Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - "The EVIDENCE linking Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to ..9/11 is clear" OK, Where is IT?

roachboy · 05-16-2008, 07:55 AM

and i think that we are at war with ghosts, that al-qaeda was an expedient, that bin laden took credit for the attack as a public relations move, that there was no connection between iraq and anything else and that the entire misbegotten "war on terror" was driven by the desire to have A response rather than by anything coherent.

i have looked at the evidence that has been presented concerning financial linkages and found for myself that it is an indirect but not at all compelling case--and the claims bin laden made of responsibility are self-evidently problematic. but folk believe what they want about this sort of thing and, as host points out in the op, evidence is obviously secondary to that at best.

hell, who needs evidence when you can use the discourse of religious crusade? "clash of civilizations" anyone?

but you could see by 9/13/2001 how this was going to go.
the situation since has been nothing but idiocy piled atop idiocy, empty action and empty claim piled atop empty action and empty claim.

the primary functionality this "war on terror" seems to serve is that it enables continuation of the grotesque levels of resource expenditure to the benefit of military contractors. the "war on terror" is the substitute cold war--a rationale for resource allocation--but useless in every other way. the beauty of the cold war was, as paul virillio pointed out somewhere, that it was "pure war", war without battles, war as logisitics, war as generational turnover in weapons systems, a perfect expression of the centrality and internal logic of the war economy, enshrined by the national-security state in the period immediately after world war 2. the "war on terror" has events but no enemy, and so is equally endless, and the national security state is built around the assumption of endless war---but preferable endless war as parameter, as boundary condition that can be mobilized to maintain patterns of resource allocation.

the "war on terror" helped the neocons imagine a world that was symmterical with the cold war world, which made their ideology coherent, was its condition of possibility. for them, it was a useful fiction. it doesn't matter whether individual neocons were able to convince themselves that it was not a fiction---in some sense, that could be the height of fiction, the point at which it collapses into its opposite. it's utility is obvious---we are in the seventh year of the bush administration. no further argument is required.

that there have been no more "terrorist attacks" since 9/11 is not proof of coherence--i could just as easily argue that the fact i wear glasses has prevented a comet from hitting the earth and could point to the fact that no comet has hit the earth as proof of its efficacy. it's that empty.

05-16-2008, 07:55 AM	#5 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	and i think that we are at war with ghosts, that al-qaeda was an expedient, that bin laden took credit for the attack as a public relations move, that there was no connection between iraq and anything else and that the entire misbegotten "war on terror" was driven by the desire to have A response rather than by anything coherent. i have looked at the evidence that has been presented concerning financial linkages and found for myself that it is an indirect but not at all compelling case--and the claims bin laden made of responsibility are self-evidently problematic. but folk believe what they want about this sort of thing and, as host points out in the op, evidence is obviously secondary to that at best. hell, who needs evidence when you can use the discourse of religious crusade? "clash of civilizations" anyone? but you could see by 9/13/2001 how this was going to go. the situation since has been nothing but idiocy piled atop idiocy, empty action and empty claim piled atop empty action and empty claim. the primary functionality this "war on terror" seems to serve is that it enables continuation of the grotesque levels of resource expenditure to the benefit of military contractors. the "war on terror" is the substitute cold war--a rationale for resource allocation--but useless in every other way. the beauty of the cold war was, as paul virillio pointed out somewhere, that it was "pure war", war without battles, war as logisitics, war as generational turnover in weapons systems, a perfect expression of the centrality and internal logic of the war economy, enshrined by the national-security state in the period immediately after world war 2. the "war on terror" has events but no enemy, and so is equally endless, and the national security state is built around the assumption of endless war---but preferable endless war as parameter, as boundary condition that can be mobilized to maintain patterns of resource allocation. the "war on terror" helped the neocons imagine a world that was symmterical with the cold war world, which made their ideology coherent, was its condition of possibility. for them, it was a useful fiction. it doesn't matter whether individual neocons were able to convince themselves that it was not a fiction---in some sense, that could be the height of fiction, the point at which it collapses into its opposite. it's utility is obvious---we are in the seventh year of the bush administration. no further argument is required. that there have been no more "terrorist attacks" since 9/11 is not proof of coherence--i could just as easily argue that the fact i wear glasses has prevented a comet from hitting the earth and could point to the fact that no comet has hit the earth as proof of its efficacy. it's that empty. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 05-16-2008 at 08:03 AM..