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Why al-Qaeda votes Bush
ATimes.com ^ | Feb. 14, 2004 | Pepe Escobar

Posted on 02/15/2004 2:17:29 PM PST by CatAtomic

THE ROVING EYE IRAQ AND AL-QAEDA Part 2: Why al-Qaeda votes Bush By Pepe Escobar

(Part 1: The usual suspects)

Sheikh Terror are the new underground sensation in ever-swingin' London. Their rap video called "The Dirty Infidels" has been sent by e-mail to the Arab-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat. The paper says the video - unlikely to end up on MTV - may have been produced in a London studio by young, radical Muslims, but mosque talk in London and northern England has attributed it to ... al-Qaeda. Sheikh Terror rap in favor of the "fight against the infidels", praise Osama bin Laden and ask for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be "burned", while images switch from September 11 to shots of George W Bush, President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and a Russian soldier executed by a Chechen guerrilla with a Kalashnikov.

Bin Laden may not be cornering the rap market just yet, but this only goes to show how the al-Qaeda brand has taken in the collective consciousness of many. A few months ago, the Rand Corp - a think-tank sympathetic to the US industrial-military complex that boasts Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as one of its former directors - published an analysis of al-Qaeda by Bruce Hoffman. This was the heart of the system debating whether al-Qaeda was a concept or a virus; an army or an ideology. The author compared al-Qaeda to a bunch of fast, easily adaptable sharks. In essence, al-Qaeda was defined as an indestructible enemy because it's impossible to circumscribe it precisely. By describing the threat as inexorable, the Rand Corp could then justify relentless, inexorable repression.

This is the way in which the Bush administration also sees it. But is pure repression working against an al-Qaeda now configured as a mutant virus - a constellation of autonomous cells constantly morphing into new shapes and tactics?

It's no secret for anyone following Islamist movements that since the early 1980s in Pakistan, bin Laden has been instrumentalized by the real masters of what would become al-Qaeda. These were the key operatives at the Maktab al-Khidamat in Peshawar: Egyptians from the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudis and Kuwaitis such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohamed Atef, Abu Zubaida, Suleyman Abu Graith and Sayf al-Adl. These people were all inspired by the most extreme ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood: Sayyed Qotb. Their ultimate objective was to provoke a fissure between the Muslim world and the West, and then recapture power in Islamic lands. Previous experiments had been a total failure - as in Egypt - or a partial failure - as in Sudan. This until Pakistan-Afghanistan in the early 1980s became the perfect platform, with Osama - flush with money and charisma - incarnating the perfect marriage of medium and message.

These people were all Sunni Muslims. Suicide bombing was never welcomed by Sunni Islam. But it was very much part of the Shi'ite cult of martyrdom. Shi'ites sanction suicide because it represents expiation for the martyrdom of the first Shi'ite imams. Hezbollah in Lebanon used suicide bombing with great success to force the departure of the Israeli occupation force. Suicide bombing then became popular with the Palestinian struggle and all over the Sunni world. But as the years rolled by there was still an infinite abyss to close. Palestinians fighting an occupier who reduced their lives to hell needed no lecture to become suicide bombers. But what about educated Muslims living in comfort - how do they choose to die for a symbol and for a goal that may never materialize?

It's a testimony to the level of Islamic rage against the West that al-Qaeda managed to steer this large-scale conversion. September 11, 2001 - with its small army of aerial suicide bombers - indeed turned history upside down. But then the whole US intelligence matrix simply could not admit that the country had been struck by a small sect - and not by a sinister, global multinational with unlimited reach.

The al-Qaeda myth Alain Chouet, a high-level expert at the French Ministry of Defense, is one among many to sustain that this is how the al-Qaeda myth was born - encouraged by the Bush administration spin machine and fully embraced, for the opposite reasons, by the Arab-Muslim world. But now there's a different situation: as Chouet puts it: "Bin Laden only existed by the interaction between his personality and the al-Qaeda capacity of being a nuisance." With the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan, but now plotting a comeback, and most of al-Qaeda's leaders captured or killed, what happens to bin Laden is now largely irrelevant.

The looming big issue in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the spring offensive planned by the Pentagon to capture bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and the remaining al-Qaeda leadership in the tribal areas of Pakistan, most probably Waziristan, where they are thought to be hiding. Asia Times Online has identified extreme skepticism about the operation, in Europe as well as in South Asia. For the Bush administration, as well as for Musharraf's government, the current status quo is the best option. If bin Laden is killed, he instantly becomes a martyr - and mini-bin Ladens, post-bin Ladens and crypto-bin Ladens will pop up like mushrooms all over Islam. This would also mean the end of the "war on terror", which is the Bushite passport for global intervention. If bin Laden is captured alive, like Saddam Hussein, he has to be judged: a trial would not only enhance his charisma, but reveal the explosive convergence of objectives between successive US administrations, the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and so-called radical Islam.

Alain Chouet maintains that since September 11, only 30 percent of all attacks and suicide bombings - invariably attributed by the Bush administration to al-Qaeda - "can be really linked to the activity of debris of al-Qaeda". So the bulk of what is defined as "international terrorism" is now in fact linked to "the internal context of the country where the attacks take place, and nothing links them to al-Qaeda". The targets may be international, as in Iraq, but the motivation and the objectives are local: in the case of Iraq, the end of the occupation by any means necessary. The attackers or suicide bombers may be radical Islamists, but they have nothing to do with Islam and don't even relate their actions to Islam.

Many in the European intelligence community now agree: political violence in the Arab-Muslim world has entered a new phase. It has nothing to do with Islam as a whole. It has nothing to do with a common threat. It has nothing to do with a messianic project. But it has everything to do with unresolved, and strictly local, political, economical and social problems. That's the case in Iraq: a nationalist movement fighting foreign occupation, just like Palestinians fighting Ariel Sharon's Israel.

Al-Qaeda may have given the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration the perfect motive for bombing Afghanistan and then invading Iraq. But even seriously disabled, al-Qaeda benefits enormously, although not directly. The fact is that the US military machine now rules over more than 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. Untold numbers are turning to a myriad Islamist radicals groups and sub-groups all over the Muslim world - which they identify as the only force, although incoherent, capable of at least facing and demoralizing bit by bit the American empire.

As for a weakened, disabled al-Qaeda, it is definitely voting Bush next November. Al-Qaeda wants the Iraq occupation to be prolonged, with or without a puppet government: there could not be a better advertisement for rallying Muslims against the arrogance of the West. Al-Qaeda's and the Bush administration's future are interlocked anyway. European intelligence sources confirm that al-Qaeda has no capability of carrying out a major terrorist attack on US soil remotely similar to September 11. This hypothetical attack would certainly generate a strong backlash against the Bushite regime for being unable to prevent it. But al-Qaeda could certainly organize something like a small-scale suicide bombing in New York, Washington or Miami during the presidential campaign, with a few American casualties. This would be like help from above for the Bushites.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2004; alqaeda; alqaedavote; bushhaters; lefties; springoffensive; votes
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This is basically the retort I get from liberal acquaintences (cannot call them friends because this IS an election year!) They counter the fact that President Bush has mopped the floor with al-quaida and Saddam by saying that recruiting will be easier for them with GW in office.
1 posted on 02/15/2004 2:17:29 PM PST by CatAtomic
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To: CatAtomic
Fanatics will recruit the disaffected, mentally challenged to their cause in any event, the important thing is to have someone willing to do what is needed to fight them.

Really it's like saying if only we had had a communist president the Soviets would have liked us. No they wouldn't have but they sure would have conquered us.
2 posted on 02/15/2004 2:27:25 PM PST by tet68
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To: CatAtomic
Many in the European intelligence community now agree: political violence in the Arab-Muslim world has entered a new phase. It has nothing to do with Islam as a whole. It has nothing to do with a common threat. It has nothing to do with a messianic project. But it has everything to do with unresolved, and strictly local, political, economical and social problems. That's the case in Iraq: a nationalist movement fighting foreign occupation, just like Palestinians fighting Ariel Sharon's Israel.

Great post-- the most perfect example of left-elite euro-babble head-in-the-sand BS I've seen.

Al-Qaeda is a "nuisance"? The euro-peons are such cowards that they think we should accept 3,000 dead as a part of normal politics.

3 posted on 02/15/2004 2:31:29 PM PST by pierrem15
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To: CatAtomic
You should remind them that Al-Queda is having trouble getting recruits in Iraq, and that they became the threat that they are under Clinton's watch.

This really just reduces down to the old "play nice and they won't hurt us" crap that 9-11 proved was folly.
4 posted on 02/15/2004 2:32:33 PM PST by Sofa King (MY rights are not subject to YOUR approval http://www.angelfire.com/art2/sofaking/index.html)
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To: CatAtomic
If President Bush were not in office, would they need to recruit or would they be appeased by a Democrat?
5 posted on 02/15/2004 2:41:34 PM PST by weegee (Election 2004: Re-elect President Bush... Don't feed the trolls.)
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To: Sofa King
***You should remind them that Al-Queda is having trouble getting recruits in Iraq, and that they became the threat that they are under Clinton's watch.

Ya know, that has my sentiment as well. Sure, landing on the terrorists like a ton of bricks has spiked emotions for those predisposed to murdering infidels, but so be it. It's not like they were having a tough time recruiting during the Klintoon era anyway. The LAST thing we need to do is give them 4yrs to regroup.

6 posted on 02/15/2004 2:43:54 PM PST by CatAtomic ("I need TP for my Binghole",,, please help unelect Jeff Bingaman D-NM)
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To: pierrem15
Al-Qaeda is a "nuisance"? The euro-peons are such cowards that they think we should accept 3,000 dead as a part of normal politics.

Well the Eurotrash have always been ready to spill blood when needed... other people's blood that is!

7 posted on 02/15/2004 2:54:40 PM PST by battousai (Coming Soon to an election near you: Pasty White Hillary and the Nine umm Three? Dwarfs!)
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To: CatAtomic; Admin Moderator
As for a weakened, disabled al-Qaeda, it is definitely voting Bush next November. Al-Qaeda wants the Iraq occupation to be prolonged, with or without a puppet government: there could not be a better advertisement for rallying Muslims against the arrogance of the West. Al-Qaeda's and the Bush administration's future are interlocked anyway. European intelligence sources confirm that al-Qaeda has no capability of carrying out a major terrorist attack on US soil remotely similar to September 11.

Horse crap.

8 posted on 02/15/2004 2:57:03 PM PST by Recovering_Democrat (I'm so glad to no longer be associated with the Party of Dependence on Government!)
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To: CatAtomic
The attackers or suicide bombers may be radical Islamists, but they have nothing to do with Islam and don't even relate their actions to Islam.

Do leftists lie so much, that they even lie to themselves? It seems to ne if they are radical Islamists that whatever they do is FOR Islam? This author just contradicts himself in one sentance!

9 posted on 02/15/2004 2:57:11 PM PST by battousai (Coming Soon to an election near you: Pasty White Hillary and the Nine umm Three? Dwarfs!)
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To: CatAtomic
This is how silly the dims has becoming! Ask Saddam if he will vote for Bush or Kerry. If Kerry is President, Saddam and his evil sons will still be in power. This is the simple fact the dims can't swallow. Klinton did nothing for eight years and we get 9/11. Bush wipe out the Taliban, the Saddam thugs - all these in a spat of two years. Maybe Kerry will want another four/eight years of doing nothing, but can we risk another 9/11 on our soil after a Kerry presidency??
10 posted on 02/15/2004 3:05:31 PM PST by FRgal4u
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To: CatAtomic
Sure, AQ is voting Bush, after all Bush chased them out of their sanctuary in Afghanistan, killed or captured two thirds of their leadership, prevented hundreds of attacks, yeah, sure AQ just loves Bush. (/sarcasm)

I guess liberals think we should have done nothing, and let them come and keep killing us, until they will start to "like us", because we are so passive?

11 posted on 02/15/2004 3:28:55 PM PST by FairOpinion (If you are not voting for Bush, you are voting for the terrorists.)
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To: CatAtomic
Some background info is needed here:

____________________________________________________________________________________________

About Us
Feb 15, 2004

 

Asia Times Online, http://www.atimes.com and http://www.asiatimes-chinese.com , is a quality Internet-only publication that reports and examines geopolitical, political, economic and business issues. We look at these issues from an Asian perspective; this distinguishes us from the mainstream English-language media, whose reporting on Asian matters is generally by Westerners, for Westerners. Our Chinese-language edition presents our articles to Chinese readers around the world.

We are served by more than 30 correspondents and contributors in 13 Asian countries, the US, and Europe. Additional content is provided by news services and renowned think tank and investment analysts and academics.

Asia Times Online was founded at the beginning of 1999 and is incorporated and duly registered in Hong Kong. It derives its revenues from advertising and the resale of original content to other publications and news services.

Historically, in our publication policy and editorial outlook, we are the successor of Asia Times, the Hong Kong/Bangkok-based daily print newspaper founded in 1995 and associated with the Manager Media Group, which had to cease publication in the summer of 1997 as a result of the Asian financial crisis. Like its predecessor, Asia Times Online gives its readers worldwide an overview of Asian news events, looking behind the headlines that are the stuff of the news agencies and networks.

We reach a global readership that is rapidly increasing. Readers are people of influence - investors, company executives, politicians, diplomats, academics, analysts, journalists - who need to know about Asian affairs. One of our aims is to become a "must read" for Westerners and Asians who do business with each other.

and


Editor (Hong Kong): Wong Kwok Wah

Managing Editor (Thailand Bureau Chief): Allen Quicke

The senior Asia Times Online editorial team has a total of over 45 years' experience living and working in Asia, having previously worked for publications such as the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong iMail, Asia Magazine, Sydney Morning Herald, and Asia Times (newspaper).




Some of our senior writers
(Click for a biographical note on a writer)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

12 posted on 02/15/2004 3:52:49 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Got to Website for Senior writers!

This seems to have some connections with China:

Historically, in our publication policy and editorial outlook, we are the successor of Asia Times, the Hong Kong/Bangkok-based daily print newspaper founded in 1995 and associated with the Manager Media Group, which had to cease publication in the summer of 1997 as a result of the Asian financial crisis. Like its predecessor, Asia Times Online gives its readers worldwide an overview of Asian news events, looking behind the headlines that are the stuff of the news agencies and networks.

13 posted on 02/15/2004 3:54:23 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
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To: CatAtomic



(This is 'Borrowed from a better FReeper than myself)

14 posted on 02/15/2004 3:55:33 PM PST by BenLurkin (Socialism is Slavery)
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To: CatAtomic
European intelligence sources confirm that al-Qaeda has no capability of carrying out a major terrorist attack on US soil remotely similar to September 11.

Oh, and Bush had nothing to do with this.

Jackass.

15 posted on 02/15/2004 3:55:58 PM PST by GunRunner
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To: CatAtomic
There is so much B.S. in this article. It would be humorous except that so many fools actually believe it.

Bin Laden only existed by the interaction between his personality and the al-Qaeda capacity of being a nuisance.

First of all, Bin Laden is clearly more than a nuisance. Second, what does it mean to say that a person exists through the interaction of his personality and some other organization. This is the typical academic crap that many liberal repeat endlessly that says nothing.

what happens to bin Laden is now largely irrelevant.

Right, except for the massive psychological impact it would have

[The capture of Bin Laden] would also mean the end of the "war on terror", which is the Bushite passport for global intervention.

Liberal genius at its best. The War on Terror is just an excuse Bush uses towards his ultimate goal of conquering the world.

So the bulk of what is defined as "international terrorism" is now in fact linked to "the internal context of the country where the attacks take place, and nothing links them to al-Qaeda". The targets may be international, as in Iraq, but the motivation and the objectives are local: in the case of Iraq, the end of the occupation by any means necessary. The attackers or suicide bombers may be radical Islamists, but they have nothing to do with Islam and don't even relate their actions to Islam.

and

Many in the European intelligence community now agree: political violence in the Arab-Muslim world has entered a new phase. It has nothing to do with Islam as a whole. It has nothing to do with a common threat. It has nothing to do with a messianic project. But it has everything to do with unresolved, and strictly local, political, economical and social problems. That's the case in Iraq: a nationalist movement fighting foreign occupation, just like Palestinians fighting Ariel Sharon's Israel.

So, terrorist attacks are a)related to occupation and b) not linked to Islam. These have to be two of the most ignorant statement in an article full of ignorance. It's pretty clear that international terrorist, not local insurgents, are at the heart of the attacks in Iraq. In Israel it's pretty clear that the ultimate purpose behind the attacks are the destruciton of Israel, not the end of the "occupation."

Al-Qaeda may have given the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration the perfect motive for bombing Afghanistan and then invading Iraq.

Now we learn that the Bush administration planned to attack Afganistan and Iraq all along, and was just look for the right excuse. I guess you could argue that Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the start (an action that I would have wholeheartedly supported). But Afganistan? How does that compute? Notice also that the excuse given is al-Qaeda, not the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians.

Finally, the article discusses how the goals of al-Qaeda and the Bush administration are intertwined since both sodes want the war to continue. This fits in with the "Bush wants to rule the world" theory. Utter nonsense.

16 posted on 02/15/2004 3:56:59 PM PST by Ronnie Radford
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To: Dog; Dog Gone; Grampa Dave; BOBTHENAILER; Ragtime Cowgirl; blam; doug from upland; onyx; ...
fyi

This does sound like the stuff the Demonic Rats spill out!

17 posted on 02/15/2004 3:57:55 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
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To: FairOpinion
see above right after your post!
18 posted on 02/15/2004 3:59:31 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
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To: battousai
"Do leftists lie so much, that they even lie to themselves?"

Every day. First thing in the morning...

19 posted on 02/15/2004 4:00:10 PM PST by okie01 (www.ArmorforCongress.com...because Congress isn't for the morally halt and the mentally lame.)
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To: FairOpinion
It's important to remember that successive US administrations since Jimmy Carter made sure that Islamic terrorists had lots of weapons and cash.

During the period of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979 - 1989) roughly $6 billion a year in weaponry was provided to the mujahadeen, as well as large amounts of drug money.

Course in those days they were called "freedom fighters" because they were fighting off the Soviet government.

After the Soviets were sent packing, the Islamic terrorist organizations moved on to greener pastures, specifically the Balkans. (Kosovo Liberation Army, Bosnian Muslim Association). Apparently Osama himself visited Bosnia and was given a Bosnian passport.

Again, the US administration provided more logistical support. In the year 2000, press reports of a KLA infiltration of Macedonia mentioned that among a group of KLA fighters (which the head of NATO referred to as "murderers and thugs") there were 17 US military advisers.

Why in heaven's name the US would still be supporting Islamic terrorists at that late date is beyond me.

However, this is not a partisan issue. Every administration from Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, to Bush again, remained on the sidelines of the war on terror right up until 9-11.

Interestingly, two of the Middle East countries that suffered the most from Islamic fundamentalism were Syria and Iraq. Which might explain why the Syrian government cooperates completely with the new "war on terrorism"
20 posted on 02/15/2004 4:04:20 PM PST by fuzlim
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