Al-Qaida Did It

Benazir Bhutto is murdered, Al-Qaida did it

Terrorist cell in Spain, link it to Al-Qaida

Resistance groups in Iraq, it's Al-Qaida

Tourist shot, it has to be Al-Qaida

England's Queen under attack, lets blame A-Qaida

Global Warming blame Al-Qaida, Peak Oil blame Al-Qaida, Sub prime Mortgages blame Al-Qaida, Stock Market down blame Al-Qaida, stub your tow, it has to be Al-Qaisa's fault.

Every time anything goes boom, the government spokespersons and their ever complaint and increasingly lazy media shout Al-Qaida. Sometimes it is but often there is no reason to name Al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is now named for almost every incident that occurs in Iraq, bombing, sniper attacks, or combat, despite the fact that historically when the armed forces have been able to firmly ID the attacker, Al-Qaida has been only a small percentage of the total. There is little doubt that Al-Qaida would like to have done these things, but there is no reason to expect that they are responsible for all that is blamed on them.

Even when it is a group claiming to be Al-Qaida no one bothers to point out that the vast majority of these plots are not devised by the Al-Qaida that attacked the US, but by other groups who have independently taken up the banner of Al-Qaida (mostly for the name recognition). Some of the new self proclaimed Al-Qaida cell are inspired by faith and the ideas of Bil Laden but many are simply dissatisfied anti-establishment types looking for any way to upset the status quo.

However, our administration is quite happy with this. It allows them to paint a false picture of some all powerful carefully planned and directed global anti western action, that is for the most part, simply a couple of outsiders trying to make their mark in a deeply silly and amateurish way.

In an atmosphere of fear like that in the U.S. and parts of Europe, it is sometimes hard to separate the significant threat from the pipe dream. In a large number of headline-grabbing plots, particularly in America, homegrown terrorists seem to have been long on cataclysmic imagination and short on ability to carry out their plans.

Newspapers screamed with fire and brimstone when arrests were made in an alleged plot to flood lower Manhattan by blowing up underwater commuter tunnels, but the scheme was later revealed to be little more than a fantasy.

But, even when there are no ties to Al-Qaida, we still hear that same fear inducing name used, why?


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Al Qaida