"Those with the darkest nightmares became the most powerful"

The Power of Nightmares Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave

In the 1990s both groups, the American neoconservatives and the Radical Islamists were out of power, but with 9/11 attacks on America, the fates of both groups changed….

Continuing from The Power of Nightmares Part 2, Ayman Zawahiri, follower of Sayyed Qutb, tried to persuade the masses to follow Islamism during the 1980s and 90s.  But after extreme violence, the masses refused to follow.  Zawahiri, followed by bin Laden, decided that they needed to implement a new strategy to reach consent.  Their strategy was to strike at the “far-away” enemy (America) rather than the near enemy (locally).  In August 1998, they put their plan into action.  Bin Laden recruited few fighters from the Islamist training camps to help with the new plan.  Zawahiri and bin Laden set off 2 suicide bombs outside of American embassy’s, killing and injuring hundreds.  The bombings triggered the popularity of Bin Ladens in the West, giving him a powerful reputation.  As bin Laden did recruit some of the fighters, the majority of the fighters in the Islamist training camps had nothing to do with the embassy bombings or with Laden and Zawahiri.  They did not have anything to do with Laden and Zawahiri’s plan of striking the far-away enemy.  As the United States tried to prosecute Bin Laden for the bombings, a myth was created that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were extremely powerful and unified.  This “huge terrorist network” was labeled “Al Qaeda”.  In reality, this network did not exist, and bin Laden was not as powerful and organized as he was made out to be.

Then, the 9/11 attacks happened.  This brought the neo-conservatives back in power.  This also confirmed their 1990 suspicions that America was a risk from other threatening nations.  A few of the neo-conservatives, including vice-president Dick Cheney, who were under the Reagan administration and saw the Soviet Union as a huge threat, were now unified again.  They saw 9/11 as a new war on terror.

“They took a failing movement which had lost mass support and began to reconstruct it into the image of a powerful network of evil, controlled from the center by bin Laden from his lair in Afghanistan”

America was now determined to locate and defeat this network.  Pairing up with the Northern Alliance, the goal was to find bin Laden who was rumored to be hiding in the Tora Bora Mountains.  However, we were chasing an illusion.  In reality, Zawahiri and bin Laden were not the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.  The 19 hijackers supported Zawahiri’s far-away strategy but implemented the plan themselves, and they went to bin Laden for money and volunteers.  We were chasing an idea because the hijackers were either dead from the attack or went in different directions.

As Paul Wilfowitz believed the Al Qaeda network was spreading into several countries, our government started to look for the network in our own country, where the 'sleeper cells' were also exaggerated and distorted.  This "network" was no where to be found....

 The Power of Nightmares is an extremely compelling movie and I recommend it to all.  I found all three parts to be very interesting and educational.  I found myself really enjoying Part three of the movie because I remember the 9/11 attacks vividly.  I also have close friends who lost family members in the 9/11 attacks so it was really interesting to learn the facts, not just what the news media tells us.  I also found the sleeper cell cases to be very surprising.  I have not heard much about the term sleeper cell or about the cases until this movie.  I remember watching on the news that our government have found terrorists that were planning to plot attacks, but I never looked farther into it.  I felt extremely sorrowful for the innocent young men who were accused.  As our government probably did have probable cause to look more closely into the case, they did not find any evidence.  Being accused of being a terrorist before a wedding just because of an e-mail must be extremely traumatic, altering lives forever.  This fantasy has spiraled out of control, disseminating fear and anxieties directly into our society.  The illusion will not last..