by Diane V. McLoughlin, main website
mcloughlinpost.com
The real terrorists are cleverly disguised to look and sound just like you and me. The real terrorists get you to sacrifice your kids in the military to protect their bottom line, while reaching into your back pockets. The real terrorists play you for suckers while laughing all the way to the bank. To find the real terrorists? You watch to see which way your tax money flows.
Americans, 10,000 or more from all walks of life, rolled out the Unity and Solidarity Rally
(pictured, right; by AP); against anti-Muslim prejudice; pro-peace - in New York City, September 11th, 2010. Hopeful - but little reported. Symbolic acts aren't worth much if nobody actually gets to hear about them.
There is a purpose behind fomenting hatred against American Muslims. It is to deflect attention away from what's really going on; the real reasons why we wield our military might in places such as Iraq - a war that has cost American taxpayers an economy-destroying three trillion dollars and counting; real reasons why we are in Afghanistan -now the longest war in U.S. history. American Muslims are being used as scapegoats.
Smearing Muslims as terrorists also helps to shield Israel from criticism in its continued ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Bigotry, like power, has its privileges.
Radio, television and print media should all have to take an oath: 'I solemnly swear to tell the truth - the whole truth - and nothing but the truth.' The news would look very diifferent if there were legal consequences when any news outfit violates it. Truth is, the media lies both by omission - what they leave out - and by commission - what they put in.They do it so well, it's scary.
There was a big stink raised this year of course, about a Muslim cultural center planned two city blocks away from 9/11's Ground Zero. The center is variously called the Cordoba Initiative, or Park51. The group that wants to create this center bought the property, five years ago. It has apparently been a challenge so far to raise funds to develop it, and to get through the planning approval process, too.
In the vicinity of the proposed cultural center there is a strip club, along with other less-than-sparkly elements of modern city life - but these are not protested. The powers behind the throne, as part of their efforts to demonize Muslims, call it the 'Ground Zero Mosque'.It is not at Ground Zero, and it is not a mosque. But jokers are nothing, if not clever. Because no matter where, and no matter what - mosque, church or synagogue - it should not be a problem for anyone.
Some Americans think the cultural center is an offense to the memories of the people who were murdered on 9/11 because they believe the real purpose of the center is to glorify and celebrate 9/11. Spokespeople for the cultural center looked like they didn't know what hit them when, this year, protesters were whipped up into a frenzy against it. The Muslim group planned on including prayer space for Jews and Christians. They hoped to hold inter-faith gatherings to foster greater understanding between the faiths.
People who protest that this Muslim cultural center is an insult to the memories of those who were murdered on September 11, 2001, do so because they know that the men who attacked were Muslim. They think that the 9/11 attack was driven because the attackers were Muslim. 9/11 was not a religious act. It also was not an irrational act of hatred against the West. It was an act of revenge, a reaction, to American foreign policy.
We killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis over the course of our blockade and bombing campaign against Iraq (1993- 2003.) The 9/11 attack was fundamentally an immoral act, according to Islamic values. For the record, I am an Agnostic. (1)
I believe that the powers-that-be would stop the continuing demonization of innocent American Muslims if they could. But there is only one way to stop it and that's with the truth. And the truth would reveal far too much about the powers-that-be.
When 9/11 occurred it was devastating. It was devastating in its murderous destruction. It was devastating knowing that all those people were victims of their own government's misdeeds. I searched in vain for a U.S. media outlet that would say something, anything, about cause-and-effect on 9/11 and Iraq. We deliberately, utterly destroyed Iraq; an entire country and its people.
I'm going to repeat that because it is so hard to break through the sticky cobweb of lies that have been spun in our heads: We had already murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Iraq, between the years 1993 to 2001. Officially, we went to war against Iraq two years later - in 2003.
The truth has been marginalized completely. It is MIA. There were no weapons of mass destruction. (2) Saddam Hussein did not associate with al Qaeda. Iraq was a modern secular state. Not perfect, but Iraq wasn't a repressive theocracy, either. Over the days and weeks following 9/11, as the broken girders and the dust of the twin towers continued to smolder - I waited; I looked; I listened - for television stations, newspapers or local radio stations to TELL THEM WHY. Did not happen.
Why was - and is - it important to me? The first rule when you discover yourself in a hole is: Stop digging. How could the American people be expected to alter course, prevent the government from making further enemies, if they didn't know the real reasons behind 9/11?
On-line comments I wrote after reading 9/11 articles would not be posted and were weeded out. Letters to editors - rejected. I wrote op-eds. I am positive I was far from unique. You could not get through. The truth did not get through. The lies came quicker and quicker until they spilled, tumbling over themselves, blurring reality in the popular press and the market place of ideas beyond all recognition to prepare us for the pretty fireworks of 'Shock and Awe' - more bombing of Iraq, in the lead-up to going in.
There is a name for the rabbit hole that sucks you down into that unfamiliar alternate universe otherwise known as Reality - it's called history. The lies didn't start on 9/11. Next time you're in the same room as a Vietnam vet or Kent State student war protester, ask them.
Tell them I sent you.
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Notes:
(1) Recommended: 'Top Ways 9/11 Broke Islamic Law'; Juan Cole; Informed Comment; Sept. 11, 2010;
http://www.juancole.com/2010/09/top-ways-911-broke-islamic-law.html
(2) Youtube, 'Bush admits there were no WMD's in Iraq';
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-Kku_rFE
*January 17, 1961 Farewell Address - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower - 'The Warning'; Youtube clip; over 430,000 views;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY&feature=related ;
However, there is too much over-generalization in your analysis and I find there is a certain over-zealousness in demonizing on the one hand, and lumping in on the other.
In the last federal election I did my own detailed analysis of all of the presidential candidates' political platforms. The candidates I endorsed were, in no particular order Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Cynthia McKinney.
The one thing these individuals had in common that I was particularly interested in was a conviction that our foreign military adventures were wrong and that they would end them if elected president.
In light of this, many wondered whether Ron Paul was making a mistake remaining in the Republican Party, rather than running as an independent. Mr. Paul did respond to these concerns forthrightly by explaining that he always felt most at home ideologically in the republican camp.
I believe that it ought to give us pause amidst the din of the peripheral riff raff that Ron Paul won that recent straw poll at a republican party gathering - however narrow the margins. It was apparently enough to cause the republican party establishment to fall over themselves in their attempts to poo poo and minimize the significance of it.
If Mr. Paul beats out the rest of them by popular vote, it seems to me it has to have everything to do with what Mr. Paul stands for. And one of the most important things he stands for is the vision of America's founding fathers as a republic that encourages others to do good when it comes to foreign affairs, and certainly to enjoy trade with other nations, while limiting ourselves when it comes to military intervention rather than making enemies for ourselves all over the planet.
A note on Mr. Rich's sideswipe against 9/11 'truthers'. I find it more than just a little disappointing that Americans, including a group of over one thousand structural engineers who are trying to demand the investigation of evidence, of facts, on 9/11 - would be denigrated as nut jobs.
Post-9/11 was one of the worst periods for lack of journalistic integrity in the history of the American press. There is no reason whatever not to recover from past mistakes. Some NYT readership will not be happy with the truth if it runs counter to assumptions or preconceptions. But if the world is to avoid any more war we must have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
With Obama saying out of one side of his mouth that he wants to help reduce the number of nukes in the world, while agreeing to vastly increase the budget for nuclear bombs out of the other side, it is going to take all of us working together to see us all through to a better day.
At the moment, the parallels between Orwell's '1984' and the current American government grow starker. War is NOT peace. And Building Seven was not hit by any plane but it fell straight down in seconds anyway.
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