Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
Posted by Moonage on 12 Jan 2005 | Tagged as: Conspiracy Theories
From my buddy Hedonistix:
Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?
He is referring to an article in the L.A. Times titled the same as this post.
Here are some snippits:
To even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical, especially in the context of the U.S. media’s supine acceptance of administration claims relating to national security.
Robert Scheer sets his tone immediately of what he thinks of the Bush administration.
Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain’s leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.
And, in the same paragraph, immediately sets the tone of what he thinks of the filmmaker and the Bush administration again.
“The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear,” a three-hour historical film by Adam Curtis recently aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism “is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media.“
While believing Al Qaeda does exist is an article of heretical faith, arguing that it does not exist is coherent.? Am I supposed to read on thinking this article in the LA Times by Robert Scheer is the least bit unbiased?? Oh well, I shall I guess.
Some of the issues raised:
- If Osama bin Laden does, in fact, head a vast international terrorist organization with trained operatives in more than 40 countries, as claimed by Bush, why, despite torture of prisoners, has this administration failed to produce hard evidence of it?
- How can it be that in Britain since 9/11, 664 people have been detained on suspicion of terrorism but only 17 have been found guilty, most of them with no connection to Islamist groups and none who were proven members of Al Qaeda?
- Why have we heard so much frightening talk about “dirty bombs” when experts say it is panic rather than radioactivity that would kill people?
- Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on “Meet the Press” in 2001 that Al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when British and U.S. military forces later found no such thing?
I? could rip this guy to shreds in a heartbeat without even researching.? This stuff is “coherent” and “brilliant”?? Let’s look at a couple, shall we?
What is the “hard” evidence Adam Curtis is looking for?? Airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center and all the supporting evidence that came with it not enough?? That one was admitted to by Osama Bin Laden, his group is called Al Qaeda.? The bombs in Spain not good enough?? Once again, they claimed to be a part of Al Qaeda.? The nightclub bombing in Indonesia was also claimed by Al Qaeda.? That seems pretty hard evidence to me.? It also strikes me as being pretty “vast”.? The guys who bombed the WTC were from the Middle East, and came to the US via Europe.? That’s documented.? That is what we call “hard evidence” here.? The WTC bombing of 1993 led to convictions of Al Qaeda members.? Is that not hard enough?? What set most of 9/11 in motion was the conviction in abstentia of Bin Laden in regards to the the bombing of the USS Cole.? What else does this guy need?
We have heard so much talk about dirty bombs because an Al Qaeda member was captured with plans to build one.? Now, the question I have is, what difference does it make if people are hurt by the bomb itself or hurt by the panic the bomb causes?? I mean really, Mr. Curtis and Mr. Scheer, if you got killed because someone set off a dirty bomb, do you really care if it was because of the bomb or the panic caused by it?? Give me a freakin break.
There have been mistakes made in regards to intelligence regarding Al Qaeda, lots of it.? Ask George Tenet what the consequences of giving Rumsfeld bad info is.? Does Curtis or Scheer mention the fact that the CIA has been turned upside down and inside out because of that bad intelligence regarding Al Qaeda?? Huh?? Do they?
Of course, the documentary does not doubt that an embittered, well-connected and wealthy Saudi man named Osama bin Laden helped finance various affinity groups of Islamist fanatics that have engaged in terror, including the 9/11 attacks. Nor does it challenge the notion that a terrifying version of fundamentalist Islam has led to gruesome spates of violence throughout the world. But the film, both more sober and more deeply provocative than Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” directly challenges the conventional wisdom by making a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda.
No one has made the claim that all terrorism is controlled by Al Qaeda.? I challenge Mr. Curtis or Mr. Scheer to show any evidence at all to the claim they are making, which is the basis of the movie.? The reason Bush has a fanatical drive to get Osama Bin Laden is because of the two thousand plus casualties of 9/11.? That’s good enough for him, and that is good enough for me.? Scheer attempts to pigeonhole anyone who supports the drive to get Bin Laden as a Machiavellian neo-conservative.? Typical myopic liberalism at its best.
Either Scheer or Curtis then makes this profound claim:
Terrorism is deeply threatening, but it appears to be a much more fragmented and complex phenomenon than the octopus-network image of Al Qaeda, with Bin Laden as its head, would suggest.
Well, duh.? We went into Iraq in an effort to attack the support of terrorism.? No one ever made the claim we went in to get Al Qaeda.
While the BBC documentary acknowledges that the threat of terrorism is both real and growing, it disagrees that the threat is centralized:
If Scheer was worth a grain of salt, he’d know that no one has made the claim that terrorism is centralized.? The US isn’t attacking just Al Qaeda, it’s attacking all known terrorist threats.? No one has been detained for being a member of Al Qaeda, but, lots of people have been detained for suspicion of terrorist activities.
Wherever one looks for this Al Qaeda organization, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the ’sleeper cells’ in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.”
What’ the difference between Al Qaeda and a terrorist?? What difference does it make?
And Scheer finishes up with this:
The fact is, despite the efforts of several government commissions and a vast army of investigators, we still do not have a credible narrative of a “war on terror” that is being fought in the shadows.
Consider, for example, that neither the 9/11 commission nor any court of law has been able to directly take evidence from the key post-9/11 terror detainees held by the United States. Everything we know comes from two sides that both have a great stake in exaggerating the threat posed by Al Qaeda: the terrorists themselves and the military and intelligence agencies that have a vested interest in maintaining the facade of an overwhelmingly dangerous enemy.
Such a state of national ignorance about an endless war is, as “The Power of Nightmares” makes clear, simply unacceptable in a functioning democracy.
What Adam Curtis did was mis-state what the war on terror is and then run with that.? For Scheer to ignore all the blatantly obvious gaffes Curtis makes in this effort to give it substance just tells me that Scheer has the same bias Curtis had before he made the movie.? Here’s some of Scheer’s other editorial headlines:
Recent Columns:
January 11, 2005
Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?January 11, 2005
Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?January 4, 2005
Backing Gonzales Is Backing Torture
Is there bipartisan congressional support for torture?December 28, 2004
A Devil’s Island for Our Times
It is time to invade Cuba and put an end to what has become another Devil’s Island in the annals of government-sanctioned torture. The barbaric treatment of political prisoners on the island is made no more palatable by being conducted in the name of an ideology that claims to be liberating the world from its shackles.December 21, 2004
The GOP’s Sabotage of Social Security
Just my luck: I finally get to be a senior citizen only to discover that the president considers my longevity a grave threat to the nation. Apparently, my collecting Social Security checks for as long as I have left on this Earth is going to help bankrupt the economy and/or be an unbearable burden on young Americans.December 14, 2004
Kerik’s ‘Nannygate’ Was the Least of It
How revealing that the nomination of Bernard Kerik as Homeland Security chief should be derailed not by the former New York City police commissioner’s alleged violations of conflict-of-interest laws, mob connections and post-9/11 security industry profiteering, but rather by his rueful admission that he paid no taxes for his “illegal immigrant” baby-sitter.December 7, 2004
Pakistan and the True WMD Threat
If it had been even a primitive nuclear weapon that hit the World Trade Center three years ago, hundreds of thousands of people would have died instead of fewer than 3,000, and the free society we enjoy almost certainly would have been a casualty as well. In the shock of that moment, the administration probably would have created a national network of detention camps for suspected terrorists, and military retaliation might have included the launch of nuclear missiles with the capability of killing millions. All of which is exactly why it was so terrifying to read in an investigative article in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday that our “allies” in Pakistan, who have done so much to spread nuclear weapons technology in recent years, are still capable of doing so.November 30, 2004
The Invisible Hand Holds the Remote
What does it mean that a whopping 70% of Americans, according to a recent New York Times-CBS News poll, believe that mass culture is responsible for debasing our moral values? It means, if the poll is accurate, that we are a nation of lascivious hypocrites. In fact, the lure of sin, as represented by Hollywood and the entertainment industry, is as tempting to Americans today as apples ever were to Adam and Eve.November 23, 2004
Cultivating Opium, Not Democracy
Why am I such a party pooper? Trust me, I desperately want to be like those happy-go-lucky folks in the red states who apparently think things are hurtling along just fine. Unfortunately, the facts keep bridling my optimism.November 16, 2004
The Peter Principle and the Neocon Coup
The bloodletting has begun.
I would have felt much better about Scheer if he had headlined this article something to the effect of “I hate Bush and so does Adam Curtis, give him money so we can hate Bush even more”.? But, he didn’t do that.? He wrote a conspiracy theory under the guise of being a movie critic critiquing a conspiracy theory.
The only real conspiracy here is how did this guy get a job with the L. A. Times?? Someone fill him in please, the war on terror IS The War on Terror, it is not the War on Al Qaeda.? And, if Scheer or Curtis had spent five minutes researching this topic instead of reearching only how to bash Bush, they’d both realize a war on Al Qaeda is not a war on one group in the first place.? These guys are dangerously stupid.? Someone tell them to google “Mujahideen”.? Then maybe they’ll get it.? But, I seriously doubt it.? Some people’s politics are much deeper than their sense of preservation.
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