Al Qaeda is a Metaphor

First, on Tuesday, Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff wants us all to lock our windows and bolt our doors this Summer because he has a "gut feeling" that the evil Al Qaeda is coming to get us! Then, today, the Associated Press tells us that it's gotten hold of super top secret classified reports from U.S. intelligence agencies that Al Qaeda is the strongest it's been since before 9/11!

Holy shit man! I'd be soiling myself right now if I didn't know that Al Qaeda is about as real as my dream of spending a night with Bipasha Basu, Marylin Monroe, Vanessa Paradis, Ashwarya Rai and Natalie Wood.

Here's what Martin Scheinin (Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) has to say about Al Qaeda:

... I don’t see the global war between states and Al Qaeda as anything more than a metaphor. I don’t see Al Qaeda as qualifying as a global army that could be party of a global, never-ending armed conflict.

Scheinin, as a United Nations appointee, has to mince words. We don't. Al Qaeda is a metaphor that the U.S. government uses to inspire xenophobia (i.e. racism) among the people it controls. Al Qaeda is all people, especially people of color, who oppose U.S. interests whether they employ terrorist tactics or otherwise. What defines a terrorist act according to international law is a violent attack against the general populace. This is not the operative definition the U.S. government uses. When resistance fighters in Iraq attack U.S. soldiers they are not committing acts of terrorism as defined by international law. Yet, as far as the U.S. government is concerned, anyone in Iraq who opposes the U.S. military presence there is a terrorist -- hence the chimera ubiquitous in the U.S. news media known as Al Qaeda in Iraq. Ultimately we will be informed by our leaders that branches of Al Qaeda are firmly entrenched in every single region which is critical to the global hegemonic strategy of the U.S. ruling class.