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Collins's odyssey is recorded in his memoir My Jihad, a bluntly written adventure tale of one man's war against the infidels. Collins was the product of a difficult childhood (by which I mean, "mother killed by Samoan gang members in a drug deal gone wrong" kind of difficult), and he found himself in a variety of penal institutions throughout his youth. One Saturday morning while watching television in the California Youth Authority system he was invited to attend the Muslim chapel. "If I went to see what this was about I would miss Soul Train," he writes, "but I figured what the hell, something new always helps." He was the only white man there, but since the Aryan Brotherhood had a price on his head for not joining up with them, he was accepted. A few weeks later he converted, and four months after that, while on parole, he embarked on his jihad. Collins writes that "Jihad is the highest act of faith in Islam," and he exercises his faith with a vengeance. Like many converts, his interpretation tends to the extreme — jihad can mean various types of struggle, but Collins is convinced that he and all Muslims are obligated to fight in defense of the faith wherever it is under attack. When he finally gets a chance to do battle in Chechnya, his evident desire to be a martyr leads him into so much danger he earns the nickname "the crazy American." He is constantly looking for ways to engage the Russians, whether under orders or not. When some village elders in Chechnya take exception to his ad hoc killings, he dismisses them as "no better than collaborators." This is the problem of the committed convert on a personal quest — he can always go home or move on, but the people of Nozhai-Yurt have to live there. A few years later parenthood tempers Collins's sacrificial desires. Finding himself in a suicidal defensive position during the second Chechen war, he thinks less of martyrdom and more of his infant son Saifudeen ("Sword of the Religion") back in Phoenix, with one of his two wives. Wherever he goes Collins runs into veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war ("the golden age of twentieth century jihad"), who provided the cadres for similar insurgencies in Muslim lands worldwide. You get a good sense of the scope of the mujahedin network, and a few infamous names pop up. In Afghanistan, Collins pals around with Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheihk, who is currently on trial for the kidnapping and execution of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. In Azerbaijan he meets a bin Laden associate known as Abu Amin, who facilitates many of his adventures before they have a falling out. (I don't know if this is the same Abu Amin as the Iraqi agent who allegedly met with Mohammed Atta in Prague, but if so it is smoking-gun material.) He also encounters Abu Zubair al-Haili, a bin Laden commander, whereabouts currently unknown, and Saudi-born Chechen field commander Ibn ul Khattab (recently assassinated by the Russians). Like many such memoirs, the book is largely episodic, which can be distracting. Tales begin and then trail off inconclusively. The reader is treated to dozens of trips, by car, truck, van, on foot — mission on, mission off — border crossings, road blocks, smuggling, bribes — one gets the idea that 90 percent of jihad is just getting there. One also learns that among the downsides of being an international guerrilla fighter is the toll it takes on your health. Collins falls prey to reactive arthritis, dysentery, appendicitis, and various effects of combat. After one violent encounter, he voluntarily has his mangled leg amputated because he figures (correctly, it turns out) that he could run faster with a prosthesis. And his appendectomy in a Chechen field hospital while knocked out on horse tranquilizer only reminds us how lucky we are the Clinton health plan failed. Eventually Collins begins working with the FBI — the Phoenix office no less — which begins his disillusionment with the American government. He admires some of the FBI agents but has nothing but contempt for the CIA, whom he claims "made the Arabs look like they had their sh-t together." While in Arizona he runs into various characters including Hani Saleh Hanjoor, a Saudi flight student who later turns up on American Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Apparently, there was a whole nest of Arabs in flight training, living openly, and with full knowledge of the FBI, so he alleges. Hanjoor was a "hanky panky" Muslim, who was barely observant and "couldn't even spell jihad." This is one of the facts that make him suspicious about the government's case against the more observant Muslim radicals. In fact, Collins is skeptical that there really is a war on terrorism. He can't prove anything, but he doubts that the events of September 11 have been accurately portrayed. He contends that the United States is the captive of a Bush-inspired witch-hunt mentality, similar to McCarthyism, in which "the mujahedeen have been tried in the court of public opinion and have been found guilty by association." Real Muslim warriors don't kill civilians — Collins stresses that his jihad was with the Russian soldiers. He writes of the November 17, 1997 Luxor massacre, "I was fighting the Russian army and shedding blood in the defense of Islam, [and] a bunch of cowards in Egypt were killing old ladies and kids in the name of jihad." He repeatedly makes the point that killing civilians is terrorism, and his definition conforms to that of most terrorism experts, isolating the dividing line between the guerrilla warrior and the simple terrorist criminal. But clearly views of the nature of jihad can differ — bin Laden's 1998 fatwa calling for the death of all Americans everywhere was fairly unambiguous. There is a pervasive sense of hopelessness in this book. Death is a constant presence, implied, impending or actual. Collins kills or witnesses killings many times, and the descriptions are not for the faint hearted. Corruption, cynicism, and criminality are everywhere. And there is no sense of nobility even among the mujahedin — the brotherhood of the jihad is not what it's cracked up to be. Infighting and back-stabbing (or -shooting) is a normal part of doing business. Collins has a great deal of respect for Khattab, that is until he is betrayed by Khattab's men. About halfway through the book, when he learns about a mujahed who is diverting humanitarian relief to his own purposes, he is crestfallen. "I was starting to see there was a shady side to just about everyone and everything." It seems as though Collins is the only sincere Muslim around. As for the Americans, the chapter "How the CIA Betrayed Me" speaks for itself. But there are moments of humor. When Janet Reno pulls the plug on an operation he helped put together to bring Arab fighters to Arizona for training where they could be watched and their networks infiltrated, he demands, "Call the bitch and let me talk to her!" And occasionally one is struck by Collins' unique perspective on events, passages that remind you he is coming at life from another direction entirely. For example, he describes a 4th of July picnic with some FBI, CIA, and other agents: "Though I guess people are people, it felt as though I'd walked into some kind of bizarro world." Why? Because a guy like him was at a picnic like that? Or because he couldn't imagine members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities grilling hamburgers, relaxing, talking about sports? And several times Collins mentions how things "started to get weird" long after most people would have concluded his whole life is to say the least unusual. Today Collins is a bounty hunter specializing in south-of-the-border apprehensions, "a description of which," he promises, "would require at least another book." Readers who want some insight into the lives and motives of John Walker Lindh or Jose Padilla might benefit from reading My Jihad, and I particularly recommend it to any potential jurors out there for those long nights in sequestration. — James S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor. |
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ukai
Collins was into jihad before it was cool. He left San Diego in 1993 and
traveled to Pakistan to join the mujahedin, trained while in Kashmir,
then headed to the Khalid Bin Whalid training camp in Afghanistan (in
the same area the United States attacked in August of 1998). He fought
Russians in Chechnya and Serbs in Kosovo, worked for the FBI and CIA,
and almost got to meet Osama bin Laden. But unlike John Walker Lindh or
Jose Padilla, Collins got out of the holy war business, and just in time.
