Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests New theory on 9/11 and war on terror

This is something that occured to me while I was off forum for awhile.....tell me what you think. I am thinking of researching this a bit.

A few facts...

1) We saw with the Newsweek Gitmo story that false reporting can get people killed (riots in middle east killed at least 7)...this made me look at some prior events in a new light (see below)..

2) Recall Bin Laden's last videotape..Oct last year I think, about a month before the election. OBL first officially stated that he was behind 9/11. I read the transcript and noted something very odd. He gave the time he concieved "jihaad" on the US as summer 1982 because of the "imperialistic 7th fleet and there warmongering in Lebanon"...what was odd for me was that I was there. I was a young air controller aboard the carrier USS Independence - flagship of the 7th fleet, in the summer/fall/winter 1982. We were on a diplomatic mission..UN special envoy Phillip Habib & his staff was shuttling back and forth on helicopters brokering peace between factions in the country. I met the guy. I was watching this on radar and to my knowlege, that was it, a few choppers back and forth, our fighters stayed away...we were not looking to stir up trouble. But not long after we left, they blew up a Marine barricks there killing over 2000. To the best of my knowlege, they were peace keepers..
Point of this is that OBL did NOT talk about Israel, Gulf WarI, Sommolia, Iraq/Iran, or Afganistan..all speculated to be the turning point for him, what I might have suspected. He mention the 7th fleet by name....and unless we were doing covert stuff I did not know about (possible but unlikely as I guided most of the aircraft into Lebanon)..we were on a peace mission. So the question is...exactly WHAT was the world media (BBC, Arab news, NY Times SAYING about our mission)???

3) I give you another example from the same cruise...we were off the coast of Libya, some 25 miles..in international waters but also in Quadaifi's 100 mile "zone of death" as he liked to call it. They sent 6 soviet made SU-22s straight at us & we repelled them with F-14s..including a brief flight into Libyan airspace chacing them back. No shots fired. My parents saved the newsclipping of the incident & I was suprized to see that it had US basically made out to be the aggresser in the story, no mention that they flew at us first. I told my dad "thats not right!, they launched on us first"...his reply was "that is why I do not believe everything you read"..my first lesson.

So anyway....this is NOT a political attack but rather a concern that just MAYBE, the "global" (not limited to US) media somehow distorted our mission just like with what happened in Libya. And it somehow tipped OBL against us. And maybe other cumulative distortions of our actions by the media over decades have added fuel to he and other jihaddists. Because while we have not been perfect as a country, nor have we been what I think we are percieved as by many..even our own citazens. I have become increasingly aware of media distortion..for a variety of reasons.

Could it be that the MEDIA is as/or more responsible for anti-US sentiment than any of our actions? Even responsible for 9/11 to some degree? I do not know, but I am concerned.

Oh, absolutely. People talk about CNN and CBS and Fox News as being these vessels steered by politics, but it's nothing compared to what a lot of international media is like. And lots of Americans just automatically assume that foreign press is superior to ours because it's not ours, but other nations' standards of press freedom really don't measure up at all. I think it was Sudan recently where one of the journalists following Condi Rice got roughed up by some Sudanese officials and when the journo went "Hey, what about freedom of the press?", the official went "We don't do that here".

For me its kind of the next level of concern...beyond political or other "bias" and actually thinking that media could actually be DRIVING/Causing key world events to a moderate or great degree that one would not expect...VERY creepy!

And I once thought they just REPORTED the news...boy, that was awhile ago.

I do not think there is one root cause we can narrow the current world views on the United States too. It is a combination of many, many things. I think it stems from Hollywood's portrail (sp?) of us via the movies exported, our own image we export of ourselfs when we travel, the media, and what seems to be a Conservative/Republican/Right-Wing dominance in this country (I can't spell today) while the world seems to be falling more to the Liberial/Democrat/Left-Wing. I think a lot of our (as a country's) actions and failed actions and the doctrin of be re-active vice pro-active in military efforts etc......

Don't you think that press coverage of protests and riots and civil unrest in the US in the Vietnam era emboldened the Vietnamese in their fight against the US? If I remember correctly, Communist radio propaganda aimed at the Americans pretty much revolved around telling our soldiers that everyone back home hated them.

Absolutely, I agree the worldwide and internal media has a huge part in the perception our country gets from others, but I also believe that there is more to why we have jihad declared against us too.

Do I believe it is 'our' fault? Absolutely not.

Yes, multifactorial for sure. I think in general, there is a seed of truth in most of the blatantly inaccurate media reports. But for me at least (maybe some of you are way ahead of me on this), it was a big step to realize that the media could potentially magnify or twist truths to a degree that would substantially contribute to causing a 9/11 world shapping event. I more thought in the context of the Vietnam example mentioned...shaping the course of an established event like a war (clearly happening now in Iraq for example) vs actual causation.

It's an interesting theory. The media industry is as prone to bias and error as any other, I suppose.

Keep in mind that almost every theory has some appeal in the abstract. Good theories are distinguished from the bad ones only by examining them in the light of known and probable facts.

In this case, we would have to dredge up specific media reports and news summaries, examine them for error, and then try to determine whether those particular errors caused people to have anti-U.S. sentiments that they otherwise would not have had. A very big task.

This post is mainly for those of you who have already expressed certainty that media error is to blame for anti-U.S. sentiment (that would be Jeb Hoge and RTStabler).

I didn't say anything about errors. And the way I read the theory, it wasn't a question of errors either but of shaping the tone and content of "the story" to push public opinion.

I guess you read only half my posts, but that is expected I suppose...

I said it's most likely a main cause of it...

Originally posted by caltour:

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This post is mainly for those of you who have already expressed certainty that media error is to blame for anti-U.S. sentiment (that would be Jeb Hoge and RTStabler).

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