… cut deep to avoid thermal detection

Compare and contrast.

Meanwhile, Juan Cole continues to jump the shark:

The house could well have been booby-trapped, and rapid movement toward walls could be toward switches to set off bombs.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/05/top-ten-myths-about-bin-ladens-death.html#comment-63887

McGravitas: “Passenger missile” is an evocative term.

The contention is that the Terrorwarriors of the west mistook a small but fanatical gang of terrorists for a freedom-crushing Empire of Death

My own contention would be that the Terrorwarriors of the west got their start as a small but fanatical gang of terrorists, and eventually gained control of a freedom-crushing Empire of Death. But the original works really well, too.

“But the Soviet Union really was evil” – “But bin Laden really was evil.”

This is how they get you.

Simple enough. When I was a kid 50 years ago:Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran had militaries and other means (terrorism) to project force and defend their interests and ideologies.

After the “democracies” come about will these nations have anything? Will anybody?

Will America? Of course. Is this a happy accident fallen into by psychotics and fools? Apparently you think so.

Mathew@11:

They swiped it from an old issue of the Fantastic Four.

Can’t be an evil mastermind without a good bunker.

Too true:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10459886

Not to worry. The Sun’s found us a new Osama. Just on time too.

Now we are here.

Hidari attempted to bring Curtis to the “After OBL” thread, with little success. The only response there was mine, where I seemingly joined “the people who are slagging off Adam Curtis.” Only seemingly, as I was slagging from another direction than the crowd.

“America and the coalition invaded Afghanistan with the simple aim of destroying the terror camps and setting up a democracy that would allow the country to be ruled by good people,” Curtis says.

Was that really the goal of invading Afghanistan? On what evidence?

Or is it just unimportant that Curtis can ascribe such a gentle motive to US military action?

Would be helpful to have the date of the Russert/Rumsfeld clip, which just going to it in the video doesn’t get you. Presumably it was shortly after the Tora Bora operation(?).

But Curtis seems to leave any question of motives, well, unquestioned. Sure, we see that the “goal” didn’t get achieved. But in Curtis’ account that’s down to mistakes, stupidity. I can see the appeal of that approach — and it’s one we see universally applied by powerful actors. Vietnam war as mistake, not punishment of those who didn’t do what we wanted. So let’s leave that behind us, turn the corner, and do better now as we surely intended all along.

Considering from the start that those weren’t the goals after all might provide both some explanatory power when we look at what has happened and some predictive power going forward in other arenas (say, Libya). It’s possible, at least.

I see an attempt at that proposed here (call it the mcmanus version), which, though needing some flesh on the bones, is I think a contender. Naturally, considering this view doesn’t require that we say no errors or mistakes are ever made by “Empire” (a useful strawman version of this argument). And we’ll want to be wary of simply fitting assumed motives to the facts — “x occurred, therefore Empire wanted x” isn’t going to be very helpful, obviously.

But I’d be happy enough, as a start, if I could see my question about Curtis’ account addressed. What, exactly, is the evidence that US goals were as he stated them? What would even count as such evidence? My prejudice is that Curtis has no such evidence, or that it amounts to nothing more than official assertion — in other words the kind of evidence we’d rightly deride if it came from a Qaddafi, Hitler or bin Laden.

(I’d as soon leave Chomsky out of it, until we have something concrete from him bearing on the topic at hand. Maybe someone does?)

#17 “Was that graphic of the lair really in the Times (of London)?”

I don’t see why not – that kind of thing is meat & drink to a trashy Murdoch tabloid. Don’t ever mistake the Times of London for the New York Times. It’s long past being a paper of record.

Try 56:40 for Curtis’s absurd theory of the genesis of Islamists and Neoconservatives as an example of what many call his oversimplifications.

You idiot. 56:40 is the start of his conclusion. Of course it’s simplified. You see the bit on the video player that says “Part 3”? That’s there because there are two previous parts. These have the detail on his “theory of the genesis of Islamists and Neoconservatives”.

Go watch.

The film . . . consists of a pastiche of news clips, footage from old movies

And this is bad because . . .?

and bits of interviews with those sympathetic to Curtis’s views

You must have missed Richard Perle. And it would be a strange political documentary that didn’t include interviews with those whose views were consistent with the views advocated the documentary itself.

But the narrative is actually absurd. AQ has long been described as a loose network by terrorism analysts

If terrorist analysts (surely the source for Curtis’ views on AQ anyway) have long said what Curtis is saying, then how can what he’s saying be absurd?

Perhaps unwittingly, the film turns itself into an example of how simplistic narratives can nonetheless prove emotionally powerful to some audiences, all the while relying on little more than iconic images, soundbites, and innuendo.

How you can make this statement and not get Curtis’ point, I don’t know.

If you always believed that Neoconservatives were evil, that the “war on terror” as a slogan should be taken as a literal description of counterterrorism, and that one needn’t bother with any analyses of AQ beyond a few soundbites from Bush to understand what the US and British governments thought of AQ, then this is the film for you.

So Bush and Blair were puppets and your “terror analysts” have had all the real power? This is going to take quite some argument to show.

Completely absent in the film is any discussion of actual counterterrorism strategy. Instead Curtis shows us a few soundbites from Bush and Rumsfeld, as though these soundbites summarized such strategy.

Bush and Rumsfeld had a “counterterrorism strategy”?

“Invade the next country over, and botch the job” — that was the strategy…?

Just to be clear, I ‘quoted’ Curtis in a previous thread because I think his views are interesting and worthy of debate, and because I think his basic point in the article linked to (that ‘we’ need Completely Evil Villains to hate and that after OBL ‘we’ will surely create another) was correct: not because I agree with every single thing Curtis has ever said.

Alex, if you read what I wrote, you’d see it was a question about something Curtis wrote, not about his film.

Maybe you think it’s “not true to state that Curtis is arguing that US foreign policy is at heart, good,” but that’s really not what I attributed to him.

“America and the coalition invaded Afghanistan with the simple aim of destroying the terror camps and setting up a democracy that would allow the country to be ruled by good people.”

If you can show me why I should accept Curtis’ claim, go ahead. If you can’t, well, that’s what I expect really since I don’t think the claim makes any sense at all.

If terrorist analysts (surely the source for Curtis’ views on AQ anyway) have long said what Curtis is saying, then how can what he’s saying be absurd?

The narrative Curtis presents of AQ, and US and British beliefs about AQ, is absurd. Curtis resorts to a thin storyline about a neoconservative need to create a great common enemy and a sense among politicians that they were becoming irrelevant, which together drove these groups to conceive of, describe, and create a counterterrorist strategy around, the idea of AQ as an all-powerful organization able to “strike anywhere and at any time,” when in fact AQ was never a coherent organization and always had very little power. That narrative, Curtis’s narrative, is what I called absurd.

The lack of balance in the film is problematic, first, because it deprives the film’s more controversial claims of credibility. I enjoy hearing viewpoints that challenge what I think I know, but I prefer those viewpoints to actually engage with the reasons I have for thinking as I do. I end the film with the sense that Curtis never engaged the opposing viewpoints, because he never does – notwithstanding the soundbite from Perle. The lack of balance is problematic, second, because it enables the extremely weak narrative. If Curtis had enriched the film, I think he might have taken an intuition that many have had about terrorism – that it sparks a reaction in magnitude that seems disproportional to its actual threat – and made something really interesting. Instead we’re left with a storyline that, I sense, he created before doing much research on AQ capabilities as an organization, how it related to international terrorism, or counterterrorism generally.

Flying Rodent says that Curtis gets a few details wrong, but is right on the broad strokes. I think Curtis is actually strongest in the handful of areas where he drills down a little and gets some key details right, and weakest when he attempts to string together those few details into a broader picture.

So Bush and Blair were puppets and your “terror analysts” have had all the real power? This is going to take quite some argument to show.

The counterterrorism policies of the US and Britain aren’t encapsulated by a few soundbites from Bush and Blair. The policies adopted by Bush and Blair were complex, in great part a continuation of an existing approach to counterterrorism (but with much greater magnitude of resources along additional lines of effort), and fit much less with Curtis’s views of neoconservatives than they fit with an influential view of post Cold War security that the biggest short-term and medium-term threats were rogue states, failed states, and non-state actors.

There is an extent to which aspects of that counterterrorism strategy fit with a neoconservative view of human nature and foreign policy, and that confluence helped produce the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But the ideology of neoconservatives had little to do with the threat assessment of AQ and related organizations, either in the government or in the public.

It’s an interesting idea – to summarise a three hour film in a paragraph, then complain that your summarised version is simplistic – but I think unlikely to convince.

The neat thing about simplistic narratives is that they can be so succinctly summarized. That their proponents can make long documentaries built around these narratives isn’t very surprising. Conspiracy theories – which Curtis’s narrative is not, but approaches – depend on the same trick: take a simple story that rests heavily on cui bono, add lots of details and sub-plots, and never seriously engage with opposing narratives.

Curtis resorts to a thin storyline about a neoconservative need to create a great common enemy and a sense among politicians that they were becoming irrelevant, which together drove these groups to conceive of, describe, and create a counterterrorist strategy around, the idea of AQ as an all-powerful organization able to “strike anywhere and at any time,” when in fact AQ was never a coherent organization and always had very little power. That narrative, Curtis’s narrative, is what I called absurd.

1. Since you can’t actually simplify it any more than that, I think you should give up on “simplistic”

2. You also appear to be using “thin” where “coherent” is needed as a description. In general, your argument relies to a distressing extent on the use of pejorative adjectives which haven’t really been earned.

3. The fact that you called it absurd doesn’t make it absurd; you have to earn that too. In fact, it isn’t absurd; it might be right or wrong, but Curtis assembles a lot of material to back up his thesis. You’re accusing him of “not engaging with the opposing viewpoints”, but why should he, if their method of arguing with him is to say that it is “absurd” to question the motivations of people whose bad faith and lack of candour is a matter of copious public record.

At present your argument appears to be:

a) Curtis says that Al Qaeda has been portrayed by politicians as a major threat to the world for insidious reasons.

b) But actually Al Qaeda is quite weak and politicians knew this

c) Therefore, Curtis’ thesis is absurd.

It doesn’t really gel.

Earwig – that’s his own voice. He doesn’t attribute that claim to someone else as propaganda.

No it isn’t, and yes he does. It makes more sense if you include the previous paragraph.

We are beginning to realise that this simplification has led to completely unreal fantasies about who we are really fighting. Fantasies that only persist because they justify our presence there. For the fundamental problem with this simple story of good versus evil is that it does not permit a proper critical framework that allows you to properly judge not only those you are fighting, but also your allies.

America and the coalition invaded Afghanistan with the simple aim of destroying the terror camps and setting up a democracy that would allow the country to be ruled by good people.

‘Simplification’ … ‘simple’ … ‘good versus evil’. What he’s saying is that “America” believed its own propaganda, not that he believes it. Besides which, you can take it from me that the portion of the British political spectrum where people could make that statement straight is infinitesimal – more than usually stupid populist Tories, basically – and Adam Curtis isn’t part of it.

What sort of thing would count as evidence that Curtis’s thesis was wrong?

Evidence that neoconservatives were not as influential as he claimed they were. Evidence that neoconservatives did not believe the things he said they did. Evidence that Al Qaeda was a bigger threat than he said it was. Am I missing something here or is this a bit of a daft question to ask?

I don’t think the implicit invitation for me to write a “How To Refute Adam Curtis” instruction manual is one I’m going to take up, but it’s pretty obvious that one could be written. The claims in “Power of Nightmares” are as specific as they need to be (and the specific claims are not limited to the clearly falsifiable ones I happened to pick on above). It really looks like you’ve just heard of this thing called “unfalsifiability” and decided that you were going to use it.

If one group of people could bullshit about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein (and that seems to be the consensus belief across most of Europe at least), then why would it be so absurd that that same group of people would also exaggerate about the threat posed by AQ?

Phil, you have Curtis’ point being that “this simple aim is, precisely, a case of ‘being deluded by simplified views of the world.'”

I don’t see that in Curtis’ words however. Maybe you really don’t either because you also say “[Curtis is] saying that the US went into Afghanistan with that simple aim, and in the belief that success would enable “good people” to run things,” which is a fairly accurate paraphrase of his statement.

What I’m asking is How Can Curtis Know That Was The Aim?

An observation that there were “fantasies about who we are fighting,” doesn’t show Curtis didn’t himself say what he clearly said. So, still no evidence that “America and the coalition invaded Afghanistan with the simple aim of destroying the terror camps and setting up a democracy” is not something Curtis claimed. The previous paragraph, the entire article, contain no reference to that supposed aim as being merely someone else’s propaganda claim. (It obviously was a claim from time to time by US officials, and I agree that it is nothing more than propaganda. I don’t see evidence Curtis questions it, though.)

You mention at #25 “the noble lie.” Do you think Curtis is saying the neocon “noble lie” is that we wanted to establish democracy? I don’t see that in his text, and I have always understood the concept quite differently. It goes: Of course we want to establish democracy, but we may have to engage in some lying to get it done. It is because our goal is noble that the lie is an acceptable means.

How doubtful is it really that Curtis has some unquestioned faith in at least the noble intentions of US planners?

“The power of this simple story propelled history forward. It allowed the neocons – and their liberal interventionist allies – to set out to try to remake the world and spread democracy.” Curtis says that the (false, deluded) story allowed the goal (democracy) to be pursued. He doesn’t question that that was the goal. You haven’t found anything to show that he does, for the obvious reason that it isn’t there.

Cool cave! Turns out Rummy and company were reading Tom Swift Jr. as well as Ayn Rand.

“The power of this simple story propelled history forward. It allowed the neocons – and their liberal interventionist allies – to set out to try to remake the world and spread democracy.” Curtis says that the (false, deluded) story allowed the goal (democracy) to be pursued. He doesn’t question that that was the goal.

He doesn’t question that that was the goal they were ostensibly pursuing, and which some of them – and their allies – genuinely believed in. And nor should he, because it plainly was. He doesn’t step out in front of the camera like Rod Serling every five minutes to say “oh, by the way, you do realise that these people are imperialist bastards?”. And nor should he, because he doesn’t need to. At least, I didn’t think he did.

Tim Wilkinson, science has moved on a bit since the 14th Century.

You mention at #25 “the noble lie.” Do you think Curtis is saying the neocon “noble lie” is that we wanted to establish democracy? I don’t see that in his text, and I have always understood the concept quite differently. It goes: Of course we want to establish democracy, but we may have to engage in some lying to get it done. It is because our goal is noble that the lie is an acceptable means.

1. I was the one that said “noble lie”, not Phil.

2. If you want to understand what Curtis is saying vis-a-vis “noble lie” (note, this is my term, I don’t know if he has actually used it) then you should watch the Power of Nightmares, particularly part 1.

Alex (& Phil), please forgive me. I see I was mistaken on who mentioned “noble lie.”

I understand the concept perfectly well. It works as I stated: It is because our goal is noble that the lie is an acceptable means. Neither you or Strauss invented the concept.

If you’ve found Curtis somewhere saying that the lie is that we wanted to establish democracy, please say so.

I’ve seen Power, part 1 and to my recollection that doesn’t happen. It definitely doesn’t happen in the column.

No, Phil, it’s not all irony. He has his own voice. He says there’s dangerous simplifying, even false stories. That’s not irony. That’s him saying so.

That’s also him saying the other stuff I quoted him saying, too.

Maybe you want him questioning the motives, saying the motives were wrong, or too simple, but you don’t have him doing it.

Maybe you want him questioning the motives, saying the motives were wrong, or too simple, but you don’t have him doing it.

No, so all I have to go on in order to interpret what he’s written is every other thing he’s ever written, the cumulative evidence of which tells me that either (a) Adam Curtis has had a brain transplant which has transformed his political views while miraculously leaving his prose style unchanged or (b) this person was right the first time.

Only tangential to this thread, but I just saw Lawrence Wilkerson, second at State under Collin Powell at this time of the Iraq invasion state point black on MSNBC Live (Cenk Uygar) the following:

1) We were at war in Iraq because of the oil.

2) Dick Cheney, not George Bush, was really running foreign policy at the time.

Now, I know a lot of people will say “duh”, but those people, like me, have all been considered “paranoid conspiracy theorists”, as well as “dirty hippies”, including in the more moderate parts of the liberal blogosphere, for “actually” believing such things. Guess Larry has been hitting the ‘ole bong. Hope this is not too much of a tangent.

3. The fact that you called it absurd doesn’t make it absurd; you have to earn that too. In fact, it isn’t absurd; it might be right or wrong, but Curtis assembles a lot of material to back up his thesis. You’re accusing him of “not engaging with the opposing viewpoints”, but why should he, if their method of arguing with him is to say that it is “absurd” to question the motivations of people whose bad faith and lack of candour is a matter of copious public record.

Well let’s take something in particular then. Curtis claims that the neocons and “politicians like Tony Blair” presented AQ as a rigidly hierarchical organization, able to strike “at any time and anywhere,” and threatening to the very existence of the West. That’s a pretty extreme view to ascribe to anyone. You rephrased Curtis’s contention in far more reasonable terms, saying that he ascribed the view that AQ was a “major threat” to politicians. Curtis goes well beyond that.

In support of this contention, we’re given short soundbites, such as one from Bush’s 9/20/01 address to Congress. Curtis quotes Bush as saying al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime.

But Curtis doesn’t quote Bush’s more telling description just two sentences earlier in the speech: Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. “A collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations.” Does that sound like a view of a rigidly hierarchical, all-powerful organization that Curtis ascribes to US policy? Of course not.

AQ was described, both before and after 9/11, as a loose organization, with international reach, that had access to funds, safe havens, training camps and expertise, and connections to other local, regional, and international terrorist organizations. Its place as an enabler, ideologically, financially, and militarily, in addition to its own operations, and its interest in generating mass-casualties, is what rendered it a threat. It is described this way in numerous US policy documents before, and after, 9/11. It is described this way in the accounts, as far as I’m aware, of every prominent terrorism analyst to have researched them. Curtis’s alternative account of what Bush and the US government claimed or believed is, being wildly at odds with these facts, absurd.

Nor did Bush, or US policy generally, speak of AQ as the single enemy of amazing power, the caricature of policy Curtis repeatedly attacks. Instead AQ was emphasized to be one loose network of international terrorism – an important one and a threatening one – but just one. How many times did Bush mention al Qaeda by name in his 2002 State of the Union address? Once. The same number of times he references Jaish-i-Mohammed, Hezbollah, and others. The conflict was described, repeatedly, as one against the threat of international terrorism generally, with the goal of reducing the magnitude of the threat to that of a criminal problem – of a law enforcement problem.

Curtis also conveniently omits that Bush’s call to the US following 9/11 was not to join up in a new cause, nor to fear for their lives, but instead to go on living their lives – advice he gave more than once. He suggested a complete return to normalcy in as soon as a few months. Where Curtis strangely attributes the so-called “war on terror” to a neoconservative desire to move American society beyond normalcy, to a new (or perhaps old) paradigm of struggle against evil, we find that the statements of Bush and the US government are rather, again and again, in favor of normalcy. The very point of US policy is precisely to preserve normalcy in American life. Stunningly, Curtis misses this obvious aspect of US policy.

These are a few of the particular reasons why I view Curtis’s account of US beliefs about AQ, and his account of the “war on terror” generally, to be absurd. There are others of course. His account is at odds with the facts to a degree that renders the documentary slightly surreal. It’s almost as though he became so deeply invested in his story of neoconservatives as a group who, like Islamists, sought to reject what society had become, that he ignored the richer complexity of motives and institutions that inform the views of the US Government.

we find that the statements of Bush and the US government are rather, again and again, in favor of normalcy. The very point of US policy is precisely to preserve normalcy in American life. Stunningly, Curtis misses this obvious aspect of US policy.

If anything can be characterized as “absurd”, it’s this description of the Bush administration as “in favor of normalcy”. Were you on Mars or just asleep until November 2008?

Splendid, Andrew. A fellow fan of Bush’s speeches.
My personal favourite is the Second Inaugural, a hymn to the moral force of universal freedom. But I also have a soft spot for the following:

”The Clinton-Gore administration has been the most relentlessly partisan administration in our nation’s history,” Texas Gov. Bush charged in a speech to a Republican fund-raising dinner. ”But sometimes some in our party have responded in kind. Americans have seen a cycle of bitterness: an arms race of anger. The legacy is cynicism, a generic distrust.” Bush said he would break that cycle by setting ”a different tone” that restores ”civility and respect to our national politics.”

Any alternative account of what Bush claimed or believed is, being wildly at odds with these facts, absurd.
And as for the rest of you rabble, attempt to escape my remorseless logic if you must. You shall not succeed.

Great Video.

Loved the spooky / dramatic music!

Already said this in comments on my own blog, but… Only half of TPoN was about the rise of the neo-conservatives; the other was about the extreme wackiness of al Qaeda; their Qutbist forebears and their mad belief that they’d almost single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union for Allah. It’s funny how none of Curtis’s critics ever pick holes in his theories about their ideological nuttery, and are always offended on behalf of Donald Rumsfeld.

AQ was described, both before and after 9/11, as a loose organization, with international reach, that had access to funds, safe havens, training camps and expertise, and connections to other local, regional, and international terrorist organizations.

As Chris points out, it was also described as an organisation with a headquarters building, sophisticated computer systems and tanks. Bush and Cheney said lots of inconsistent things about Al Qaeda, because they were often lying.

And I second Alex’s view that the idea that Bush policy was in favour of normalcy in American life is very strange indeed.

The talk about a return to normalcy was motivated by economic worries. There were fears about a collapse in consumer confidence.
Take Rudy Giuliani, for instance. What you can do, he said, is come to New York and go shopping. “You might even be able to get tickets to The Producers now.” In every other respect, however, “9/11 changed everything”.

That the Bush Administration instead pushed Americans to not disrupt their existing lives, to continue on as always, and set a return to normalcy as the objective, completely contradicts Curtis’s thesis.

Normalcy in terms of economics. Yes. But how many times was the GWOT trotted out to justify this or that bit of legislation or foreign policy.

Even support for Israel during the Gaza episode was couched in these terms.

Oh Andrew@75, I know I should not feed you but I will.

Al Quaeda’s secret underground bases were of a piece with Iraq’s imaginary weapons of mass destruction, both noble lies prepared the American people for the vast expansion of the military industrial complex that was going to be required to fulfil the wider Neocon project (and line the pockets of the murdering classes).

On Bush’s idea of normalcy and using AQ as an existential threat to reform society.

That’s precisely what it was though. Not normalcy for those in counterterrorism, or certain parts of law enforcement, or the military, but normalcy for most of society.

The changes that “the project” required for society were of course not about structural or behavioural changes (it is neoconservative after all), it was about enforcing a new cultural norm that viewed dissent as unpatriotic and war, torture and assassination as legitimate tools of foreign policy.

The new normal was to be unquestioning, ultra-patriotic, militarism with just a taste of manifest destiny and it needed, and needs, fear to keep it stoked. Why you could almost say it depended on the power of nightmares.

Shay @78: Your comment begins by making a claim that differs substantially from Curtis’s. You say that the notion of fortified caves was a “noble lie” intended simply to expand the US military. But your comment ends with the claim – much closer to Curtis’s – that the neocons wished to bring about a “new normal” of “unquestioning…militarism.”

First, the idea that fortified caves was a noble lie intended to prepare the US for an expansion of the US military is dubious. Americans were prepared to expand the military because 3000 people had been killed on US soil just two months earlier. Americans wanted to utterly destroy those responsible for 9/11, and anyone associated with them. There were no qualms or reservations about augmenting military capability to do so. “Fortified caves” was certainly not an important part – indeed any part as far as I can remember – of a debate for expanding the military. Nor were they a remotely important part of an American perception of threat from AQ; 9/11 had made crystal clear what analysts had been warning about for years. And I don’t believe the speculation about fortified caves received much discussion after the battle of Tora Bora.

Second, a “new normal” of “unquestioning…militarism” isn’t normalcy in American life. Far from it. If this – not merely military expansion – was the neocons’ goal, it conflicted greatly with the Bush Administration’s repeated calls to resume life as normal, and indeed to set normalcy as an objective.

Remember that Curtis’s claim isn’t simply that the neocons wanted to expand the US military abroad. His claim is that they wished to use the noble lie of an all-powerful, existential threat to the US – AQ – to elevate society above the failures of liberal individualism, and that the Bush Administration put this wish into action.

The recurring theme in these comments is a re-interpretation of Curtis’s more extreme claims into more reasonable ones. Curtis’s assertion that the Bush Administration presented AQ as an all-powerful, rigidly hierarchical, existential threat becomes in various comments an assertion that the administration presented AQ as a “major threat” or an assertion that the administration presented AQ as strong and hierarchical within Afghanistan.

Unfortunately Curtis isn’t quite that reasonable in the documentary.

Chris E @76: I agree with you.

Substance @79: Yes, but this isn’t about Iraq in 2003. It’s about Curtis’s storyline regarding AQ, and the administration’s presentation of AQ.

Andrew’s being Andrew again.

“Fortified caves” are just a particularly hilarious example of the Bush Administration hyping the Al Qaeda threat into cartoon supervillians. This example was pointed out not because fortified caves, by themselves, significantly changed the public viewpoint, but because it illustrates the sort of thing that they were both willing and able to get away with saying at the time. No one, not Curtis, not anyone on this thread, is saying that “fortified caves” were the most important component of Bush propaganda during the time–and it’s bizarre that you would read them as saying that.

Second, a “new normal” of “unquestioning…militarism” isn’t normalcy in American life.

Not all definitions of “militarism” preclude the “keep shopping” message of the Bush Administration.

Curtis’s assertion that the Bush Administration presented AQ as an all-powerful, rigidly hierarchical, existential threat becomes in various comments an assertion that the administration presented AQ as a “major threat” or an assertion that the administration presented AQ as strong and hierarchical within Afghanistan.

The essential claim is that the Bush Administration presented global AQ as much more capable, much more dangerous, and more tightly organized than they actually were.

You seem to keep misunderstanding what people are saying in highly convenient ways. Assuming that you’re posting in good faith (and there is certainly lots of good faith reason one might disagree with Curtis), then a bit more humility on your part would be recommended given that you’re kind of prone to mistaken (at best) readings.

What? Militarism isn’t normalcy in American life? Do you know what the military budget is?

Chris Bertram: the graphic is rather silly, but Rumsfeld’s description is pretty good.

The mujahedin during the Soviet occupation constructed large fortified logistic bases in the Afghan/Pakistan border area, used for collecting and treating casualties and distributing ammunition and weapons. These tended – for obvious reasons of defence and concealment – to be partly underground; IIRC Soviet troops mounted airborne assaults on these in 1986-7 in particular which often turned into massive pitched battles. Bin Laden’s value to the muj was mainly that he was good at organising the construction of these bases.

If you would like to read about these, read any decent book about the Soviet/Afghan War – their existence is a matter of record. It’s not saying anything about Rumsfeld or Curtis in general to say that, in the clip you suggest, Rumsfeld’s telling the exact truth.

I suppose, given the project-onto-your-enemy-the-thing-you’re-doing nature of the Bush-era right, they have to have built some super-cool hideouts.

Rumsfeld was describing Muj military installations? That’s funny, I thought he was presenting ‘AQ’ as using such installations

Both. They were built by the muj (including OBL, as I mentioned) in the 1980s and used by AQ in 2001. The bunkers and cave positions at Tora Bora, for example, dated from the 1980s.

There is actually an entire book on this subject, “Afghanistan cave complexes 1979-2004” by Mir Bahmanyar. These were very large complexes – they were dug with heavy plant and explosives, and defended by garrisons up to 500 strong with anti-aircraft guns and artillery. The Soviets had a very, very hard time cracking them.

Well, you start with “a cave complex manned by 500-strong garrisons and defended by anti-aircraft guns and artillery”, you march the garrison out, take out the AA guns and take out the artillery, what are you left with?

If England decided to invade Wales again, I daresay that some of the partisans might hole up in Caernarfon Castle, but anyone suggesting that Ap Qaeda was capable of building crenellated battlements would be having a laugh.

I downloaded “Afghanistan cave complexes 1979-2004”. It says this:

…The multi-layered complex cave systems able to accommodate tucks or even tanks as seen in the media graphics are mere speculation and none have actually been discovered thus far. One complex at Zhawar Kili in the hotly contested Paktia Province did prove an exception as Lester Grau points out:

As the base expanded, Mujahideen used bulldozers and explosives to dig at least 11 major tunnels into the south-east facing ridge of Sodyaki Ghar Mountain. Some of these huge tunnels reached 500 meters and contained a hotel, a mosque, arms depots and repair shops, a garage, a medical point, a radio center and a kitchen. A gasoline generator provided power to the tunnels and the hotel’s video player. This impressive base became a mandatory stop for visiting journalists, dignitaries and other “war tourists”. Apparently, this construction effort also interfered with construction of fighting positions and field fortifications.

Lester Grau’s piece here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/010900-zhawar.htm

I was actually wondering the other day if in the twentieth century you had cases of soldiers holing up in medieval fortifications. Maybe it’s not that effective of a hiding place from modern artillery, but it seems like it would be better than nothing.

Just occurred to me – if you’re outside the UK, the BBC might not serve you video.
(You can get round it by using a UK proxy. A little fiddly, but maybe worth it.)

“Fortified caves” are just a particularly hilarious example of the Bush Administration hyping the Al Qaeda threat into cartoon supervillians. This example was pointed out not because fortified caves, by themselves, significantly changed the public viewpoint, but because it illustrates the sort of thing that they were both willing and able to get away with saying at the time.

Chris brought up the caves back @69, in defense of the claim that the administration was presenting AQ as an all-powerful, rigidly hierarchical organization. The idea @69 was that only a powerful, hierarchical organization would have been able to construct such bunkers; therefore to claim that AQ made the complexes is to claim that they are a powerful, hierarchical organization.

As I pointed out @75, the area in which Tora Bora was fought, the Spin Ghar, had natural limestone cave complexes, which had been used during the 1980s as bunkers, and, it was speculated, had been further augmented by AQ during its long stay in Afghanistan. One doesn’t need an all-powerful transnational organization to continue augmenting them, and the idea that these caves existed certainly wasn’t ridiculous. So the fortified caves speculation wasn’t a ridiculous attempt to transform AQ into an all-powerful enemy. Most importantly though, the caves speculation doesn’t imply that AQ is a rigidly hierarchical, all-powerful transnational network – much less, to use your words, super-villains. It’s not evidence that supports Curtis’s thesis.

The essential claim is that the Bush Administration presented global AQ as much more capable, much more dangerous, and more tightly organized than they actually were.

This is another attempt to reinterpret Curtis’s claims into something more reasonable. His claim is not simply that AQ wasn’t as powerful or as much a threat as was suggested. Curtis instead attempts to maximize the space between Bush’s claims, and reality, by painting both – Bush and reality – in extremes. Bush becomes the proponent of a view that we were fighting against an enemy, AQ, that was rigidly hierarchical, all-powerful, and able to strike anywhere and at any time. Reality, in Curtis’s telling, is that AQ never existed as an organization at all; it was a phantom enemy, a small, loose association of little consequence.

But of course Bush doesn’t make the extreme claims Curtis strives to attribute to him, and in reality AQ wasn’t quite the phantom that Curtis claims. Of course, without the extreme claims Curtis makes, it’s doubtful as to whether he would have been able to use those little amusing clips from old movies to drive his point home.

However, I don’t think that any group prior to Bush/Cheney/neocons made such a planned, organized, and concerted to replace the fundamental attitude and outlook of the United States with those of Sparta.

But Cranky, none of the examples you gave – the Patriot Act, or warrantless wiretapping, or spending money on private contractors – supports the idea of such a social transformation. They don’t come close.

Can’t post markup.
Nevermind.

Of course, without the extreme claims Curtis makes, it’s doubtful as to whether he would have been able to use those little amusing clips from old movies to drive his point home.

Curtis’s point was the difference between the fantasy and reality of those days was very great–humorously great, even, as shown in the diagram in the video. It is not that those differences are somehow maximal, which I guess would be OBL not existing and Bush launching nuclear weapons to destroy a nonexistent enemy.

One of the most hardball political moments in the campaign and one where Bushco counted on attacks from the echo chamber and passivity from the mainstream. And of course they got the latter. Here’s the “he said, she said” account from the NY Times. Contrast with this detailed account of the timeline from Joe Lockhart. My gloss:

Bush
Prez briefed AM
Subsequently attacks Kerry on GWOT in speech.
Gives a unifying “Presidential” statement on the tape.
Resumes attacking Kerry including accusations of shameful politicization of the OBL tape.

Kerry
Afternoon:
First gets “news” that there is tape during interview where he mentions Tora Bora.
Gets full briefing afterwards.
Makes a formal statement.

Consum: Where did this imply that the claims regarding fortified caves “significantly changed the public viewpoint”, or “were the most important component of Bush propaganda during the time”?

No one said you made such an implication. Shay @78 wrote: Al Quaeda’s secret underground bases were of a piece with Iraq’s imaginary weapons of mass destruction, both noble lies prepared the American people for the vast expansion of the military industrial complex that was going to be required to fulfil the wider Neocon project (and line the pockets of the murdering classes).

To this I responded @80. I did not attribute Shay’s claim to Curtis. Instead I quoted Shay’s comment, and responded to it. Consum, next time you wish to lard a comment with insults, take better care to read. Or better yet, try conversing without insults. That’s all I have for you.

mds @107: I understand. Certain things did change after 9/11. But for the most part – for most – life went on normally. There were no calls for Americans to enlist. There was no draft. I don’t really regard color codes or close frisks at airports as important changes to our way of life. The controversies – questions about interrogation techniques or wiretapping – were argued by Americans, for the most part, from a distance. And that’s why neither controversy – not interrogation and not wiretapping – played any significant role in any national election.

Loyalty oaths. You’re keeping to yours, evidently.

Are you seriously arguing that the threat of Terror and the Global War didn’t affect most Americans because of a successful Bush policy of calming things down? It was played for political advantage, to the hilt, in the national elections of ’02 and ’04.

The mismatch between the absurdity of your views and the ploddingness of your delivery is wonderful somehow. There’s a Python sketch lurking somewhere in there.

Chris: Done, and thanks.

Bert: I’m generally wary of associating “success” with “Bush.” My theory as to why Bush desired a return to normal is that Bush was not much interested in neoconservative ideology, and he didn’t feel any lack of relevance – the rather strange motive Curtis attributes to “politicians like Tony Blair.” Bush was interested in winning re-election in 2004, and he had to contain the economic repercussions of 9/11 to do so. That meant, in the US, preventing any sense of fear or siege that would stop Americans from going out, socializing, shopping, traveling, and so forth. It meant talking the US public down somewhat from the very high levels of fear and anger following 9/11. It meant a return, mostly, to normalcy.