Media descriptions of Zarqawi as Al-Qaeda leader are inaccurate

international | arts and media | opinion/analysis Thursday June 08, 2006 19:28 by Paul MacGiolla Bán

The mass media representation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as an Al-Qaeda leader is inaccurate. Al-Qaeda as an 'organisation' has no formal structure, and would be more accurately described as philosophy. Media representations of the group are seriously flawed and buy into the assumptions underlying the US-led 'war on terror'.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

A number of media reports this morning describing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as an “al-Qaeda leader” are inaccurate. It is reported that the prominent Islamic militant has been killed in an air bombing raid north of Baquba.

Contrary to media portrayals, al-Qaeda is an anarchic concept, and the group actually does not have leaders or a formal membership. Al-Qaeda operations – the most prominent being the attacks of September 11th 2001 – are carried out by groups and individuals acting autonomously. There is no centralised leadership, and thus the portrayal of al-Zarqawi as an “al-Qaeda leader” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of al-Qaeda, which should be more accurately described as an ideology than an organisation.

According to Jason Burke, author of Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, the term al-Qaeda refers to “a mode of activism and a tactic” rather than a coherent organisation, and was originally conceived as a revolutionary vanguard movement of fundamentalist Islam" (all quotes are from this excerpt from Burke’s book). The only coherence of al-Qaeda is imputed by the West – the common perception of the group is nothing more than a myth. Jason Burke had been covering the Middle East and Southeast Asia for a decade at the time of the September 11th attacks, spending many years living in the region. In 1991, he travelled to join Kurdish freedom fighters in Iraq, and later spent four years living under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. He is now the Chief Reporter of The Observer.

Burke reports that Western European intelligence groups said that Zarqawi had founded a group in Iraq in opposition to al-Qaeda. According to Burke, it is “only if al-Qaeda is, wrongly, conceived of as a single organisation encompassing the whole of contemporary radical Islamic activism could one say that al-Zarqawi was ‘al-Qaeda’”. The mass media representation of al-Zarqawi as an al-Qaeda leader is indicative of a casual and systematic misreporting of events in the Middle East. Mass media reporting of the region is characterised by a lack of nuance and a regurgitation of establishment concepts and vocabulary.

The distinction between the mainstream portrayal of al-Qaeda and the reality is important, because the common misrepresentation feeds into the underlying assumptions of the US-led war on terror. The presentation of al-Qaeda as a traditionally structured, hierarchical group creates the impression that it is possible to counteract its activities through a standard confrontational strategy. However, this methodology is inappropriate. It has long been obvious that the US failure to respond to the root political, social and economic causes of instability in the Middle East has been severely damaging to the supposed US goals of democratisation and stabilisation. This is particularly so when the true nature of al-Qaeda is taken into account, including its lack of a central funding system or global strategic planning, and its decentralised, autonomous basis of organisation.

These basic facts about al-Qaeda are one of the reasons why it is ridiculous to suggest that an al-Qaeda attack could never take place in Ireland. It is often said that Ireland is not of sufficient geopolitical importance to warrant such an attack, but the reality is that there is nobody in al-Qaeda making these kinds of strategic decisions at a macro level. All it would take would be one militant-minded Muslim to declare himself an al-Qaeda operative, and instigate an attack. All that is necessary is the access and the willingness of Islamic militants who buy into the al-Qaeda philosophy. The US utilisation of Shannon airport makes Ireland a ‘collaborator’ in the Iraq war, according to former assistant secretary general of the UN, Denis Halliday.

According to Burke, mainstream assumptions about al-Qaeda are based on “profound misconceptions”, the central such assumption being “the idea that bin Laden led a cohesive and structured terrorist organisation called ‘al-Qaeda’”. The goals of the adherents to the al-Qaeda ideology are inhumane and contemptible, but no effective response can be implemented without a clearer understanding of the nature of the group.

This flawed coverage was exacerbated in the US media with regard to al-Zarqawi - according to an article in April in The Washington Post, Colonel Derek Harvey of the US military admitted that the military had intentionally enlarged Zarqawi's caricature to inflate US claims to be fighting terrorism in Iraq.

The US approach, rather than eliminating Islamic militancy, is likely to radicalise the Muslim populations of the Middle East (and elsewhere). Its support for authoritarian governments that facilitate its strategy objectives; its political, military, and economic backing of Israel’s occupation of Palestine in contravention of international law; its own occupation of Iraq; its rhetoric towards Iran: all belie its claim to support democratisation and to be a progressive force in the region. By the heavy-handedness of its approach and the illegitimacy of its claims, the US approach is alienating Muslim populations globally, and thus contributing to making the world a more dangerous place.