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The Al-Qaeda myth.
Was Bush and Blair miss-led, or are they guilty of the fraud and deception too, was it just the neo-conservatives? Who or what was behind the idea of a well organized group with cells all over the world just waiting to strike called Al-Qaeda? :)
Who says it is a myth
It's all over the internet and world news, and has been for sometime
I find it interesting that anyone could believe Al-Q is a myth. You claim to have read much and still don't think it's real? Perhaps not as organized as before, but still in existence.
Take the time to view this and see if there was anything misleading:
frontline: the war behind closed doors: view the full program online | PBS
**edit** Here's some more from the same source:
frontline: the long road to war | PBS
Then let's just save our money and ignore the bastards.
And let them find a way here? I don't care for that idea.
They won't be satisfied by anyone ignoring them.
Tell you what, I'll read your link if you'll read mine.
Internet Archive: Details: The Power of Nightmares
From an article going back to 28 November 2003.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck
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.
spiked-risk | Article | Does al-Qaeda exist?
I started to watch your selection, but quite frankly I don't have the time right now to take a three hour course to learn your stance.
Good luck!
Al-Qaeda is not a myth but their reach over the world is somewhat exaggerated. We blow them so out of proportion that we may accidentally ignore the real terrorist... the people who decide to shoot up a school or blow up a coffee shop. It is a proven fact that America throughout history has supplied enemies and terrorist with weapons and money to gain personal profit. We sometimes feed the beast we fight... but if there is no beast for us to fight we may become it... that is what I believe we are afraid of. Maybe if we cannot create an enemy we will be seen as the tyrannical giant.
Yes, there are a lot of myths, but I would believe they are from your side.
It is easer to believe that we have nothing to fear, This was a question we discussed to day, that national security was not really an issue in the election. But when secuity is gone, all the other issues will not matter.
Yes, the name now exists; there it is in black and white on my monitor. But what does it consist of, surly not what we have been told for some years. Bush sent troops to Afghanistan to get them and couldn't find any. Then the Brits went there and couldn't find any. Bush told us there were sleepers cells in 8 or 10 American cities, the FBI couldn't find any, so where is the threat from Al-Qaeda Now they are trying to tie them into Iran, but they simply don't exist as anything more than another straggly terrorist group like hundreds of others that come and go.
Dark, that is just a bold face lie! Terrorist troops were found by both the US and the coalition forces.
To say the they didn't exsist is to say someone else put those jets into the towers.
Who do you think flew those planes and where did they get their support?
You really shouldn’t be so quick to insult me that way, especially when you don’t have time to examine the evidence…you apparently just have time to believe what politicians tell you.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainRich
That's funny, I have been thinking about the organization of Al Quaeda, rather the information put out by the Bush Administration since 911, and I have had doubts about their veracity. I remember all the scarey info to the effect that there were countless numbers of "cells" in place in America all poised and ready to put terrorist plans in action at the command of bin Laden. However, a lot of Bush's time was spent tearing down the CIA!? Even exposing a CIA agent which is a huge no-no. The CIA was and is a main source of intelligence. That makes me wonder if Bush was *creating* and disseminating his own "information" in order to control what citizens think about.
I don't know how a citizen could get good facts about this?? I do think there are some people here ready to do harm to urban areas, but as far as the machinations of this, there are no facts available to citizens. The facts would be intelligence by undercover agents and informants, also, police work.
Also, I'm suspicious of Bush and the Neo-Cons(Fascist) constant stressing that Americans should be afraid, be very afraid! All the scare tactics used upon the citizenry by the Bush leadership is to scare folks into giving up civil rights to the President. Why, Bush didn't even take steps to seal our open border to the south despite stories about how terrorists enter America from Mexico! Five full years!!
Choux,
Half a dozen times you call out Bush. Bush, Bush... How do answer to the FACT that the first attempt on the towers was during Slick Willie's churn?
We reallly can't get mad at our politicians... I have to agree with captain rich... calling out our leaders is unfair. Our leaders can only reflect the people who put them in power... they are dishonest when we are dishonest... they are ignorant because we are ignorant.Leaders are people...not gods...their actions cannot be seen as different than what we do every day.
Bush is responsible for what he does or doesn't do in his term... this is very elementary. If you don't understand that, we can't have a dialogue. A few American people are having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the Bush Presidency is competing for the title of worst in American history... they don't want their *dreams* dashed to bits.
Cordially,
Your scope is focused too narrow to have "dialogue"
You are not looking at the big picture!
When Bush is out, who you going to pin things on? Like all this JUST started??
Here's your sign... bye!
The truth is we can argue this for hours but the truth is there is no good answer. If we were to clean out the entire legislative, judicial, and executive branches we would still have issues with how things are getting done.Every era has it's good and bad points... we can't say bush was all bad or good... we can only look back and try not to make the same mistakes in the future. We also have to think how we would handle the situation and hopefully realizing that we are all human we will see that we can't avoid all controversy. If u want something done do it yourself and we all can't be president or a congressman but we can educate others about these flaws and maybe they will be. I know the best I can do is go out and vote and hopefully my opinion will count in some odd way,shape,or form.
Many things happen that do not make the news, I know after 911, the FBI investigated varioius people of interest in the Atlanta area and the things found were all at a security level and not ever released.
But in the short term Bushes term may go down badly, but I think over the next few decades, it will be judged highly as history unfolds,
Hello DC:
I think treating them like ordinary criminals would have been the best option. Wars are for nations. They ain't a nation.
What?? We got a blind sheik in jail who attacked the World Trade Center. We didn't go to war, and we didn't suspend habeas corpus to get HIM either
excon
I tend to think that your government has made it easier for you guys to have a lot of fear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck
Al-Qaeda is no myth; maybe you don't recall how the people in Afganistan were being oppressed.
"When the leadership of China, Vietnam, Singapore, Burma, Iran, Congo, [Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,] et al speak out against democracy for their peoples, they propound racial, cultural, and economic arguments that sound intelligent and make sense. But they have this in common: none of those leaders thinks of asking the disfranchised common citizen for his opinion.
"Ask the average person in China, Zaire, or the Arab countries whether, like his country's political, spiritual, and business leaders — i.e., the nomenklatura, the people in power — he also thinks that a body of personal liberties on the western model (open elections, free speech, civil rights, etc) is a thing his country and people can do without, and — provided the secret police isn't listening — the odds are that the answer would be quite different."
Check the site: Erik Svane
If Billary were to leave Afganistan or Iraq with open elections, free speech, civil rights, public education for girls and boys, it would be time for a Nobel; George Bush, like Ronald Reagan, will never receive that recognition.
Ex Our very 1st war was not against a nation but against pirates . Al-Qaeda is a modern version of the same plague .
Truth :Bin Laden formed al-Qaeda around 1988 when he decided he wanted to take jihad global. He had financed and trained recruits from many nations that were called mujahadeen to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
It is also true that they are not a singular . Many of the attacks linked to al-Qaeda is done by a loose coalition of like minded jihadist organizations. As an example; much of jihadist terrorism in the Philippines is by a groups with ties to al-Qaeda called Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya . Connecting the dots... Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted of masterminding the 1993 WTC attack, planned al-Qaeda's foiled attack on American airliners over the Pacific Ocean in the Philippines and was ultimately captured there . He is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;mastermind of 9-11 . Mohammed Atta and the other "pilots " got their initial training in Angeles City, Pampanga before proceeding to the United States.
Egypt's two largest Islamist terrorist groups are Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, both of which have important ties to OBL and al-Qaeda. Many of al-Qaeda's leaders are Egyptians including the person who probably leads the organization today ;Ayman al-Zawahiri
If it makes you any better lets call the movement jihadistan .The threat remains the same no matter which name you use.
Hello again, tom:Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
I don't discount the threat - only how we treat it.
Seems to me, that it would be more auspicious to try them as criminals, rather than attempting to change our entire system of justice. Cause it hasn't worked and isn't going to.
If we did it the old way, they'd ALL be in the slam, we'd still have habeas corpus, there would be no Gitmo, we wouldn't have tortured anybody, and we'd still be the world's moral arbiter.
excon
Don't they all seem to originate from Saudi Arabia? Or at least get their funding from there? Why is it that the U.S. stills gives billions of $ to S.A.
Ex
Well the issue of how prisoners at GITMO justice is served is unrelated to a posting claiming that al-qaeda is a myth. For the record ;as you know ;I think they are prisoners captured on a battle field awaiting decisions from a military tribunal that would've most likely already occurred if the American court system had not delayed the process. You wonder why there are still jihadists at Gitmo ? Blame the ACLU .
Why does the U.S. give billions of $ to anybody?Quote:
Why is it that the U.S. stills gives billions of $ to S.A.
Ask yourself that and research the question.
What something is is the way it is described…Al Qaeda is not now, or has never been what Bush and Blair described. They are a scraggly little fringe group with out any organization at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
Bin Laden was a member of the mujaheddin 1988 and was not starting up any organization of his own.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Osama bin Laden
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/e...ng_2050081722-
DC ;He financed much of the mujaheddin effort and had his own separate training camp. But regardless of his status before 1988 he did establish al-Qaeda afterwards.
From the site you just linked
Quote:
August 11-20, 1988: Bin Laden Forms Al-Qaeda
Yes, it is believed that the Bush administration assigned that name to them in 1998, and of course it has stuck. So when someone refers to the group they use that name.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
First let me explain what I mean by Myth. I use the myth in its technical, anthropologic sense: a partly fictional story (or image) with some historic basis that imparts a lesson to society.
What I object to is the widespread image of al-Qaeda as a ubiquitous, super-organised terror network. We should call it as it is: a loose collection of groups and individuals that doesn't even refer to itself as al-Qaeda.
Agreed ; that is why I generally call them jihadistan except when they specifically take credit under the banner al-Qaeda .
DC
Found this Belmont Club posting interesting and relevant to this discussion.
The Belmont Club: Ring out the old, ring in the new
Quote:
... the history of clandestine organizations is not one of evolutionary progress but succession. When al-Qaeda falls far enough from accumulated setbacks it will be challenged by another clandestine organization with a new and possibly better strategic vision. Therefore what is likely to happen in Iraq, and possibly in the world at large, is that al-Qaeda will continue to decline until a new and better adapted Jihadi group makes an appearance. If there is a next September 11 it will be launched by a new organization, possibly an offshoot of the old, which has been gathering unnnoticed in the shadows while we continue to beat up on Osama's old jalopy.
Riggio got it right Tom. The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) described a terrorist act as one which was: "premeditated; perpetrated by a subnational or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a noncombatant target."
As was the attack on 9/11, it was against “Liberalism” by jihads (A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural is mujahideen.) out of which Al-Qaeda was born. The primary aim of jihad is the expansion and defense of the Islamic state. Individuals that make-up the mujahideen form into different small groups for many reasons, but the main reason is because they cannot travel in large groups. So that one day they may assist in an operation they fancy that is being planned by what is called Al-Qaeda, and another day for another small group.
EDIT... Of course assuming that 9/11 was not a "false flag operation."
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