Al-Qaida’s standing Paul Rogers – openDemocracy
Al-Qaida’s standing Paul Rogers – openDemocracy
Paul Rogers
The blindness of the Bush administration is a key weapon in the al-Qaida network’s armoury
——————————————
Osama bin Laden’s 50th birthday on 10 March 2007 was an occasion for much media reflection on the persistence of the al-Qaida movement. One attempt to counter this was the Pentagon’s release of transcripts of what were said to be confessions from its highest-ranking Guantà namo detainee, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. These confessions included his involvement in thirty al-Qaida operations over a decade, going right back to the first bombing of the World Trade Centre in February 1993.
The publicity was certainly widespread within the United States, including a marked “spin” on the main news channels to the effect that the transcripts showed just how important this figure was. As such, it served to suggest that the United States had had some real successes in its war on terror, and that the capture of this mastermind was a key example. Some of the more experienced journalists were far more sceptical, with some very good analysis of the persistent influence of al-Qaida coming in the non-US press (notably Jason Burke’s assessment, “Al-Qaeda: the second coming”, Observer, 11 March 2007).
