The making of a terror myth
On October 15th, 2004 the London based The Guardian ran a story by Andy Beckett called the making of a terror myth. The article discussed a BBC2 program called The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html
The article went on to speak with experts who claimed among other things, that the British government as well as the U.S. government were using terrorism embodied by a fictional organization named al-Qaeda to scare the populace into supporting them to achieve political goals. The piece is stunning. It is like some omnipotent being who knew everything that was wrong with the left slapped it together into a laundry list of bad ideas. I bring it to the readers attention because much of what this article discusses is today being promoted by the left in the United States.
Take this excerpt from the article;
In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "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." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
A phantom enemy? How about this one:
The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have "sleeper cells". It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
Phantom indeed. As this documentary points out, it barely exists at all. And Adam Curtis, the writer of the documentary is supported by others:
In fact, Curtis is not alone in wondering about all this. Quietly but increasingly, other observers of the war on terror have been having similar doubts. "The grand concept of the war has not succeeded," says Jonathan Eyal, director of the British military think tank the Royal United Services Institute. "In purely military terms, it has been an inconclusive war ... a rather haphazard operation. Al-Qaida managed the most spectacular attack, but clearly it is also being sustained by the way that we rather cavalierly stick the name al-Qaida on Iraq, Indonesia, the Philippines. There is a long tradition that if you divert all your resources to a threat, then you exaggerate it."
Exaggerate the threat from an enemy that barely exists at all yet we are involved in an “inconclusive war” with them none the less?
Of course that was then, before the London Subway bombings. What does the BBC say now? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4208250.stm
A video statement from one of the London suicide bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan strongly suggests a link between the bombers and al-Qaeda, which has not been established before.
There are several indications of the al-Qaeda connection.
Firstly, the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera, which received the tape, attributes it to "the al-Qaeda organisation."
Second, the fact that Khan's statement is accompanied on the tape by one from Zawahri. This strongly supports the view that Khan must have made contact with al-Qaeda elements, probably when he was in Pakistan from November last year to February this year.
It is possible, even probable, that Khan made the tape in Pakistan and came back to the UK determined on his course.
Third, Khan refers on the tape to the al-Qaeda leadership when he talks about "today's heroes beloved Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, Dr Ayman al-Zawahri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi". Zarqawi is the leader of the al-Qaeda faction in Iraq.
Fourth, the language he uses is that of the dedicated al-Qaeda fighter. He calls himself a soldier and speaks about his religious and political motives. His religious motive is seen in a passage that ends: "I ask you to make du'a [a supplication] to Allah Almighty to accept the work from me and my brothers and enter us into gardens of paradise."
So the BBC seems to have learned its lesson. Has the American media? I guess not. Eugene Robinson, a columnist for the Washington post had this to say just last month: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601478.html
Once upon a time we had a great wartime president who told Americans they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Now we have George W. Bush, who uses fear as a tool of executive power and as a political weapon against his opponents.
Franklin D. Roosevelt tried his best to allay his nation's fears in the midst of an epic struggle against fascism. Bush, as he leads the country in a war whose nature he is constantly redefining, keeps fear alive because it has been so useful. His political grand vizier, Karl Rove, was perfectly transparent the other day when he emerged from wherever he's been hiding the past few months -- consulting omens, reading entrails -- and gave the Republican National Committee its positioning statement for the fall elections: Vote for us or die.
And
Bush mentioned the new tape from Osama bin Laden that surfaced the other day, calling it a reminder that we face "an enemy that wants to hit us again." That's certainly true, but the warning would carry more gravitas if Bush and his administration didn't brag so much about how thoroughly al Qaeda has been routed and decimated. Is anybody keeping track of how many "No. 3" or "No. 4" al Qaeda lieutenants U.S. forces claim to have eliminated?
I like historical comparisons very much. I like them even better when they are intellectually honest. At the time Winston Churchill said those words, the British people knew they were in a war for their lives. Those words were meant to comfort a frightened people.
President Bush on the other hand has to remind us of terrorism because the left has become the party of terrorism denial and because the American media has a post 7/7 mentality as demonstrated by Mr. Robinson himself. If President Bush doesn’t remind us that we are still at war against terrorism, who will? Who reminded the BBC?
Has The Threat Of Terrorism Been "Exaggerated"? www.rightwingnews.com
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