I'm insufficiently frightened
10/01/06 20:43
Juan Cole
has a great post up on his blog about the reasons
dubya keeps pressing for torture. You can
read it here. It’s
kind of long, so here’s some snippage. Blogging
about Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to
Uzbekistan, Cole says
In essence, I understand Murray to argue that the Bush administration hyped the al-Qaeda threat in order to have a pretext for the lily pad strategy of oil security. Murray did not say so, but this strategy would then logically underlie the conquest and military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well.
I don’t think anyone who’s read many of the PNAC documents concerning the middle East, particularly Iraq, could argue that that isn’t almost certainly true. The people who are running this country right now are prosecuting the War on Terra using a strategy they devised when the Clenis was still president, years before 9/11 happened. Juan Cole thinks the torture is another tool used for keeping the fear level cranked up.
So how do you prove to yourself and others a big terror threat that requires a National Security State and turn toward a praetorian society? You torture people into alleging it.
Global terrorism is being exaggerated and hyped by torture just as the witchcraft scare in Puritan American manufactured witches.
Yep, it’s the Salem witch trials again, only this time it’s the evil brown people who worship a different cloud fairy that we are expected to hate. Ask yourself this: Were you ever really afraid that there was anything remotely resembling an existential threat to the US from al Qaida or any other terrorist group? I sure never felt that way, not even during the events of 9/11 itself. They just don’t have that kind of capability.
The Bush administration needs the Terror/ al-Qaeda bogeyman to justify the military occupation of strategic countries that have or are near to major oil and gas reserves. It needs al-Qaeda to justify the lily pad bases in Kyrgyzstan etc.
Conjecture maybe, but it sure would go a long way toward explaining why the US chased bin Laden and company up into the mountains and caves and then just kinda lost interest and went away to put a little shock and awe on Iraq, wouldn’t it?
In essence, I understand Murray to argue that the Bush administration hyped the al-Qaeda threat in order to have a pretext for the lily pad strategy of oil security. Murray did not say so, but this strategy would then logically underlie the conquest and military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well.
I don’t think anyone who’s read many of the PNAC documents concerning the middle East, particularly Iraq, could argue that that isn’t almost certainly true. The people who are running this country right now are prosecuting the War on Terra using a strategy they devised when the Clenis was still president, years before 9/11 happened. Juan Cole thinks the torture is another tool used for keeping the fear level cranked up.
So how do you prove to yourself and others a big terror threat that requires a National Security State and turn toward a praetorian society? You torture people into alleging it.
Global terrorism is being exaggerated and hyped by torture just as the witchcraft scare in Puritan American manufactured witches.
Yep, it’s the Salem witch trials again, only this time it’s the evil brown people who worship a different cloud fairy that we are expected to hate. Ask yourself this: Were you ever really afraid that there was anything remotely resembling an existential threat to the US from al Qaida or any other terrorist group? I sure never felt that way, not even during the events of 9/11 itself. They just don’t have that kind of capability.
The Bush administration needs the Terror/ al-Qaeda bogeyman to justify the military occupation of strategic countries that have or are near to major oil and gas reserves. It needs al-Qaeda to justify the lily pad bases in Kyrgyzstan etc.
Conjecture maybe, but it sure would go a long way toward explaining why the US chased bin Laden and company up into the mountains and caves and then just kinda lost interest and went away to put a little shock and awe on Iraq, wouldn’t it?
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