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The following op-ed, written by Canadian journalist Jeff Berg, compares the false flag theories to the mainstream version of the tragic Tube bombings and finds that both al Qaeda and the Blair/Bush alliance have something to gain.]
I have been reading with great interest the descriptions of the London tube bombings as a false flag operation and I would like to start by saying that I think that many of the analysts who have interpreted this event in such a manner very often hit the nail on the head in their analysis of the motives and purposes of corporatism and U.S. foreign and economic policy. (E.g. William Bowles, Anthony Wade, P.J. Watson & Alex Jones) In this particular case, however, I think they are in error. I am of course, like they, merely speculating as none of us have direct access to the facts of the investigation. Now normally I am quite loathe to spend my very small amounts of writing time indulging in discussions that devolve to pure interpretive analysis devoid of factual bedrock. However, in this case I have a very strong intuition that these normally perceptive analysts are in serious error and that the depth of this error may be of signal importance in a number of crucial ways to our common battle against those who would use war to gain wealth and those who seek to use terrorist events to further militarize and ‘secure’ our societies. It is for this reason, and in the hopes of furthering our common goals, that I am writing this piece. In a nutshell where these analysts and I differ most signally in our interpretation of the London bombings is that I believe they are failing to see just how substantially al Qaeda benefits from such bombings. And on the flip side to what degree al Qaeda’s goals and the corporate militarist’s goals are in need of the same kind of breeding ground in order to come to fruition.
The logic that leads me to believe that such events perfectly serve the ends of al Qaeda follows the lines of thought of those such as Gwynne Dwyer in his book Future:Tense and the documentary film maker Adam Curtis with his film The Power of Nightmares. These works, among others, point out that what groups such as al Qaeda are seeking to do is recreate a theocratic Muslim state spanning all of the Middle East and uniting all of Islam so as to usher a return of Islam to its proper place as the leading civilization of the world. These mujadeen like George Bush’s evangelicals truly believe they are the umma, the chosen ones, and as such they cannot lose as they are on His side. And what they realized after the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan and the betrayal by Saudi Arabia in 1991, inviting infidels on to the land of Mecca, is that the only way to defeat the influence of America over the Middle East and Islam was to bring her army to them. If they could do this then, just as they did with the Soviets, they could sap the will of the Imperial State by murdering her soldiers, her business class, and any collaborationists that were contaminated by contact with the infidels. On the other hand, as long as America kept her army at home they knew there would be no way for them to significantly diminish her influence over the region, her support for Israel, and her humiliation of the umma by her hegemony over their resources. Even more importantly, they also knew that there was very little support among most of the populace for the kind of state that they wanted and for the armed rebellion and mass insurrection that would be needed to overthrow the governments that stood in their way. (i.e. the governments of every Islamic nation on the planet excepting perhaps Iran, though even Iran is backsliding as far as al Qaeda is concerned) Osama bin Laden and his brothers in arms knew that the only way they were going to be able to foment the kind of social unrest necessary for their plans to succeed was for them to draw the American Army into the very same trap that Brzezinski claims to have set for the Soviet Union. (He may just be bragging about his part in these events, but the point stands nonetheless.)
Let us now for a moment leave al Qaeda and London take a look at the motivations of those who are on the flip side of this equation, gaining from instability becoming the coin of the realm. America’s generals knew the trap that the invasion of Iraq could lead to, America’s State Department knew it and most especially America’s intelligence community knew it after all they had been the funders and organizers of the mujadeen’s efforts against the Soviets in Afghanistan. This is why so many of the analysts from these branches of the U.S. government were leery of an invasion and occupation of Iraq. For one thing, they knew that it would increase not decrease the likelihood of terrorism (which their pre-invasion analysis told the President and his cabinet) and for another they knew from Israel’s experience in Palestine and Lebanon just how messy Middle Eastern occupations can be. The neo-con cabal, on the other hand, with its extensive experience in the art of making money from the oil and armaments industries believed not only that they knew better, but they further believed they were clever enough to engineer a strategy which would give their invasion a ‘butterfly spread’. In their calculations, their superior strategy in the conduct of the war and the occupation would give them a spread that would ensure that even if the war and insurgency went much worse than they anticipated, this would still only lead to their advantage as it would both facilitate the complete revamp of Iraq’s statist economy and also allow for greater military spending which could be channeled to supporters of their agenda. It is also important to note that in their political calculus an invasion would not only create the military footprint necessary to ensuring a continuation on the ground of the Carter doctrine (U.S. control of M.E. oil) and enrich supporters who would be needed in their re-election campaign, it would also allow the U.S. military the very significant benefit of pulling its troops off Saudi soil. Something very much desired and requested by the House of Saud. Thus the neo-cons believed that no matter how the invasion and occupation of Iraq went it would ensure significant geopolitical, economic and domestic political advantage.
The economic advantage was to be secured through social policy a.k.a. The Bremer Plan. This 101 page document decreed for Iraq a Milton Friedman-inspired experiment in ‘economic shock therapy’ along the same lines that were attempted in Chile by the intellectuals in charge of remaking Chile’s economy after the Pinochet coup. Only this time they were going to overcome why, in their minds, the Chilean experiment failed. For this time they would not take “half-measures” this time the shock would be total. This massive social reengineering project, of transforming a statist economy into a “pure free market” experiment, and its disastrous results are superbly documented by Naomi Klein in her Harper’s article Baghdad Year Zero . The problems with their strategy were manifold, the inability of Friedman’s conceptions to exist outside the petri dish of academe being foremost but the resistance of the oil industry to their plan was also by no means inconsiderable. (ably, as always, described by Greg Palast also in Harpers)
Ever since their self-proclaimed victory in the Cold War, the neo-cons have believed that they had crushed their ‘only’ rival, (mistake one on their part as China has long been as formidable a competitor as Russia for hearts, minds and wallets), and that this gave them not only the chance but the right, by virtue of conquest, to lay down the geo-strategic law that would guarantee American military and economic supremacy for at least a century. (Essentially till the Middle East ran out of oil. Which Esso, Shell, Hubbert, Petroconsultants, the U.S.G.S. and the CIA had projected thirty years ago as beginning no later than the first half of this century and ending sometime well before the end of the century.) The neo-cons’ reading of history is essentially that the faint of heart never won a fair lady, to the victor goes the spoils and winning means never having to say you’re sorry. They had been planning this incursion – so as to create a permanent military footprint in the Middle East – for over twenty years. In the Bush Sr. years they were known as ‘the crazies’ and though they drew up the plans they were never given their head. This changed during their second cycle in power with Bush Jr.. The roadblocks at State and in the intelligence community that had caused them to stumble the first time around were removed thanks to the “catastrophic and catalyzing event’ we all know as 9/11. For them it is known as “All systems go”.
As a result of all of this we have a “War on Terror” where the combatants need each other in order to further their goals. The neo-cons need al Qaeda to justify shredding international law and al Qaeda needs the American army in the Middle East in order to overthrow the prevailing order and to enlist the support of the population for a radical departure from all things Western and modern. The neo-cons are convinced that al Qaeda’s mission can never succeed and that, apart from their utility as a bogeyman, they are of no real import as they are but a few measly sand lice compared to the resources at the neo-cons’ disposal. Al Qaeda and their allies, on the other hand, view America as embroiled in a quagmire that will lead to an end of their domination of the region. They view America as a decadent society incapable of the sustained ruthlessness necessary for victory in this kind of conflict. Sure, in the aftermath of 9/11 they have shown some world class killing power and have caused an extraordinary amount of damage to Iraqi infrastructure and the Iraqi war machine, but as far as al Qaeda is concerned, that is all to the good. They never could have defeated the hated secularist Baathist regime on their own; and it has also led to an unprecedented level of hatred towards America across the globe. And while hatred of America is not in and of itself enough to commit whole societies to the al Qaeda project, it does at least make them the enemy of their enemy and so leads them crucial steps closer to their goal. Again something they could never have done by direct appeal of their message to the general populations of the Middle East.
It is for these reasons and others too lengthy to elucidate at this time that I believe that even if al Qaeda was not in fact directly responsible for the bombings in London, just as they or may not have been directly responsible for 9/11, from their perspective, their project greatly benefited from both. The first, because they do not yet want to see America isolated and possibly withdrawing as a result, for her presence is still needed in order to further destabilize the region and create the proper conditions for radicalizing the majority. And the second, because it drew America’s Army into the Middle East without which al Qaeda would have forever remained, at most, very marginal politically. This is why I also believe they will continue to aid such acts to the extent that their fractured organization can manage. (Which may well be little, but still: a little goes a long way in such matters) For it is not until their terrorism and our occupations have so destabilized the region that all of the countries of the Middle East go up in flames, that they have any chance the majority will turn to them and their goals as the only hope for a way out of hell. The Strauss-cons on the other hand seek to use this instability in order to roll back the ‘degradations’ caused by liberalism and so thereby rebuild America’s strength and resolve and thereby lead her to the greatness that she is ‘uniquely’ capable of conferring to the history of civilizations.
You may have noticed by this time that my thesis has led me to a position whereby it is immaterial whether the tube bombing was ‘false flag’ or al Qaeda. And yes the preamble to this conclusion was a bit of a ‘by-the-way shaggy dog story’ simply meant to lay the groundwork for that and this following conclusion: Be it al Qaeda or black op, our strategic goals are the same. Maintain/regain in principle and practice the rules of law that underlie U.N. Article 51, the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Bill of Rights. For there are, on both sides of this conflict, those who would deny us that kind of international order and those kinds of individual rights.
