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October 15, 2004
It's a Bobby Ewing moment
How many of you remember that deliciously trashy night-time soap opera "Dallas"? Season 9 started out with the death of a main character, Bobby Ewing. Over 25 episodes later of twists, betrayls, love, loss...and Season 10 starts with Bobby alive, stepping out of the shower and the whole of Season 9 was "but a dream."
Well, guess what, dear reader? I'm happy to wake you up.
9/11 never happened. The World Trade Center still stands. The Pentagon did not have a plane flown into it. No bodies smashed into the pavement surrounding the WTC, firemen were not crushed to death in the collapse. You can still go to the observation deck and view one of the greatest cities on earth.
Be assured, it was all a dream, a fantasty. Terrorism is just a myth.
During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
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The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have "sleeper cells". It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
Doesn't that make you feel better? No terrorists, no Beslan school children being raped and murdered. No bus bombings in Israel.
Fantasy! Nuisance! We have Peace in Our Time!
Posted by Darleen at October 15, 2004 04:34 PM