Blood and Rage_ A Cultural History of Terrorism - Michael Burleigh [340]
Top US officials think they can learn from the advertising industry. Michael Doran, a Middle East expert responsible for counter-terrorism strategy at the Pentagon, is more interested in what the advertising industry has to say about the success and failure of global brands in their quest to delegitimise Al Qaeda within the Muslim world than in looking for past European precedents that cut no ice in such circles. Doran wants Al Qaeda to go the way of Ford’s failed Edsel—a preposterous car with elongated tail fins that became a loss-maker of epic proportions—rather than imitate Audi, BMW, Coca-Cola or Nike. The aim is to discredit Al Qaeda and cognate organisations by stressing that ‘they create nothing, they only destroy’. They are what the British lieutenant-general Graeme Lamb crisply describes as ‘architects of chaos’.6 Ironically, as Steve Coll shows, it was largely the bin Laden clan that was responsible for the vulgar architectural modernisation of Saudi Arabia, including apartment blocks and shopping malls adjacent to Mecca, as well as the huge advance bases needed for Operation Desert Storm, which Osama bin Laden so deplores, even though he financially benefited from shares of the corporate profits.7
Many Europeans think that because of their experiences with the Provos or ETA they know about terrorism. This delusion is especially evident in Britain where defence secretary Des Browne has suggested we talk to the Taliban, as well as Hamas and Hizbollah with whom we are not at war. He ruled out talking to Al Qaeda. No such restraint was evident when in March 2008 Tony Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell said, in the course of promoting a book about the Northern Ireland peace process, that we should be negotiating with Al Qaeda on the basis of his covert and overt dealings with Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams (whom he allowed to skateboard with his children in an intermission during negotiations). Apparently the same indulgence should be shown to a ‘repentant’ Osama bin Laden; what American readers make of that suggestion is not hard to imagine. Leaving aside the post-imperial hubris lurking behind these attempts to export conflict-resolution studies—on the idiosyncratic basis of Northern Ireland—I am reminded of a story related to me by a senior Mossad officer who had many dealings with Irish Special Branch in the shape of a giant rugby player with big ears and a collapsed nose. The Mossad man was told that the Irish police already knew about terrorism. He pointed out that the first concern for any Provo terrorist planning an operation was how to get away, a minor concern for jihadis who are seeking martyrdom and paradise. After due reflection on such suicide tactics, the Irish detective conceded: ‘S—, you know what, we’ll keep the Provos and you can have Hamas and Hizbollah.’8
That this is also a war of competing ideas means that the Cold War is often referred to. British prime minister Gordon Brown is said to be impressed by a history of the Congress of Cultural Freedom by Frances Stonor Saunders, a left-wing journalist whose book is a polemic against the politicisation of culture by various donor front organisations covertly funded by the CIA.9 The book may have influenced the prevention part of Britain