"However, it is also a term (somewhat variantly) used by many others, not least by persons leading and affiliated with Al-Quaeda."
Yes, but I have not heard of evidence that demonstrates that bin Laden or others used the term Al-Qaeda in reference to their organizations before the West applied it to them (particularly after the 1998 Nairobi bombings). Even if they did, there is no evidence (again that I have seen) that those organizations constitute the type of organization the Bush administration would like us to believe we are fighting in the war on terror. By using the term Al-Qaeda, the myth is simply normalized, and the war on terror perpetuated. The idea of an organized network of international terrorists as the neocons describe is a laughable James Bondian delusion (or better yet, Austin Powers). ----------------- "A a second -- and, I suggest with all due respect, more important -- question which it is therefore you who also raises but which remains unanswered by you is _why_ -- for what political and intellectual and emotional reasons (let alone for reasons that would aid in understanding and in political organizing) -- you have (incorrectly) reconstructed (in your imagination) how and why the term "Al-Quaeda" has come to be used?" I won't go down the road of personal insults as did my nameless accuser. I think the more interesting question is why you and others continue to use the term despite lack of evidence indicating such an organization exists? I will venture to suggest that the answer to my question lies in the Gramscian theory intellectual hegemony. What I fail to understand is why progressive Left intellectuals would fail to question the discourse espoused by the media and the Bush administration, when discourse is infused with the power to shape society and thought? Where is the critical thinking? If you want to read up on one perspective of the development of Al-Qaeda, I would suggest Jason Burke's books: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1850436665/sr=1-1/qid=1154476058/ref=pd _bbs_1/104-2245195-3119936?ie=UTF8&s=books http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1850433968/sr=1-2/qid=1154476058/ref=pd _bbs_2/104-2245195-3119936?ie=UTF8&s=books ---------------------- "When after many years of being called "Queer" gay men and lesbian activists adopted (and, granted, in so doing in part transmuted while also incorporating) that term, yet in light of the now widespread use of "Queer" to refer to persons who identify themselves as that (however they would define that "that" to be), does it matter who first used the term or whether some uses are motivated differently (much less signify that, in fact, there are not men and women and transgendered folk who identify themselves as "Queeer")? In evaluating whether and, if so, how to use word "Queer" especially in the context of political organizing, how (if at all) does it matter that whatever/whoever might be described as the "Queer"-related equivalent of Claire Sterling analogous to Sterlin'gs use of "terrorist" and "terrorist networks also used the term "Queer"? And whoever first used "Al Quaeda" (in whatever context) what (if any) form of understanding was advanced by the OP's questioning as if a "myth" the use of that term?" While I am not sure I fully understand your point, your very reasoning then stipulates that, since tales of vampires are common in many cultures, it must be true. Especially after I claim that I am a vampire. Is this horse dead yet? Jayson Funke Graduate School of Geography Clark University 950 Main Street Worcester, MA 01610 -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 2:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] what is Hizbullah? [from Juan Cole] On 7/31/06, you Jayson Funke further said: > I think I have been misunderstood. I was not that > [in the WTC 1993 bombing cases] the prosecution > used Sterling's book as evidence against Yousef > etc, . . . but rather that legal preceden[t] for similar > acts of terrorism on US soil had been successfully > prosecuted under laws against organized crime. As > a result, Yousef etc had to be linked to an organized > structure that had similar characteristics to > organized crime syndicates. > > Al-Qaeda was adopted/created as a term to describe > such a coherent and organized international terrorist > organization with legal characteristics similar to the > mob so that prosecution could proceed. The term "Al-Quaeda" has numerous sources, and it could have been correct if you had noted that one of them appears to be how CIA intelligence analysts referred to so-called "Muhadjeen" with which the CIA had formed alliances including by financially and otherwise supporting them in Afghanistan in the late-1970s and thereafter in connection with the Soviet invasion and occupation of that benighted country. However, it is also a term (somewhat variantly) used by many others, not least by persons leading and affiliated with Al-Quaeda. Given these realities, the first of (as relevant here) several infirmities with what you were not misunderstood in trying to suggest is that, in terms of the law-related aspect of the referred to prosecutions themselves, your comments earlier and above are a kind of "just so story" - a construct evidently arrived at after the fact but without paying attention to the actually relevant/operative facts. You apparently here conflate a federal RICO ("racketeering") prosecution (re. which you are correct that it would be necessary for the government to allege and to prove an "enterprise" that is engaged in a "pattern" of what is referred to as "racketeering activity" etc.) with the actuality of the WTC 1993 bombing prosecutions -- namely, that the core charges made and (yet not to put too fine a point on the matter) also proven beyond a reasonable doubt in those proceedings against Ramzi Yousef and his co-defendants were violations of the generic federal conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. § 371) but, even then, almost entirely in the context of allegations and proof also beyond a reasonable doubt of the underlying substantive criminal offenses -- i.e., that defendants conspired to use then in fact did use explosives as weapons to kill humans and severely damage property; etc., etc.. A a second -- and, I suggest with all due respect, more important -- question which it is therefore you who also raises but which remains unanswered by you is _why_ -- for what political and intellectual and emotional reasons (let alone for reasons that would aid in understanding and in political organizing) -- you have (incorrectly) reconstructed (in your imagination) how and why the term "Al-Quaeda" has come to be used? > Subsequently, many of the characteristics of Al-Qaeda > were taken from ideas espoused by Sterling in her book, > in which she focused considerable attention on KGB efforts > to develop terrorist networks throughout the world in > opposition to the West - an idea that still holds a strong > following in neocon . . . . . . and, in most respects, in basically all other actually well-informed . . . > . . . circles . . . . . . of which one of the better informed such (one might think) includes Osama Bin Laden himself, who has used the term "Al-Quadea" to refer variantly to the places in/near Afghanistan/Pakistan in which his organizations were based ("the base") and also to describe their organizations themselves. You said earlier (in a way notably less deflective that the 'plaint above about being "misunderstood") that "[your] point" was that you "cringe [sic] when [you] see the term Al-Qaeda being used on the Left, because it indicates, to [you], that we have already swallowed one of the neocon/Straussian myths; etc., etc. Still another "misunderst[anding]" you actually thus create is whether (as you seem comparatively very clearly to imply) you believe that Al-Quaeda is mostly a figment of Claire Sterling's or like-minded persons' imaginations or of a law-formalistic yet also propagandistically oriented criminal prosecutor and not a to some degree quasi-formal and in other ways de facto and (however organizationally described) quite real amalgamation of what, in fact, can be fairly (i.e., accurately) summarily described as terrorist networks in many parts of the world that oppose what _they_ contend to be their enemies (i.e., what it is you who refers to above as "the West"). And insofar as you refer to concerns of what you also characterize as "the Left" which, you also appear to imply, you would prefer be adopted, it might appear to some that you create your own related misunderstanding in not frankly and in also fact-specific terms explaining what "myths" you refer to. Indeed, were it not for your use of this term, I would not have responded to your posting at all (especially not to the law-related element, which some may find tedious). But especially in terms of revivifying (or is it just attempting to put at least a soupçon of a hint of at least some life into) "the Left" in a manner that would be credible and otherwise effective, your suggestion (re. which, in light of what you've so far said in this thread, it would be hard for you believably to claim that you are "misunderstood") that "Al-Quaeda" is not a meaningful term that refers to real life organizations and other actors is perversely off-putting because false in fact . . . even thought the execrable Geo. W. Bush and the arguably even more disgusting overwhelming number of members of congress, and also neocons, use that term, too.
