THE WORLDS MOST DANGEROUS CAT FIGHT

Have you ever been to Iowa? Even if not, you know that it’s a middle-size state, smaller than Wisconsin and a little bigger than Arkansas. Now imagine Iowa with over 140 million people, half of the entire US population.

Then let’s reroute the Mississippi and Missouri rivers so they both run through Iowa and flood the place so much that most Iowans have to build their homes on stilts. To complete the picture, let’s say these vast swarms of Iowans are as poor and uneducated as Appalachian trailer park folk, and, oh yes – they are Moslem.

As you may have guessed, we’re not in Iowa any longer, Toto. We’re in Bangladesh.

The only time Bangladesh appears on most of our radar scopes, is when we give a passing glance to yet another story of a flood or typhoon wiping out ten thousand villages, or a ferry sinking with ten thousand people drowned, and so forth.

When we think of Moslem countries and terrorist crucibles, other places come to mind like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan. But it’s time to refocus – because there’s a cat fight going on in this land of 140 million Moslem souls that has major implications in the War on Islamofascism.

As with so many other locations on our planet, the story of Bangladesh begins with the colonial idiocy of the British.

Not only did they get intimidated by a Moslem leader, Ali Jinnah, into partitioning the Raj into two countries, India and Pakistan – which Mahatma Gandhi bitterly opposed – they created two Pakistans, East and West, with a thousand miles of India between them. Idiocy is far too kind a description.

The triple partition was in 1947. For over two decades, the Bengalis of East Pakistan were treated as inferior colonial step-children by their Punjabi superiors in West Pakistan. Led by Sheikh Mujib-ur Rahman, founder of the Awami League party, they were able to break away from their imperial masters after a bloody war in 1971.

Rahman was entitled Banglabandhu (Father of Bangladesh – Bangla being the name of the people and language, which the English pronounced as Bengal), and became the new country’s first Prime Minister.

The Banglabandhu was assassinated in 1975 and a general named Zia-ur Rahman (no relation) staged a coup. The Awami League always advocated a secular government with a separation between mosque and state. Not General Zia’s BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party), which was soon in bed with Moslem fundamentalists.

In 1981, the Banglabandhu’s daughter, Hasina Wajid, returned from exile to organize Awami League protests against the Zia dictatorship. Zia was killed in an attempted coup and yet another general, Ershad, seized power. The Islamization continued, with Ershad requiring students learn Arabic and memorize the Koran.

It took Hasina ten years, with several jailings, arrests, and attempts on her life, to secure Ershad’s resignation and elections. But sure enough, the BNP rigged the vote. General Zia’s daughter, Khaleda Zia became Prime Minister.

By 1996, BNP corruption and violence had become intolerable, and finally, Hasina was herself elected Prime Minister. Her first mistake was to let Ershad out of prison. He quickly made a deal with Pakistan’s ISI (the Moslem fundamentalist Inter-Services Intelligence) for a series of bombings and assassinations targeting Awami supporters.

With ISI’s help, the BNP rigged the elections again in 2001 and Khaleda Zia is PM once more.

This August, Hasina narrowly escaped the latest attempt on her life. The ISI has now shifted its terrorist training camps and relocated Kashmiri militants to Bangladesh. Warnings that Bangladesh could become “a platform for international terror” are being quietly circulated by our State Department.

Western journalists are describing the country’s ills as caused by personal hatred and rivalry between Khaleda and Hasina. But this is far more than an obscure cat fight. It is the world’s most dangerous cat fight.

Bangladesh is on the brink of violent chaos and embracing rabid Moslem fanaticism. We’ll soon see America coordinating an effort with India, Singapore, Thailand, and other Asian neighbors to support Hasima and the secular Awami League in replacing pro-terrorist demagoguery with democracy.

The possibility of 140 million folks going around the Radical Moslem bend gives this effort a special urgency.

Perhaps now you’ll give the next story about Bangladesh that comes your way a little more than a passing glance.