"British and American foreign policy is itself based on a series of highly improbable conspiracy theories, the biggest of which is that an evil Saudi millionaire genius in a cave in the Hindu Kush controls a secret worldwide network of ‘tens of thousands of terrorists’ ‘in more than 60 countries’ (George Bush). News reports frequently tell us that terrorist organisations, such as those which have attacked Bali or Istanbul, have ‘links’ to al-Qa’eda, but we never learn quite what those ‘links’ are. According to two terrorism experts in California, Adam Dolnik and Kimberly McCloud, this is because they do not exist. ‘In the quest to define the enemy, the US and its allies have helped to blow al-Qa’eda out of proportion,’ they write. They argue that the name ‘al-Qa’eda’ was invented in the West to designate what is, in reality, a highly disparate collection of otherwise independent groups with no central command structure and not even a logo. They claim that some terrorist organisations say they are affiliated to bin Laden simply to gain kudos and name-recognition for their entirely local grievances. "
