Islam versus Europe

Al Qaeda is largely a myth. There was a Pakistani journalist who interviewed Bin Laden a few weeks before September 11th. He spoke to the people in Bin Laden's entourage and asked them about Al Qaeda. Their response was: what's Al Qaeda? They had never even heard of it, these people who were supposedly its heart and soul. Clearly these people were engaged in organised jihadist terrorism, and you could say that perhaps Al Qaeda is as good a name for them as any other but the name and concept of Al Qaeda were largely invented by western elites.

Al Qaeda has been a useful myth for these elites. It has allowed them to pretend that Islamic evil is encapsulated in this one organisation. Rather than face the harsh truth that Islam itself is quintessentially evil, they have been able to spin away the most visible elements of the anti-western jihad as deriving from this one organisation, full of deviants who somehow have misunderstood the true message of Islam. And when jihad incidents occur that, demonstrably, have nothing to do with Bin Laden or his network, they explain them away as being "Al Qaeda-inspired" or say "Al Qaeda has metastasised."

Elsewhere, they may explain away jihad evil as being motivated by the conflict between Israel and the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. The western establishment is prolific in inventing reasons not to believe the most important truth of our times: that Islam is pure evil.

It's worthy of note that the image of the dead Bin Laden circulating around the web is apparently a fake.