www.politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html
The making of the terror myth
Since September 11 Britain has been warned of the 'inevitability' of catastrophic
terrorist attack. But has the danger been exaggerated? A major new TV
documentary claims that the perceived threat is a politically
driven fantasy - and al-Qaida a dark illusion. Andy Beckett reports
Friday October 15, 2004 The Guardian
In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now
they promise to protect us from nightmares.
The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror
network. But just as the dreams were not true, neither are these nightmares.
In a new series, the Power of Nightmares explores how the idea that we
are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion.
It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security
services and the international media.
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neo-conservatives
and the radical Islamists.
Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream
to build a better world.
“Throughout the world ... its agents, client states and satellites
are on the defensive -- on the moral defensive, the intellectual defensive,
and the political and economic defensive. Freedom movements arise and
assert themselves. They're doing so on almost every continent populated
by man -- in the hills of Afghanistan, in Angola, in Kampuchea, in Central
America ... [They are] freedom fighters.”
- President Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1985 www.conspiracyarchive.com/Archive/CIA_Created_Osama.htm
"Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation
of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was
Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because
I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years:
every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaida has been penetrated by
American intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian
intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required
such a degree of organisation and sophistication."
`There isn't a target in Afghanistan worth a $1m missile'
Mohamed Heikal 10 October 2001 The Guardian
www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/Heikal.html
an insightful article that starts with the death of the FBI's chief counter-terrorist
(John O'Neill)
in the WTC attack. O'Neill had recently quit the FBI in frustration that
his investigations into al-Qaeda were being blocked by the administration,
and had just started a new job as Security Director for the WTC complex.
Recommended reading for an insight into how "intelligence"
operations work, and a probable explanation of what actually happened.
Monday, December 06, 2004
'Reality Is a Construction...': Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth
Movement
Look closer at 9/11 and it seems likely Mohamed Atta was a double
agent, playing both sides. Look at Daniel Hopsicker’s work in
Florida, that tracks Atta’s moves in strip clubs and cocaine bars.
How did Atta get in this country twice without a visa? The guy had juice.
Or look at Professor Peter Dale Scott’s excellent excoriation
of the 9/11 Commission Report, called “How to Stop Terrorism.”
Al Qaeda chieftain Ali Mohamed was “almost certainly an out-of-control
informant for the FBI.” Scott backs this up with sources and the
paper trail. Ali Mohamed is the guy who photographed the Kenyan embassy
that Al Qaeda then bombed. He’s an Al Qaeda mastermind, and like,
Atta, is also Egyptian. I wonder which one of these guys was that “mole”
that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was referring to when in Fall,
2001 he told newspapers Egyptian intelligence and Mubarak himself warned
the US about 9/11.
So, I think the question is a little bit off, because you’re suggesting
this country (USA) may have been foiled by its own arrogance and its
racist assumption that the terrorists couldn’t have pulled this
off, right? Well, what I’m saying is that the $400 billion
a year war machine and the $40 billion a year intelligence machine had
its paw prints all over these guys. They didn’t underestimate
them. They allowed these guys to get riled up for a cause, and then
do something that would in the end, hurt that cause greatly. Because
it would justify a US military expansion.
The real racist tragedy is when you have 9/11 people who know nothing
about history or foreign policy or politics who advance theories that
completely ignore smoking guns, like the CIA/ISI connection. Their theories
tend to veer into the esoteric. Really imaginative territory, like the
“In Plane Sight” video. I’m
not sure who they blame, they seem to think that the attack originated
deep inside the war machine itself. But Arab anger is real.
The real trick is to not only see it, but to understand it, and then
to understand how it could have been manipulated. In the end,
double agent Atta swore allegiance to Bin Laden, and that’s who
he died for. He cared very deeply about the Palestinian “homeland”
as he called it. If he did have US intel connections, as the evidence
shows, he was probably thinking he could play both sides and then have
it blow up in our face. What he didn’t figure is his handlers
were one step ahead of him.
January 2021, 2006 -- What's not right about the Osama Bin Laden audio
tape. One thing that the Bush administration does well is manage perceptions
of the public. Amid protests over the NSA wiretapping, the extension
of the Patriot Act, and the nomination of neo-Fascist Samuel Alito to
the Supreme Court, an audio tape on Osama Bin Laden is sent to Al Jazzera.
On the tape, Bin Laden suddenly veers from being a traditional right-wing
Wahhabi fanatic to the right of the House of Saud to a leftist progressive.
The tape by Bin Laden was quickly verified as "authentic"
by a CIA that is now firmly in the grasp of neo-cons under Porter Goss.
However, the tape is an obvious fake being used by the Bush administration
to scare Americans into believing "Al Qaeda" is making plans
for another attack and an attempt to link Bin Laden to Democrats.
The reason the tape is as phony as Niger yellowcake documents and Saddam's
weapons of mass destruction is as plain as day. "Bin Laden"
allegedly quotes from the introduction of a book written by long-time
Washington, DC progressive author and journalist and a friend of mine,
Bill Blum. Bill was once an editor and contributor to Covert Action
Quarterly, a magazine devoted to exposing CIA operations like the arming,
funding, and training of Bin Laden and his mujaheddin guerrillas during
the Afghan-Soviet war.
The Bush perception managers are either incredibly stupid or are trying
to ensnare liberal journalists as aiders and abettors of Al Qaeda, something
that is certainly within their scope. Bin Laden allegedly quotes the
following passage from Blum's book, Rogue State: "If you (Americans)
are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered
you. And if Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then
it would be useful for you to read the book Rogue State, which states
in its introduction: 'If I were president, I would stop the attacks
on the United States: First I would give an apology to all the widows
and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that
American interference in the nations of the world has ended once and
for all.'" However, this quote is not from Rogue State, again,
pointing to a very bad forgery of the Bin Laden audiotape. No sooner
had the alleged Bin Laden tape been released, neo-con activist Cliff
Kincaid was already spinning nonsense about Blum and his publisher,
Common Courage Press of Monroe, Maine, being part of some sort of pro-Bin
Laden progressive and liberal "Fifth Columnist" grouping in
the United States.
Bin Laden might not be so eager to quote Blum if he was aware of his
other work, Killing Hope, an expose of the CIA's covert wars. In it,
Blum defends to Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as self-defense against
the CIA-backed Islamist guerrillas, including Bin Laden's forces, that
were backed by the CIA. Now, why would Bin Laden plug an author like
Blum who backed Bin Laden's hated enemies, the Soviet Communists and
their Afghan allies? Because the Bin Laden tape and his purported oratory
are frauds. In Killing Hope, this is what Blum wrote about Bin Laden
and his CIA masters' war in Afghanistan:
"The new government under President Taraki declared a commitment
to Islam within a secular state, and to non-alignment in foreign affairs.
It said the coup was not foreign inspired and that they were not Communists
but rather nationalists and revolutionaries. They pushed radical reforms,
they talked about class struggle, they used anti-imperialist rhetoric,
they supported Cuba, they signed a friendship treaty and other cooperative
agreements with the Soviets and they increased the number of Soviet
civilian and military advisers in Afghanistan.... In May 1979, British
political scientist Fred Halliday said 'probably more has changed in
the countryside over the last year than in the two centuries since the
state was established.'
In March 1979, Afghan President Taraki visited Moscow to request Soviet
help to fight the mujahideen. The Soviets did promise some military
aid, but they would not commit ground troops. As Soviet Premier Alexei
Kosygin told Taraki: 'The entry of our troops into Afghanistan would
outrage the international community, triggering a string of extremely
negative consequences. Our common enemies are just waiting for the moment
when Soviet troops appear in Afghanistan. This will give them the excuse
they need to send armed bands into the country.'
. . . prior to the Soviet invasion, the CIA had been beaming radio propaganda
into Afghanistan and cultivating alliances with exiled Afghan guerrilla
leaders by donating medicine and communications equipment. U.S. foreign
service officers had been meeting with Mujahideen leaders to determine
their needs at least as early as April 1979. And, in July, President
Carter had signed a 'finding' to aid the rebels covertly, which led
to the U.S. providing them with cash, weapons, equipment and supplies,
and engaging in propaganda and other psychological operations in Afghanistan
on their behalf."
So, we're now supposed to believe that Bin Laden has come around to
plug the book written by an author who demonstrated that the Soviet
cause in Afghanistan was for self-defense and in furtherance of the
well-being of the Afghan people and that Bin Laden's and his mujaheddin
compatriots' cause was anti-progressive and destabilizing to the central
Asian region? This would be laughable if it were not for the fact that
the neo-cons are once again using the Big Lie to further their ambitions
of global domination and worldwide fascism. The 911 attacks are beginning
to look more and more like the Reichstag Fire, both engineered to bring
about fascist control.
this message was written on 9/11/2001 ...
one of the more interesting early analyses
Peeling the Onion of 9/11
Dear Friends,
I have always reserved this email list for information related to
low frequency active sonar. Today, however, is a very different day
in so many ways that I have decided to share with you a message I received.
As some of you may know, I served as legal counsel at the Christic Institute
during the 1980s. The major case we pursued was a racketeering case
against the private, off-the-shelf, covert operators conducting the
Iran-contra operation [orchestrated by George Bush].
During that litigation, I got a good look at the dark side of the U.S.
democratic experiment. To summarize that perspective, the commitment
to democracy unleashed great creative potential for innovation that
in turn produced massive wealth. The commitment to democracy then got
lost in the pursuit of materialism. The large corporations received
recognition in the law as persons, their contributions polluted the
democratic process, the government became an extension of their blind
advocacy of an unlimited right to devour the Earth's resources, and
the military-industrial-intelligence complex became a second government
within the government holding more power than the publicly presented
government.
To preserve and enhance the national security state, things were done
supposedly in the interest of the American people that the people knew
nothing about and not have approved had they known. Death squads, assassinations,
subversion of indigenous movements, overthrow of democratically elected
governments, and other manifestations of the national security state
agenda took place out of sight. Only occasionally did these actions
surface, such as Cointelpro conducted
by the FBI to discredit and destroy dissenting groups.
A dream image captured the essence of what was happening. I was watching
people sitting on the ground picnicking with their families while a
band played happy music in a nearby bandstand. Behind the picnickers
was a high, black wall that the people did not notice. Every now and
then, a figure would slip out from under the wall, go out into the world
and perform some abominable act, and then slip back again - all without
anyone noticing. That is what U.S. history looks like when you step
back and objectively observe what has been done.
Outside dreamtime, our investigation into the history of U.S. covert
operations revealed the patterns of behavior that manifest in such events
as Iran-contra. During the Iran-contra involvement, I met various people inside
the intelligence establishment who continued to struggle to prevent
the abuses that were bringing the U.S. into disrepute throughout the
world. This evening, I received a message from one of those people regarding
the events unfolding today. I neither reject nor embrace the analysis
set forth in the message. Ever since the Iran-contra investigation,
I have kept an open mind regarding how to interpret unfolding events
that are often very different from what they seem on the surface.
I send you this message to provide you with a perspective that you will
not hear or see on CNN or any other major media outlet. In times like
these, it is even more important to keep our wits about us and not be
sucked into anyone else's script, even this one.
Aloha,
Lanny Sinkin
11:00 p.m.; 9/11/01
"Aloha to you my friend,
I know that the many discoveries and lessons we shared during the Christic
investigation are still fresh in your memory. I have applied our analytical
technique to the events unfolding today and thought you might enjoy the
musings that resulted.
There is always the onion. You peel off one layer and there is another
layer underneath. I think Warren Christopher sought to encourage such
peeling on CNN today. He said that while we may rush to conclude the bin
Laden is the author of the events, it is important to dig deeper
than that surface analysis to find the true perpetrators. As
with most of the liberal Democrats, Christopher is not going to come right
out and say what he thinks he knows. After all, during Iran-contra, when
Congressman Jack Brooks of Texas asked Oliver North about his plan to
suspend the U.S. Constitution (hatched inside
FEMA), it was liberal Democrat Daniel Inouye who cut off the question
and shuffled that subject off into executive session.
Let's start with the Taliban. Russia invades Afghanistan. The CIA is
loosed to fight them. Actually, as you know, the CIA is simply the visible
agency for the much larger group of agencies that conduct U.S. covert
policies and that are in turn part of an international network of covert
organizations pursuing common policies in many instances. The CIA looks
for a group that will meet certain criteria, such as fanatical enough
to conduct a guerilla war, disciplined, hardy, and amenable to outside
support to fulfill their perceived mission. Enter the Taliban, a relatively
obscure group preaching a fanatical version of Islam that bears little
resemblance to the actual religious teachings and is rejected by most
Islamic movements. The value of their beliefs is that the Russians fit
their model of the unbeliever, who must be destroyed. On the border near
Pakistan, they are available. Kissinger had already put the "tilt
toward Pakistan" in motion. So the onion now has three layers - U.S./CIA,
Pakistan, Taliban. Arming, training, and supplying the Taliban through
Pakistan, the CIA experiences a rare success. The Taliban and others inflict
so much damage on the Russian forces that Russian public opinion (similar
to U.S. public opinion during Vietnam) turns against the war and forces
Russia to withdraw.
Now armed and dangerous, the Taliban turn their guns on competing groups
within Afghanistan and rise to national dominance. Women, foreign missionaries,
and other groups not holding a sufficiently holy place to be considered
righteous become targets of Taliban fanaticism. Ben Laden is considered
a true believer with the resources to do a lot of harm to the unrighteous
and finds a home in Afghanistan.
To the onion now has four layers: U.S./CIA; Pakistan; Taliban;
Ben Laden.
The final layer of the onion is the semi-independent cells with the
Laden network. Even better would be to have sent recruits in to Laden
to form such cells that would actually operate under control external
to Laden.
Enter Bush and Company. With practically all the judges on the federal
bench now appointees of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush (the elder), stealing
an election through the Supreme Court is a piece of cake. The Iran-contra
gang comes storming back into power. The appointment of Richard Armitage
as Deputy Secretary of State is like a rooster crowing in terms of announcing
who is in charge. Colin Powell is window dressing.
The old gang sets about doing what they always wanted to do (loot and
pillage) and undoing what they always wanted undone (environmental protection,
civil rights, etc.) They follow the old axiom of do everything controversial
you can in the first months of office to give people time to forget. Withdrawing
from the Kyoto Treaty, leaving arsenic in the water, violating and then
withdrawing from the ABM treaty, promulgating a "reward your friends"
energy policy, etc. all will predictably lead to an alienation of the
electorate.
Sure enough, the opposition begins to strengthen. Your campaign to stop
deployment of low frequency active sonar is only one of many campaigns
that have mobilized people, fattened the coffers of opposition organizations,
and produced a greater willingness to challenge the actions of the government.
The next step is to powerfully impact the emotional body of the electorate
and cause the nation to rally behind the President and the military.
The Gulf War model is not readily available. You remember how U.S. Ambassador
April Glaspie told Hussein that the dispute
between Kuwait and Iraq was a local matter and how Hussein swallowed that
fly like a hungry trout. Then Bush (the elder) got to unite the world
to drive Hussein out of Kuwait. Those types of manipulation are not so
easy to find. So back to the onion.
The terrorist bin Laden or elements of his network are available as
a surrogate. Only this time the purpose of the surrogate is not to fight
someone else. The purpose is to terrorize the U.S. population
into embracing Bush and Company.
Laden's big actions to date have generally involved getting a bomb into
some place where it can cause harm, such as a truck aimed at an embassy
gate or a small boat aimed at a large ship. This time, however, he will
make a great leap forward into being able to recruit four teams that are
capable of hijacking four different airplanes from three different airports,
conducting the hijacking with such swiftness that none of the legitimate
crew can punch in the hijack code, flying those airplanes without the
crew in place, navigating those airplanes to separate targets with high
impact potential (Trade Center innocents, military hq, and presidential
retreat plus the passengers), and impacting three of the four targets
in a very short period of time, thereby inflicting the damage in such
a way as to have the most emotional impact on the population.
The onion provides plausible deniability. Assistance
will be provided through cooperating elements of Pakistani intelligence
and then through cooperating elements in the Taliban to bin Laden and
perhaps on to elements of Laden's network operating without his direct
control. The network cell conducting the operation will be suicide squads,
perhaps recruited from the Palestinian population. Deniability for everyone
and obliteration for the perpetrators. Pretty clean all around.
Laden will never know that he is a pawn of the U.S. national
security state. He will believe that Allah has suddenly blessed him with
resources and capability that previously eluded him. He will be the trout.
Once he takes the bait, he will be the new demon, the country will rally
behind the President and the military to exorcise their fears, and everyone
will forget all the terrible things Bush and Company did since January.
I would assume that you will have a very hard time getting anyone
to pay any attention to low frequency active sonar, particularly as your
position can be painted as impeding military preparedness at a time when
terrorists and rogue nations are on a rampage. Sorry about the whales.
As you may have noted, President Bush (the younger) appointed his campaign
manager head of FEMA. While being given charge of an agency that provides
financial and other assistance in time of flood and other natural disaster
may not seem like much of a reward for returning the White House to the
national security state, there are still all those pesky little executive
orders that essentially turn the country over to FEMA in times of national
instability. As events unfolded today, FEMA took charge.
Once the deed is done, tracks are to be covered. An amusing CNN story
today was the "leak" from law enforcement that the FBI intended
to execute search warrants tomorrow in Hollywood and Daytona Beach, Florida.
Of course, law enforcement, particularly in highly sensitive cases, always
broadcasts in advance to potential suspects their intent to conduct a
search the next day. CNN, which would almost certainly withhold a story
about a planned military action during wartime, somehow cannot contain
itself and breaks the news to the perpetrators that a trail needs to be
covered. Alternatively, the search sites need to be sown with
the necessary evidence to continue pointing the finger in the "right"
direction. Perhaps they will find a diary of one of the perpetrators detailing
their service to Allah against the U.S. Satan and their allegiance to
bin Laden. The FBI will find whatever it is that others want them to find.
It will be interesting to watch as the cover up continues. Will evidence
be lost? Will evidence be fabricated? Witnesses die mysteriously? Stay
tuned if you can stomach it all.
Well color me cynical if you will. I have seen enough of how
these guys operate to find this entire episode simply too useful politically
and too perfect in execution. I hope you enjoy these musings.
No need to reply."
Chaos and Fractals in Financial Markets
Part 5
by J. Orlin Grabbe http://www.orlingrabbe.org
Louis Bachelier Visits the New York Stock Exchange
Louis Bachelier, resurrected for the moment, recently visited the New
York Stock Exchange at the end of May 1999. He was somewhat puzzled by
all the hideous concrete barriers around the building at the corner of
Broad and Wall Streets. For a moment he thought he was in Washington,
D.C., on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Bachelier was accompanied by an angelic guide named Pete. "The concrete
blocks are there because of Osama bin Ladin," Pete explained. "He’s
a terrorist." Pete didn’t bother to mention the blocks had
been there for years. He knew Bachelier wouldn’t know the difference.
"Terrorist?"
"You know, a ruffian, a scoundrel."
"Oh," Bachelier mused. "Bin Ladin. The son of Ladin."
"Yes, and before that, there was Abu Nidal."
"Abu Nidal. The father of Nidal. Hey! Ladin is just Nidal spelled
backwards. So we’ve gone from the father of Nidal to the son of
backwards-Nidal?"
"Yes," Pete said cryptically. "The spooks are never too
creative when they are manufacturing the boogeyman of the moment. If you
want to understand all this, read about ‘Goldstein’ and the
daily scheduled ‘Two Minutes Hate’ in George Orwell’s
book 1984."
"1984? Let’s see, that was fifteen years ago," Bachelier
said. "A historical work?"
"Actually, it’s futuristic. But he who controls the present
controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future."
How to Unseat the War Criminals
and Reverse the Tide of War?
Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration
by Michel Chossudovsky, author of international best seller War
and Globalization, The Truth behind September 11
When people across the US find out that Al Qaeda
is not linked to Saddam but is in fact a creation of
the CIA and that the terrorist warnings are fabricated, the
legitimacy of the Bush Administration will tumble like a deck of cards.
The perceived enemy will no longer be Saddam, it will be Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Powell, et al. Why is this important for the antiwar movement?
This relationship of the Bush Administration to international terrorism,
which is a matter of public record, indelibly points to the criminalisation
of the upper echelons of US State apparatus.
Let's use this information to dismantle the Bush Administration's
war plans. Sensitize our fellow citizens. Expose the "dubious links."
Because when the truth trickles down, the leaders' war plans will not
have a shred of legitimacy in the eyes of millions of Americans who
believe that Al Qaeda is "A Threat to America" and that their
president is committed to their security.
At this crucial juncture in our history, we must understand
that antiwar sentiment in itself does not undermine the war
agenda. The same applies to the diplomatic deadlock at the
UN Security Council: The Bush Administration is intent upon waging war
with or without UN approval. The only way to prevent this war from happening
in the weeks ahead is to unseat the rulers, who are war criminals. A
precondition for breaking the legitimacy of the Bush Administration
is to fully reveal its links to international terrorism and its complicity
in the tragic event of 9/11. This objective can only be achieved by
effectively curbing its propaganda campaign and spreading the truth
through a grassroots citizen's information campaign.
Moreover, while mobilizing millions of people around
the World, the antiwar protest movement remains profoundly divided.
Many of the civil society and trade union organizations which have taken
a stance against the invasion of Iraq, were nonetheless supportive of
the Bush administration’s invasion of Afghanistan in retaliation
to the September 11 attacks. While integrating the anti-war movement,
they remain convinced that Al Qaeda is "a threat to America"
and global security. They firmly believe in the so-called "war
on terrorism’ against the alleged perpetrators of 9/11 and are
broadly supportive of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorist
agenda: "We are against the invasion of Iraq, but we should go
after Al Qaeda." "We believe that Iraq is not a threat
against World peace, but we support the Administration’s "war
on terrorism". In turn, many prominent progressive intellectuals
and foreign policy analysts have not only dismissed the links of the
Bush Administration to Al Qaeda, they have
upheld the Administration's "War on terrorism".....
This ambivalence weakens the antiwar movement because
it ultimately serves to uphold the legitimacy of "the anti-terrorist"
agenda at home and around the world. Under an anti-terrorist banner,
the Administration launched "Operation Enduring Freedom" which
consists in sending US Special Forces to collaborate with foreign governments
in the "war on terrorism". In the US, it launched the Patriot
Act, which repeals fundamental civil rights in the name of the "war
on terrorism".
The war on terrorism is an integral part of Bush’s
National Security Doctrine . It is is being used as a pretext for waging
war on Iraq. Many antiwar activists are unaware that successive US administrations
have over the last 20 years supported Islamic terrorism including Al
Qaeda. The latter is a creation of the CIA. It is a key instrument of
US foreign policy. http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO303D.htm
Al-Qaeda, the Mythic Enemy
By Richard Labeviere
Le Figaro
Monday 24 November 2003
*Editor-in-Chief and Editorialist at Radio
France Internationale (RFI). His latest book to come out: Les Coulisses
de la terreur (Behind the Scenes of Terror), Grasset, 2003.
the demonization of al-Qaeda is very practical. A superb media
invention, security haute couture label, consensual poster for the bounty-hunters
of another age, a crude, but effective, propaganda: if al-Qaeda
didn't exist, it would have to be invented. Since September
11, 2001 the al-Qaeda label has surreptitiously slid from designating
a criminal band with Bin Laden at their head, to specifying a high-tech
organization, to finally qualifying a planetary network: al-Qaeda has
"CNNized" itself, like the al-Jezira channel which serves
its communications. Al-Qaeda is everywhere, therefore, nowhere. Just
as the hidden Imam, Bin Laden, simultaneously dead and alive, is behind
every unexplained bomb explosion. Fortunately, his organization
is there to give sense to all the world's disorders.
The phantasm of a planetary, pyramidal al-Qaeda, that of a new orchestration
or of an International similar in all respects to Comintern's, is in
the process of justifying the biggest American military-strategic redeployment
effected since the end of the Second World War. The endless war
against terror has replaced the war against the Communist monster.
Consequently, it's not surprising to see old U.S.S.R. experts redeploying
their old scholasticism on the pretext of an Islamist violence about
which they know nothing, applying anachronistic Kremlinology schemas
to it. These American neo-conservative ideological go-betweens
stand guard on the old continent. For the American Empire, it's
important that the al-Qaeda mythology persist. To survive, the
empire needs an enemy to its measure and to make war on: endless war.
According to this 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA's intervention
in Afghanistan preceded the 1979 Soviet invasion. This decision of the
Carter Administration in 1979 to intervene and destabilise Afghanistan
is the root cause of Afghanistan's destruction as a nation.
M.C.
A couple of thoughts about the Brzezinski interview below. First, it flatly
contradicts the common justification for U.S. actions in Afghanistan during
the 1980s: that the U.S. simply aided forces resisting Soviet imperialism.
Brzezinski makes clear that the Soviets were baited into sending forces
to Afghanistan; thus their actions were defensive. Moreover, the U.S.
used the violent Wahhabi (Saudi Arabian) form of Islam to create a monster-movement
which plagues the world today. or more on this, see 'Articles Documenting
U.S. Creation of Taliban and bin Laden's Terrorist Network' athttp://emperors-clothes.com/docs/doc.htm
A reader wrote: "Similarly just because Brzezinski (among others)
likes to claim that he personally overthrew the Soviet Union doesn't mean
that you or the rest of us have to take him seriously. Nobody in 1979
had any reason to think that the Afghan war would bring down the USSR.
Nor have we any real reason to think that it did bring it down."
The point is well taken at least as regards Brzezinski's claim that his
Afghan strategy destroyed the Soviet Union. But the issue here is a different
one: what role did the U.S. government play in the creation of Islamist
terrorism? In that regard, Brzezinski's assertion that the U.S. provoked
Soviet actions and that Islamism was deliberately fostered is backed up
by sources on all sides of the Afghan issue.
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/brz.htm
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski about how the US provoked the
Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan and starting the whole mess
Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his
memoirs [From the Shadows], that American intelligence services began
to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention.
In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter.
You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid
to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet
army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, closely guarded
until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President
Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the
pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president
in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce
a Soviet military intervention.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action.
But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked
to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene,
but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Question: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting
that they intended to fight against secret involvement of the United States
in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis
of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea.
It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you
want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the
border, I wrote to President Carter, in substance: We now have the opportunity
of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow
had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that
brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet
empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalists,
having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The
Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems
or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?**
Question: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated:
Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in
regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam
in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading
religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in
common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan
militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing
more than what unites the Christian countries.*
There are at least two editions of this magazine; with the perhaps sole
exception of the Library of Congress, the version sent to the United States
is shorter than the French version, and the Brzezinski interview was not
included in the shorter version.
** It should be noted that there is no demonstrable connection between
the Afghanistan war and the breakup of the Soviet Union and its satellites.
This interview was translated from the French by William Blum, Author
of "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World
War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower".
Portions of the books can be read at: http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm
(with a link to Killing Hope)
US intelligence agencies, whose operatives now maintain a strong presence
in Arab capitals and rural areas, play a decisive role in determining
what organisations, or individuals, are to be classified as terrorists
or financiers of terrorism, and therefore prosecuted or banned. The
result is that Arab leaders are devoting most of their time to the ‘pursuit
of terrorists’, to the neglect of more pressing social and economic
issues. Laws relating to security and human rights have been drastically
amended, as have fiscal laws, to facilitate the persecution of ‘suspected
terrorists’ and ‘al-Qa’ida sympathisers’, and
to block the flow of funds to Islamic organisations (even charities)
labelled as such. Arab governments are mobilizing Arab Muslim scholars
and ‘intellectuals’ to hold meetings to "reinterpret"
the Qur’an andahadith and depict ‘Islamic extremists’
and their backers as ‘terrorists’.
Arab rulers, who openly back the ‘war on terror’, do not
feel it necessary to deny the presence of CIA and FBI agents in their
countries. Yemeni president Ali Saleh Abdullah, for instance, admits
that the FBI and CIA have offices in his country, as they do in other
Arab countries. In an interview with ash-Sharq al-Awsat, an Arabic daily,
on June 29, he denied that he had given permission to the US to set
up a "regional FBI office", adding that "the agency has
only a local office similar to that of the CIA". He made it clear
that many Arab states have allowed similar ones to be established in
their territories.
Yemen not only has a regional FBI office butalso hosts US troops helping
it pursue "terrorist groups" in the south. The FBI office
is regional in the sense that its agents, are active in the pursuit
of ‘al-Qa’ida terrorists’ in the Horn of Africa, particularly
Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
But FBI and CIA agents are also active in other Arab countries, especially
Morocco and Saudi Arabia, where attacks on May 16 and May 12 provided
a pretext for Washington to establish a strong presence, and take over
the running of the security machinery. Washington accused Moroccan and
Saudi officials of ignoring warnings that the attacks were imminent,
and of failing to take pre-emptive action. Both governments gave in
to pressure, agreed to receive FBI and CIA agents, and began unprecedented
action against Islamic organisations and activists. This tendency to
give in to the Americans has grown since September 2001.
.... The idea of ‘sleeping terror cells’ is very attractive
to American officials. The idea justifies not only security measures
already being taken against Muslims in the US and Europe but also those
being planned. Action against terrorists also enables European officials
to kerb immigration and to deport Muslim immigrants already in their
territories. Already legislation is being drafted to withdraw citizenship
from Muslims and deport them. Muslim dictators are only too happy to
receive Islamic activists, and to see Western countries seize the assets
of Islamic activists, who finance many charities in the Muslim world
that the dictators prefer to have shut down.
Arab governments also supply information (almost invariably false) that
US and European authorities then use against Islamic activists, or against
Muslim immigrants generally. They even supply the UN with reports on
‘terrorists’ and on the al-Qa’ida network, as a report
issued June 26 shows. According to this disgraceful report, a new generation
of al-Qa’ida-trained terrorists, as well as veterans, continues
to threaten the "global community". The report also mentions
al-Qa’ida’s potential access to nuclear and chemical weapons,
saying that "there is evidence from the network’s training
manuals and other intelligence" that al-Qa’ida has investigated
"the ways and means of developing weapons of mass destruction".
The continued overplaying of al-Qa’ida’s "threat to
world peace" helps to justify the US’s unilateralist imperial
policy and programme of ‘regime-change’.
Discover Dialogue: Anthropologist Scott Atran
The Surprises of Suicide Terrorism
It's not a new phenomenon, and natural selection may play
a role in producing it
By Josie Glausiusz
DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 10 | October 2003 This is an extended version, exclusive
to the Discover Web
site, of the article that appears in Discover Magazine
Photograph by Charles Fréger
Scott Atran fell in love with anthropology in 1970 when he
went to work with Margaret Mead at the American Museum of Natural History
in
New York and found himself surrounded by a collection of thousands of
skulls. He has spent the intervening years studying human cultures all
over
the world, dwelling among the secretive Druze sect in Israel, documenting
conservation customs among the Maya of Guatemala, and analyzing the
evolution of religion everywhere, a topic he explores in his book In Gods
We
Trust (Oxford University Press, 2002). He is based both at the National
Center for Scientific Research in Paris and at the University of Michigan.
His recent work has focused on suicide terrorism. He has marshaled evidence
that indicates suicide bombers are not poor and crazed as depicted in
the
press but well-educated and often economically stable individuals with
no
significant psychological pathology.
You recently chose to write about the genesis of suicide
terrorism in the journal Science. Why should suicide terrorism be the
object
of a scientific investigation?
A: Within a few days of the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001, I started listening to the stuff that was in the media and from
the administration--for example, President Bush's speech on September
11th
and the next he gave on September 20th before Congress. I thought, "What
utter nonsense"--this idea that these people were crazed or they're
doing it
out of despair or hopelessness. The whole history of these kinds of acts
goes against this. I decided to write an article and get it into the
scientific press, because governments, I believe, would take up what their
scientists tell them, since there is a huge respect for science.
Why do you regard the popular stereotype of the suicide
terrorist as nonsense?
A: The CIA released a report in 2001 on the psychology and
sociology of terrorism, and they basically said these people are perfectly
sane. If you look at the history of these kinds of extreme acts, they're
pretty much directed by middle-class or higher-middle-class intellectuals.
They always have been. Never have they been directed by wacky, crazed,
homicidal nuts. The Japanese kamikaze of World War II were, by the way,
extremely intelligent guys. If you read their diaries, they were German
romantics, reading Goethe and Schiller, and quite conscious of the efforts
of the state to manipulate them.
What sort of scientific research indicates that suicide
bombers are sane?
A: Some of the earlier research was by Ariel Merari, who
is a psychologist at Tel Aviv University and also a terrorism expert.
He
interviewed suicide bombers--survivors who were wounded and didn't die
or
whose bombs didn't go off--as well as their families or recruiters. Like
most psychologists in the 1980s, he thought that this was individual
pathology, like the idea that racists come from fatherless families or
have
a history of family trouble. He made a 180-degree turn and found out that
no, the bombers span the normal distribution and were slightly above it
in
terms of education and in income.
Nasra Hassan, who is a Pakistani relief worker working in
Gaza for a number of years, interviewed about 250 family members,
recruiters, and survivors, completely independently. She was not aware
of
Merari's work, and she found exactly the same thing. Alan Krueger, an
economist at Princeton University, has done long-term studies with Hezbollah
and Hamas. His research shows that not only are suicide terrorists
significantly more educated than their peers, they are also significantly
better off. According to Krueger, although one-third of Palestinians live
in
poverty, only 13 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers do; 57 percent
of
bombers have education beyond high school versus 15 percent of the
population of comparable age.
The Defense Intelligence Agency also gave me profiles of
all these people they were interrogating at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
They
divide them into Yemenis and Saudis. The Yemenis are sort of the foot
soldiers. And they found that the Saudis, their leaders especially, are
from
high-status families. A surprising number have graduate degrees. And they
are willing to give up everything. They give up well-paying jobs, they
give
up their families, whom they really adore, to sacrifice themselves because
they really believe that it's the only way they're going to change the
world.
So what's the root cause of suicide terrorism?
A: As a tactical weapon, it emerges when an ideologically
devoted people find that they cannot possibly obtain their ends in a sort
of
fair fight, and when they know they're in a very weak position, and they
have to use these kinds of extreme methods.
What's the typical profile of a suicide terrorist?
A: Generally, it's not someone who is off the wall. They
can't be effective killers. Usually it is someone who is smart, who shows
a
willingness to give up something, who is patient, who is quiet. Competent
people who don't draw attention to themselves, and who are perfectly willing
and able to meld into society.
How on earth does anyone sane work up the gumption to blow
himself up, together with what is often hundreds of bystanders?
A: Exactly the same way that you get soldiers on the front
line of an army to sacrifice themselves for their buddies. What these
cells
do is very similar to what our military, or any modern military, does.
They
form small groups of intimately involved "brothers" who literally
sacrifice
themselves for one another, the way a mother would do for her child. They
do
it by manipulating universal heartfelt human sentiments that I think are
probably innate and part of biological evolution. In fact, I think most
culture is a manipulation of innate desires. It's the same way that our
fast-food industry manipulates our desires for sugars and fats, or the
way
the pornography industry manipulates people to get all hot about pixels
on a
screen or on wood pulp.
Wood pulp?
A: Yeah, paper in a pornography journal. I mean, it has no
adaptive value. In the case of something like Al Qaeda, you've got these
people in groups of three to eight people, for 18 months, isolated from
their family, getting this intense and deep ego-stroking propaganda. You
do
that to anyone, and you'll get him to do what you want. There are all
these
studies that psychologists have done of torturers on all sides of the
political divide. A very famous one is on ordinary Greeks who became
torturers during the military junta of 1967 to 1974. They found they were
perfectly ordinary--in fact, above-average intelligence. They'd get them
to
be torturers by indoctrinating them, by showing them how necessary they
were
for their societies, and getting these people to believe it.
You seem to be suggesting that natural selection may be
playing a role in generating the feelings that enable people to become
suicide terrorists, but blowing yourself up is hardly a good strategy
for
propelling your genes into the next generation.
A: Natural selection gives us all sorts of dispositions
and desires that were adaptive in ancestral environments. Now, our cultural
milieu picks certain of these adaptations or their by-products and is
able
to trigger them to produce behaviors that have nothing to do with what
they
originally evolved for. Kin altruism (the theory that individuals are
willing to sacrifice their lives to save closely related kin) evolved
through natural selection. If you listen to most political and religious
discourse in societies, it's always done for a brotherhood--brothers and
sisters. So you create a fictive family. How else are you going to get
people to die for one another when they're non-kin-related? You've got
to
trick them into believing they are kin-related somehow.
Why does it matter whether we understand the making of a
suicide terrorist?
A: Huge amounts of money were being offered, at least on
the horizon, for science-related defense research, most of it going to
things like bioterrorism prevention. There were all these harebrained
schemes--they're still around--to have a Radio Free Arabia. They're going
to
bombard these people with information about how good our society is, our
goals, and that's supposed to win the war on terrorism. If you look at
the
February 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, you'll see they
plan to introduce programs against poverty and illiteracy. These ideas
seem
to me just completely wrong. First, the people who carry out terrorist
acts
are already educated. Second, they're not poor, so reducing poverty isn't
going to do a thing.
So what's your strategy for combating suicide terrorism?
A: I think it has to be a multilayered strategy. You've
got to be able to--and this I'm all for--go after the guys who operate
the
cells. Take them out. Get rid of them. Jail them or kill them, because
they
are not willing to compromise. What do you do with somebody who says,
"All
Americans and Jews have got to die"? The point of talking to such
people has
passed. Whatever the grievances were that caused such people to have such
ideas, if they show that they're willing to implement them, then you've
just
got to make a decision whether you want to see this guy survive or you
and
your people survive.
What else?
A: Another thing is, yes, protect some of the vulnerable
targets, but I think that actually is less important than trying to stop
this phenomenon from becoming adopted, like a sort of virus, by these
populations. How do you prevent the ideology of suicide terrorism from
attaching itself to the populations that support it? How do you get the
people themselves to stop harboring the suicide terrorists? You've got
to
talk with them. You've got to address their grievances. Not the grievances
of Al Qaeda, but the grievances of these people. Then there's got to be
support for moderate groups. Alan Krueger in his last study looked at
poverty and civil liberties as two factors in suicide terrorism. He found
that poverty is not an appreciable selection factor but that the lack
of
civil liberties is a predictor of where you'll find suicide terrorism.
When
you don't give these people any political space to express themselves,
they
become radicalized.
Have you ever met a potential or surviving suicide
terrorist?
A: Yes. It's someone whose father was humiliated in front
of him when he was sixteen. He was kicked and spit on by Israeli soldiers
at
a checkpoint. In an Arab family, the father is a figure of respect and
even
awe. That was a big factor in this guy's decision. And a cousin was killed.
He also had a number of brothers and sisters, so he knew that by going
he
wouldn't cause the family any great sacrifice. So he decided to be a suicide
bomber.
And did he?
A: No. In the end he didn't, because he was sent on a
mission to Syria, a political mission, and decided to devote himself to
political activity. But I'm sure he would have if he had been asked to.
Smart guy. Not many friends, but a few friends. Got along well with his
family as far as I could see. I knew him for a number of years.
In your book In Gods We Trust, you call religion an
evolutionary riddle. Why?
A: Think about it. All religions require costly sacrifices
that have no material rewards. Look at the Egyptian pyramids. Millions
of
man-hours. For what? To house dead bones? Or the Cambodian pyramids. Or
the
Mayan pyramids. Or cathedrals. Or just going to church every Sunday and
gesticulating. Or saying a Latin or Hebrew prayer, mumbling what are to
many
people incoherent words. Stopping whatever you're doing to bow and scrape.
Then think about the cognitive aspects of it. For example, to take alive
for
dead and weak for strong. I mean, what creature could possibly survive
if it
did these kinds of things systematically?
Look at the things that religion is said to do. It is said
to relieve people's anxieties, but it's also said to increase their
anxieties so that elites can use them for political purposes. It's supposed
to be liberating. It's supposed to encourage creativity. It's supposed
to
stop creativity. It's supposed to explain events that can't be explained.
It's supposed to prevent people from explaining them. You can find
functional explanations, and their contraries, and they're all true.
Why then has religion survived in so many cultures?
A: Because humans are faced with problems they can't
solve. Think about death. Because we have these cognitive abilities to
travel in time and to track memory, we are automatically aware of death
everywhere. That is a cognitive problem. Death is something that our
organism tells us to avoid. So now we seek some kind of a long-term
solution. And there is none. Lucretius and Epicurus thought they could
solve
this through reason. They said, "Look, what does it matter? We weren't
alive
for infinite generations before we were born. It doesn't bother us. Why
should we be worried about the infinite generations that will be after
us
when we're gone?" Well, nobody bought that. The reason that line
of
reasoning didn't work is because once you're alive, you've got something
that you're going to lose.
Another problem is deception. Look at society. If you've
got rocks and stones and pieces of glass and metal before you, and you
say,
"Oh, that doesn't exist," or "That's not really a piece
of metal," or
"That's not really a tree," someone will come along and say,
"Look, you're
crazy; I can touch it; there's a piece of metal there; I can show you
it's a
piece of metal." For commonsense physical events, we have ways of
verifying
what's real or not.For moral judgments, we have nothing. If someone says,
"Oh, he should be a beggar and he should be a king," what is
there in the
world that's going to convince me this is true? There is nothing. If there
is nothing, how are people ever going to get on with one another? Especially
non-kin. How are they ever going to build societies, and how are they
ever
going to trust one another so they won't defect? One way that humans seem
to
have come up with is to invent this minimally counterintuitive world
developed by these deities, who are like big brothers who watch over and
make sure that there will be no defectors.
Do you think science will ever replace religion?
A: Never. Because it doesn't solve any of the problems
that religion solves, like death or deception. There is no society that
survives more than a generation or two that isn't religiously based--even
the Soviet Union, where half the people were religious. Thomas Jefferson's
unitarian God fell by the wayside. The French Revolution's neutral deity
also fell by the wayside. People want a personal God, for obvious reasons,
to solve personal problems.
What have you learned about conservation from studying the
Maya people of the Petén?
A: We took three groups that live in the same
place--native lowland Maya, the Itza'; highland Maya, the Q'eqchi' that
are
forced down into the lowlands; and ladino immigrants that come up from
all
over Guatemala. We found that the group that actually preserves the forest,
the Itza', is the one that has no institutions to speak of. The people
don't
monitor anything. They fight with one another constantly. They're extremely
individualistic. And yet they protect the forest. The people with the
strongest communal institutions, the Q'eqchi', who monitor one another
in
the forest and punish violators, they're destroying it at five times the
rate of the others. They see the forest as a commodity, and they think
it's
open-ended. They don't think it needs protection. They don't see it as
a
threatened system. For them, it's relatively open jungle.
What do the Itza' do differently?
A: They don't treat the forest as a commodity. They treat
it as a relational item, like a friend or an enemy. There is no objective
utility metric, like money value, that can be attached to it. We also
found
that the men who go out into the forest have this notion of what the spirits
are doing, and they are scared to death of violating the spirit preference.
They're real believers. Then we found that what the spirits prefer--not
what
the people think is important but what they think the spirits think is
important--actually predicts species distributions.
What do you mean?
A: Those trees most valued by the spirits--the Brosimum
alicastrum, or "breadnut," and the chicazapote, the tree that
yields the
resin that is the natural base for chewing gum--are actually those trees
with the widest distribution, which produce fruit all year round and which
have the largest number of ecological relations with other animals. We're
able to predict, just on the basis of the Itza' spirit preferences, all
sorts of ecological things happening on the ground. What I think is going
on
is that these spirits represent human preferences built up over generations.
What lessons can we take away from this?
A: Don't treat everything in the world like an item in a
shopping mall-which is what we do.
Atran, Scott. "Genesis of Suicide Terrorism." Science 299
(March 7, 2003): 1534-1539. Supporting online material is at
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/299/5612/1534/DC1.
'Al-Qaeda bombing foiled' says the front page of today's UK Sun, reporting
the arrest yesterday of 24-year-old student Sajid Badat in Gloucester,
England, on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity. Other reports
have referred to Badat as 'having links with al-Qaeda' and being a potential
'suicide bomber' (1).
Also this week, media reports claim that al-Qaeda may have developed
'car-bomb capability' in the USA, and that al-Qaeda has compiled a 'kidnappers'
manual' and is plotting to snatch American troops from Iraq and other
parts of the Middle East. Every day since the 9/11 attacks of 2001 there
have been media reports about al-Qaeda - its leaders, members, capabilities,
bank accounts, reach and threat. What is this al-Qaeda? Does such a group
even exist?
Some terrorism experts doubt it. Adam Dolnik and Kimberly McCloud reckon
it's time we 'defused the widespread image of al-Qaeda as a ubiquitous,
super-organised terror network and call it as it is: a loose collection
of groups and individuals that doesn't even refer to itself as al-Qaeda'.
Dolnik and McCloud - who first started studying terrorism at the prestigious
Monterey Institute of International Studies in California - claim it was
Western officials who imposed the name 'al-Qaeda' on to disparate radical
Islamic groups and who blew Osama bin Laden's power and reach 'out of
proportion'. Both are concerned about the threat of terror, but argue
that we should 'debunk the myth of al-Qaeda' (2).
There is a 'rooted public perception of what al-Qaeda is', says Dolnik,
who is currently carrying out research on the Terrorism and Political
Violence Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in
Singapore; but, he says, such perceptions are far from accurate. Dolnik
argues that where many imagine that al-Qaeda is 'a super organisation
of thousands of super-trained and super-secret members who can be activated
any minute', in fact it is better understood as something like a 'global
ideology that has not only attracted many smaller regional groups, but
has also facilitated the boom of new organisations that embrace this sort
of radical and violent thinking'. Dolnik and others believe that, in many
ways, the thing we refer to as 'al-Qaeda' is largely a creation of Western
officials.
'Bin Laden never used the term al-Qaeda prior to 9/11', Dolnik tells
me. 'Nor am I aware of the name being used by operatives on trial. The
closest they came were in statements such as, "Yes, I am a member
of what you call al-Qaeda". The only name used by al-Qaeda themselves
was the World Islamic Front for the Struggle Against Jews and Crusaders
- but I guess that's too long to really stick.'
So where did 'al-Qaeda' come from? Dolink says there are a number of
theories - that the term was first used by bin Laden's spiritual mentor
Abdullah Azzam, who wrote of al Qaeda al Sulbah, meaning the 'solid base',
in 1988; or that it derives from a bin Laden-sponsored safehouse in Afghanistan
in the 1980s, when he was part of the mujahideen fighting against the
Soviet invasion, again referring to a physical 'base' rather than to a
distinct organisation. But in terms of 'al-Qaeda' then being used to define
a group of operatives around bin Laden - that, says Dolnik, originated
in the West.
Al-Qaeda was used as a 'convenient label for a group that had
no formal name'
'The US intelligence community used the term "al-Qaeda" for
the first time only after the 1998 embassy bombings', he says, when suspected
bin Laden followers detonated bombs at the American embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania, killing 224 people. Dolnik says al-Qaeda was used as a 'convenient
label for a group that had no formal name'. Prior to the 1998 bombings,
US officials were concerned about Osama bin Laden and the financial backing
he appeared to provide to Islamic terror groups - but they rarely, if
ever, mentioned anything called 'al-Qaeda'.
According to British journalist Jason Burke, in his authoritative Al-Qaeda:
Casting a Shadow of Terror, 'Al-Qaeda is a messy and rough designation,
often applied carelessly in the absence of a more useful term' (3). Burke
points out that while many think al-Qaeda is 'a terrorist organisation
founded more than a decade ago by a hugely wealthy Saudi Arabian religious
fanatic', in fact the term 'al-Qaeda' has only entered political and mainstream
discussion fairly recently:
'American intelligence reports in the early 1990s talk about "Middle
Eastern extremists…working together to further the cause of radical
Islam", but do not use the term "al-Qaeda". After the attempted
bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, FBI investigators were aware
of bin Laden but only "as one name among thousands". In the
summer of 1995, during the trials of Islamic terrorists who had tried
to blow up a series of targets in New York two years earlier, "Osam
ben Laden" (sic) was mentioned by prosecutors once; "al-Qaeda"
was not.'
Like Dolnik, Burke points out that the name al-Qaeda entered the popular
imagination only after US officials used it to describe those who attacked
the embassies in Africa. 'In the immediate aftermath of the double bombings,
President Clinton merely described a "network of radical groups affiliated
with and funded by Usama (sic) bin Laden"', writes Burke. 'Clinton
talks of "the bin Laden network", not of "al-Qaeda".
In fact, it is only during the FBI-led investigation into those bombings
that the term first starts to be used to describe a traditionally structured
terrorist organisation' (4). According to some experts, it was this naming
of al-Qaeda by US officials that kickstarted the public's misunderstanding
of Islamic terror groups. Dolnik points out that, while US officials talked
up a structured group, this so-called al-Qaeda did not even have 'any
sort of insignia - a phenomenon quite rare in the realm of terrorism'.
Having given bin Laden and his henchmen a name, Western officials then
proceeded to exaggerate their threat. 'In the quest to define the enemy,
the US and its allies have helped to blow it out of proportion', wrote
Dolnik and Kimberly McCloud of the Monterey Institute in 2002. They pointed
out that after 1998, US officials began distributing posters and matchboxes
featuring bin Laden's face and a reward for his capture around the Middle
East and Central Asia - a process that 'transformed this little-known
jihadist into a household name and, in some places, a symbol of heroic
defiance' (5).Now, Dolnik says that Western officials have helped to blow
al-Qaeda out of proportion in other ways, too - by 'the automatic attribution
of credit to the group for disparate attacks; by making unintelligent
and unqualified statements about the group's very basic "weapons
of mass destruction" programme; by treating al-Qaeda as a super-organisation;
by creating the impression that al-Qaeda can do just about anything'.
As a result, al-Qaeda has been turned into something it is not. In the
mid-1990s intelligence officials saw bin Laden as 'one name among thousands';
within a few years they had transformed him into a global threat who heads
a ruthless, structured organisation that is capable of doing anything,
anytime, anywhere.
Anybody can make an impact by claiming a link to the largely
mythical al-Qaeda
This invention, or certainly exaggeration, of al-Qaeda is not only inaccurate;
it also has a potentially destabilising effect, encouraging regional groups
to act in the name of al-Qaeda in the knowledge that such actions will
have a massive impact on our al-Qaeda-obsessed world. The talking up of
al-Qaeda has created a kind of brand name, which can be invoked by small,
isolated groups wishing to strike a blow beyond their means.
Consider the recent suicide bombings in Istanbul. Predictably, many in
the West instantly attributed the attacks to al-Qaeda, though it has since
emerged that the bombs were most likely made and detonated by local Turkish
groups. However, at least three Turkish groups have claimed responsibility
for the attacks in the name of al-Qaeda. The West's obsession with al-Qaeda
has given terrorist outfits a convenient shortcut to grabbing the world's
attention and scaring us senseless.
According to Dolnik: 'In a world where one email sent to a news agency
translates into a headline stating that al-Qaeda was behind even the blackouts
in Italy and the USA, anyone can claim to be al-Qaeda - not only groups
but also individuals'.
Sajid Badat, the 24-year-old student arrested by British police in Gloucester
yesterday, on suspicion of planning to carry out a terrorist attack, was
immediately referred to in media reports as a 'suicide bomber' and 'al-Qaeda
terrorist' - after it was revealed that he had boasted to college mates
and neighbours: 'I'm in al-Qaeda.' Whatever the truth of the allegations
against him, however, it is clear that anybody can make an impact today
by claiming a link to the largely mythical al-Qaeda. The script for such
claims has already been written, by fearful Western officials who have
made 'al-Qaeda', whatever that might be, into an instantly recognisable,
frightening, global phenomenon.
How can we challenge the widespread but warped understanding of what
'al-Qaeda' is? Dolnik worries that it might be 'too late', but he has
some ideas: 'We could have a balanced assessment of the group's capabilities,
including its embarrassing failures - some al-Qaeda plots were flat-out
ridiculous. We could emphasise al-Qaeda's heretical nature within Islam,
in order to decrease the overt support for the group among fellow Muslims
who are forced to align "with us or against us". We could stop
calling everything al-Qaeda does "new" or "unprecedented"
- I am aware of at least 10 concrete plans to use aeroplanes to crash
them into buildings and one actual successful attempt as far back as 1976.
And we could stop calling small amounts of recovered chemicals "chemical
weapons" - without effective weaponisation, these are about as dangerous
as bullets without a gun.'
