WHERE'S OSAMA? Tue Sep 3 By Ted Rall
Bush's Strategy of Distraction
NEW YORK--Bush's "war on terrorism" (one uses quotes for things which exist
in name only) has already manifested most of the characteristics of the
dystopian society described in George Orwell's "1984." Like Big Brother,
Bush is an unelected figurehead for a secretive clan of wealthy hypocrites
who live above the law. Like Orwell's fictional Oceania, the United States
is engaged in a perpetual war in which victory isn't expected within our
lifetime. Oceania bombs its own people, using the fear of faux terrorism to
maintain control over the population. The United States trains and finances
radical Islamist terrorists who predictably turn against Americans, then
uses the specter of terrorism to justify everything from fast-track signing
authority on free trade (opposition to NAFTA and the WTO, Bush's U.S. Trade
Representative argues, is "an attack on freedom") to tax cuts for the
Administration's wealthy chums to smearing Tom Daschle as a communist
terrorist enemy-of-the-state.
Bush's Operation TIPS ("Terrorism Information and Prevention System") asks
mail deliverers, meter readers, truckers (!) and other citizens to spy on
their neighbors and customers (or, in FEMA jargon, "to report suspicious,
publicly observable activity that could be related to terrorism"). Thanks to
your federal government, 128 channels may not be the only electronic marvel
your cable guy is installing in your home. And what could be more
characteristic of Stalinist totalitarianism than "disappearing" hundreds of
detainees into a covert prison system--no lawyer, no trial, no
charges--never to be seen again?
In "1984" the ubiquitous Emmanuel Goldstein is the nation's bęte noire,
blamed by the government for everything that goes wrong. He leads the
resistance; he's the author of a detailed historical treatise. Every
afternoon the citizens of Oceania gather for a "two- minute hate," a
cathartic scream-in during which Goldstein's smug face is flashed on
screens, inspiring the delirious contempt of frenzied crowds.
Goldstein, however, does not exist. Nor does the resistance. The Party
invented him to distract the citizenry from the real evildoers-- themselves.
And because Goldstein isn't real, Goldstein is immortal. The distraction,
like the "war," is eternal.
George Orwell had Goldstein. George Bush has bin Laden.
Osama was blamed for everything that went wrong for the U.S. during the
`90s. Whenever something blew up, whether it was American embassies in East
Africa or the U.S.S. Cole or even the federal building in Oklahoma City,
American officials trotted out bin Laden's name before the body count had
even begun. So it was hardly a surprise when, on September 17 Resident Bush
barked that bin Laden was "wanted dead or alive" for the 9-11 strikes,
though in fact his role was probably limited to funding the 19 Egyptian
jihadis who planned and carried them out.
Capturing bin Laden was Bush's top priority, or so he said time after time;
the bombing campaign against the Taliban was marketed to the American people
as a war against a regime that was "harboring" a wanted criminal. But after
driving the Taliban out of Kabul, according to a senior U.S. military
officer serving in Afghanistan ( news - web sites), "mission creep"
began--U.S. forces lost focus. American intelligence sided with some
warlords while trying to assassinate others. They became entangled in local
politics. They shuttled Afghan officials between Central Asian capitals to
cut oil and gas pipeline deals favorable to the U.S.
The elusive Osama became a low priority. The Defense Department story is
that back in December and January they had America's Most Wanted cornered in
the Tora Bora mountains on Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan--they
know he was up there because they heard him on walkie-talkies--and they
bombed his hideout so mercilessly that he must have been killed. But they
couldn't be sure either way, because Afghan soldiers of the Northern
Alliance and Eastern Shuria were the first to comb the hills. As documented
in my book To Afghanistan and Back, 95 percent of those troops were Talibs
on September 10; they were far more likely to offer bin Laden a ride home
than to shoot or arrest him.
Some experts doubt that the U.S. was ever serious about capturing Osama. If
he went on trial for 9-11, after all, his testimony about his years with the
CIA ( news - web sites) could prove devastatingly embarrassing. This
explains, they say, why Bush refused Taliban offers to turn over bin Laden,
why Donald Rumsfeld bombed rather than invaded by ground, why Colin Powell (
news - web sites) never asked Pakistan to seal the border, why General Tommy
Franks relied on unreliable local troops. And the Tora Bora escape tale
doesn't jibe with Afghan topography or local eyewitnesses, who say that
Osama left for Pakistani Kashmir ( news - web sites)--a far more typical
exit for fleeing Afghans than the tribal areas of the Northwest Frontier
Province--days after 9-11.
The Bush Administration denies such cynical motives for their actions,
claiming stupidity rather than duplicity. Support for the inept-not-liars
theory came with a February Hellfire missile attack launched by a drone
plane in eastern Afghanistan. The airstrike targeted a group of men, one of
whom looked to the drone's operator like the 6'5", white-tail-turbaned bin
Laden. Three desperately poor scrap metal scavengers were blown to bits, but
hey--one of them was fairly tall.
Like the Party in Oceania--sometimes at war with Eurasia, other times with
Eastasia, the enemy always having been the same--the Bushies' line on Osama
has alternated between vague, cunning and menacing. "I suspect we will [find
bin laden and other Al Qaeda leaders]," Rumsfeld said in March. "I think we
have a good crack at it. I suspect we'll get all or most [of them]." In
April, he backtracked "He's alive or dead. He's in Afghanistan or somewhere
else." By June, Time magazine was reporting, "White House aides say bin
Laden's name rarely comes up in meetings."
Public support for living the rest of their days fighting Bush's war had
begun to wane over the summer. What was missing from the cocktail of
propaganda?
Just in time for the build-up for the inevitable orgy of patriotic
sentimentality to commemorate 9-11-02, Osama bin Goldstein has been brought
back from the maybe-presumed-dead. On August 28, The New York Times quoted
military sources as saying that the Evil One "is probably still alive and
moving between mountain hideouts somewhere on a 250-mile stretch of the
border between Afghanistan and Pakistan." The on-again-off-again hunt for
Osama is on again, according to General Franks "What I will say is that we
have not seen convincing proof that bin Laden [is] dead. I actually don't
know whether he's alive or dead."
"Where's Osama?" has become America's favorite parlor game. My theory is
that he is no longer with us; it's not like the sad-eyed egoist to skip his
regular appearances on Al Jazeera TV. My friends think he's laying low in
Kashmir or Yemen. We discuss this topic frequently. Wondering about Osama is
a lot more fun than whining about the fact that the economy sucks, that
everyone we know is getting laid off, that we're losing our civil rights,
that we'll be paying off those $300 tax cuts for the rest of our lives. The
search for bin Laden keeps us distracted, and that's just the way our
leaders like it.
Bush may have read just one book, but it turned out to be the right one.
(Ted Rall's new book, a graphic travelogue about his recent coverage of the
Afghan war titled "To Afghanistan and Back," is now in its second edition.
Ordering and review-copy information are available at nbmpub.com.)
*****
http//www.stratiawire.com/
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 05, 2002
BRIEFING ON AL QUAEDA
SEPTEMBER 5. What is al Quaeda? That is a question I have been pursuing for
some time. I spoke with a long-time intelligence source of mine, and this is
what he had to say.
Al Quaeda is really a generic term that means `terrorist.' It's like calling
someone a Communist. Does that mean [in the 1980s] he has direct ties to the
Politburo? Does it mean he has connections to the KGB? To the Chinese secret
service? To a small group of Americans who meet in a room, in a basement,
and discuss the work of Marx? To his grandmother, who, in the 1930s,
attended one meeting of a socialist club in Chicago? To a Hollywood
screenwriter who once declared that the government should own all industry?
Here is what is happening. The US government is using the term al Quaeda to
label most terrorist suspects. If a guy in New Orleans, who has
bomb-assembly plans off the Internet in his apartment, vaguely knows a man
from Libya who is traveling in the US, and that Libyan knows a man in
Germany who might be planning to derail a train with a bomb…all these people
can be painted with the same brush. They can all be said to be members of al
Quaeda, as if they are all operating under orders from Osama bin Laden.
Al Quaeda is being used as a term to convince people that these terrorists
are all connected in a vast, very well organized network that is global in
reach, that has a very sophisticated and far-flung communication set-up,
that issues orders from the top down to cells all over the world.
There are a number of people inside the US intelligence agencies who know
this is a false picture. They know that false intelligence is being
assembled in order to paint this picture which is distorted, so that the
American people will have a single focus on the one grand evil enemy.
There is another piece of fall-out from this kind of distortion. People who
work inside US intelligence become demoralized, because they see facts
connected in false ways. They see their work used to create a misleading
impression.
There are people within the US intelligence community who doubt that the
hijacker list from 9/11 has much truth in it at all. They see it as a more
or less invented list. They know that if you start with men showing false
passports [or no passports] to get on three planes on 9/11, you can't
assemble a correct list of 19 suspects within a few days—especially since
all those men are presumed dead and missing. Untraceable.
Over half of all intelligence gathered by the CIA and other agencies is
slanted, or even invented, to serve a political agenda. That agenda is the
creation of an Enemy. A single pervasive Enemy. The whole objective is to
keep America on a permanent war-time footing.
I asked this intelligence source whether this OP reminded him of Orwell's
famous novel, 1984.
Sure. You take diverse nut-cases and criminals and terrorists and you weave
them all together and you give them a global leader and you say they are all
part of the same group. You give the group a name, and you focus the anger
of the public on that name.
To give that name some real punch, you have to make sure that terrorist
incidents continue to occur. You can't stop with 9/11. You have to keep going.
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