“Power of Nightmares” re-awakened

“Power of Nightmares” was an excellent three-part documentary broadcast by the BBC a few months ago (and is being re-broadcast again, see below).

It had the balls to argue that the threat of terrorism to the West was a politically driven, fear-orientated control mechanism based around the public being sold the false-belief that al-Qaeda is a highly organised network of terror.

Brave stuff, and very though provoking – even if you’re already a follower of the much-discussed “culture of fear” concept.

It’s being repeated again in the UK:

• BBC Two @ 23.20, Tue 18 Jan + Wed 19 Jan + Thu 20 Jan.

(If you are outside the UK, I know that the three-part series is available on the bit-torrent network – but due to the current legal wrangling about torrent-linking and the fact that I work for the BBC, I’m not going to link directly to a torrent from here.)

The series created a lot of positive and negative feedback – my BBC News colleague Adam Curtis (and producer of the series) has taken time out to answer many of the questions posed by viewers of the programme.