The Power of Nightmares

Recent bombings in Algeria and Morocco reminded me of the BBC series, The Power of Nightmares.

An illusion that Western democracies back to protect their own interests.

You can watch the episode The Phantom Victory here. If you have a high-speed connection, you can download the series at Archive.org. In it, we see how the American government has created the fear of a Chimera, that being Al-Qaeda (not that Al-Qaeda doesn't exist, just that it's not responsible for every act of terrorism nor is it representative of every extremist group, as the Bush Administration would have the world believe). We also see how the suicide bombings of Fundamentalist Islamists has failed to force their own populations to their side and how they've created an illogical, unresolvable political philosophy - that being, take political power so they can institute Sharia Law and declare a Muslim state which would in effect, make democratic political institutions meaningless. Yet to keep the Islamists from power, the military-backed governments have already made their own democracies a sham. An illusion that Western democracies back to protect their own interests.

This clip below is just the introduction to the episode and is only a couple of minutes long. The entire episode can be seen at the links above in two 30min. segments. It really is worth seeing.