Who is Al-Qaeda?

[ursacorwin]

hey all:

i was just wondering about what DU thinks about AQ. specifically, what do you *know* and how do you know it?

the spanish situation has got me thinking, and lately, i find myself believing that there is no such thing as the AQ that our leaders and media keep talking about. which is not to say that there are no organized, self-run terrorist groups that would like to kill americans, those i believe exist in fairly large and growing numbers. but AQ...i'm just not so sure anymore.

so: to those who think that AQ is a real, independent threat- would you share some of your sources with me? and to those who think that AQ is in fact a front organization for something else, pony up!

thanks!

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. The original Al Qaeda was a CIA creation. Today the term is used to

refer to anyone who opposes US policy.

such individuals are also called "terrorists"

[MercutioATC]

2. Bob-Qaeda's brother??

...just a thought...

[blurp]

5. +1 funny

Sometimes I wish this were Slashdot.

[AP]

3. I think they're the other side of the same coin Bush is on.

I see Al Quada vs Bush as two incredibly rich factions fighting over the control of global resources. Is it any surprise that OBL, although living in caves, is from a super rich family, just as Bush is (both deriving wealth either directly or indirectly from oil)?

It doesn't surprise me.

And both factions wage their wars without an regard for the lives of the people in the middle.

[texastoast]

4. Seems like I heard . . .

That "Al-Qaeda" (OBL) followers were encouraged/supplied/trained by the U.S. when Mother Russia was invading Afghanistan back in the 80s to counter Russia's efforts, and that the monster we created is out of control (or is it?).

But that could just be rumor. Does anyone know more about this?

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Yes, and it didn't end with the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda was in Kosovo in the 1990s. And guess which side they were on?

And there's the Michael Springman story. One I like to repeat:

Fifteen of the alledged hijackers received visas through Jeddah, bin Laden's home, headquarters of the bin Laden family business and Osama's Saudi base before his expulsion. Michael Springman, a 20-year veteran of the State Department who was stationed to Jeddah, says he was repeatedly ordered to approve unqualified visa applicants: terrorists who received training in the United States by leave of the CIA. "The State Department did not run the Consulate in Jeddah. The CIA did."

Why did 15 of the 9/11 hijackers obtain visas from a bureau run as a CIA operation?

A CBC radio interview with Springman, from January 19, 2002, can be heard here: http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/dispatches/audio/020116_springman.rm . He claims his decisions to deny visas to unqualified applicants were frequently overturned for "national security reasons." In the interview, he claims he was told the CIA was working with bin Laden through the Jeddah office as a channel to send al Qaeda recruits to the United States for training as terrorists. He bluntly asserts that this partnership didn't end with the expulsion of the Soviets from Afghanistan, and continued as late as September 11, 2001. Springman raised hell, and lost his job. Why would the CIA be helping bin Laden send terrorists into the US after the Soviet defeat? Springman: "It's only a few thousand dead, and what's that against the greater gain for the United States in the Middle East?"

Springman, 20-year State Department veteran, suggests that those who died on September 11 "may have been sacrificed in order to further wider US geopolitical objectives."

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=104&row=1
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2002/02/521.shtml
http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/dispatches/audio/020116_springman.rm

[frylock]

16. "It's only a few thousand dead, and what's that against the greater gain..

for the United States in the Middle East?"

I've been saying that same thing for years. Some people can't seem to understand that 3000 lives don't amount to a hill of crap to these motherfuckers. Not when your goal is total world domination.

[info being]

19. If they can kill 20,000 innocent Iraqi's...

They can kill 3,000 Americans.

[info being]

20. dupe

[politick]

22. Wow

Amazing that I've never heard of this guy. Of course, it seems totaly obvious that everything he says is true. I hope we start to see more and mroe actual US employees coming out on this.

[BiggJawn]

11. That's how I heard it.

A CLASSIC example of how "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend" usually works.

bored rich kid from Saudi-Arabia gets his jollies running the Ruskies out of a little dirt-hole,with supplies and training provided by Ollie North and the CIA, then without anything else to do, decides that those American "infidels" squatting in his holy home-land need to be taught a lesson, too.

Figures, only Americans think it's too cool to keep genetically defective fighting dogs as PETS....Until those pets rip the face off your 3-y-o.

[stevedeshazer]

6. You're either with us, or with the terrorists

So, if you are not a Bush supporter, you need only look in the mirror.

It's just a catch-all phrase for fear and death.

[tjwash]

7. Al Queda, or most notably Bin Laden...

...was armed, funded, and supported in the early eighties by the U.S. Government to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Among other things.

On an unrelated to Al-Queda note, the US Government also around that time was propping up, funding, and arming a young dictator named Sadaam Hussein, to fight our enemies, the Iranians...

[texastoast]

13. Check it out

http://www.politrix.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=434&mode=&order=0&thold=0

This is hard to stomach. I love my country, but there is and has been scum at the helm.

[tjwash]

15. Nice......I love politrix.org.

They get to ya where you feel....

[chelsea0011]

8. It was originally Bin Laden and his close associates whatever the number

But now it is any Islamic/Muslim group whether or not they any association with Bin Laden that has participated in terrorism. It is the Boogeyman. It's out there. Not quite sure who they are. But they are out to kill us.

Oklahoma was the second largest terroist attack here. But the wacky, right wing, black helicopter, anti-government paranoid crowd never caught on as the Boogeyman. We seem to have different rules for homegrown killing. There never was the "look under everyone's bed" charge to find all McVeigh's contacts. If you're Muslim though you bet the country will go to great lengths to uncover everything at liberties expence.

[madrchsod]

10. google 'muslim brotherhood"

besides the saudi`s, this group according to some intels are major players in the funding and logistics of terror attacks.also many in the biz think they were major conduits for the funding of the 9-11 attacks and the funds may have been channeled thru spain to germany

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

21. Totally agree -- many arms & ultilizes the same gray economy

(Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Bahamas etc) that the rich do so there's not any initiative to do anything (something which I hope Kerry will talk more abuot)

(decent article on this -- & google Lucy Komisar's other stuff on alternet/In These Times)
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/03/15/al_taqwa/ )

I also add in a worrying number of Pakistan's ISI officers -- but again, no real appetite to do anything about them because they're our new best buds (Sy Hersh had a good piece on this in the last New Yorker)

We live in hypocritical times!

[sallydallas124]

12. Here's a link

It seems the only thing known is that there have been numerous connections between the US, Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, OBL & other members of his family, etc... How significant these connections are, what behavior has been produced by these connections, who benefits is muddy. Which, in itself, is quite beneficial to the players involved.

http://www.unansweredquestions.org/background_44.php

[smallprint]

14. here are a couple of articles questioning Al-Qaeda's existence

Does al-Qaeda exist?

by Brendan O'Neill

...Every day since the 9/11 attacks of 2001 there have been media reports about al-Qaeda - its leaders, members, capabilities, bank accounts, reach and threat. What is this al-Qaeda? Does such a group even exist?

Some terrorism experts doubt it. Adam Dolnik and Kimberly McCloud reckon it's time we 'defused the widespread image of al-Qaeda as a ubiquitous, super-organised terror network and call it as it is: a loose collection of groups and individuals that doesn't even refer to itself as al-Qaeda'. Dolnik and McCloud - who first started studying terrorism at the prestigious Monterey Institute of International Studies in California - claim it was Western officials who imposed the name 'al- Qaeda' on to disparate radical Islamic groups and who blew Osama bin Laden's power and reach 'out of proportion'. Both are concerned about the threat of terror, but argue that we should 'debunk the myth of al-Qaeda' (2).

There is a 'rooted public perception of what al-Qaeda is', says Dolnik, who is currently carrying out research on the Terrorism and Political Violence Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore; but, he says, such perceptions are far from accurate. Dolnik argues that where many imagine that al-Qaeda is 'a super organisation of thousands of super-trained and super-secret members who can be activated any minute', in fact it is better understood as something like a 'global ideology that has not only attracted many smaller regional groups, but has also facilitated the boom of new organisations that embrace this sort of radical and violent thinking'. Dolnik and others believe that, in many ways, the thing we refer to as 'al-Qaeda' is largely a creation of Western officials."

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006DFED.htm




The Wages of Terror

An Interview with Historian R.T. Naylor

By STANDARD SCHAEFER

...What do we really now about Al Queda's financial situation or its illicit fund- raising, and do we know for sure if we've seriously curtailed it?

R.T. Naylor: There really is no relationship between Al Queda and the Afghan opium trade. That is because Al Queda itself does not exist, except in the fevered imaginations of neo-cons and Likudniks, some of whom, I suspect, also know it is a myth, but find it extremely useful as a bogeyman to spook the public and the politicians to acquiesce in otherwise unacceptable policy initiatives at home and abroad. By those terms, Al Queda is cast like "the Mafia" and similar nonsense coming from police lobbies. This is a complex issue but, putting it very simply, what you have in both cases is loose networks of likeminded individuals-sometimes they pay homage to some patron figure who they may never have met and with whom they have no concrete relationship. They conduct their operations strictly by themselves, even if they may from time to time seek advice.

In other words, if any line of communication does exist, it is initiated from the people on the ground "upwards" to the presumed patriarch--not the other way around. Of course, from time to time some father-figure, if he really exists, might dish out some cash to some would-be followers or sycophants or hangers-on. But the notion that there is a firm "money trail" used so much in cop discourse, and now hijacked by the national security establishment, is foolish. And the idea that attacking the money trail is the best way to curb either crime or terrorism is a pure fantasy. This follow-the-money stuff has been shown time after time to be useless when it comes to "organized crime" (another stupid term) where the motive is supposedly profit. Therefore how much more so when it comes to "terrorism" where money is not a motive, but merely one among many instruments, and where in any case most actions are actually quite cheap to pull off. The reality is, for "terrorist" actions, the most important resource is commitment and that is something which cannot be frozen in a bank account."

http://www.counterpunch.org/schaefer06212003.html

[smallprint]

17. kick

[Disturbed]

18. Al Qaeda

The stated grievances of the bin Laden network fit a pattern familiar to students of Islamic activism over the past two centuries. In a fatwa released in February 1998 (and echoed last week by the Taliban), bin Laden and leaders of extremist groups in Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh specified that their war was a defensive struggle against Americans and their allies who had declared war "on God, his messenger, and Muslims." The "crimes and sins" perpetrated by the United States were threefold.

First, it had "stormed" the Arabian peninsula during the Gulf War and continued "occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places" (i.e., Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia); second, it continued a war of annihilation against Iraq; and third, it supported the state of Israel and its continued occupation of Jerusalem.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/oped/hashmi.shtml

Al Qaeda's main goals:
Remove Western influence from Islamic lands. In practice, this means eliminating American military, cultural, and political influence from predominantly Islamic countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Destroy governments in Islamic lands that are supported by and linked to the democracies of the U.S. and Western Europe and that have made peace with and recognize the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

Establish orthodox Islamic regimes throughout regions where Muslims are the majority of the population and put into practice the strict tenets of Shari'a law.


http://college.hmco.com/currentconflict/instructors/history/alqaeda.html