From: "Gary Britt" 

They left out the part about there was no Holocaust right after all the
lame stuff about Al Qaeda and UBL.

Gary

"John Beckett"  wrote
in message news:n0qkp1pno3cn27j87au0d9ln0lh993cpla{at}4ax.com...
> I don't recall discussion of this interesting TV series:
> THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES - Adam Curtis
>
> It's over three hours - here are a couple of points. I'm not saying that I
> believe each of these, but they were interesting to me (there are many
> here who have read a lot of material on this topic (not me), and the ideas
> may not be as interesting to you).
>
> Islamists and neocons formed an alliance to defeat the USSR in
> Afghanistan. Shortly after, the USSR collapsed. The Islamists regarded the
> collapse as a sign of their power - they could do anything. The neocons
> came to the same conclusion.
>
> Islamists initially believed they could spread their message by attacking
> politicians regarded as "corrupt" (pretty much by definition in their
> view, any politician is corrupt because they are not fulfilling all the
> requirements of strict Islam). However, to the surprise of Islamists, in
> countries where terror against politicians was tried, the general
> population did NOT rise up to welcome Islamism.
>
> Islamists then came to believe that the general population had been
> corrupted, particularly by westernism - i.e. the enemy is the US. Hence
> the desire to attack US interests.
>
> The 9/11 attack was in fact an act of desperation by a very small band of
> people. OBL was *not* the commander - he was approached by someone who
> planned the attack for finance and other assistance. There was no Al
> Qaeda. There was no international network of sleeper cells. There was no
> "terrorist head office" complex in the Tora Bora caves or
anywhere else.
>
> Of course, it is true that there ARE terrorists and they are very
> dangerous and need to be stopped. But it BENEFITS politicians and the
> media to exaggerate the dangers. For example, nuclear experts say that
> there is actually NO DANGER from a "dirty bomb".
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm
> THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES - Adam Curtis
> Three part series - 2004
> 1. Baby It's Cold Outside
> 2. The Phantom Victory
> 3. The Shadows In The Cave
>
> ---Program Introduction---
> In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had
> different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from
> the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and
> today people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are
> seen simply as managers of public life, but now they have discovered a new
> role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering
> dreams, politicians now promise to protect us: from nightmares.
>
> They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see
> and do not understand. And the greatest danger of all is international
> terrorism, a powerful and sinister network with sleeper cells in countries
> across the world, a threat that needs to be fought by a War on Terror. But
> much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted
> by politicians. It's a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through
> governments around the world, the security services and the international
> media. This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was
> created and who it benefits.
>
> At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives
> and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists, who were born out of the
> failure of the liberal dream to build a better world and both had a very
> similar explanation of what caused that failure. These two groups have
> changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they
> created today's nightmare vision of a secret organised evil that threatens
> the world, a fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and
> authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became
> the most powerful.
>
> John
>

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