Check out this astonishing interview on the back page of yesterday's La Vanguardia. It's Victor M. Amela interviewing Richard Labévière (we will dispense with further accents). M. Labeaver is "a journalist, specialized in Islamic terrorism, former Middle Eastern correspondent, now with Radio France International". Let's just get right to it. The interview is in quotes. My comments aren't.

"Q. Al Qaeda terrorism...
A. Al Qaeda disappeared on September 12.
Q. Al Qaeda doesn't exist?
A. There was a factual Al Qaeda that planned Sept. 11. But afterwards no hierarchical structure, a terrorist international, has come to exist again. Al Qaeda is just a name, a symbol...
Q. Well, it's a ubiquitous symbol...
A. Because Bush waves it like a flag. Before Sept. 11, when Al Qaeda existed, Bush behaved as if it didn't exist, and since Sept. 11, when Al Qaeda doesn't exist anymore, Bush gives it life! Because Bush needs there to be an Al Qaeda, an international network of Islamist terror.
Q. In order to justify his policies?
A. Yes Bush needs a global terrorism that justifies his global superpotency. So Al Qaeda substitutes for the old USSR.
Q. I'm sorry, but if I think of March 11 in Madrid, it's hard for me to follow you.
A. I'm here to tell you that the people originally responsible for March 11 can be found, precisely, in the White House and the Pentagon."

Whoa there. This guy is accusing the Americans of being behind the Madrid bombing. This is beyond the bounds of sanity. Right here is where the interviewer should have packed up, said he had a train to catch, and left quickly, rather than devoted a whole page to this lunacy. What in the name of journalistic standards is going on here?

"Q. Can you back that up?
A. Al Zarqawi is behind March 11, a guy whose legend is beginning to replace Bin Laden's already among the new Islamist generations. This salafist Jordanian fought in Afghanistan, from where he fled after the bombing of the Tora Bora caves. And do you know precisely where he went?
Q. No. Where?
A. To Iraqi Kurdistan, with the Kurds, friends of the United States and enemies of Saddam! And there in Iraq, this new generation of terrorists--extremist Sunnis--is being born, which kills above all Shiite Iraqis, more than soldiers of the occupying forces..."

So, if I'm reading correctly, the fact that Zarqawi hid out in Kurdistan is proof that Bush planned the March 11 bombing.

"Q. What are you trying to say with all this?
A. That the chaos Al Zarqawi is sowing helps to justify the occupation, and Bush has created in Iraq a new generation of international terrorists...I wondered, why didn't Bush catch Bin Laden? And Al Zarqawi? Why did the CIA deny that it negotiated making peace with Bin Laden in Dubai on July 12, 2001, apparently unsuccessfully?
Q. Did you find an answer?
A. When I investigate the financial trails of Islamist terrorism, I always find the same thing at the end of the thread: Saudi banks and crossed interests of Saudi Arabia and American multinational corporations.
Q. Do you have any proof?
A. Saudi Arabia and the CIA have always financed Islamist terrorists against leaders uncomfortable for the United States (Nasser, Arafat, Soviet Afghanistan). More evidence? Look at the Carlyle group: among its stockholders are, together, the Bushes, princes from the Saudi royal family, and members of the Bin Laden family! They invest in oil pipelines through Afghanistan, they're suppliers to the Pentagon...The American press is careful not to talk about this 'Bin-Laden-gate'."

OK. So Bush, in cahoots with the Saudis, invaded Iraq in order to train a new generation of Islamic terrorists, and the press is covering it up. The end goal is to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. The journalist promptly asks the appropriate question.

"Q. But does it make sense that these interests would put American lives in danger?
A. Yes, because it's a price that capitalism accepts in order to globalize itself. The last phase of capitalism, globalized capitalism, demands global terrorism! It is a necessary terrorism, the apex of the system; terrorism is the superior state of capitalism.
Q. What you're saying is very shocking.
A. Terrorism has been listed on the stock market for a while, ever since Bin Laden. And the American aeronautic-military industrial complex needs a global enemy, and global terrorism is ideal!
Q. If you see a cause-and-effect relationship...
A. Doesn't the Pentagon make the decisions in the United States, and doesn't it support the militarization of international relations?
Q: If it's like that, does it matter if Kerry wins?
A: Bush makes it impossible to talk with the United States, you can't say a thing to them! With Kerry, it will be possible to talk to them again."

OK, now we've gotten down to it: this guy hates the US for the same reason as all the rest, because it's richer and more powerful than Mr. Labeaver's favorite power network. In fact, Bush's United States doesn't even pay the slightest attention to what cheese-eating surrender monkeyland has to say. We must therefore make strange warmed-over Marxist charges that have been out-of-date since before Marx died, and we must assert that the United States is, of course, not really a democracy. This helps us temporarily blow off steam about our comparatively insignificant status.

"Q. OK. Will this be good for anything?
A. It might soften the current neocon doctrine of 'preventative war', which excuses and justifies all the lies of the State. Remember that they orchestrated an impeachment of Clinton (which cost millions of dollars) for lying about a roll in the hay with a girl--and Bush is allowed to lie with impunity about the motives behind a war...neocons...put an end to international law...Iraq war generates more terrorism...imperial hegemony...the neocons know they have to surround China...my balls itch."

Sorry, I wound up compressing the rest of the interview into that last answer.

I repeat. With legitimate newspapers publishing this tripe, which has absolutely nothing to do with reality and is the fruit of the paranoid imagination of a bitter person, is it surprising that Europeans believe all the crap they believe?