>
> http://truthout.org/docs_03/112603C.shtml
>
> Al-Qaeda, the Mythic Enemy
> By Richard Labeviere
Author of a book, on the shelves @ the SFPL, I found one of the least coherent on al-Quaeda, "DOLLARS FOR TERROR: The United States and Islam, " that has lots of intriguing conjecture, but postulates, an implicitly racist thesis that the reactionary Islamists are totally pawns of Western intelligence agencies. http://www.somaliawatch.org/Archivemay/000506601.htm
Better to read accts. on al-Q and the Taliban http://ist- socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q9.html ("Sources on al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, Taliban, Drugs and Oil.") International Terrorism (London: Pluto Press, 2000);like the vols. by Michael Griffin from Pluto Press, "Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, " by John Cooley, w/ intro by Edward Said, also from Pluto Press, the new vol. by Jason Burke of the Observer that looks very solid, (amazon.com comment, "3. The analogy of the hard-core al-Qaeda being a "venture capital firm" of terrorism (or a library or newspaper) is quite apt and very interesting."), Stephen Schwartz, "The Two Souls of Islam, " (this one should get Joe going), "Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, " by Gerald L. Posner, "The Age of Sacred Terror, " by two Clinton NSC staffers, Daniel Simon and Steven Benjamin "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism, " by Robert Baer and, by same author, "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, "Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks, "by Loretta Napoleoni , also from Pluto, who Doug interviewed , "Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda, " by Thomas Powers." A newish book blurbed by L. Paul Bremer, that Kevin Coogan and Jeff Bale assisted on by neo-con Walter Laqueur on terrorism looks good too. "No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century."
-- Michael Pugliese
There were basically three forms of totalitarianism.... One was the various kinds of Fascism, the other was Bolshevism, and a third was corporate capitalism. Two are gone." -- Noam Chomsky