War on Terrorism

Links:
Reopen 9/11 Investigation
Secret Wars Intercom
Scholars for 9/11 Truth
Official Confusion

Osama bin Laden's Motives

In his televised address to Congress after 9/11, President Bush dismissed the attacks as pure evil, planned by ex-Saudi Osama bin Laden, perpetrated by other Saudi dissidents, and motivated by their envy of the freedoms that the American people enjoy. He ignored two facts: First, that while people in countries more accessible to terrorists than the United States enjoy the same freedoms as Americans, only the United States suffered a major onslaught. Second, despite America's shortcomings, U.S. citizenship and the liberties it conveys remains a primary dream of millions of people worldwide, not a motive for terrorism. For example, hundreds of Saudis have happily gained U.S. citizenship, and many others are waiting in line.

Bin Laden's motives were plainly displayed on the Internet. In 1999, the PBS Frontline television series broadcast a documentary called The Terrorist and the Superstar. It was based on a lengthy filmed interview of bin Laden, in which he castigated the United States for supporting Israel's subjugation of the Palestinian people. The full text of the interview was placed on the Internet. The documentary brought to viewers samples of bin Laden's anti-American rhetoric, but not his impassioned statement of Arab grievances against United Tanzania, explosions that were fatal to U.S. personnel and many local citizens. It also examined the U.S. retaliatory bombing during the Clinton administration of Sudan and bin Laden's base of operations in Afghanistan.

In the documentary, bin Laden cast the peaceful religion of Islam in a false mold, calling on Muslims to make war on America and "kill Americans where they can and when they can." The documentary's producers made bin Laden seem all the more maniacal by omitting two important parts of his taped interview: In the first, bin Laden made his statement of grievances, condemning the U.S. government for its long-standing complicity in Israel's history of repression of the rights of Palestinians. In the second, bin Laden modified his call to kill all Americans, this time limiting his target to U.S. military personnel.

By omitting these statements from the broadcasts, the producers left television viewers wondering what, if anything, triggered bin Laden's fiery verbal assault. Those who objectively examined the full text of the interview on the Internet after watching the televised broadcast would not escape the conclusion that the producers censored bin Laden's statements in a way that shielded U.S. aid to Israel - and Israel itself - from criticism.

I found other examples of censorship. In March 2002, CNN broadcast a taped commentary in which bin Laden strongly criticized the U.S. government, listing the same grievances he had stated in the PBS documentary interview. CNN rebroadcast the bin Laden commentary several times during the next few hours, but in each rebroadcast, bin Laden's complaint about U.S. aid to Israel was omitted. The omission may not have been an intentional act of censorship, but the effect was the same: U.S. aid to Israel was spared notoriety.