The Power of Nightmares

2004 60 min Ended
8.1 (70 ratings)
2004
60 min
English
United Kingdom
BBC Two
BBC Two
Adam Curtis
Documentary

Examines how politicians have used our fears to increase their power and control over society.

Latest Episode

S01E03 Aired November 03, 2004

The Shadows in the Cave

Curtis argues that, after their failed revolutions, bin Laden and Zawahiri had little or no popular support, let alone a serious complex organisation of terrorists, and were dependent upon independent operatives to carry out their new call for jihad. The film instead shows the United States government wanting to prosecute bin Laden in absentia for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, and needing to prove him to be the head of a criminal organisation to do so. They find a former associate of bin Laden, Jamal al-Fadl, and pay him to testify that bin Laden was the head of a massive terrorist organisation called "al-Qaeda". With the September 11th attacks, Neo-Conservatives in the new Republican government of George W. Bush use this created concept of an organisation to justify another crusade against a new evil enemy, leading to the launch of the War on Terrorism.

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