Al-Qaeda: The myth that just keeps on giving

The next time there's a spectacular solar eclipse, I'm fully expecting the mainstream media to explore the possibility that al-Qaeda, using a crudely designed lunar manipulation weapon, might be responsible for the celestial outrage. After all, in the eyes of the media and our political leaders it seems there are few terrorist spectacles that Osama bin Laden's global terrorist organisation won't carry out, or at least consider.

The most recent term to become part of the terrorist lexicon is 'forest jihad', which refers to using bushfires - like those seen in Australia recently - as a weapon of terrorism. Late last year, US intelligence channels apparently identified a website calling on Muslims in Australia, the US, Europe and Russia to "start forest fires", which would cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and take months to extinguish (so that "this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time").

The internet posting, by a little-known group called the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network, claimed the idea of forest fires had been attributed to imprisoned al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Suri, who had urged terrorists to use sulphuric acid and petrol to start the fires. Al-Suri (real name Mustafa Setmariam Nasar), in US custody since 2005, has been described as the "architect of the new al-Qaeda", with a vision to transform the organisation from a vulnerable hierarchical organisation into a resilient decentralised movement. His was the perfect name to implicate in such rumours about heinous new methods of attack currently under consideration.

Al-Qaeda expert Jarret Brachman, author of 'Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice', recently told Fox News (yes, it's Fox again): "Forest fires track well with the latest discussion trends seen in the al-Qaeda forums — easy to do, big impact, low security risk, high media coverage." Brachman further claimed that "the al-Qaeda ideology was starting to branch out to more of an 'anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow' approach," and that "forest jihad fits well with the growing interest among terrorists to establish al-Qaeda armies of one."

Brachman's comments were textbook examples of fear mongering. He was basically saying that "al-Qaeda armies of one" cannot be so easily tracked and ultimately thwarted as can large terrorist cells in the throes of a complex, multi-faceted terror plot. In Brachman's own words, al-Qaeda can strike "anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow". It would seem, therefore, that with no chance of escape or effective means of resistance against this ubiquitous terrorist threat, all we can do is fear it. And let's face it, after eight long years it's what we're good at! We do 'fear' very well indeed.

Fox News has previous form for this kind of thing. In 2007, they speculated a vague terrorist link to the California wildfires based on a June 2003 FBI memo, which detailed an al-Qaeda detainee's discussion of a plot to set forest fires around the western United States. However, investigators were unable to determine whether the detainee was telling the truth, and his plot did not include setting fires in California.

When Fox News was reporting the California forest fires, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy incorrectly claimed that the "ominous" FBI memo was from late June of that year (2007), and that it was information that was "popping up [that] morning", which was demonstrably untrue. The fact that Doocy seemed intent on providing woefully inaccurate and misleading information isn't exactly groundbreaking news where Fox is concerned, but it does demonstrate the lengths the mainstream media will go to in order to plant the seed of al-Qaeda terrorism in the minds of their viewers.

Of course, just as there was no evidence of terrorist involvement in California's forest fires, there is nothing to suggest that the recent conflagration in Australia is the work of terrorists either. With the exception of 39-year-old Brendan Sokaluk, who was suspected of starting a blaze known as the Churchill fire, killing at least 21 people, leading to charges of arson causing death and intentionally or recklessly lighting a bush fire, no one else has been apprehended. And no terrorist group - let alone al-Qaeda - has stepped forward to claim that an undetected group of terrorist fire-starters were responsible.

A lot of this talk about 'forest jihad' seems to have been partly generated by "what if..." chatter on internet forums sympathetic to al-Qaeda. The laughably dramatic 'Internet Terror Monitor' on the CBS News website noted one such message entitled "Al Qaeda Behind Australia's Bushfires," which was posted by a forum member called "Osama1" (more predictable than provocative). "Imagine if all this was the work of an al-Qaeda raid against Australia who is taking part in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan...how awesome would that be?" said the bedroom jihadist. (I could spend all day imagining how "awesome" it would be if I sported a six-pack and was hung like a horse, but such desires are unlikely to ever get a foothold in reality.)

Still, the fantastical whims of a few forum members - sympathetic to al-Qaeda or not - doesn't necessarily constitute a terrorist plot or signal a new direction in the terror organisation's methods. But the media are always quick to seize on any terrorist link, however tenuous, before unleashing the 'experts' to put some flesh on the bones of their wild speculation.

In 2004, shortly after then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, offered a $5m reward for information that could lead to the capture of the aforementioned Abu Musab Al-Suri, the Syrian terrorist published a lengthy statement on his own website which addressed his al-Qaeda connections. In the statement, he categorically denied planning or having any prior knowledge of 9/11, and also refuted accusations that he was a senior planner of the Madrid train bombings, saying that both claims were "pure fabrication and a lie". Of course, this didn't make him sweetness and light. To the contrary, with regards to the 9/11 attacks, Al-Suri added: "If I had been consulted about this operation, I would have advised them to select aircraft on international flights and to have put weapons of mass destruction aboard them."

He was clearly an unpleasant and potentially dangerous individual, but his claim that the Spanish media had fabricated reports of his involvement with the Madrid train bombings was telling.

After his capture in Pakistan in late 2005, CNN described Al-Suri as "a man more dangerous for his ideas than any particular operation". And it is this sentence which I think captures the very essence of the mainstream media's reporting of terrorism, and al-Qaeda in particular. It matters not whether the details of a terror plot are vaguely speculative, accurate or even technically feasible. Neither does it matter if the alleged plotters behind the plans to commit such heinous acts are genuinely involved. The mainstream media's aim is simply to publicise these frightening terror plots - these dangerous ideas - in order to propagate an unrelenting fear that something quite terrible could befall us at any given moment.

Whether it's forest fires or the latest 'bigger-than-9/11' threat, Al-Qaeda seems to be something that the US and British governments, and the global mainstream media, wield as a means of routinely controlling the public fear level. Successes in the war on terror are promulgated through reports about the terror organisation's increasing marginalisation and dwindling capability (with caveats detailing the ever present threat). Yet conversely, we seem to be constantly bombarded with news about the latest terror plots and al-Qaeda's apparently unhindered aspirations to wreak havoc and destruction on the West.

There was a recent example of this a few days ago. A report on February 12 hailed the fact that al-Qaeda was "less capable and effective" than it was a year ago. The new director of US national intelligence, retired admiral Dennis Blair, said that this was due to a series of damaging blows that have killed key leaders in Pakistan's tribal areas. Of course, there was still a resounding warning that al-Qaeda was continuing to plot against the West, with Britain, Denmark and France singled out for special attention. However, the intelligence report further noted: "Increased security measures at home and abroad have caused Al-Qaeda to view the West, especially the United States, as a harder target than in the past, but we remain concerned about an influx of Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006."

Three days after this encouraging news, however, there was an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Watch out for al-Qaeda". Written by Marc A. Thiessen, a former senior official in both the Pentagon and the Bush White House, and most recently as the chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, the emboldened tagline - sounding as though it belonged on the poster of a horror film - explicitly set the tone of the piece: "It wants to target America's economy, and it wants to prove it can."

Given that al-Qaeda once boasted operational costs of just $500,000 to carry out the attacks of 9/11 (but which cost the US, at lowest estimate, $500bn in economic fallout), Thiessen argued that "the [current] financial crisis can only be serving to convince Al Qaeda that the time to strike America is now." From his opening paragraph, the former presidential speech writer worked hard to re-focus the reader's attention away from the global economic meltdown and back onto the constant threat of terrorism. It's like getting us to watch the birdie, while we lose our jobs, houses and life savings.

"We're bombarded with bad news - the credit markets could freeze, millions more could lose their jobs, and today's recession could turn into a depression. But the danger we aren't hearing about could outweigh them all: the increased risk of a catastrophic terrorist attack." Thiessen's opening salvo positively screamed: "DON'T LOOK OVER THERE...LOOK OVER HERE!!!"

Thiessen also reminded us that, with al-Qaeda setting an extremely high bar for itself with the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon in 2001, a smaller attack on American soil would be seen as a sign of weakness. "This is likely why we have not seen smaller-scale attacks on shopping malls and other 'soft' targets during the last seven years," posited Thiessen. "By contrast this also means that, whatever the terrorists are now planning, it likely will be on a scale to equal, or even dwarf, the attacks of 9/11," he starkly concluded.

So there we have it: a weakened and less capable al-Qaeda is most likely plotting an attack that will eclipse 9/11 and plunge the US headfirst into the economic abyss, bringing the world's sole remaining superpower to its knees. It doesn't make any sense, but then it's not supposed to. It's all about the fear and the ongoing threat.

Shortly after his election victory last November, then president-elect Barack Obama also decided to get in on the act, when he vowed to "stamp out al-Qaeda once and for all" and either kill or capture Osama bin Laden. In the post I wrote about Obama's remarks, I questioned whether his description of Bin Laden as the "operational leader of an organisation [al-Qaeda]" was entirely accurate, given reports that the terror group has reportedly become less hierarchical, with al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists largely acting independently of the near-mythical terror leader.

It seems unlikely that Obama's tough talk will be backed up with either a shackled or body-bagged Osama bin Laden anytime soon. But again, that doesn't matter. It was simply about keeping the bogeyman at the forefront of everyone's minds.

Shortly after president George W. Bush left office, the aforementioned Marc A. Thiessen wrote an article in the Washington Post which bragged that there had been no terrorist attack on American soil in 2,688 days. While this might have seemed like a vindication of Bush's foreign and domestic anti-terror policies, for Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during Reagan's first term, and former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal) it stood as proof that the 'war on terror' was nothing but an elaborate hoax.

Roberts' argument is based on the fact that if America truly is infected with terrorists, primed to strike at any moment (as George W. Bush, again, inferred during his farewell address), then it shouldn't be necessary for the government to keep reminding us - it should be apparent from events. "As there are no events," said Roberts, "the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly."

However, according to Roberts the most significant non-event which suggests that there are no terrorist cells operating in the United States, is that not a single neocon has been assassinated in the last eight years.

Roberts argues that, with the US assassinating al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, and Israel ruthlessly scything though the leadership of Hamas in much the same way (with Israeli advisors also training US assassination squads in Iraq to neutralise guerrilla leaders there), it would be reasonable to assume that al-Qaeda would fight fire with fire and deal with the instigators and leaders of America's wars in the Middle East in the same way. Yet the neocons behind PNAC and the destructive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (high-profile, soft targets with no Secret Service protection) travel around uninhibited and seemingly without fear for their safety.

Environmental campaigner George Monbiot's attempted citizen's arrest of John Bolton for war crimes at the Hay festival in May 2008 was only averted by the sheer bulk of festival security staff (comedian Marcus Brigstocke stalked Bolton as he tried to leave the other side of the stage, but was also blocked by security). Similarly, during an appearance at The New School, New York, in September 2003, a furious protestor got to within a few small feet of then US Deputy Defence Secretary (and arch neocon) Paul Wolfowitz. "Sieg Heil, you Nazi son of a bitch! You should be tried for treason!" shouted the man, as he was bundled away by security.

As deplorable as political assassinations are, these two instances alone demonstrate Roberts' point: many of these men are publicly accessible soft targets, with little protection. And with multiple listings of the neocons names online, Roberts argues that, although dreadful to contemplate, "it would be child's play for al-Qaeda to assassinate any and every neocon". Furthermore, as far back as January 2003, CNN reported that al-Qaeda was planning to target Western diplomats and other public officials wherever it could. "The tactic of assassination is very important for al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda associated groups," said Rohan Gunaratna, the author of 'Inside al Qaeda'. "In fact, al Qaeda had a...short, specialised course in assassination," the author recalled, as if remembering a team bonding day at a plush hotel (11pm - garrotting techniques; 12:30pm - finger buffet). The report also noted that al-Qaeda tapes, obtained by CNN, showed terrorist trainees practicing methods of assassination at camps in Afghanistan. This fact makes Roberts' argument about the absence of any such attacks all the more compelling.

The rap sheet for terrorist plots that have carried the "al-Qaeda" name over the last few years is a lengthy one. We've had plots against airports, airplanes, trains, cruise ships, bridges, the UK Internet, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and the Queen. There have even been plots to poison toothbrushes and face cream with Ricin in British shops. Not to mention the al-Qaeda plot to "blow up Paris" (including the Eiffel Tower and Disneyland Paris).

But while the key architects of the war on terror™, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, swan around unscathed - neither fearful nor threatened - we the people have been kept in a state of perpetual fear. Furthermore, these plots have served our political masters well. They've reinforced the need for our military forces, law enforcement and intelligence agencies to remain heavily on the offensive, and have also created perfect conditions for the introduction of sweeping anti-terror measures to deal with the perceived 'threat' (crushing our civil liberties in the process).

In many ways, this reinforces the belief that al-Qaeda is something of a myth; a phantom organisation that is either exploited or directly controlled by a powerful elite, to serve their interests and agendas. The flesh and blood terrorists that commit horrific acts of violence have misguidedly bought into this myth - enticed and then devoured by the monstrous al-Qaeda 'brand', with Osama bin Laden (the Keyser Söze of the terrorist world) as its figurehead.

There are undoubtedly many dangerous people out there who wish to inflict great harm on the western world, and I'm sure that there have been many genuine (and genuinely terrifying) plots that have been foiled over the last few years. But I have a big problem with the idea of "al-Qaeda" and the way the organisation's name is so frequently bandied around by the media and western politicians. It simply reeks of deceit and misdirection - particularly in the current economic climate, with European governments spooked by the possibility that the worm could turn. How many times will al-Qaeda rear its ugly head as more and more of the world's governments taste the anger of their disgruntled and increasingly impoverished citizens?

In conclusion to this post, I'm going to leave the final words to Jason Burke, senior foreign correspondent at the Observer and author of 'Al-Qaeda: the true story of radical Islam'. The following quote is taken from the brilliant BBC documentary by Adam Curtis, 'The Power of Nightmares'. If only half true, it's proof that al-Qaeda really is the myth that keeps on giving.

"The idea...that Bin Laden ran an organisation with operatives and cells all around the world, of which he could be a member, is a myth. There is no al-Qaeda organisation. There is no international network with a leader, with cadres, who will unquestioningly obey orders...with tentacles that reach out to 'sleeper cells' in America, in Africa, in Europe. That idea of a coherent, structured terrorist network, with an organised capability, simply does not exist."