I have to say I have always doubted the existance f some multi-tentacled highly organised international terrorist conspiracy and watching 'the power of nightmares' tonight my views have only reinforced. So what do you think - does it exist or are the neo-cons pushing a non existant bogeyman to keep us afraid?

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I've taken care of this for you.

Thanks

THANKYOOOOOOO :)

I'd say there is definitely a loose network of terrorist groups throughout teh world - this has been the situation for decades. For example, the IRA working with the Shining Path Marxists.

However, this doesn't necessarily constitute a conspiracy. I don't think that there is a terrorist mastermind committee a la the fictional THRUSH or SPECTRE, but that terrorists collaborate on operations of common cause.

This is the same sort of approach that many non-violent political groups take in protesting against such issues as Globalisation - there's not a central coordinating group, per se, but temporary alliances that exist to carry out particular jobs.

But I do hold the opinion that there are terrorists that will work together to commit atrocities against states throughout the world, and that such groupings should be pursued and destroyed.

Joe

There were some remarkable clips in that programme. George Bush was quite convincing, - to my mind he obviously believes in the terrorist network he's fighting, but then Bush is a crusader for his country and wants to believe.

Blair on the other hand, looked distinctly shifty, - a typical lawyer arguing an unlikely circumstance.

And the evidence (or lack of it) from Afghanistan and the US was pretty convincing too.

,mythological folk devils. they are amongst us, faceless and borderless. however, we can "smoke em out"!

The IRA have worked with Terrorist groups in france, Syria, Central america and elsewhere in their time.
They along with ETA used to buy large amounts of explosives from Syria in a "buy bulk get cheap" arrangement.

Do I believe in a global terror network?

Why not?

What got me was the "evidence" presented in the collapsed US court cases.
Where a doodle was identified by a security expert as an attack plan for a specific air base in Turkey when it was a...doodle!
These people are paranoid fantasists. I suspect 95% of those in Guantanamo are guilty of nothing but religious fundamentalism (rather than terrorism) and that there is no real evidence to convict them of anything at all.
The problem is that there are a few active terrorists out there who will occaisionally strike (Madrid train bombs) and will appear to verify what the fantasists are saying

Originally posted by kilauea
The IRA have worked with Terrorist groups in france, Syria, Central america and elsewhere in their time.
They along with ETA used to buy large amounts of explosives from Syria in a "buy bulk get cheap" arrangement.

Do I believe in a global terror network?

Why not?

Totally agree - there's been a lot of talk about the positive power of networking over the last decade but here's the flip side - networking is neutral - can be used for good and bad!

The Libyans lso provided the IRA and other European terrorist groups with weapons and training areas, and in the cold war quite a bit of Czech manufactured high explosive found it's ways westwards as well.

Terror network - yes, terror conspiracy, probably not!

Joe

Terror network or terror conspiracy, where does the money come from?

Originally posted by max
Terror network or terror conspiracy, where does the money come from?

Through the 70s and 80s the IRA was funded and openly supported by Americans. They've changed their tune about supporters of terrorism now.

'Power of Nightmares' was a real eye-opener.

If you missed it, well worth seeing if you can get a copy somewhere.

The main point was that 'Al Queda' was basically made up by the FBI, in order to try Bin Laden for the African embassy bombings (under the same law that makes mafia bosses culpable for acts done in the name of the organisation). They took the testimony of a convicted fraudster, who told them what they wanted to hear (that there was an organised network) in exchange for reducing his sentence. He later admitted he made it up. Bin Laden had never used the name Al Queda until after Sept 11th, when the Americans started using it. In fact Bin Laden didn't have any organisation at all - just a loose collection of supporters. He even had to hire a bunch of supporters for a 'photoshoot'.

Having the illusion of an organised network has bolstered extremists power to influence the west - for example the spate of terror alerts and 'uncovered plots' last year were based on inmates at Guantanamo Bay telling their interrogators what they wanted to hear - that there were dozens of plots to attack western interests. In fact the detainees had made them up, based on disaster films like Godzilla - proving they can cause 'terror' from behind bars, WITHOUT having to actually do anything!

Originally posted by Ned Ludd
What got me was the "evidence" presented in the collapsed US court cases.
Where a doodle was identified by a security expert as an attack plan for a specific air base in Turkey when it was a...doodle!


I think the U.S are going a tad over the top with their security, what about the lads who went to Disneyland and filmed themselves dancing etc . . the U.S officials said they were planning a bomb attack! just because the camera showed a bin near one of the rides!!!
The only fanatasists are the U.S.

Originally posted by ncrossland

The main point was that 'Al Queda' was basically made up by the FBI, in order to try Bin Laden for the African embassy bombings (under the same law that makes mafia bosses culpable for acts done in the name of the organisation). They took the testimony of a convicted fraudster, who told them what they wanted to hear (that there was an organised network) in exchange for reducing his sentence. He later admitted he made it up. Bin Laden had never used the name Al Queda until after Sept 11th, when the Americans started using it. In fact Bin Laden didn't have any organisation at all - just a loose collection of supporters. He even had to hire a bunch of supporters for a 'photoshoot'.



Not entirely correct - the US gave the group the name but the group, as a loose affiliation of Islamist movements that started off in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets, had existed for some time.

http://www.fact-index.com/a/al/al_qaida.html

This is a pretty fair minded brief history.

Joe

Originally posted by JoePritchard
the group, as a loose affiliation of Islamist movements that started off in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets, had existed for some time.

Wouldn't argue that, but the point is a 'loose affiliation' is not the same as a sophisticated global terror network run from Dr. Evil style underground lairs, as it was portrayed as.

Ahhh...would agree there. Like I said above, we're a long way from SPECTRE...

However, even a loose affiliation of likeminded people can be a worthy adversary. Most terrorist / guerilla / resistance movements tend to be decentralised for the sake of survivability.

I'm more worried about such a decentralised 'headless' network of ideas and ideals than I am about a group with centralised ideology, command and control. The latter you can bomb the crap out of....

Joe

Originally posted by ncrossland
Through the 70s and 80s the IRA was
funded and openly supported by Americans. They've changed their tune about supporters of terrorism now.


to the best of my knowledge the US as a state never sponsored the IRA in any way.
There was (is?) a private fund raising group over there called Noraid that did raise funds and support the IRA with weapons buying etc.
I would be very interested if anyone has proof to the contrary though.

Its not suprising that a lot of americans supported noraid due to the large irish communities over there with romantic ideas of what the "struggle for freedom" was really like.

Originally posted by kilauea
to the best of my knowledge the US as a state never sponsored the IRA in any way.
There was (is?) a private fund raising group over there called Noraid that did raise funds and support the IRA with weapons buying etc.
I would be very interested if anyone has proof to the contrary though.

Its not suprising that a lot of americans supported noraid due to the large irish communities over there with romantic ideas of what the "struggle for freedom" was really like.

Maybe not the state directly, but the state certainly didn't go out of its way to prevent Sinn Fein, or this noraid from fund raising.

Don't forget the current American thinking that states sponsor terrorism just by doing nothing about terrorists training/fund raising within their borders, e.g. Afghanistan, Axis of Evil, etc.

Originally posted by ncrossland
Don't forget the current American thinking that states sponsor terrorism just by doing nothing about terrorists training/fund raising within their borders, e.g. Afghanistan, Axis of Evil, etc.

Neither should we forget the previous American governments that sponsored terror, in the form of weapons and political support for Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and North Korea.

Srt of turns George Bush's speech about terror sponsors on its head..

Originally posted by Abdul
Neither should we forget the previous American governments that sponsored terror, in the form of weapons and political support for Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and North Korea.

Srt of turns George Bush's speech about terror sponsors on its head..

<bitter sarcasm>
Never fear - history is being revised as we speak so that this never happened - who said a short attention span was a bad thing!!!
</bitter sarcasm>

I watched this programme last night also. Nothing surprising really. 'They' will tell us anything to justify war, make us think we are threatened when we're not.

What makes me laugh is this programme was shown on BBC2 and it told how most of the terroist attacks are just scare mongering and don't happen, and the chances of them happening are small. People get arrested on suspision of terroist activities, then released because they haven't done anything wrong. Then you turn over onto BBC1 news and headlines include some kind of terroist threat, arrests made, plans foiled, leaflets being sent to help us cope etc etc!

Make your minds up BBC!! :loopy:

If terroists really wanted to do something, don't you think they would have by now. A nice easy one would be to drop something into the undergrounds ventilation shafts. These are all over london, in the roads, unprotected. So why haven't these so called terroists done this yet?

Originally posted by ncrossland
Maybe not the state directly, but the state certainly didn't go out of its way to prevent Sinn Fein, or this noraid from fund raising.

Don't forget the current American thinking that states sponsor terrorism just by doing nothing about terrorists training/fund raising within their borders, e.g. Afghanistan, Axis of Evil, etc.

To be fair though neither did we. Sinn Fein raised loads of funds in Ulster and on the mainland. Unless you can prove a direct link between that cash and buying weapons there isn't much you can do even now.

Don't get me wrong, you'll see from other threads I'm no fan of the US leadership, but I think its important to qualify how it "supported" the IRA.