Al Qaeda

[bobbyR]

I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

[Fredfredson]

What constitutes "legitamate"in the above? :dunno

F
:pooter

[bobbyR]

Legitimate would be an extensive network of cells operating on 4 or 5 continents and which poses a serious threat to security around the world.

[Fredfredson]

Thanks for the clarification.

F
:pooter

[Neko]

Can I have a legitimate terrorist network that doesn't pose a threat to security around the world except when it is being used by the complex to get what it wants?

[gurutoo]

Who has a "complex"?

[bobbyR]

Complex means the military-industrial-congressional complex that some believe is in control of everything.

[bobbyR]

Can I have a legitimate terrorist network that doesn't pose a threat to security around the world except when it is being used by the complex to get what it wants?

Doubt it.

[gurutoo]

Complex means the military-industrial-congressional complex that some believe is in control of everything.

Bobby- I was kidding... ;) :wave

[bobbyR]

Complex means the military-industrial-congressional complex that some believe is in control of everything.

Bobby- I was kidding... ;) :wave

I thought you were. But I wanted to clarify anyway. Not everybody knows about the existence of the all-powerful M-I complex. They're victims of the organized brainwash for sure. :bleh

[Neko]

Oh. That changes things somewhat. I assumed you were refering to Bush Jr's Oedipus complex. ;)

[contracycle]

IMO, IF Al Qaeda is a real thing, then it mostly came into being AFTER it was identified by the US.

Lets remember the identification of AQ comes from ONE LIST found on a laptop thought to be owned by Bin Laden, containing nothing but names. This is not evidence of an organisation.

Recently, in the UK, a 3-part series was shown called "The Power of Nightmares", the central thesis being that politicians have shifted from promising to create a better world, to promising to protect us from danger - imaginary danger, if necessary.

The narrative follows the development of two groups, the NeoCons and the Islamists, both being pure expressions of this concept, and personally represented by the American philosopher Strauss, and the Islamist thinker Sayeed Kutb.

One of the most interesting aspects of this argument is seeing Rumsfeld in his previous incarnation in the role of doom-monger, shroud-waver and shrill hysteric, as he insisted, in the 70's, that the Soviets were "busy busy busy" increasing their nuclear arsenal, all based on satellite intelligence - in other words, exactly the same M.O. he employed to lie about Iraqi weapons. And of course, with this goes the rabid hostility to the UN.

Kutb on the other hand was alienated by American consumerism, and subsequently tortured by American-backed Egyptian secret service agents. His thesis - like Rumsfelds doom-mongering and shroud-waving - is in essence to provoke the west to crack down on Islam, thus bringing about his own prophecy that the West would do so.

But, the radical Islamist approach pretty much fizzled. Factionalism within the Arab world prevented a united front; the few radicals that Kutb could gather had insufficient mass; Kutb died essentially without having much geopolitical effect.

Now it is certainly true that Bin Laden was a student of Kutb, but the two initially had different agendas. Bin Laden was brought over to Kutbs position by the manifest hypocrisy iof the Wests policy in the middle east. And, the strike on the Twin Towers was very much the kind of provocative act that Kutb would have supported.

However.... NONE of this implies a vast, sophisticated, multi-national network of AQ cells. Just a couple of years ago, in a reprise of his disinformation regarding the Soviets, Rumsfled was on TV with drawings of the alleged AQ undergound bases in the Hindu-Kush - massive, multi-level affairs with generators, air con, bunkers, food stores, the works. It was to destroy these "bunkers" that the US pummelled the Hindu-Kush, including the use of Fuel-Air Explosives and deep penetrator weapons. And yet, not a single bunker was ever found. Not one. They never existed. They were figments of Rumsfelds paranoid imagination.

The Power of Nightmares offers a good argument. It has since been re-edited into a film, and shown at the Cannes festival. Al Jazeera haver broadcats the original 3-hour versiopn, but no US broadcaster would touch it with a barge pole:

For these reasons, one might well think that The Power of Nightmares would provide a usefully chastening corrective to the prevailing orthodoxy if it were shown on US television. But it seems extremely unlikely that it will be. While a two-and-a-half -hour film version is to be given a prime-time Cannes screening, and while the original three-hour series will be shown tonight on al-Jazeera along with a live interview with the director, US telly has run scared from showing it. "Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11," says Curtis. "A head of the leading networks who had better remain nameless said to me that there was no way they could show it. He said, 'Who are you to say this?' and then he added, 'We would get slaughtered if we put this out.'" Surely a relatively enlightened broadcaster like HBO would show it? "When I was in New York I took a DVD to the head of documentaries at HBO. I still haven't heard from him." He has little hope that he will.

However, Pathe have bought the film distribution rights, and it may yet be shown in the US. I wouldn't hold my breath though, down there in the land of the "free".

[bobbyR]

IMO, IF Al Qaeda is a real thing, then it mostly came into being AFTER it was identified by the US.


When did that occur?

[contracycle]

When did that occur?

When it was announced that 9/11 had been carried out by AQ, an organisation literally nobody had heard of before then.

[ALASKA]

there are idiot plain and simple blowing up inocent people just cose they ahte them who do they think they are killing people for allah when i know for a fact its is not aloud for tehm to do that