Sunday, October 17, 2004

Convergence of interests

Neocons and Al Qaeda


pv vivekanand


WITH two weeks to go to the day when the American people will vote in presidential elections, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has warned that there was still a
possibility that plans are afoot for terrorist attacks in the US ahead of the polls.
Couple the warning, issued by FBI Director Robert Mueller on Friday, with the assertion by some commentators that President George W Bush needs nothing less than a terrorist attack in order to be elected for a second term.
Meuller's warning that the US remained vulnerable to the threat of a terror attack before the election revived American fears after a hiatus of several weeks during which top officials stayed away from waving Al Qaeda as the bogeyman to remind voters that Bush has experience in fighting terror while Kerry is of unknown quality.
However, all officials, including Meuller, coupled the warning with a caution that there was no specific intelligence regarding the timing, location and method of such possible attacks.
While many commentators acknowledge that Bush's re-election could be guaranteed in the event of a terrorist attack taking place before Nov.2, no one — except the most bitter critics of the Bush administration — has suggested that hawks in Washington could stage such an incident in order to ensure a second White House term for the incumbent.
Indeed, it is abundantly clear that the neoconservatives in the administration have long-term plans to implement their agenda for American supremacy in the world and Israeli domination of the Near and Middle East. The neocons' political survival and implementation of their grandiose plans of imposing pax Americana on the globe depends on Bush being re-elected. They are desperate for Bush to remain in the White House. So do American corporates who are siphoning off billions of dollars spent in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore it need not be top politicians who might concoct a terror attack of a containable level that would pre-empt Bush moving house in January next year. The reasoning is that Americans would see a pre-election terror attack as an attempt to influence the polls and mindlessly react with anger and fear and re-elect Bush.
Among those affirming that Bush's key to a second term at the White House is a terrorist attack is the well-known FOX News political analyst, Dick Morris.
In a programme telecast on FOX last week, Morris said he expects a "huge turnout" for the elections and this would favour Kerry.
"I do believe he’ll get a very strong, very intense minority vote," Morris said of the Democrat candidate. "There’s only one thing that can save George Bush. Think about how we felt in August. Think about how jeopardised and endangered we felt with photos of the stock exchange and IMF building circulating. The Al Qaeda militants, bombs possibly at the two conventions, the Olympics.
"We felt really in danger. Now we feel fat and happy. We’re felling pretty good. We turn on the TV set about Iraq. We watch it with half an eye, but nobody really thinks there’s gonna be anything happening here. If that’s the environment on November 2nd, Kerry’s gonna win. But, if — and I’m not suggesting Bush would fabricate it — but if, in fact, Al Qaeda chooses to begin actions, to threaten stuff, to do stuff here, which they did in Israel and they did in Madrid right before the election, then I think that could elect Bush...Osama Bin Laden will determine if Bush wins or not.”
There are many who argue that Bush could suffer if Al Qaeda were to stage an attack before elections since voters will back Kerry against the president, who has repeatedly boasted that he alone kept terror attacks away the US since Sept.11; but then he sent out Americans to be killed outside the US — remember the more than 1,000 Americans killed in Iraq since March 2003?
The question that remains unanswered is what are the options of the neocons not to lose their immediate grip in power in Washington. No doubt they would claw back to power sooner or later; they are bipartisan and have their inroads among the Democrats. But, given the pressing need to not to relax the grip on Iraq and maintain the course of events as they scripted it in the Middle East and elsewhere, they could ill-afford to have a "regime change" in Washington before their agenda is not fully played out.
Indeed, that is where the interests of the neocons converge with that of Osama Bin Laden — if he is alive and politically alert — in ensuring that Bush is re-elected.
Like the neocons, Al Qaeda would also suffer in the short term if Kerry wins since it needs someone as aggressive as the Republican president as well as continued American occupation of Iraq and military actions in Afghanistan in order to build and consolidate the anti-US camp in the Arab and Muslim worlds.