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‘60 Minutes’ Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
The 32-year-old documents produced Wednesday by the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” shedding a negative light on President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a current word processing program, according to typography experts.
Three independent typography experts told CNSNews.com they were suspicious of the documents from 1972 and 1973 because they were typed using a proportional font, not common at that time, and they used a superscript font feature found in today’s Microsoft Word program.
The “60 Minutes” segment included an interview with former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes, who criticized Bush’s service. The news program also produced a series of memos that claim Bush refused to follow an order to undertake a medical examination.
The documents came from the “personal office file” of Bush’s former squadron commander Jerry B. Killian, according to Kelli Edwards, a spokeswoman for “60 Minutes,” who was quoted in Thursday’s Washington Post. Edwards declined to tell the Post how the news program obtained the documents.
Read on - - - - >
The experts have much to say about the documents and the many reasons the documents appear to be fakes.
If 59 Minutes (Michael Savage refers to them as that because they are at least one minute away from any truth) did in fact forge these documents in order to smear George W. Bush they did a very poor job in their haste.
September 9, 2004 - 02:24 PM on September 9th, 2004
this is what I said in one of my previous posts… right PCD… shiloh, chanuk.
here is the link: http://www.rightvoices.com/archives/2004/09/08/brace-yourselves/#comment-17211
————————————————————
some other errors on the new documents
1. He wouldnt have written the abbreviation for GROUP as GRP it would have been Gp Squadron is Sq Headquarters is Hq etc
2. The little (th) after 187 (187th) if it was written on a typewriter it would not have defaulted to the superscript font that it is, it would have been just like this (187th)…
3. He wouldnt have written it as 187th in Alabama would have been something like 187th Sq. AL or 187th Tac Ftr Sq. Somewhere, AL
4. The font is too close together to have been printed on a typewriter
5. Would not have used just last names on this form as it is going to be filed in a military filing system would have used 1st LT George W Bush.
6. There is no such thing as an OETR It is called an OER (Officer Effectiveness Report)… Im sure his department head would have at least gotten this correct
7. He would have put his name on the memo title, rank, etc
This is my job, this is what I do for a living, I review documents all day long for the government and I have to know the standards (NAVSEAINST) so take it how you want, I know from experience that even memos have a standard they must follow (just ask any QA guy who works in the Pentagon about the standards for memos on the Department Head level). And this one falls way short of that standard I think it is a forgery; and not a very good one at that.
comment by madbarr 9/9/2004 @ 11:01 am
——————————————————————————–
I love it when I’m write (pun intended)
September 9, 2004 - 02:42 PM on September 9th, 2004
madbarr,
you know no matter what, shiloh and canuck will be here with Agent Orange Kerry Kool-aid on their breath demanding we accept at genuine these “memos” and that we accept Bush ducked his duties.
For all we know shiloh faked the documents and gave them to 60 Minutes. It isn’t like Democrat operatives haven’t run to the press with fake or illegally obtained documents and tapes before.
September 9, 2004 - 03:07 PM on September 9th, 2004
yep… It’s kinda fun to watch it all unravel…
September 9, 2004 - 03:12 PM on September 9th, 2004
I guess anything written by the “Swift Boat Captains for Truth” is taken as gospel truth. Anything written by Bushs deceased former squadron commander is labeled as a forgery.
Im sick of the Conservatives attacking Senator Kerry for his service in Vietnam 1/3 of a century ago, and Im sick of Liberals attacking President Bush for his service in the National Guard 1/3 of a century ago. There are plenty of timely and relevant issues with which to criticize either President Bush or Senator Kerry.
Its too bad Senator Kerry ever tried to make his service in Vietnam a campaign issue. If he had worked harder as a senator maybe we wouldnt be deluged with all of these ridiculous decades old accusations.
September 9, 2004 - 03:14 PM on September 9th, 2004
i have been making other documents, just in case these don’t work.
September 9, 2004 - 03:28 PM on September 9th, 2004
“Anything written by Bushs deceased former squadron commander is labeled as a forgery.”
Zelda, the thing about these documents is this, they just don’t look right… there are too many discrepancies with them to be able to definitively say they were written by this man… at that time, because there are things in them that could not have been created on a typewriter used during that time period… such as the subscript (th)… it just wasn’t possible then… and also, knowing the military standards of written memos, there are just too many things that a department head would not have missed as these memos are… you get into the habit of writing things a certain way in the military, such as writing the command name a certain way (Gp for Group instead of Grp… as in the memos)…
with these memos, things just don’t mesh… don’t match up… too many missing elements that wouldn’t not have been missed if these were authentic…
and besides, the guy is dead, how can he say he did or didn’t write them…?
September 9, 2004 - 03:49 PM on September 9th, 2004
Zelda,
the only distinction i would like to make in regards to your complaint is this:
Swift Boat guys expressed opinions that were picked up by the main stream media and made a story.
these papers are a story initiated by the main stream media. as far as the media is concerned, they are reporting facts, so far not disputed authoritatively.
that distinction aside, i agree with everything you said 100%.
best
September 9, 2004 - 03:53 PM on September 9th, 2004
Madbarr-we never doubted you!
Zelda- They have not been able to disprove the SBV side of the story. The Kerry camp has been correcting their version to coincide with the SBV’s.
September 9, 2004 - 03:58 PM on September 9th, 2004
thanks peejz… have a good day.
September 9, 2004 - 03:58 PM on September 9th, 2004
peejz - i didn’t know Kerry’s version of events was being corrected to conform to the SBV’s.
in what way?
on the other thing, not being able to Disprove false charges is not unvirtuous.
best
September 9, 2004 - 04:13 PM on September 9th, 2004
Really interesting. And I am sure we will never hear about these discrepencies in the media. Disgusting.
September 9, 2004 - 04:52 PM on September 9th, 2004
K- Fox has been hitting it hard and showing both sides of the arguement, but it appears that Dan will have egg on his face once again. As I said in another thread, Carville wanted no part of this dog fight.
September 9, 2004 - 04:59 PM on September 9th, 2004
Peejz- good to hear. Of course, they put this stuff out there, even if false, just to get any sort of thought into America’s head that Bush is a bad guy. Who really cares about what he was doing 30 years ago…I know what he’s done in the past 3.5 years and I’m sticking with him.
September 9, 2004 - 05:40 PM on September 9th, 2004
PSST! HEY! PSST!
CBS GUYS!
Hello, Im a Level II computer tech that takes calls to help people with Microsoft Office applications all the time. So the next time you decide to create a forgery, you know maybe in the upcoming legal battle you will soon face. Here are some simple tips.
1. Turn OFF the AutoCorrect functions in MS Word. You know the (st) & (th) that are smaller and raised. Thats called Superscript. From within MS Word click TOOLS from the menu bar and select AutoCorrect Options. From the panel click on the AutoFormat as you type tab. Un-select the check boxes for Ordinals (1st) with superscript.
2. For crying out load fellas. DO NOT USE A PROPORTIONAL FONT!! They were not available back then. IN fact research only finds one electric typewriter with anything close to that feature and Im telling you, the Texas Air National Guard didnt have it. Its a National Guard for Heavens sake, they gat all the Hand-me-downs from the Air Force, even their planes are Hand-me-downs. You could have either DOWNLOADED and non-proportional font or used COURIER that comes with Word.
3. Its a even bet that if you, CBS/Viacom would have either gone to a pawnshop or visited EBAY and gotten an old manual typewriter. You would have saved a ton in headaches and lawyer fees.
September 9, 2004 - 05:55 PM on September 9th, 2004
i was part of the Kennedy assasination conspiracy.
best
September 9, 2004 - 05:56 PM on September 9th, 2004
It going to be so fun beating shiloh like a bongo drum because he’s backing a lie with these fraudulent documents.
Now, did Kerry order this or shiloh?
September 9, 2004 - 05:59 PM on September 9th, 2004
Breaking news from ABC:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/Vote2004/bush_campaign_poll_040909.html
September 9, 2004 - 06:02 PM on September 9th, 2004
Sorry if that link messed with the site - it word-wrapped on mine!
September 9, 2004 - 06:08 PM on September 9th, 2004
pcd - i would like the truth to come out. if this is the truth and it will help bring down this miserable administration - great.
if not. not.
hopefully his character will show thru to enough people to defeat him in November, anyway.
September 9, 2004 - 06:10 PM on September 9th, 2004
& another thing pcd, please don’t call me a nazi anymore. i am much closer to a communist (a kind of a leftie) rather than a nazi (a kind of a rightie)
please adjust your insults accordingly.
thanks
September 9, 2004 - 06:31 PM on September 9th, 2004
Another particularly credible witness is Leonard Walls, a retired Air Force colonel who was then a full-time pilot instructor at the base. “I was there pretty much every day,” he said, adding: “I never saw him, and I was there continually from July 1972 to July 1974.” Mr. Walls, who describes himself as nonpolitical, added, “If he had been there more than once, I would have seen him.”
The sheer volume of missing documents, and missing recollections, strongly suggests to me that Mr. Bush blew off his Guard obligations. It’s not fair to say Mr. Bush deserted. My sense is that he (like some others at the time) neglected his National Guard obligations, did the bare minimum to avoid serious trouble and was finally let off by commanders who considered him a headache but felt it wasn’t worth the hassle to punish him.
“The record clearly and convincingly proves he did not fulfill the obligations he incurred when he enlisted in the Air National Guard,” writes Gerald Lechliter, a retired Army colonel who has made the most meticulous examination I’ve seen of Mr. Bush’s records (I’ve posted the full 32-page analysis here)[follow link below -s]. Mr. Lechliter adds that Mr. Bush received unauthorized or fraudulent payments that breached National Guard rules, according to the documents that the White House itself released.
Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/opinion/08kristof.html?pagewanted=print&position=
September 9, 2004 - 06:47 PM on September 9th, 2004
Bush has always commended Kerry on his service. It’s the people who there with him who do not. Who would know better?
It wouldn’t be a big deal, except that Kerry’s entire campaign has run on him being a vet. Mr. “Reporting for Duty” fails to see how he hurt his fellow vets when he returned from the war and called them killers.
September 9, 2004 - 06:54 PM on September 9th, 2004
k - ya know he really didn’t call them killers. he was testifying as to what other soldiers told him.
September 9, 2004 - 07:10 PM on September 9th, 2004
k- thanks for the link. I can’t believe ABC would take the time to print numbers like these, but it appears that most of the polls are looking the same way.
September 9, 2004 - 07:12 PM on September 9th, 2004
I agree with Zelda both arguments are lame. Current topics would be my personal preference also. If dwelling on the subject is a must then let’s dwell. Why, if Bush was UA (unauthorized Absence), from duty did no one push the issue and get him in. If I over sleep 30 minutes my chief will be calling the house to find out what’s up. I can’t speak for the other branches but I’m guessing that’s a pretty standard thing. Superiors get into trouble when they can’t account for their men. I just don’t see them letting him go and do whatever.
As far as your pilot instructor is conserned He may not have seen him because the Aircraft Bush was trained to fly was not present at that facility. There are a lot of people on my base that I don’t even know exist. Maybe one of them will run for president someday.
Finally I have to add that even if Bush was UA for a long long time it pales in comparison to the crap Kerry pulled when the big war hero made it home.
September 9, 2004 - 07:30 PM on September 9th, 2004
Good point Rat.
September 9, 2004 - 07:51 PM on September 9th, 2004
I always seem to enter after everyone leaves PJ:neutral:
September 9, 2004 - 08:48 PM on September 9th, 2004
Truth out of the Communist Broadcasting Company and 60 minutes? hey do you expect a politician to tell everything with a streight face? the day the crooks at 60 mintues tell the truth is that day when the world stands still who ever heard of the liberal news media being honest hey boy are you sure you got it right 60 minutes will never tell the truth mike wallace is too much like pinnocio too much like bill clinton and the news media tell taller tales then a fisherman and about the big one that got away:razz::roll::lol::cool::shock:
September 9, 2004 - 10:27 PM on September 9th, 2004
Time to start beating on shiloh like a bongo drun.
The documents are fake. Where did CBS get them.
shiloh, The Nazis were the National Socialist Party of Germany. They were lefties, like you. Another beat on the bongo that is shiloh.
Time to play “Babaloo” on shiloh.
September 10, 2004 - 07:22 AM on September 10th, 2004
Okay, some of these documents do seem like they may be ‘fake’.
But I still just don’t care about what President Bush may or may not have done over 30 years ago. I care about what he’ll be doing for the next four years if he is reelected. What will he do about Iraq, the Federal Deficit, Education, Security, Afghanistan, Tax cuts, etc. The same question applies to Senator Kerry. Im going to vote for the man I think would do the best job for the next 4 years; not the man with the least dirt on him from 30+ years ago.
September 10, 2004 - 07:35 AM on September 10th, 2004
Zelda,
On another thread I’ve posted what Kerry will do to the defense dept., making it a defenseless department. I suppose he’ll try to outlaw spitballs now, too.
(I do apologize to LisaS about the double post. I didn’t think it took.)
September 10, 2004 - 08:23 AM on September 10th, 2004
Wizbang has more on the unfolding story of the fakes, like the officer mentioned in the memo as pushing for glowing reports of Bush died before the memo was supposedly written.
only shiloh accepts fake documents and Michael Moore fantasies as truth.
September 10, 2004 - 09:04 AM on September 10th, 2004
PCP, what about the all the other issues Zelda raised? “Iraq, the Federal Deficit, Education, Security, Afghanistan, Tax cuts, etc.” So far you’ve just addressed Defense with baseless senile zig-zag Hell Miller accusations.
September 10, 2004 - 09:11 AM on September 10th, 2004
Whoa!!!
All I have to say is, in the immortal words of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, curiouser and curiouser!!! To me, this tells me that the liberal media is simply getting desperate if it’s literally taking a page out of the New York Times…
September 10, 2004 - 09:13 AM on September 10th, 2004
BTW, this proof of falsifying information is a heck of a lot more convincing to me than the Kerry camp simply suing the Swiftboat Veterans in a desperate attempt to shut them up.
September 10, 2004 - 09:21 AM on September 10th, 2004
canuck, I see you still can’t read with comprehension. Riddle me this, how is Kerry going to cure a deficit if his every proposal is to spend more than Bush? I love the latest from Kerry, “I’d have spent the $200 Billion we spent on Iraq on …” Only morons don’t realize that you’d have the same deficit, Saddam would still be in power, and Uday and Qusay would still be torture killing people. You are one sick puppy to want the Husseins in power torturing and killing people.
September 10, 2004 - 09:24 AM on September 10th, 2004
09/09/04 Poll: Marginal Convention Boost For Bush
Friday, September 10, 2004
By Dana Blanton
PHOTOS
Click image to enlarge
ARCHIVE
09/09/04 Poll: Marginal Convention Boost For Bush
September 10, 2004
08/26/04 Poll: Presidential Race Tied Going Into GOP Convention
August 26, 2004
08/05/04 Poll: Small Convention Bump for Kerry
August 05, 2004
07/22/04: Race Neck-and-Neck
July 22, 2004
06/24/04: Bush Edges Kerry
June 24, 2004
06/10/2004: Bush, Kerry Still Closely Matched
June 10, 2004
06/10/04: Will Peterson Get Off Scott-Free?
June 10, 2004
06/10/04: Public Views Clinton Favorably
June 10, 2004
05/20/04: Little Movement in Bush-Kerry Matchup
May 20, 2004
05/20/04: Most Americans Ready for Summer
May 20, 2004
05/06/04: Six Months Out, Race Still a Draw
May 06, 2004
04/23/04: 2004 Race Still Close
April 23, 2004
04/23/04: Bush Beats Heinz Kerry in First Lady ‘Vote’
April 23, 2004
04/08/04: The 2004 Deadlock
April 08, 2004
04/08/04: U.S. Gas Prices Expected to Rise
April 08, 2004
03/25/04: Voters Still Evenly Divided
March 25, 2004
03/05/04: Bush, Kerry Running Neck-and-Neck
March 05, 2004
02/20/04: Poll Shows Bush, Kerry in Dead Heat
February 20, 2004
02/05/04: Could 2004 Election Be as Close as 2000?
February 05, 2004
01/23/04: Kerry Closes In on Bush
January 23, 2004
01/09/04: Bush Numbers Up at Start of Election Year
January 09, 2004
12/05/03: Voters Divided on Bush Future
December 05, 2003
11/20/2003: Bush, Iraq and the Economy
November 20, 2003
11/20/03: Bush Still Bests 2004 Democratic Contenders
November 20, 2003
10/30/03: Tight Race Between Bush and Unnamed Democrat
October 30, 2003
10/16/03: 2004 Democratic Candidates Still Mostly Unknown
October 16, 2003
10/16/03: Slim Majority Approves of Bush Job Performance
October 16, 2003
NEW YORK Thoughts of the Republican National Convention (search) appear to have faded as quickly as memories of Labor Day at the beach, as less than a week after the GOP gathering in New York City the latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows the presidential race in a dead heat.
Clearly President George W. Bush made gains in critical areas such as leadership and trustworthiness, but just days after his convention ended, Bush’s edge over Democrat John Kerry (search) is razor thin.
Two months before Election Day, the poll finds Bush receives the backing of 47 percent of likely voters and Kerry 45 percent. When independent candidate Ralph Nader (search ) is included the results are essentially unchanged: Nader three percent, Bush 47 percent and Kerry 43 percent.
In the head-to-head matchup, Bush went from being one point behind Kerry before the convention to being two points ahead today. Bush’s current level of support is his highest since late June, when he had a 48 percent to 42 percent advantage over Kerry among registered voters.
Small Bump for Bush Out of Republican National Convention
September 10, 2004 - 09:28 AM on September 10th, 2004
Any thinner than Kerry’s edging over Bush prior to the RNC?
I seem to recall that Kerry was just a little over Bush in the polls, so I don’t think this is a very convincing argument. It certainly doesn’t convince me…
September 10, 2004 - 09:38 AM on September 10th, 2004
I don’t know what arguement it was supposed to convince you of? It just counters the previous ABC poll posted earlier, thats all. sorry about the beginning, I didn’t mean to paste all of that.
September 10, 2004 - 09:43 AM on September 10th, 2004
canuck, it isn’t just ABC that is showing a big and growing lead for Bush. Wait until next week as CBS’ credibility being destroyed sinks into the American public. Kerry will be lucky if he can be elected the next person to be kicked off the Island.
September 10, 2004 - 09:52 AM on September 10th, 2004
Just a post from the Indepundit’s site. Smash also notes that ABC, NBC, FOX, and the Washington Post are publishing stories about the memos being fakes.
Those that still doubt that these are fakes (not forgeries, but fakes — forgery implies ther was something real to copy) needs to go over to Rev. Sensing’s site (http://www.donaldsensing.com/).
It contains the following:
—beginquote—
2. The two memos refer to a flight physical and a flight review board, both IAW (”in accordance with”) AFM 35-13. But that would stand for “Air Force Manual” 35-13, and manuals are guidelines only. They have no regulatory authority. No one takes a physical exam, flight or not, IAW a manual. Manuals relate to operational procedures, not enforcement of standards. Especially would a “flight review board” not be convened IAW a manual. Enforceable regulatory authority in the military derives only from two sources: the Uniform Code of Military Justice and orders. Regulations are a type of written order issued under the authority of a flag-rank officer. (In the Army, for example, regulations are issued under the authority of the Chief of Staff down to installation-commander level.)
What governs official procedures or requirements for physicals is a regulation, not a manual, because a regulation is an order and a manual is not. A regulation has much the same effect as law. Regulations are governing documents that must be adhered to, not advisory publications that permit ad-hoc deviations, as manuals do.
So I browsed over to the Air Force’s official web site for its publications, http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/. There I searched for AFM 35-13 without success. The intelligent search engine recommended using only the numbers, so I searched using only 35-13. Result:
35-13 has been rescinded or superceded by another publication. Additional information is available at Obsolete Publications.
So I went there and discovered, sure enough, that there was an Air Force Regulation 35-13, but no AF Manual 35-13 is listed. AFR 35-13 was superceded in 1990 by AFI36-2605 (Air Force Instruction, i.e., the same as a regulation).
So I Googled AFI36-2605 and voil! Here it is.
This instruction implements Air Force Policy Directive 36-26, Military Force Management, and Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 7280.3, Special Pay for Foreign Language Proficiency. It prescribes all procedures for administering the Air Force Military Personnel Testing System and Foreign Language Proficiency Pay (FLPP) program.
Which is to say, this publication has nothing to do with flight physicals.
—-endquote—
Posted by Mark L at September 10, 2004 05:24 AM
now shiloh and canuck, stick to the facts in your denials of reality, please.
September 10, 2004 - 10:35 AM on September 10th, 2004
please provide some links other than ABC
September 10, 2004 - 10:38 AM on September 10th, 2004
So let me get this straight a right-wing blogger’s inability to find AMF 35-13 is concrete proof. STOP THE PRESSES!!!! We’ve got to get this to all the major news sources.
September 10, 2004 - 10:47 AM on September 10th, 2004
canuck, thank you for showing us you will cling to your lies no matter what.
September 10, 2004 - 11:06 AM on September 10th, 2004
PCP, the fact you can’t use anything but heavily biased sources says a lot. Here is a heavily biased article for you. It says Al-Qaeda votes Bush, under your logic any disputes you have with it just goes to show that you are only desperatly clinging to your lies.
Middle East
THE ROVING EYE
Why al-Qaeda is winning
By Pepe Escobar
Three years after September 11, President George W Bush’s crusade is a failure. “War on terror” is a meaningless myth: you can’t combat a supple attack machine like al-Qaeda with shock and awe. What should have been a long, meticulous police operation was turned by Bush - instigated by his foreign policy adviser, God - into an illegal, preemptive attack on a nation that had nothing to do with terror.
This policy has actually increased terror attacks around the world. Last year in Cairo, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Sheikh Yamani, a man who knows one or two things about Arabs, violence and oil, said the invasion would produce “one hundred bin Ladens”. They are here, and they have no one else but Bush to thank.
Bush’s mission from God
Bush’s key perceived strength - apart from his dynastic family name and extra-profitable connections - is his carefully polished image of a strong, straight-shooting, tough-talking commander-in-chief during times of war.
It should be very easy for the slumbering John Kerry campaign to smash that armory. Before Iraq turned into a quagmire - before the 1,000th dead American soldier, the 7,000th wounded American soldier, the 14,000th or maybe even 22,000th dead Iraqi civilian - Bush kept insisting that Iraq was “the new front in the war on terror”. Now Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are doing everything in their power not to make the connection - because a majority of Americans seem to view Bush as relatively strong on terror, but a failure in Iraq.
Two related facts are undisputable: more Americans are facing death and destruction in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was captured than before; and now there are increasingly more global terrorist attacks than when Bush proclaimed his “crusade”, or “war on terror”. The Bush administration always sold the war on Iraq as part of the “war on terror”. Reminding Americans about it is to fully certify Bush’s overall failure.
In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention in New York, Bush said that “the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror; Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders; Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests; Libya is dismantling its weapons programs; the army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom; and more than three-quarters of al-Qaeda’s key members and associates have been detained or killed”.
But consider this: Osama bin Laden, his deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar have not been “smoked out” or captured - “dead or alive”, or otherwise - and most likely are still very much active in Afghanistan. And now al-Qaeda, in its delocalized mutation, is thriving around the world. There’s nothing “free” about Afghanistan: the Taliban are back, controlling vast areas of the country, in the south and southeast, and the rest is controlled by warlords. In the Afghan presidential election next month, Hamid Karzai will be certified, at most, as the mayor of Kabul. In Pakistan, President General Pervez Musharraf - known as “Busharraf” - barely survives multiple assassination attempts as dictator-in-charge.
And there’s nothing “free” about Iraq. Shi’ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - who wants direct elections - and the militant Shi’ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr - who wants the end of the occupation now - are the most popular figures in the country. Former US asset turned American-imposed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi barely controls a few Baghdad neighborhoods. The 1,000th dead American soldier pales in comparison with the Bush administration losing the whole Sunni triangle to the Iraqi nationalist resistance. This loss is proof that the war is unwinnable. It also reduces the January 2005 Iraqi elections - if they ever happen - to a joke.
The bottom line: since Bush proclaimed his “crusade” or mission from God against terror, the United States, the Middle East and the world are immensely less safe.
Bush-Cheney ‘04 are afraid US voters will start making these connections as the November elections draw closer. For the apocalyptic Cheney - as on the campaign trail in Iowa - there’s nothing left but the language of fear: “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again.” So this is how it works: If you vote Bush, al-Qaeda won’t strike. If you vote Kerry, al-Qaeda will strike. Kerry, therefore, is a threat to the US. The problem is, bin Laden votes Bush. Here’s why.
The al-Qaeda makeover
Al-Qaeda is more of a multi-headed hydra than ever: the “global” head plus the “local” heads. “Global” al-Qaeda includes groups of multinational operatives striking in the US (as in September 11) or in Western Europe (Madrid’s train blasts). These are above all Arab-Afghans, remnants of the jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. “Local” al-Qaeda on the other hand strike in their native countries against Western targets (for example in Casablanca, Bali and Istanbul): these are all part of the big al-Qaeda franchising.
The “historic” al-Qaeda is itself split in two: bin Laden’s faithfuls, who have followed him since the Peshawar, Pakistan, days for more than two decades; and the new breed who “graduated” in Afghanistan from 1997 to 2001. Many of bin Laden’s faithful have been killed or captured - in essence by Pakistani, not US, forces: they include Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubayda, Suleiman Abu Graith and the alleged mastermind of September 11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
For a long time Western intelligence was prone to propagate the myth of al-Qaeda as a pre-September 11 organization with many heads, with sleeping cells occasionally galvanized into action. This is false. Al-Qaeda as a rule waits for no one - unless technical glitches occur, and these usually involve delays in recruitment, research, team-assembling and elaborate counter-security measures. The delays also prove that al-Qaeda is much less of a well-oiled organization than the Bush administration would like the world to believe.
Al-Qaeda subscribes to no political strategy, other than the strategy of total opportunism: as any kind of attack can happen any time, anywhere, it rules by fear - while at the same time demonstrating it is immune to any large-scale US war, from Afghanistan to Iraq. The rule-by-fear tactic also serves the Bush administration well, as fear is constantly used as a powerful political argument to justify the administration’s policies (”Be afraid, be very much afraid, but you can count on us to protect you”).
Unlike the Bush administration’s spin, European intelligence experts in Brussels assured Asia Times Online that the Madrid bombing was only accidentally tied to Spain’s national elections. It was not the case that “Spaniards had bowed to terror” (Washington’s version), but that Bush ally Jose Maria Aznar’s conservative government was mendacious enough to lie to the country, blaming Basque separatists when it already had evidence to the contrary.
The avant-garde brigades
The members of al-Qaeda’s new elite were either born in Western Europe - many hold a legitimate European Union passport - or came to the West while still very young and then became radicalized. As Bush is a born-again Christian, they are sort of born-again Islamists. The most important fact is that this “return of the repressed” (Islam) is above all a political radicalization. The new breed’s brand of political Islam is much more “political” than “Islam”.
Very few of these new brigades come directly from Islamic countries. And their exile is one-way: they never come back to where their families come from. The classic itinerary was to sharpen the knives at a peripheral jihad - Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya - to become widely respected mujahideen, and then go back to Western Europe. They never went to fight in the Maghreb or in the Middle East - although the war in Iraq started to change this pattern.
In 1997, bin Laden obtained from his friend and admirer Mullah Omar monopoly control over the Arab-Afghan training camps in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Pakistanis and the Uzbeks maintained their own training camps. This means that every single jihadi who was not Pakistani or from Central Asia who went to Afghanistan between 1997 and 2001 was trained at an al-Qaeda camp.
Unlike the faithful, none of the new breed of Arab-Afghans is close to bin Laden. But they definitely inherited a legendary al-Qaeda esprit de corps. The best and the brightest were trained to come back to Western Europe, wait and then raise hell. But the majority stayed behind fighting alongside the Taliban: among these were the hundreds captured by the forces of commander Ahmad Shah Masoud, the Lion of the Panjshir, before he was assassinated exactly three years ago, on September 9 - al-Qaeda’s “signal” for September 11.
The best and the brightest of this new al-Qaeda elite form the current backbone of bin Laden’s organization - the people who have masterminded and carried out global attacks for the past two years. They remain a very tight bunch, although now thoroughly globalized; treason - and squealing - is out of the question; and most astonishingly, there’s nothing to it of a secret society. They work as a band of brothers, sharing everything - apartments, bank accounts - even in the open. Al-Qaeda’s joint chiefs, the command and control structure, the base cells and the complex networks, everything works like some family enterprise in northern Italy, based on personal relationships, be they nurtured in Afghanistan or in any other country. But then a complex process of deterritorialization sets in, and the virus spreads.
For al-Qaeda, this poses a tremendous problem. It’s easy for Western intelligence (or for the Pakistanis, when they’re up to it) to grab a bunch of operatives after identifying a single one of them - as with the recent arrests in Pakistan timed to coincide with the Democratic convention. And with no al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan anymore, there are no places left to meet: Chechnya is too dangerous, the tribal areas in the Pakistan-Afghan border are teeming with US troops, and the Shawal region that straddles Pakistan and Afghanistan is too remote and under constant satellite surveillance.
Brand recognition the name of the game
This is a key reason al-Qaeda mutated still further. To survive and prosper, it needed more converts, and it needed to strike an array of strategic alliances. An additional problem was that al-Qaeda was never a political movement: it is basically an attack machine. Jihad yes, always. But the local objectives involved could not be more disparate - from Chechens fighting Russian occupation to Iraqis fighting US occupation.
Franchising, anyway, worked wonders. As more people in more countries - and the Bush administration - started blaming al-Qaeda for any attack, the desired cumulative effect was the same: al-Qaeda is everywhere.
Local al-Qaeda alliances now include everybody and his neighbor: Jemaah Islamiya in Indonesia (the Bali bombing) and Southeast Asia; warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyr’s jihadis in southeastern Afghanistan; the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (responsible for the Tashkent bombings in July); and perhaps even the mysterious, one-legged jack-of-all-trades, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, configured by the Bush administration as the new bin Laden in the Iraqi Sunni triangle.
Old-style al-Qaeda might well be pulverized by the Pentagon any time. But “al-Qaeda”, the brand, lives, whatever the Bush administration spin. Zarqawi is the best example: he may not even be directly linked to bin Laden anymore, and he is now the sole boss of his own terrorist cottage industry.
Like a multinational product, “al-Qaeda” suits everybody. For President Vladimir Putin in Russia, Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, even President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the Philippines, “al-Qaeda” is the ideal excuse for any repressive or inept regime presenting its credentials as a full-fledged member of the “war on terror”. For al-Qaeda’s purposes, bin Laden remaining the supreme evil is an invaluable propaganda coup. And for al-Qaeda franchises - free to pursue their own initiatives - using the brand means guaranteed media impact.
“Al-Qaeda” the brand has now embarked on an inexorable logic of expansion - in flagrant contradiction to Bush’s assertion that the world is safer. Al-Qaeda will keep deepening its alliances with ethnic and nationalist movements - with Shamil Basayev, the emir of the mujahideen in Chechnya and trainer of the Black Widow squadrons of female suicide bombers, or with sectors of the Iraqi resistance in the Sunni triangle. “Global” al-Qaeda in all these cases works and will continue to work as a sort of “Foreign Legion”, as French scholar Olivier Roy puts it, a capable military vanguard that is useful for local purposes for a determined period of time.
“Global” al-Qaeda may also even profit from the fact that national liberation movements, in desperation, decide to go on an all-out offensive, improving their alliances of circumstance with al-Qaeda. The al-Qaeda brand is also becoming attractive to scattered sectors of the extreme left, because more than appealing to radical Islam, al-Qaeda has succeeded in branding its image as the revolutionary vanguard in the fight against American imperialism. The cross-fertilization between radical Islam and disfranchised Muslim youth born and raised in the West is also performing wonders: when young people convert to Islam in a dreary suburb of Brussels, Paris, Hamburg or Madrid, it all has to do with political anger rather than discovering a direct line to Allah.
A nihilistic big business
At the Republican convention, while the Republicans were harping on September 11, Bush said the Iraq war was “his” war, part of a mission from God to bring freedom to the repressed. “Terrorists hate America because they hate freedom.” Wrong: “terrorists” (in fact national resistance movements) hate America because America’s imperial policies are the antithesis of freedom.
As nihilistic as it may be, al-Qaeda, from a business point of view, is a major success: three years after September 11, it is a global brand and a global movement. The Middle East, in this scenario, is just a regional base station. This global brand does not have much to do with Islam. But it has everything to do with the globalization of anti-imperialism. And the empire, whatever its definition, has its center in Washington. Bin Laden is laughing: Bush’s crusade has legitimized an obscure sect as a worldwide symbol of political revolt. How could bin Laden not vote for Bush?
September 10, 2004 - 11:27 AM on September 10th, 2004
Hey all, if you go to http://www.kerryoniraq.com (site linked to the RNC site)
you can get a DVD sent to you - about a 10 minute piece on Kerry’s various views of the war. I got it last night and I’ll be passing it around. If we are talking about heavy bias, nothing like something coming right from the RNC!
September 10, 2004 - 11:47 AM on September 10th, 2004
Sorry, Canuk, my bro from up the street, but Pepe Escobar has no business writing what he knows nothing about. That’s the problem with some of these people. They write stories about things they know nothing about and places they’ve never been based on other stories written by people who know even less and are even less well traveled. It’s a vicious circle that will never end, I’m afraid. I’ve worked in Afghanistan and it is nothing like Pepe described it. Sorry you spent so much time typing that, but I can say it’s pretty much rubbish.
September 10, 2004 - 12:19 PM on September 10th, 2004
That was my point I dont expect you to give any credit to that article. PCP shouldn’t give me lt-smash and expect it to be the word of god.
September 10, 2004 - 12:33 PM on September 10th, 2004
if canuck stuck to writing what he knows about Bush, he’d be silent.
canuck you look so stupid when you can’t even admit a document is fake when the document supposedly written by an officer mskes incorrect regulation references, when that officer should know damn well what regulations he’s trying to enforce and what regs Lt. Bush is supposedly in violation of.
September 10, 2004 - 12:44 PM on September 10th, 2004
I agree with the point that there is a boat load of misinformation floating around on both sides. A voting man almost has to wade through the BS just to get to the polls. I know for a fact I could never run for president. I think it takes less to be canonized by the catholic church. You positively have no privacy when you throw in your hat for commander in chief.
September 10, 2004 - 01:20 PM on September 10th, 2004
It’s real funny how the media comes out after the Demecrat National Conviction and touts Kerry’s non-existent bounce, but when Pres. Bush really gets a bounce they say:
“we call it a bounce because it goes up and then comes down”… “the bounce will come down”… “a bounce, what bounce?”… trying to deminish his boost in the polls and then they fool themselves into thinking that people (of intelligence