Al Qaeda - Does it exist? (The brand / enemy effect)

whiskeyman

Once again, Al Qaeda is being reported in the media for being responsible for terroist attacks.
What bugs me is the news reporting that portraits Al Qaeda as an organisation that has planned and executed such atrocities.
It clearly is not such, but our government clearly want us to believe it is so we have a substance / organisation we can fight our war on terror against.
Al Qaeda is purely an idealogy.
Al Qaeda is not responsible for anything.
It is so much easier to portrait Al Qaeda as such, so our wars can seem as if they have purpose.
You cant fight an idealogy with bullets and bombs. If anything, you'll only fuel it.

I doubt the London attackers knew Bin Laden or ever made contact with him or his associates. They may turn out to be just fundamentalist who agreed with this idea and planned their own campaign of terror.
And all reports of "Al Qaeda members" being captured.... do they hold membership cards on their person of this organisation??

To top this, we are let to believe about "sophisticated" attacks... and giving Al Qaeda more "magical" qualities, building it up to be an almost comic book style enemy.
It doesnt take much organisation and know how to make up such devices and plan a campaign of terror. (ok, I havent researched this personally, but I have read many stories pre 9/11 of how easy it is to make bomb making equipment etc... probably about the time of the Oklahoma bombing).

Basically, all of my feelings on this can be found here in a brilliant piece :
http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/00000006DFED.htm
(It's better written than my rant, and makes for a very interesting read )

Just wondering if anyone else is amazed at how some news organisations (and ultimately Governments) still use the Al Queda card (so to speak).

thanks

qz

I suppose I agree with you there. These groups are just labelled to be sympathising with Al Qaeada to make it easier for the public I think. Haven't exactly thought about it at great lengths.

mr_angry

I think the media (supported in some cases by various governments) have a habbit of mis-interpreting the nature of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a loose coalition of independant terrorist groups that co-operate for the purposes of training and sharing tactical information. The media frequently use the term "Al Qaeda" as if it is a specific group, rather than an umbrella term for a number of terrorist groups with some common aims.

secret_squirrel

I fail to see whats got you so worked up.

Even that bastion of journalistic excellence SkyNews has made it quite clear that at best 'Al Qaeda' is just a convienient umbrella term/description for a whole spectrum of islamic terrorist groups.

It could be argued that 'Al Qaeda' is a very useful term to describe various terrorist groups that have very sophisticated modus operandi and share similar aims.

Ultimately it matters not what we call these scum - just that they are stopped.

whiskeyman wrote:

Al Qaeda is not responsible for anything.

Thats a pretty fatuous arguement tbh - even if the 'core' groups that make up 'Al Qaeda' have not directly commited any terrorist acts - doubtful imho - the mere fact that they have such a large media footprint is enough to make them the inspiration for several terrorist atrocities - no matter what name they are given.

Capt'n Midnight

qz wrote:

I suppose I agree with you there. These groups are just labelled to be sympathising with Al Qaeada to make it easier for the public I think. Haven't exactly thought about it at great lengths.

You've heard of the Viet Cong perchance ?
The National Liberation Front (NLF or Viet Cong) was formed as a guerrilla movement in opposition to the South Vietnamese government. The RVN and the US referred to the NLF as Viet Cong, short for Viet Nam Cong San, or "Vietnamese Communist". The NLF itself never went by this name. http://www.artpolitic.org/infopedia/hi/History_of_Vietnam.html

But Viet Cong was a scarier name so that's what they used..

Back to the big lie of the war on terror.
Bottom line, you won't take out Al Qaeda in a single operation. Just look north, IRA , CIRA, INLA , INLO, RIRA, IPLO and that's in a population base of less than a million - same on the "other side" http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/paramilitary.htm
There are slightly more than a million muslims, (if you ignore other groups who have used terror) - imagine trying to disarm all of the known "Militias" in the USA !

whiskeyman

secret_squirrel wrote:

Thats a pretty fatuous arguement tbh.

yeah, agreed. It it kinda not quite what I meant. (it's probably made clearer in the article in the link I posted).
I believe that this "branding" of Al Qaeda is highly advantageous to our Governments to affect public opinion on the merits of their wars and anti-terroism policy and laws, and it gives the enemy more of a substance, rather than trying to chase down many (unconnected?) groups with similar beliefs and goals.

secret_squirrel

Politics and the media are full of over-simplifications - why? because most of the electorate prefer it that way - most people cant be bothered to investigate anything that doesnt enthuse/intruige them. Having said that most people are fully aware they are being peddled black and white truths and over simplifications and are quiet comfortable that. We get the governments and media we deserve.

Snickers Man

secret_squirrel wrote:

I fail to see whats got you so worked up.

Even that bastion of journalistic excellence SkyNews has made it quite clear that at best 'Al Qaeda' is just a convienient umbrella term/description for a whole spectrum of islamic terrorist groups.

Let's call it like it is then. Let's just say 'Bogey Men' instead of trying to give it some sort of exotic cachet which it doesn't deserve.