional to provoke its own crises; it needs no help from abroad.
The militants of 1979 were pious Osama bin Laden types, who professed disgust at the sumptuous, worldly appetites of the Saudi royal family and thought that a takeover of the sacred mosque at Mecca would make a powerful statement. Indeed it did.
The Carter administration --- already reeling from the Iranian revolution --- now confronted a threat to its last remaining “pillar” in the oil-rich Persian Gulf: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The leader of the attack on the Grand Mosque was Juhayman al Uteybi, a skinny, wild-eyed 43-year-old Bedouin preacher. He and his rebels smuggled AK-47s, Belgian machine guns and extra ammo belts and magazines into the sacred mosque in caskets. Once inside, Uteybi broke open the coffins, armed his band, and then took over the mosque, imprisoning the horde of pilgrims as hostages. There ensued a curious scene that would seem only too familiar to weary Iraq-watchers today: hostages and jailers standing toe-to-toe and screaming “Allahu Akbar!” --- “God is Great!” – at each other.
This slightly vaudevillian crisis was of great concern to the Carter administration because Uteybi, like bin Laden, wanted to sweep away the corrupt, rotten Saudi kingdom and replace it with a pious Muslim commonwealth that would become the core of billion-man world Muslim superpower that would naturally refuse its oil to the evil West. Carter called the whole affair “a spasm of political terrorism” and sent two carrier battle groups into the Persian Gulf to deter the Iranians from trying to convert the spasm into a full-blown seizure.
Carter also spurred the Saudis into counter-revolutionary action. The chain of events is deftly described by Trofimov. First King Khalid prevailed upon his clergy to sanction a storming of the Grand Mosque by government troops with a fatwa that condemned the militants --- who were certainly more pious than the Saudi royals --- on the grounds that they had carried weapons into the sacred mosque, which some bright cleric identified as violation of the Koran. Later it was discovered that the Koran only called it a crime for infidels to bring in weapons, so the Muslim scholars went back work and concluded that Uteybi and his militants had “behaved like infidels.”
Government troops shot their way into the Grand Mosque and pursued the rebels through the corridors of the shrines and building. The mainly used hand grenades, which worked well on the marble and cement halls. Uteybi and his “immortals” proved mortal after all, as each of them was blasted to smithereens. C.I.A. operatives joined the attack, gaining entrance to the Kaaba by converting (for a day) to Islam, which any infidel can do simply by declaiming “there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his Prophet.” The last of the rebels were flushed out by a French team secretly dispatched --- at King Khalid’s request --- by President Valery Giscard d’Estaing. They used CB gas to paralyze or kill the last remaining militants, who had holed up to make an Iwo Jima-like last stand.
The House of Saud had retaken Mecca --- the principal source of its waning legitimacy --- but what a price! Trofmov opines that the Saudis “showed a sickening mixture of arrogance, cruel incompetence and bewildering disregard for the truth.” Well hadn’t they always? But this time, angry young men like Osama bin Laden were watching, and stewing.
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