World terrorist organizations and terror suspects The WE News Archives

Is al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?

Robert Scheer, AlterNet. January 11, 2005.

A new BBC film 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."

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?

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. 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.

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."

Stern stuff, indeed. But consider just a few of the many questions the program poses along the way:

• 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?

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.

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.

While the BBC documentary acknowledges that the threat of terrorism is both real and growing, it disagrees that the threat is centralized:

"There are dangerous and fanatical individuals and groups around the world who have been inspired by extreme Islamist ideas and who will use the techniques of mass terror – the attacks on America and Madrid make this only too clear.

But the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion. 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."

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.

Robert Scheer is the co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq.


© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, 19 October, 2004

The Power of Nightmares: Baby It's Cold Outside

UK Prime Minister and US President George W Bush stand behind a picture of Osama Bin Laden

Should we be worried about the threat from organised terrorism or is it simply a phantom menace being used to stop society from falling apart?

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.

These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.

Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful

Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network.

A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.

The rise of the politics of fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that dominates Washington.

Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.

The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision.

They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see.

The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to "see the truth"'.

Tuesday, 26 October, 2004

The Power of Nightmares: The Phantom Victory

The Power of Nightmares continues its assessment of whether the threat from a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. Part two, the Phantom Victory looks at how two groups, radical Islamists and neo-conservatives with seemingly opposing ideologies came together to defeat a common enemy.

On 25 December 1979, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan.

Mujahideen fighters

Moscow was able to install a friendly government in a neighbouring country but at a price.

The invasion gave a common cause to an extraordinary alliance of radical Islamists in Afghanistan and around the world and to the neo-conservatives in the US.

It was a key battleground of the Cold War.

Washington provided money and arms including even Stinger missiles capable of shooting down Soviet helicopters.

But it was Islamic Mujahideen fighters who would fire them.

Among the many foreigners drawn to Afghanistan was a young, wealthy Saudi called Osama Bin Laden.

Long before 9/11, he would have been seen by neo-conservatives in Washington as one of their foot soldiers, helping fight America's cause.

After nearly 10 years of fighting, Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan.

Both the neo-conservatives and the Islamists believed that it is they who defeated the "evil empire" and now had the power to transform the world.

But both failed in their revolutions.

In response, the neo-conservatives invented a new fantasy enemy, Bill Clinton, focusing on the scandal surrounding him and Monica Lewinsky.

Meanwhile, the Islamists descend into a desperate cycle of violence and terror to try to persuade the people to follow them.

Out of all this comes the seeds of the strange world of fantasy, deception, violence and fear in which we now live.

Monday, 1 November, 2004

The Power of Nightmares: The Shadows In The Cave

The Power of Nightmares assesses whether the threat from a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. In the concluding part of the series, the programme explains how the illusion was created and who benefits from it.

In the wake of the shock and panic created by the devastating attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September, 2001, the neo-conservatives reconstructed the radical Islamists in the image of their last evil enemy, the Soviet Union — a sinister web of terror run from the centre by Osama Bin Laden in his lair in Afghanistan.

There are dangerous and fanatical individuals and groups around the world who have been inspired by extreme Islamist ideas, and who will use the techniques of mass terror — the attacks on America and Madrid make this only too clear.

But the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion.

Wherever one looks for this al-Qaeda organisation, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the "sleeper cells" in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.

But the reason that no-one questions the illusion is because this nightmare enemy gives so many groups new power and influence in a cynical age — and not just politicians.

Those with the darkest imaginations have now become the most powerful.

      Watch Video of all three programs

      Watch Power of Nightmares — Last checked some parts continue in audio only

      Explains the teachings of Sayyed Qutb,

      The Muslim Brotherhood,

      How small group of Muslims developed rationalness to be able to kill other Muslims.

      Explains Leo Strauss U.S. neoconservative guru theories:

      That the liberal idea — the belief in individual freedom — is the basis for causing chaos.

      Wolfowitz, learning Strauss' ideas at the University of Chicago.

      Explains in depth, myth of al Qaeda

      That Bush named it and Osama bin Laden adopted it

      How Bush created world orgnanization myth

      How Bush and Blair exploit myth to retain power

             Available for viewing at www.archive.org      click here

Terror suspect C released

Adam Jay and agencies
Tuesday February 1, 2005

An Egyptian terror suspect known only as "C" has been freed after being interned under anti-terror legislation for more than three years, it emerged today.

C, who had been granted refugee status in 2000, was arrested in December 2001, just after the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which sanctioned detention without charge or trial, gained royal assent. He had been sentenced in absentia to 15 years imprisonment in Egypt for trying to recruit army officers to a terrorist group.

In October 2003 the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) — the independent panel which hears appeals from foreign terror suspects detained under the emergency laws — concluded the government had "reasonable grounds" to suspect that C had a "senior leadership role in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the United Kingdom".

Siac chairman Mr Justice Ouseley said: "He would still have the will, commitment and ability to resume his activities in the UK were he to be released."

C had been due to apply again for his release at a Siac review hearing later this week. It is understood, however, that he was released from Woodhill prison yesterday evening, without any conditions, after the government withdrew a certificate issued against him under the 2001 act.

In a statement to MPs this afternoon the home secretary, Charles Clarke, said: "Assurances have been given to the House of Commons that cases are kept under constant review and as part of this process, I concluded, on the basis of all the information available to me, that the weight of evidence in relation to C at the current time does not justify the continuance of the certificate. I therefore decided to revoke the certificate with immediate effect."

C's solicitor, Natalia Garcia, said the decision had come as a complete surprise. She said Mr Clarke had even submitted a statement to court for the review hearing saying that C was still a risk and that he should remain in detention.

"It came completely out of the blue," she told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme. "We were in court [yesterday] morning where we heard the solicitor of the home secretary say that the only conditions of release he would accept would be house arrest and then by late afternoon I got a phone call to say that my client was about to be released with no conditions at all.

"By seven o'clock in the evening he was a completely free man. It is completely bizarre. We were given no indication in court that this was going to happen. In effect, the home secretary has now admitted that C is no danger to anyone at all, which is what we've said from the very beginning, but it has taken three years and his life has been decimated in the meantime."

C was, she said, "delighted to be released, but very perplexed and confused about the whole situation and couldn't understand why he had been interned for three years on the basis of nothing at all and suddenly released".

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, also welcomed C's release, but said the episode provided a hint of what life would be like if Mr Clarke's new proposals to deal with suspected terrorists become law.

"We are relieved that one man's three year internment has been brought to an end by this home secretary," she said. "However, C never had the opportunity to answer any allegations, and the public has no idea why yesterday he was dangerous and today he is safe.

"This is a glimpse of the terrifying future where everyone may be subjected to detention on the basis of secret intelligence and a politician's whim."

However, Mr Clarke insisted in his statement that individual liberties remained a top concern: "As home secretary, it is my responsibility to find a fair and effective balance between security and liberty and I am in no doubt that the threat to the United Kingdom from international terrorism remains.

"Maintaining protection of national security and public safety is a top priority for this government and I will continue to liaise closely with relevant authorities to ensure every practical step is taken to ensure a successful fight against terrorism while safeguarding individual liberties."

News of C's release comes the day after the government agreed not to object to the release of Mahmoud Abu Rideh, a Palestinian who has also been detained without charge or trial since December 2001. He is currently held at the high-security Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, having been transferred from Belmarsh prison after a deterioration in his mental health.

Siac cited his mental health as the reason for justifying his release, which will only happen after a further hearing to determine bail conditions. The commission is also hearing an application by two detained Algerian terror suspects, "A" and "P", which is continuing in closed session.

Yesterday the pair's barrister, Ben Emmerson QC, made it clear that they would rather stay in Belmarsh than be granted bail on condition that they live under house arrest.

Mr Emmerson said A and P — who is a double amputee, has no family and is suffering from a depressive illness — knew what life had been like for "G", a former detainee who was released last April. He has had no contact with the outside world and suffers from isolation and claustrophobia.

Mr Emmerson claimed that if released into house arrest, A and P would be "guinea pigs" for Mr Clarke's proposed "control orders". The proposals, which include the possibility of house arrest, were unveiled last week after the law lords ruled that the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act was incompatible with the UK's obligations under the European human rights convention.

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