Thought-control 9-11 and Racist Manipulations

by Diane V. McLoughlin, main website: mcloughlinpost.com

September 20, 2010:  Turning on my television a week ago, the Imam of the much-maligned future New York City-based Islamic cultural center, Feisal Abdul Rauf, was speaking into a bank of microphones. There was a 'Council on Foreign Relations' logo (CFR) on the wall behind him. (1)

I was impressed with how generous the BBC was with the time given over to transmit the Imam's speech, at least a good thirty minutes of it, before they went back to their regular programming. It is important to try to defuse what appears to be a rising anti-Muslim hysteria. Clearly, some people get this. The Imam had an opportunity to reach out to Americans in his own way, in his own time.  CNN...FOX...MSNBC... CBC...not one station in North America ran with it, so far as I could see.  The CFR, an American foreign affairs think tank, had to go overseas to get Imam Rauf's speech picked up, apparently.

While it is true that CNN had had Rauf  on* in a one-on-one with Soledad O'Brien days before, O'Brien was as combative as her bias was obvious. Her aggressive attempts to get the Imam to say that the cultural center was a mistake, an offense, and that it should be moved - with a swift wave of her hand dismissively sweeping away his point that there are other things such as a strip club in the immediate vicinity but nobody was protesting that - was a very depressing journalistic low even by 9/11 standards. Coming from O'Brien, who earlier in the year was highly praised for her series, 'Black in America', it was just stunning to observe her as she stoked the fires of anti-Muslim bigotry like a cannibal hooting it up in anticipation around a fresh pot put to the boil.

Ms. O'Brien certainly wasn't alone. The bias against the proposed Muslim cultural center reeked thoughout that evening's broadcast, both during the O'Brien/Rauf interview, and during a post interview discussion that had all the elements of a cartoon:

There was the 9/11 firefighter scrapping for a match with a Muslim, so riled up that he completely misinterpreted Rauf's words on the center as being some kind of 'threat' - which the firefighter ominously describes as a 'gift'.   [***Given the government cover-up and lies, understandable. Update, Sept. 27, 2010, below.]   

The piece de resistance though, is the only female on the CNN post-interview roundup panel of six; a fragile and, dare I say blindingly white beauty, whose brother was one of the murdered on 9/11 - which, obviously, is a terrible tragedy, should never have happened, and any criminals involved still alive should face the full wrath of the law.  But that is not what she is there to discuss.  She is there to diss the cultural center.  Her performance is impressive.  It begged for a hooped skirt, crocheted shawl and fringed parasol.  If she had fiddle-dee-deed something like, 'Ohh, Anderson Cooper!, I just don't know what ah'll DO if that nasty ol' Muslim community center goes up...'; frankly, my dear, I'm not sure anyone would have noticed any difference between that and what she actually said; pretty much, it came out to the same racist thing.

Americans have been led to believe that 9/11 was perpetrated by Muslims - because they were Muslims - who 'hate us for our freedoms'. So it is hardly surprising to witness. It's a lot of other things - wrong, shocking - but surprising? Nor is it at all surprising the discriminatory fallout being experienced by Muslims nation-wide, as a result. (1a)

Many, if not most, American journalists adhere to the view that those victimized by 9/11 are 'sensitive' to the truth. In polite society as well as in the nation's newsrooms, we must watch what we say.  Personally, I just cannot think of anything that could, would, or should offend Americans more.  

Because the truth of it is that the fireman, 'Scarlett', all of us, are victims, not once, but over and over again:  by what happened, and subsequently, by the lies of the government and media; over what happened, who exactly was involved, and precisely why they did what they did. In these times, anything mocked excessively by the powers-that-be, as in the case of 9/11, should cause us all to think twice. (2) (3)

...So, that's interesting - U.S. Congressman Ron Paul:

'Amazingly, Ledeen calls Pearl Harbor a "lucky" event. The Project for a New American Century, as recently as September 2000, likewise, foresaw the need for "a Pearl Harbor event"; that would galvanize the American people to support their ambitious plans to ensure political and economic domination of the world, while strangling any potential "rival"...; ' (4)

There is no time when Americans should be too sensitive to be exposed to full debate on the truth.   In times of crisis in particular, that is exactly the time when Americans should demand it most. 

But denial is a powerful force. I am reminded of a pivotal scene (in clip at 6:30 secs.) in the movie, 'Born on the Fourth of July'. Cruise's character, weeping, yells at his mother, 'We went to Vietnam to stop 'Communism'...we shot women and children!' She yells back, 'You didn't shoot women and children! What are you saying?!' (5)

Lives depend on our getting things right. That the Imam's speech seemed only to be picked up overseas, holds all the earmarks of a closed society. The question is: Who's guarding the doors?

-----------------------

***Important. Added to complete the picture:

Updated Sept. 27, 2010: A staggering 343 of some

of the bravest firefighters who ever lived charged

into the burning twin towers,

risking themselves to save others.

The firefighters raced up the stairs carrying
heavy rescue equipment while everyone who

could, raced past them

going down. They perished that fateful day, when one

and then the other of the towers inexplicably fell and

crumpled to the ground in shocking ruin.

Muslims didn't do it. 9/11 was not a religious act.

9/11 was retaliation for, amongst other things, the

utter devastation wrought against the innocent people

of Iraq before September 11th, 2001. We occupied

and bombed Iraq, we starved Iraq and spread lethal

disease in Iraq for eight years prior to 9/11.

What the U.S. government did to Iraq is a war
crime of the highest magnitude - a crime against humanity.
U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair
and others should be indicted in the International Criminal Court.

The 9/11 perpetrators were men who happened to be Muslim. Muslims
died in the twin towers. Some of the first-responders were Muslim.


Notes

*Actually, I seem to recall that Larry King also had Imam Rauf on in recent days.  I do not recall how that interview went, beyond King asking Rauf the same loaded-for-bear question, 'in hindsight...;'.

(1)  A Conversation with Feisal Abdul Rauf; Council on Foreign Relations; September 13, 2010;
http://www.cfr.org/publication/22926/conversation_with_feisal_abdul_rauf_video.html

(1a) 'Muslims say they face more discrimination at work'; Steven Greenhouse; NYT; Sept. 23, 2010;
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/business/24muslim.html?_r=1&hp ;

(2)  'Letter to America'; Osama bin Laden; as published in observer.co.uk, November 24th, 2002;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver

(3)  The 9/11 Truth Movement;
http://www.911truth.org/

(4)  Brilliant: 'We've Been Neo-Conned'; Ron Paul; Lew Rockwell; July 10,2003;  http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul110.html

(5)  Youtube:  'Born on the Fourth of July'; Part 10; directed by Oliver Stone; channel Gunner21101; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUB-ojX48rg

Youtube:  The Human Herding Process;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE6ZONL1guA&feature=player_embedded

Respect Coexist Bumper Sticker by InsideOut_Tees
View other Respect Bumper Stickers

HOMEGROWN TAX n' WAR TERRORISTS

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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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 ;

Michael Moore - We Should Always Stand Up Against the Angry Mob

Video: Man Mistaken for Muslim Harassed at NY Anti-Mosque Rally

They think 9-11 was a religious act. It wasn't. 9-11 was retaliation
for the hundreds of thousands we murdered in Iraq - amongst other things -
Diane V. McLoughlin

Ron Paul: Goal Of Protesting WTC Mosque Is To Blame Islam For 9/11

Ground Zero mosque: A monument to modernity

Comment:

This is a brilliant argument from Andrew Potter, the test for me always being 'damn! Why didn't I think of'' this or that point. However. It seems to me that the key is 9-11. Subtracting the flowery religious words in Osama bin Laden's 'Letter to Ameica', weherein he explains why they hit America that day, and it comes down to this:

'You attacked us [Iraq, Somalia, etc.] and you continue to attack us.'

9-11 had absolutely nothing to do with Islam or Muslims. It was an act of retaliation for international war crimes committed by the U.S. overseas. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered. Make that case, show that Muslims have been victimized, and this unfounded resentment and fear of Muslims would be gone.

But, that people think that they are bad, is the useful Big Lie. So now we ourselves face the test: Can we do any better against the Big Lie than those tested before us?

- editor, mcloughlinpost.com
P.S.: free Gaza


Ground Zero mosque: A monument to modernity
Ottawa Citizen, Andrew Potter, August 22, 2010

All U.S. Citizens - Muslims Included - Are Victims - Of The Big Lie

by Diane V. McLoughlin, main website mcloughlinpost.com

August 20, 2010:   Timothy McVeigh was Christian - so we should demolish all churches within two blocks of the Oklahoma City bombing. Right?   Of course not.

American Muslims died on 9-11 in the World Trade Center, too.

Please try to weigh this for yourself because you have been lied to by your government and the mainstream media. It is a big lie. The fascists in Nazi Germany somehow knew that big lies are actually more readily accepted by the people, because their minds reflexively refuse to believe that their government would tell lies so big - so they think, it must be true.

The 9-11 attack was not a religious act. It wasn't a group of people attacking the U.S. for our 'freedoms', or whatever. 9-11 was revenge - it was a reaction - to the war atrocities we had committed, and continue to commit, on a massive scale - in Iraq and elsewhere.

Yes, the people in the planes were Muslim. But they were in those planes to tell America to stop killing; that killing begets killing - and eye for an eye.  (Pictured left: An American soldier cradles a severely wounded Iraqi child.)

If a foreign power destroyed 500,000 of our children, as we did in Iraq, we'd send a message. We do send messages: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden - on the heads of civilians - we don't care about civilians, that's a lie - so we should stop the hypocrisy, because I am sick of it.
 
Diane V. McLoughlin is a writer and peace activist particularly interested in Israel-Palestine.

CENSORED - NYT comment to Douthat on the Mosque - wrong, wrong, wrong.

The following comment which I posted following a NYT article was bounced.

In a general way, Ross Douthat isn't wrong when he says that there are two aspects to America: The absolute ideal of liberty and justice for All is one side of America, along with the cultural imperative for new-comers to absorb certain American cultural norms - the latter having a lot to do with the first absolute, in my opinion.

We believe in individual rights. Within the law, each individual has the right to say, or do, or believe something different from their neighbor. This is something I am sure that has to be learned, but it is also, I am sure, highly desired by most immigrants - which inspired them to come to America in the first place.

So far so good. But the writer then tries to make a hard-right segue into arguing that the 'second America' that 'speaks English' and no other - the blend-and-assimilate America - is rightly offended at the proposal to establish a mosque or Muslim cultural center or whatever you want to call it, two blocks from 9-11's Ground Zero, why? Because it is a 'sign of disrespect', and because we harbor the 'darker suspicion that Islam in any form may be incompatible with the American way of life.'

He admits that this might sound a 'xenophobic note' but lightly steps over that slight quandry to his target of justifying the Second America's protest.

I'll give that there is some degree of necessity for societal cohesion in the expectation, to a degree, of assimilation. But all too often this line is crossed into hatred, racism and intolerance toward anyone different from ourselves.

The issue of the mosque is black and white. It cuts to the core of what it means to be American. There are no shades of gray. Out of this malodorous fog ignorance, intolerance, hatred and fear further spread.

This is strictly a religious freedom issue. It is a tolerance issue. It is playing out against a very black backdrop where, just as from time to time in America's past, darkened momentarily here, there - real people who, in this case, identify themselves as Muslims, are being discriminated against, shunned and worse in their communities.

Douthat insinuates that too many Muslims hold 'illiberal' views that are considered to be 'beyond the pale'. I've got news for him. Many Americans - White, non-Muslim Americans - believe that America WAS an accessory to the crime of 9-11.

Let's get this straight. Under President Clinton, we are responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. That's just the children. We starved them. And we poisoned them by bombing, deliberately, Iraq's water treatment plants - in a desert. Then, we refused to permit the importation of children's vaccines.

We maintained a military siege upon Iraq for TEN YEARS before we invaded militarily.

Osama bin Laden clearly cited what we did to Iraq as one of the top three reasons for the 9-11 attack.

But the people in the World Trade Center were civilians. Yes. That's true. It was wrong. But, what do you think: Were Iraq's children members of Saddam's army?

Three-thousand people here, we invade both Iraq and Afghanistan; we go to war. 500,000 children we kill somewhere else and it is forbidden to discuss it.

We are awash, in America, of so much spilled blood that it will be a wonder if we can ever wash this stain out of the national character.

On Israel, many Americans don't just believe - they know - that Hamas is the legitimate political party duly-elected by the Palestinian people, and that they should never have been designated a terrorist group. Such designations are too often used as a political ploy to avoid hammering out peace deals - and so it is in the case of the oppressed, dispossessed Palestinian people - long the victims of a racist Israel bent on its continuing program of ethnic cleansing.

Americans pay for Israel's armaments which enables Israel; to the tune of three billion in American tax dollars-worth of military hardware - each and every year.

Douthat's last point is as loathsome as it is incorrect. 9-11 was NOT committed in the name of Islam.

I applaud Mayor Bloomberg and the local community for giving their full backing to the planned mosque - for all the right reasons.

If we want a society built on the highest of constitutional and brotherly ideals, the shortest way to get there is to treat people the way we would wish to be treated. Here. And across the seas over there. It's as easy, and as profound, and as challenging as that.

editor, mcloughlinpost.com

---------------------------------------------
New York Times' Ross Douthat Op Ed column, 'Islam and the two Americas'; August 15, 2010

Today - NYT comment No. 70 Islamic Center Exposes Mixed Feelings

Comment (link) by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 20, 2010


The cultural center must be built, as is, where is.

The cultural center is not the problem here. The problem is the country is deteriorating because the people have been lied to, for so long, that they no longer know what is true.

As Ground Zero is on the New York Times' home turf, I hold it highly responsible.

When 9-11 occurred, the thing of utmost importance that needed to transpire, above and beyond anything else - from a news organization's perspective - was to analyse why it occurred. All the other questions were addressed: How, where, who, when, what?

On too many fronts, 'why' has been MIA in the mainstream American press for too long. Why did 9-11 happen? Why did they do it?

They hate us for our 'freedoms', was a direct insult, a slap in the face, to the collective intelligence.

The answers, should a news organization care to look for them, were simple and easy to obtain. Osama bin Laden published his 'Letter to America' itemizing, in a short list, what he viewed as America's crimes.

Even now, the New York Times doesn't want to discuss it. My comment to Douthat's 'Two Americas' several days ago, was censored.

Bin Laden had three top reasons for the 9-11 attack. Woefully few are the numbers of Americans that know them. I'll get to Barack Obama's shamefully inadequate response to the mosque controversy in a second.

I forget the order, but One: America is directly responsible for the murders of 500,000 Iraqi children. That is, a half-million children, not counting the adults, we killed in the ten-year military bombing and siege campaign we waged against Saddam Hussein's Iraq under President Clinton.

We bombed the water treatment plants - in a place that is in large part desert. We embargoed children's vaccines.

It is important to understand what we did: We waged biological warfare against Iraq's most vulnerable citizens. As night follows day, they died.

Two: We assist in buttressing the non-democratic regime in Saudi Arabia
- bin Laden is/was a Saudi citizen.

Three: Our direct financial and military support of Israel's ongoing oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people (to the tune of 3 billion in U.S. tax-dollars, most in military hardware, each and every calendar year.)

9-11 was blowback. It was not, it had not, anything to do with Islam or Muslims. They happened to be Muslims. 9-11 was not part of a holy war to spread the faith or to destroy anothers'.

So three-thousand murdered over here, apparently this is sufficient for us to go to war over there.

But we kill 500,000 children over there before that, and you are going to sit there on your couch and tell me that they'll suck it up? There isn't an American on this planet that would think that - if they knew.

But Americans, instead, have been encouraged on the sly to assume that it's Muslims that are the enemy. They aren't the enemy. They are victims, just like good-hearted Americans have been hoodwinked - by their own government.

Obama should be ashamed of himself. When it reached his ears that some Americans wrongly had been led to believe that he is Muslim, he should have come out and challenged the bigots: So what? So what if I were? You got a problem with Muslims? What, you some kind of racist?

Instead, he reinforces the notion that Islam is somehow less desirable, not me, I'm no Muslim, deepening the threat to everybody's liberty because either we're all free, or none of us are secure in our freedom.

Now why would he do that?

Hopefully, you get the idea.

editor, mcloughlinpost.com

*Comment No. 70.  In response to, 'Islamic Center Exposes Mixed Feelings Locally'; Paul Vitello, NYT; Aug. 20, 2010