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ahmad Shah Massoud

Spirit of `The Lion' needed in cartoon controversy

By Judi McLeod
Monday, February 13, 2006

a true pity that the spirit of ahmad Shah Massoud isn't being invoked to shine on the current cartoon controversy.

Massoud is an inspirational hero; a Muslim hero and one who undoubtedly worshipped the Prophet Muhammad.

So powerful was this leader of the afghan resistance to the Taliban, that he wittingly earned the hatred of the treacherous and evil Osama bin Laden. In fact, before bin Laden carried out the carnage of 9/11, he first sent suicide bombers posing as journalists to kill Massoud on September 9, 2001.

Lamenting his death, Sebastian Junger, celebrated author of The Perfect Storm, who had spent a month with anti-Taliban warrior Massoud in 2000, had this to say about him: "ahmad Shah Massoud–hero of the war against the Soviets, implacable foe of the Taliban regime–passed from this life in the back of a battered Land Cruiser, racing through the mountains of afghanistan. It was a sadly fitting end for a man whose life had been entirely dominated by war."

…"It seemed to me that Osama bin Laden had ordered the attempt on Massoud's life before going ahead with his attacks on New York and Washington. He would not have dared provoke the United States the way he had, I believed, were Massoud still alive to make use of the military aid that might have finally been offered to him.

…"Massoud–who loathed the extremism of the Taliban as much as he did the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union–once told me he was fighting not only for a free afghanistan but for a free world. There was something about him–the slow nod of his head as he listened to a question, the exhaustion and curiosity engraved on his handsome, haggard face–that made it clear we were in the presence of an extraordinary man."

How proud he must have been to see the long column of Soviet tanks and trucks leaving Kabul in 1989. Thanks largely to Massoud, dubbed the Lion of the Panjir for his legendary battles against them, the dreaded Russian Red army left afghanistan in humiliating, world-watching defeat.

The West won relief from the Soviet threat, in part courtesy of Massoud.

The Taliban providing shelter for al Qaeda in afghanistan could never feel safe as long as the Lion was still in his stride.

Only months before his assassination, this mujahideen hero, Vice President of the Islamic State of afghanistan and steadfast leader for the Northern alliance against the Taliban, addressed the European parliament in Strasbourg France.

Massoud, who studied architecture and was an avid lifelong reader of Persian poetry, fought the Soviets even after ridding his country of them. In a CNN interview he said, …"and another matter I would like to mention (is that) when the communists took power, they wanted to inculcate their godless, atheist ideas into people. This was their motto, but the people of afghanistan knew their true faces."

The September 9 death of this hero was understandably eclipsed by the tragedy of September 11, 2001 only two days later.

His simple black marble grave is draped with a green Islamic flag.

But the Lion of Panjir fought against extremism of two kinds with remarkable valour.

Meanwhile, the argument that all Muslims are extremist can never be won by death causing cartoon controversy. It can be won with a single word: "Massoud!"

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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