Joseph Farah’s breathless report(s) of imminent nuclear holocaust

Joseph Farah has the most alarming possible stories at WorldNetDaily, that Al Qaeda has smuggled WMDs into America and has them stashed away ready to use in a multiple attack on several cities, killing several millions of people. However, the main story, which supposedly has the sources backing up these appalling claims, is only available to subscribers, while Farah’s articles that are available online are written in such a hyperbolic manner that they raise doubts in this reader.

For example, Farah writes:

No one, of course, should be surprised that Osama bin Laden would devise such a mass-murdering plot. But what is truly shocking is the cavalier attitude of U.S. officials, who, fully knowing thousands of terrorist operatives have already entered this country along with weapons of mass destruction, continue to leave the back door open. [emphasis added.]

By joining the phrase, “thousands of terrorists operatives have already entered this country,” with the phrase, “along with weapons of mass destruction,” Farah makes it sound as though each of those thousands of operatives has brought a weapon of mass destruction into America. He’s not actually saying that, but the sentence is written in such a way as to give the average reader that impression.

Also, Farah says it may be “ten years” before Al Qaeda uses the weapons. Now, if terrorists already had many nuclear weapons in America, why would they wait ten years to use them? Maybe it just makes Farah’s claims harder to disprove, if we have to wait ten years to find out if they’re true.

For Farah to mix up a report about such ultimate matters with such obvious sloppy hype, while also charging money for the main report which supposedly has the real facts and sources, thus creating the passing thought that he’s raising these extreme alarms to make money, undermines any valuable or true message he may have to give. He makes it difficult to take his report seriously.

Since writing the above, I’ve read a few more of Farah’s many reports on the subject, and they are all over the place. In one article he says there’s a chance that Al Qaeda has one nuke:

“Al-Qaida may not have had a nuclear weapon stored in Afghanistan,” he explains. “But it does not confirm that they do not have access to a nuclear weapon stored elsewhere—for which their operatives inside Afghanistan were undergoing basic training for its use, being supported by outside experts.”

Myers illustrates his alternative theory that al-Qaida operative may have been training for use of an already existing nuclear device with an analogy.

Hmm, there’s no way to prove that they don’t have access to a nuke. This “can’t prove a negative” about one nuke is a long way from the positive assertion, in the article previously discussed, that they have many nukes, already hidden and ready to be used in the U.S.

In another article, written in 2002, based on the work of a “former FBI consultant,” Farah says that Al Qaeda purchased at least 20 suitcase nuclear weapons that originally came from the Soviet Union. But, as I said before, if our deadly enemies have all these weapons, weapons which would be so easy to sneak into the U.S. over our porous borders, why, in all this time, haven’t they used them? Maybe that’s why, in his most recent article, Farah adds the caveat that even though Al Qaeda may have many nukes in the U.S., they may not use them for 10 years. The suggestion is that they are gatherng the weapons for the ultimate demo of Al Qaeda’s famed ability to coordinate multiple attacks.

In sum, Farah seems to throw as many sensational and frightening assertions against the wall as he can. He doesn’t seem to care if they don’t stick or if they contradict each other. He just keeps throwing them against the wall. For all I know, our worst nightmares are true, at least one of Farah’s stories is true, and Al Qaeda is in possession of nukes in the U.S. But it would be more convincing to hear it from someone who took the trouble to line up his facts a little more carefully, who forthrightly admitted that his various claims seem to contradict each other, and who at least tried to sound as though he weren’t engaged in crude sensationalism.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 14, 2005 08:28 PM | Send