January 21, 2008:
In late 1966, Ernesto
Guevara de la Serna (1928-1967) arrived in Bolivia. "Che," the nickname by which he is generally
known, was a seasoned revolutionary with a global reputation. An Argentinean, Che was a physician, but had
become active in leftist circles in the early 1950s, even spending some time as
an insurgent in Guatemala after the CIA overthrew the Arbenz regime in
1954. In 1955 he met Fidel Castro, then
an unsuccessful Cuban revolutionary just out of jail due to an amnesty. The two hit it off, and Che, who had a real
talent for organizing, training, and leading insurgents, played a crucial role
in the guerrilla campaign that put Castro in control of Cuba on New Year's Day
in 1959.
In 1964, Che, by then international
revolutionary "star," disappeared from public view. Over the next couple of years he turned up
advising guerrilla movements in the Congo, Mozambique, and other
countries. This was connected to Che's
"foco" strategy, that is, using small cadres of revolutionaries to act as focal
points for local dissidents to promote the creation of "a hundred Vietnams" all over the world that
would ultimately destroy the capitalist system in favor a socialist
paradise. His 1966 arrival in Bolivia was
another step in this campaign.
But Che's campaign in Bolivia failed,
miserably, and led directly to his death.
After some small success against the Bolivian Army, by September Che's
Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia (National Liberation Army of
Bolivia), was on the run. Che was
captured on October 8th. Although CIA
operative Felix Rodriquez, who had engineered his downfall and admired him as a
wily foe, tried to prevent it, Che was almost immediately executed.
So what does this have to do with al
Qaeda and the Taliban? Actually, several
things. Al Qaeda's strategy against the
West is very similar to Che's "foco" strategy, providing cadres to ignite a
whole series of local Islamist revolutions toward the goal of establishing a
global caliphate. And the outcome of
these efforts has tended to be quite similar to the outcome of Che's efforts,
that is, failure. They reason for
failures can be found in what happened when Che showed up in Bolivia. Although there was already a local communist
insurgency in the country, when Che arrived, his first words were, "Soy el jefe
I am the boss." Che had missed a
critical aspect of the success of the Cuban Revolution. Although he had played
a major role in that movement, its leadership was very definitely Cuban. By claiming to command the revolution in
Bolivia, Che so alienated the local communist leaders, that they failed to
rally to the cause, and may even had aided the government against him.
This has apparently already happened to
al Qaeda's efforts in Indonesia, Kashmir, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and possibly
elsewhere, such as Yemen and some parts of Africa. In all these cases, resentment over the
"foreigners" trying to run the Jihad, men who are often contemptuous of local
custom, has led many groups to openly oppose al Qaeda and even to side with the
government.
There are, of course, some
differences. While Che believed the
"revolutionary struggle" was international, in fact each country gets the
revolution it needs, that is the revolution that's perceived to be needed to
provide the solutions to real or imagined problems. These problems may not be the same as those
of the folks next door or half way 'round the world. This helps explain why it's taken longer for
al Qaeda to lose traction. Islam is a
stronger bond than "worker solidarity."
Eventually, however, tensions do arise between al Qaeda's agents and
local peoples over ethnic identity, cultural background, economic needs,
political objectives, and even religion, Islam having a surprising number of
local varieties that mostly don't conform to al Qaeda's version of the faith.
This is one of the reasons for the
swift downfall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001-2002, since at the time it
relied heavily on al Qaeda "Arab" troops to maintain its authority over the
country. The resurgence of the Taliban
in the past year or two has been due largely to what might be termed a return
to their base, that is, the Pushtun tribes living astride the Afghan-Pakistani
frontier. As the Taliban tries to assert
its influence beyond the Pushtuns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, however, it
may run into the "Soy el jefe" effect" as well.