In the past, politicians promised to create a better world.
They had different ways of achieving this.
But their power and authority came from the optimistic visions
they offered to their people.
Those dreams failed.
And today, people have lost faith in ideologies.
Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life.
But now, they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority.
Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us
from nightmares.
They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers
that we cannot see and do not understand.
And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism.
A powerful and sinister network
with sleeper cells in countries across the world.
A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror.
But much of this threat is a fantasy
which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians.
It?¯ a dark illusion
that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world
the security services, and the international media.
This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created 24 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:2,000 and who it benefits.
At the heart of the story are two groups:
the American neoconservatives, and the radical Islamists.
In this week's episode, the two groups come together
to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
And both believe that they defeat the Evil Empire
and so had the power to transform the world.
We will fight for an Islamic State, we will die for it!
But both failed in their revolutions. We will fight for an Islamic State, we will die for it!
In response, the neoconservatives invent a new fantasy enemy
Bill Clinton, to try and regain their power.
While the Islamists descend into a desperate cycle of violence and terror
to try and persuade the people to follow them.
Out of all this come the seeds of the strange world of fantasy
deception, violence, and fear in which we now live.
The Power of Nightmares
The Rise of the Politics of Fear
Part 2 The Phantom Victory
In 1982, Ronald Reagan dedicated the Space Shuttle Columbia
to the resistance fighters in Afghanistan.
Just as the Columbia, we think, represents man's finest aspirations
in the field of science and technology
so too does the struggle of the Afghan people
represent man's highest aspirations for freedom.
I am dedicating, on behalf of the American people
the March 22nd launch of the Columbia
to the people of Afghanistan.
Since 1979, the mujaheddin resistance had been fighting
a vicious war in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion.
But now, a small group in the Reagan White House
saw in these fighters a way of achieving
their vision of transforming the world.
To them, they were not just nationalists
they were freedom fighters
who could bring down the Soviet Union
and help spread democracy around the world.
It was called the Reagan Doctrine.
It was a small group of people and yes, we did have
Everyone thinks, "Oh, the Reagan Doctrine, the Reagan Administration,"
like everybody was for. No. It was a small little cabal, within the Soviet
within the Reagan White House, that really pulled this off.
What united this small group of ours was the vision
of bringing more freedom to the world, more security to the world
to actually get rid of the Soviet Union itself!
As a result, supporting the freedom fighters
became the premier cause for the entire conservative movement
during the Reagan years.
But the Americans were setting out to defeat a mythological enemy.
As last week's episode showed, the neoconservatives
who were now in power in Reagan's White House
had created an exaggerated and distorted vision
of the Soviet Union as the source of all evil in the world.
One of their main influences were the theories of the philosopher Leo Strauss.
He believed that liberal societies needed simple
powerful myths to inspire and unite the people.
And in the 1970s, the neoconservatives had done just this.
Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and other neoconservatives
had set out to reassert the myth of America as a unique country
whose destiny was to struggle against evil throughout the world.
Now in power, they had come to believe this myth.
They saw themselves as revolutionaries who were going to transform the world
starting with the defeat of the Evil Empire.
We're closer to being revolutionaries than conservatives
in the sense that we want to change some deeply entrenched notions
about the proper role of American power in the world.
We want to see that power used constructively
and to enlarge the opportunity for decent governance around the world.
We're not happy about the old, cozy relationships with dictators.
And the man who was going to help the neoconservatives do this
was the new head of the CIA, William Casey.
He was convinced that Afghanistan was one of the keys to this aggressive new policy.
America was already sending limited amounts of aid to the mujaheddin.
But now, Casey ordered one of his agents
to go and form an alliance with the freedom fighters
and give them as much money as they wanted
and the most sophisticated weapons
to defeat the Soviet military forces.
For Casey, Afghanistan seemed to be possibly one of the keys.
So he tapped me one day to go.
He says, "I want you to go out to Afghanistan, I want you to go next month
and I will give you whatever you need to win." Yeah.
He said, "I want you go to there and win."
As opposed to, "Le?5 go there and bleed these guys," make it be a Vietnam
"I want you to go there and win. Whatever you need, you can have."
He gave me the Stinger missiles and a billion dollars.
God if Great!
American money and weapons now began to pour
across the Pakistan border into Afghanistan. 112 00:07:52,800 --> 00:0:56,200 CIA agents trained the mujaheddin in the techniques
of assassination and terror, including car bombing.
And they gave them satellite images of Russian troops to help in their attacks.
Move your far arse and shoot the fucking rocket!
At the very same time, another group began to arrive in Afghanistan
to fight alongside the mujaheddin.
They were Arabs from across the Middle East
who had been told by their religious leaders
that their duty was to go and free Muslim lands from the Soviet invader.
I saw the fatwa, the order saying that
every Muslim has a duty to help
the Afghans to liberate their land.
But I had no idea, where is this Afghanistan? How can I go there?
I've never heard about Afghanistan, and I've never heard in the map.
Which airline goes there? From where can I take the visa?
It 100 questions! But I did meet Abdullah Azzam.
Abdullah Azzam was a charismatic religious leader
who had begun to organize the Arab volunteers in Afghanistan.
He had set up what he called the Services Bureau
in Peshawar on the Afghan border.
It became the headquarters of an international brigade of Arab fighters.
Azzam quickly became one of the most powerful figures
in the battle against the Soviets.
He was allowed to visit America on many occasions
both to raise funds and recruit volunteers for the jihad.
When, Abdullah Azzam became so instrumental
in marketing the Afghan cause among the Arabs
he became very important.
He became called "the emir of the Arab mujaheddin."
The leader of the Arab mujaheddin. And he set up
an office in Peshawar which provided services to
Arabs who came and wanted to participate in the jihad.
There were no doors closed, all doors were opened
because the Americans, the Saudis, the Pakistanis, and many other people
wanted the Soviet Union to lose in Afghanistan, and to be humiliated.
That brought about huge numbers of Arabs
from different backgrounds in the jihad in Afghanistan.
He went to America, he went to Saudi Arabia
he traveled wherever he wanted, because the Afghan cause
was a cause that everybody was happy supporting.
But like the neoconservatives
Azzam also saw the struggle against the Soviets
as just the first step in a much wider revolution.
He was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood
who wanted Islam to play a political role in governing Muslim societies.
And Abdullah Azzam believed that the Arabs in Afghanistan
could be the nucleus of a new political force.
They would return to their own countries and persuade the people
to reject the corrupt, autocratic regimes that dominated the Middle East.
But these regimes, Azzam insisted, must be overthrown by political means.
He made every fighter pledge they would not use terrorism
against civilians in the pursuit of their vision.
One of Azzam's closest aides was a Saudi, Osama Bin Laden.
Osama came to participate in '85.
When he was when he came
as you know, he is He came from a rich family from Saudi
and he had much, much money to spend.
Sheikh Abdullah Azzam was a scholar, he can organize the Afghans
but he is not a rich man.
So when Osama came, he filled in this gap.
So the main duty of Osama in that time was spending money.
Beside his good personal qualities.
But then, in 1985, a new force began to arrive in Afghanistan
who were going to challenge Azzam's approach.
They were the extreme radical Islamists
who were being expelled from prisons across the Arab world.
And then, very quietly, most of the
governments in the Middle East, the Arab governments
began to empty their prisons
of their bad guys
and send them off to the jihad with the very fondest hope that they
would become martyred.
Many of them were the people in Egypt
that had not been executed after the murder of Sadat
but were implicated in it and had been in prison. Off they go.
One of the most powerful of these newcomers was Ayman Zawahiri.
He was the leader of a radical faction from Egypt called Islamic Jihad.
And he was convinced that they, not the moderates, were the true Islamists.
We are here! We are here! The real Islamic front! We are here!
The real Islamic front and the real Islamic opposition against Zionist.
We are here!
The real Islamic front against Zionism, Communism, and imperialism.
Ayman Zawahiri was a follower of the Egyptian revolutionary Sayyed Qutb
who had been executed in 1966.
As last week's program showed
Qutb believed that the liberal ideas of Western societies
corrupted the minds of Muslims
because they unleashed the most selfish aspects of human nature.
Zawahiri had interpreted Qutb's theories to mean that this corruption
included the Western system of democracy.
Democracy, Zawahiri believed, encouraged politicians
to set themselves up as the source of all authority
and by doing this, they were rejecting the higher authority of the Koran.
This meant they were no longer true Muslims, and so they
and those who supported them, could legitimately be killed.
The terror this created, he said, would shock the masses
into seeing the truth behind the corrupt facade of democracy.
When the Egyptians, the jihadi group, came from Egypt
with their own explanation, with their own ideas
that anybody participating in any parliament, or any political party
or going to elect, or call people for the election
and sort of these activities, is totally rejecting the Koran.
So when you say that, it means when a Muslim is rejecting the Koran
simply must be killed.
And should be killed, must be killed!
And tha?5 what happened.
Zawahiri and his small group settled in Peshawar.
They began to spread this new idea among the foreign fighters
radicalizing the Islamist movement.
It was not only a drect challenge to the moderate ideas of Abdullah Azzam
but it also involved a militant rejection of all American influence over the jihad
because America was the source of this corruption.
The only times that I ever ran into any real trouble in Afghanistan
was when I ran into these guys.
You know, there'd be kind of a moment or two
where it looked a little bit like the bar scene in Star Wars
each group kind of jockeying around
and finally somebody has to sort of defuse the situation.
The indicator lights aren't on. Please adjust them.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has issued a decree.
Then, in 1987, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
decided he was going to withdraw Russian troops from Afghanistan.
Gorbachev was convinced that the whole Soviet system was facing collapse.
He was determined to try and save it through political reform
and this meant reversing the policies of his predecessors
including the occupation of Afghanistan.
The state of the Soviet Union and its society
could be described very simply with a phrase used
by people across the country:
"We can't go on living like this any longer."
And that applied to everything. The economy was stagnating.
There were shortages. And the quality of goods was very poor.
We had to finish this war, but in such a way that the Russian people
would understand why tens of thousands had died.
We couldn't just run away from there in shame, no.
We needed to find a process.
Gorbachev asked the Americans to help him negotiate a peace
that would create a stable government in Afghanistan.
But the hard-liners in Washington refused point-blank.
They would continue to help the mujaheddin
until the last Russians left, without any negotiation.
The future of Afghanistan would then be decided, they said
by the freedom fighters.
I think that basically, we've asked the United States to help us get out
if you're really interested in stopping the bloodshed.
But can you get out and leave a government in Afghanistan
that supports that is a friend of the Soviet Union?
I believe that we can get out, provided that indeed no more aid is given to what
people here call freedom fighters, and we call counterrevolutionaries.
I believe tha?5 possible, provided that
the United States is also interested in the same.
Well, I?5 not very complicated. 264
they could be home by Christmas Eve, if they decided to
leave Afghanistan and let the Afghans decide their own future.
If you leave, the problem of support to the mujaheddin solves itself.
Gorbachev was shocked by the intransigence of the U.S. Administration.
He sent a private message through the KGB, warning the Americans
that if they allowed the mujaheddin to take control in Afghanistan
it would not produce democracy.
Instead, he predicted, the most extreme forms of Islamism
would rise up and triumph.
But Gorbachev's warning was ignored.
As Soviet troops left Afghanistan, both the Americans and the Islamists
came to believe that they had not only won the battle for Afghanistan
they had also begun the downfall of the entire Evil Empire.
I felt we won, because I was part of it.
I'm sure that the Afghan Arabs thought "We won,"
and then all summer long, the East Germans begin to gather
a hundred here, a thousand, tens of thousands
until November 9th, when the wall was opened. And tha?5 it.
Start the clock running on the Soviet Union.
And it was over. The Soviet Union was all crapped up and broken.
And that was done.
For the neoconservatives, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a triumph.
And out of that triumph was going to come the central myth
that still inspires them today:
that through the aggressive use of American power
they could transform the world and spread democracy.
But in reality, their victory was an illusion. They had conquered a phantom enemy
an exaggerated and distorted fantasy they had created in their own minds.
The real reason the Soviet Union collapsed
was because it was a decrepit system, decaying from within.
I think probably one of the greatest myths in American political discourse now
right now, is that actions of the American government
were responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union collapsed like a house of cards
because it was a house of cards. It rotted away from within.
The economy was rotten, the political process was rotten
they had developed a central government that was no longer believed
by people outside of Moscow, there was total cynicism
throughout the Soviet system of governance, there was no real civil society.
But the Reagan Administration and their
the minions of the Reagan Administration
will tell you that Afghanistan led to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself
the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989
the collapse of the East European empire.
We were saying that this was entirely fanciful.
And the United States missed all of this
because they believed their own myths and their own fanciful notions.
They had become their own victims of their own lies.
And for the Islamists too
a great myth was born out of the struggle in Afghanistan
that it was they who had conquered the Soviet Union.
God is Great!
Death to Gorbachev! Long live Afghanistan!
The Islamists believed that this great victory would start
a revolution that would sweep across the Arab world and topple the corrupt leaders.
But as with the neoconservatives, this dream was built on an illusion.
The Islamists were convinced
that they were the key instrument in the demise of
the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.
They just would not like to remember that without
U.S. military help and training, they couldn't have done anything.
And also the Afghans were the ones who ousted the Soviets
not the Arab jihadis, who didn't really fight
they were trained, but they were not the fighters.
But the myth has it that they were the ones who won.
I mean, this was a jihad that had triumphed.
This was something very powerful
that was a mobilizing force for Islamists worldwide.
But there was a deep rift within the Islamist fighters based in Peshawar
between the moderates, led by Abdullah Azzam
who believed this revolution could be accomplished politically
and the extremists, like Ayman Zawahiri
who saw violent revolution as the only way.
And Zawahiri now set out to extend his influence over the movement
and to undermine Abdullah Azzam.
To do this, he seduced Osama Bin Laden, and his money, away from Azzam.
He promised Bin Laden that he could become the emir
the leader of Zawahiri's small extremist group, Islamic Jihad.
Ayman Zawahiri and another group
of Egyptians, they refused to
pray behind Abdullah Azzam, in Peshawar.
They used to create rumors in Peshawar
against Abdullah Azzam.
Tha?5 why we became angry about Osama, why he became
he closed these people to him.
They accepted hm as an emir, and he accepted them as a group.
Finally, I don't know who did use the other.
What do you think? I think the other used him.
Because he had the money? Yes.
Then, at the end of 1989
Abdullah Azzam was assassinated by a huge car bomb in Peshawar.
It is still unknown who carried out the assassination.
But despite his death
it seemed as if Azzam's vision of a political revolution might prevail.
In the early '90s, in countries across the Arab world
Islamist parties began to gather mass support.
Islamic State!
In Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front
won overwhelming victories in local elections
and looked certain to win the coming general election.
And at the same time in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood
began to win mass support, and a growing number of seats in Parliament.
Both parties were riding to power on an idealistic vision.
They would use Islam in a political way
to create a new type of model society through peaceful means.
We can change people
throught education
and religional conviction.
We want to build a popular base.
This is the right way.
We do not want a military coup.
We do not want violence.
We want our rights.
If people believe in us
the goverment must comply
with the people's wishes.
But the governments in both Egypt and Algeria faced a terrible dilemma.
At the heart of the Islamist vision was the idea that the Koran
should be used as the political framework for the society.
An absolute set of laws, beyond debate, that all politicians had to follow.
The implication of this was that political parties would be irrelevant
because there could be no disagreement.
The people were about to vote in
parties that might use that power to end democracy.
But what a dilemma!
Do you find a way of stopping the electoral process
and cancelling the second round?
Or do you let power go to a party witch claims:
One man, one vote, but only once!
We won't have any elections after this
because democracy is non-religious
Once we're in power, we'll stay there forever
because we alone are the keepers of religous truth
and we alone shall apply the Koran.
Faced by this dilemma, in Algeria the army decided to step in
and in June 1991 they staged a coup d'? at
and immediately canceled the elections.
Mass protests by the Islamists were repressed violently
and their leaders arrested.
At the same time, in Egypt, the government also clamped down.
They arrested hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members
and banned the organization from any political activity.
What happened is a wave of
arresting Muslim brothers, a wave of military courts for Muslim brothers
going to kill some of Muslim brothers under torture. 410
And this wave, in this manner, you open the doors of hell
for the violent groups who were hidden underground
and stopped the moderates, open the door for the violence.
For Ayman Zawahiri, this was a dramatic confirmation of his belief
that the Western system of democracy was a corrupt sham.
Groups of radical Islamists
who had developed his theories into even more extreme forms
now set out to create violent revolutions in Algeria and Egypt.
It would be the start of a jihad
that would liberate the Muslim world from corruption.
The only way to eradicate the humiliation and Kufr
that has overcome the land of Islam is Jihad
bullets, and martyrdom operations.
Bin Laden and the others
started, from now on, to wage their own jihad, I.e.
not to compromise, not to try to compromise with more moderate groups
but thinking that an armed vanguard
would be able to implement the seizing of power.
They were convinced that they could duplicate the Afghan "victory"
that they could establish an Islamist state in Algeria, in Egypt, and the like.
They thought that would capture the hearts and minds of of the Muslim masses
that people would realize that the strength and victory were on the side of the jihadis.
At this same time, in Washington
the other group who believed that they had brought down the Soviet Union
the neoconservatives
were also determined to push on with their revolutionary agenda.
They were convinced that the Soviet Union was just one of
many evil regimes in the world led by tyrants that threatened America.
Regimes they had to conquer to liberate the world and spread democracy.
We want, you know, down with tyranny.
We want free countries.
We think that America is better off if we live in a world
primarily populated with free countries, who make their own
who have to appeal to their own people for the source of their power
and to ratify their decisions. And we think that if
if the whole world were like that, then we would be much more secure
and that typically we were attacked by tyrants.
I think I?5 America's destiny
because I think that America's always going to come under attack from tyrants.
So I think that our only choice is
whether we're going to win or lose, and when we will fight..
and under what circumstances, but that we're gonna have to fight.
Tha?5 automatic, because they're gonna come after us.
One of the most evil of these tyrants, the neoconservatives decided
was Saddam Hussein.
In the 1980s, Saddam had been America's close ally. But in 1990, he invaded Kuwait.
The neoconservatives now saw him as a key
to pursuing the next stage of their transformation of the world.
An American-led coalition had been created by President Bush senior
to liberate Kuwait.
But the neoconservatives, like Paul Wolfowitz
who was Undersecretary of Dfense, wanted to push on to Baghdad
and bring about a transformation of the Middle East.
It would fulfill America's unique role to defeat evil in the world.
You see already in '91
the hopes of Wolfowitz and others, that the battle
against Saddam Hussein, or other petty tyrants
could take the place of the battle against the Soviet Union
and could bear this interpretation of a battle between good and evil.
So, what you're seeing is the attempt to keep alive
the idea that America is engaged in a battle of pure good against pure evil
and to preserve that framework for a world after the end of the Soviet Union.
But President Reagan was no longer in charge.
The neoconservatives now had a leader who did not share their vision.
Kuwait is liberated.
Iraq's army is defeated.
Our military objectives are met.
And I am pleased to announce all United States and Coalition forces
will suspend combat operations.
Once Kuwait was freed, Bush ordered the fighting to stop.
His view was that America's role was to create stability in the world
not to try change it.
Like Henry Kissinger
who had been the enemy of the neoconservatives in the 1970s
Bush saw questions of good and evil as irrelevant.
The higher aim was to achieve a stable balance of power in the Middle East.
Saddam Hussein is not a threat
to his neighbors. He's a nuisance, he's an annoyance
but he's not a threat.
That we achieved.
It was never our objective to get Saddam Hussein.
Indeed, had we tried, we still might be occupying Baghdad.
That would have turned a great success into a very messy probable defeat.
In private, the neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz were furious.
Not just because Saddam Hussein had been left in power
but because they saw this as a clear expression
of the corrupt liberal values that dominated America
a moral relativism that was prepared to compromise
with the forces of evil in the world.
Wolfowitz' anger is fundamentally an anger against
the weakness of American liberalism:
the compromising nature of a man like George Bush senior.
His willingness to make concessions, to negotiate, not to drive to the bitter end.
And his anger is motivated, interestingly
less by hatred of Saddam Hussein, than by hatred of American liberals
who are a source of weakness, and a source of rot, and a source of relativism
that had been corroding American society for decades.
Faced by this defeat, the neoconservative movement now turned inwards
to try and defeat the forces of liberalism that were holding it back.
And to do this, they turned again to the theories of Leo Strauss.
Strauss believed that good politicians should reassert
the absolute moral values that would unite society
and this would overcome the moral relativism that liberalism created.
One of the most influential Straussians
was the new assistant to the Vice-President, William Kristol.
For Strauss, liberalism produced a decent way of life
and one that he thought was worth defending
but a dead end where nothing could be said to be true
one had no guidance on how to live, everything was relative.
Strauss suggests that maybe we didn't just have to sit there
and accept that that was our fate.
That politics could help shape the way people live
teach them some good lessons about living decent and noble human lives.
And can we think about what cultures, and what politics
what social orders produce more admirable human beings?
I mean, that whole question was put back on the table by Strauss, I think.
The neoconservatives set out to reform America.
And at the heart of their project was the political use of religion.
Together with their long-term allies, the religious right
they began a campaign to bring moral and religious issues
back into the center of conservative politics.
It became known as the "culture wars."
Your tax dollars are being used to sponsor obscene and pornographic displays.
I don't like Jesus Christ, who is my Lord and Savior
being dumped in a vat of urine by a homosexual
and then have my money to pay for it! I think tha?5 obscene! 537 00:36:43,90 --> 00:36:49,400 Satan, be gone! Out from this moment on! C'mon!
For the religious right, this campaign was a genuine attempt
to renew the religious basis of American society.
But for the neoconservatives, religion was a myth
like the myth of America as a unique nation they had promoted in the Cold War.
Strauss had taught that these myths were necessary
to give ordinary people meaning and purpose, and so ensure a stable society.
Do you ever worry that they're playing too much Nintendo?
Oh, not anymore. See, Matt has Bible Adventures.
They're actually learning Bible stories while they're playing Nintendo.
For the neoconservatives, religion is an instrument of promoting morality.
Religion becomes what Plato called a "noble lie."
It is a myth which is told to the majority of the society
by the philosophical elite in order to ensure social order.
What better way to enjoy God's creation than a Praise Walk?
In being a kind of secretive elitist approach
Straussianism does resemble Marxism.
These ex-Marxists, or in some cases ex-liberal Straussians
could see themselves as a kind of Leninist group, you know
who have this covert vision which they want to use to effect change in history
while concealing parts of it from people incapable of understanding it.
Out of this campaign, a new and powerful moral agenda
began to take over the Republican Party.
It reached a dramatic climax at the Republican Convention in 1992
when the religious right seized control of the party's policy-making machinery.
George Bush became committed to run for President
with policies that would ban abortion, gay rights, and multiculturalism.
Speakers who tried to promote the traditional conservative values
of individual freedom were booed off the stage.
I happen to think that individual freedom
should extend to a woman's right to choose.
I want the government out of your pocketbook and your bedroom!
For the neoconservatives, the aim of this new morality was to unite the nation.
But in fact, it had completely the opposite effect.
Mainstream Republican voters were frightened away
by the harsh moralism that had taken over their party.
They turned instead to Bill Clinton
a politician who connected with their real concerns and needs
like tax and the state of the economy.
In the week after the Republican Convention
Republican moderates, young people, and particularly women
saying, "I've been sort of torn between the two parties
but where do I sign up to help Clinton get elected? I am
frightened by this ultraconservative agenda I hear coming out of Houston."
I've been a lifelong Republican. I'm a registered Republican.
I am voting for Bill Clinton this time.
Enough is enough. It is time for a change.
At the end of 1992, Bill Clinton won a dramatic victory.
But the neoconservatives were determined to regain power.
And to do this, they were going to do to Bill Clinton
what they had done to the Soviet Union.
They would transform the President of the United States into a fantasy enemy
an image of evil that would make people realize the truth
of the liberal corruption of America.
We realise that other nations have surpassed us
In what? In knowledge.
And Islam
In the early '90s, Algeria, Egypt, and other Arab countries
were being torn apart by a horrific wave of Islamist terror.
The jihadists who had returned from Afghanistan
were trying to topple the regimes.
At the heart of their strategy
was the idea that Ayman Zawahiri and others had taught them.
That those who were involved in politics could legitimately be killed
because they had become corrupted and thus were no longer Muslims.
This violence, they believed, would shock people into rising up
and the corrupt regimes would then be overthrown.
"They must die!" Not only "must die," they DID kill.
They did kill people.
Not just any It's not just an idea from far
it became true. People killed.
Many many rulers, many many holy men, many many scholars
many many politicians in Islamic world have been killed because of these idea.
Why? Because simply they are against the Koran. They rejected the Koran. 611
Ayman Zawahiri was now based with Bin Laden on this farm in the Sudan.
He used it as a base for his group, Islamic Jihad
to launch attacks on politicians in Egypt.
But as one of the leading ideologues of the revolution
he also traveled throughout the Arab world, advising other groups on their strategy.
But the revolutionaries soon found that the masses did not rise up and follow them.
The regimes stayed in power, and the radical Islamists were hunted down.
Faced by this, the Islamists widened their terror.
Their logic was brutal:
it was not just those who were involved with politics who should be killed
but the ordinary people who supported it.
Their refusal to rise up showed that they too had become corrupted
and so had condemned themselves to death.
There was definitely a logic. The logic is that you assault the leaders
you assault those who are associated with them, and eventually you assault
the people who have consented to the presence of such a despotic leader
even if they are passively supportive through their silence.
And then you start attacking economic institutions
you start attacking the tourists, because the tourists bring money to the country
and that money goes into the pockets of the corrupt elite.
So, it is an endless process.
In Algeria, this logic went completely out of control.
The Islamist revolutionary groups killed thousands of civilians
because they believed that all these people had become corrupted.
All these innocents, what did they ever do?
Legs blown off! Such horror!
Even the French extremists never did things like this.
Why? What have we done? What have out children done?
Leave me alone! I want do die!
In turn, the generals running Algeria inftitrated the revolutionary groups.
They told their agents to persuade the Islamists to push the logic even further
to kill even more people.
This would create such horror that the groups would lose any remaining support
and the generals could use the fear and revulsion to increase their grip on power.
The generals inftitrated the jihad ideas, the jihad groups
to put the society under fear.
By creating terror and violence
to stop everything in the society, no politic, no economy, no everything
just to stay and saying to the West, "We are facing terror."
Using fear? Using fear to stay on the power.
Today the kill, they kill everybody
innocent people, children, old people.
They have een cut up their victims.
Who will trust them
if tomorrow they take power?
Down with fundamentalism!
By 1997, the Islamist revolution was failing.
There were mass demonstrations against the Islamist groups
by thousands of people horrified by the violence.
And then, in June of that year, a group of Egyptian Islamists
attacked Western tourists at the ruins of Luxor.
58 were killed in three hours of random violence.
The massacre shocked the Egyptian people
and the leaders of the revolutionary groups agreed to call a cease-fire.
In Algeria, a few groups held out. But they began to tear each other apart
as they followed the logic that had driven their revolution
to its ultimate, and logical, end:
they started to kill each other.
It led to their own destruction.
A group that believes in 100% pure Muslim
will not see that purity in anybody else but themselves.
So whoever disagrees with them becomes the enemy
becomes out of the House of Islam
and then if they happen to disagree with each other themselves
then they will start liquidating each other.
And they keep fighting each other, there will be infighting.
Eventually it ends in suicide.
The main Islamist group in Algeria, the GIA
ended by being led by a Mr. Zouabri, a chicken farmer
who killed everyone who disagreed with him.
He issued a final communique
declaring that the whole of Algerian society should be killed
with the exception of his tiny remaining band of Islamists.
They were the only ones who understood the truth.
By the mid-'90s, politics in Washington
was dominated by one issue:
the moral character of the President of the United States.
If you believe you've been a victim of sexual harassment by the President
we want to help.
Behind this were an extraordinary barrage of allegations against Clinton
that were obsessing the media.
These included stories of sexual harassment
stories that Clinton and his wife were involved in Whitewater
a corrupt property deal
stories that they had murdered their close friend Vince Foster
and stories that Clinton was involved in smuggling drugs
from a small airstrip in Arkansas.
But none of these stories were true.
All of them had been orchestrated by a young group of neoconservatives
who were determined to destroy Clinton.
The campaign was centered on a small right-wing magazine
called the American Spectator
which had set up what was called the "Arkansas Project"
to investigate Clinton's past life.
The journalist at the center of this project was called David Brock.
In the crossfire: David Brock, of the American Spectator magazine.
She was dressed in a raincoat and a hat, and came in at 5:15 in the morning
and had a liaison with Clinton in the game room
in the bottom floor of the Governor's mansion. David, David, David, this is getting a little bizarre.
Next thing we gonna see
I?5 bizarre! But hey, Bill Clinton is a bizarre guy.
Since then, Brock has turned against the neoconservative movement.
He now believes that the attacks on Clinton went too far
and corrupted conservative politics.
Was Whitewater true?
No! There was no I mean
there was no criminal wrongdoing in Whitewater. Absolutely not.
It was a land deal that the Clintons lost money on.
It was a coplete inversion of what happened.
Was Vince Foster killed?
No. Killed himself.
Did the Clintons smuggle drugs?
Absolutely not.
Did those promoting these stories know that this was not true
that none of these stories were true?
They did not care.
Why not?
Because they were having a devastating effect.
So why stop?
It was terrorism. Political terrorism.
And you were one of the agents? Absolutely. Absolutely.
The stories began to grip America, and despite Clinton's denials
the Republicans in Congress seized on the scandals
and began to press for investigations
into this immorality at the heart of government.
Basically, the press
has editorialized and pressured the politicians into saying
"Here's a guy that as far as we know hasn't done anything wrong
nobody's accused him of doing anything wrong
there's no evidence that he's done anything wrong
but we think the presumption of guilt almost should be on him.
He should somehow prove his innocence."
Out of this pressure, Clinton was forced to agree
to an independent investigation into Whitewater.
It was headed by a senior judge in Washington called Kenneth Starr.
But what was not widely known
was that Starr was a member of a right-wing group of lawyers
called the Federalist Society
that had financial and ideological links to the neoconservatives.
And like the neoconservatives, they saw Clinton as a danger to the country
and they were determined to prove this to the American people.
In the Merck manual.
Merck is a pharmaceutical company, they have a manual listing
various disorders, and they listed "sociopath."
And if you look at "sociopath," it tracks Clinton exactly.
Somebody who's charming
who has no particular feeling at all for the people he's charming
unable to resist instant gratification
and so on and so on. Goes right down the list.
We had a very dysfunctional man in the Presidency.
That was very dangerous, both as a model and as
if crisis had arisen, I had no confidence that he would meet it.
But despite all his efforts
Kenneth Starr could find no incriminating evidence in Whitewater.
Nor could he find any evidence to support any of the sexual scandals
that had come from the Arkansas Project.
Until finally, his committee
stumbled upon Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, which Clinton denied.
And in that lie, the neoconservative movement
believed they had found what they had been looking for:
a way to make the American people see the truth
about the liberal corruption of their country.
A campaign now began to impeach the President.
And in the hysteria, the whole conservative movement
portrayed Clinton as a depraved monster who had to be removed from office.
But yet again, the neoconservatives had created a fantasy enemy
by exaggerating and distorting reality.
They were trapped by a mythological
person that they had constructed, or persons, the Clintons, these
scheming, terrible people who they, the noble pursuers, were going to vanquish.
I think, in the leadership of conservatism
during the Clinton era there was an element of corruption.
There was an element of a willingness to do anything
to achieve the goal of bringing Clinton down.
There was a way in which the people who perceived Clinton as immoral
behaved immorally themselves.
They ended up behaving worse than the people who they were attacking.
All the moral fury, and the deception, came to nothing.
The impeachment failed because the polls consistently showed
that Americans still did not care about these moral issues.
One leading neoconservative, William Bennett
wrote a book called The Death of Outrage, which blamed the people.
He accused the public of making a deal with the devil.
Their failure, he said, to support the impeachment
was evidence of their moral corruption.
By 1997, Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri had returned to Afghanistan
where they had first met ten years before.
Back then, it had seemed as if Islamism
might succeed as a popular revolutionary movement.
But now, they were facing failure.
All attempts to topple regimes in the Arab world had not succeeded.
The people had turned against them because of the horrific violence
and Afghanistan was the only place they had left to go.
Well, 1997 was their failure. Egypt, Algeria, it worked nowhere.
It went wrong because populations would not back them.
Because people, even people who were sympathetic of them in the beginning
were frightened away by their violence, by their incapacity to communicate
and to have access to the people, and this was very clear
in Zawahiri's book "Knights under the Prophe?5 Banner,"
where he sort of goes back from this experiment, and laments
over their incapacity to raise the consciousness of the masses
and feels that, you know, as a vanguard they did not manage to communicate.
They remained isolated, and this is why they failed.
And this is when they started this new strategy.
In May 1998, Bin Laden and Zawahiri
invited a group of journalists to this press conference
where they announced a new jihad.
Zawahiri was convinced
that it was not their theories that were to blame for the failure
it was the fault of the Muslim masses.
Their minds had been corrupted by the liberal ideas from the West.
But rather than give up
he believed that the solution was to attack the source of the corruption directly.
The new jihad would be against America itself.
As I mentioned before
we focus our efforts
to fight against Jews and Christians or Americans.
We have no objection against any party or any person
who fights Americans all over the world.
And we want to tell you that we will win the war against Americans.
America will be defeated. Americans know our power, and
This was a strategy of desperation
born out of failure by a small group whose revolution had failed.
And the anger that came from that failure
was about to be directed at the United States.
What Zawahiri and Bin Laden were about to do
would dramatically affect the future of the neoconservative movement.
By 1998, all their attempts to transform America
by creating a moral revolution had failed.
Faced with the indifference of the people
the neoconservatives had become marginalized
in both domestic and foreign policy.
But with the attacks that were about to hit America
the neoconservatives would at last find the evil enemy
that they had been searching for ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And in their reaction to the attacks
the neoconservatives would transform the failing Islamist movement
into what would appear to be the grand revolutionary force
that Zawahiri had always dreamed of.
But much of it would exist only in people's imaginations.
It would be the next phantom enemy.