Liberal Media Echo White House 9/11 Talking Points
BY SHEILA CASEY / RCFP
When BuzzFlash editor and publisher Mark Karlin dipped his toe into 9/11 waters, he got an earful from his readers. In a May 12 blog post, Karlin states unequivocally that “9/11 was not an inside job,” (although he does concede an 80% probability that Flight 93 was shot down over Pennsylvania).
Judging from the comments at http: //www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/ 089, his audience was not impressed. Reader after reader tries to set Karlin straight by presenting pieces from the overwhelming mountain of evidence indicating that we were sold a bill of goods about 9/11. So far Karlin has been silent. If he’s reading the reactions to his post, he gives no sign of it.
Buzzflash is a liberal news site that accepts no advertising and prides itself on being an unadulterated alternative to the whorish mainstream media. It pulls no punches in exposing the mind-boggling awfulness of the current administration— with one major exception. Like almost every other liberal outlet, it gives the Bush administration a free pass on 9/11.
The position of BuzzFlash, AlterNet, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, The Nation, The Progressive and many other liberal outlets seems to be:
“Bush and Cheney stole the 2000 and 2004 elections and are in office illegitimately. They lied shamelessly to get us into illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in the death and injury of millions of innocents. They are torturing prisoners at Gitmo in violation of the Geneva Conventions. They have decimated the Constitution, abolished habeas corpus, and are in the process of instituting a police state. They directed the Justice Dept. to fire US attorneys who were not considered “good Bushies,” and then covered it up by flatly refusing to submit to Congressional oversight. They have spied on Americans illegally, reading our emails and listening to our phone calls without a court warrant. They let Americans die like rats in the streets of New Orleans and then lied about rebuilding the Gulf coast after Katrina.
“They’re evil. They are devils straight from the bowels of hell. But would they kill US citizens and blame it on Osama bin Laden to create a pretext for war to steal oil in the Middle East? Don’t be ridiculous. They may demonstrate all the wisdom and compassion of Attila the Hun, but surely they wouldn’t murder their ‘own people’ in cold blood. Only wacky conspiracy theorists think that. Certainly not solid, well-established liberal publications like us. Don’t lump us with them.”
Speaking of 9/11 truthers, Manuel Garcia of Counterpunch (Sep. 9, 2006) makes accusations of “wild theories fueled by paranoia,” and states that “conspiracists” “cannot accept” the real reasons for the attack, and instead must “find comfort” in an irrational hypothesis.
Sure, Manuel. It’s much too scary to believe that we were attacked by bearded men hiding in caves nine time zones away. It’s so much more soothing to believe it was our own government, the nexus of which is located just down the road, and which, at its discretion, can label me a terrorist and lock me up indefinitely. It makes me feel so warm and cozy that I tell it to my kids as their bedtime story. Media Matters for America, a nonprofit devoted to correcting conservative disinformation in the media, saw the results of a May 2007 Rasmussen poll, which found that 35% of Democrats believe that Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance, and had only one thought: this makes the Dems look bad. In an article from May 15, 2007, titled “Conservative media tout flawed poll to call Dems 9/11 conspiracy theorists,” Media Matters bends over backwards to excuse the poll results, protesting that the question was ambiguous. They bemoan the opportunity the results gave to right wing commentators to label Dems as “deranged and dangerously uninformed,” and “out of their gourds.” Media Matters faults the pundits for overstating the poll results, but never considers that Dems have nothing to fear from this. Is it so unthinkable that Media Matters might have actually investigated the evidence for themselves and reported that those 35% were so far ahead that they appear to be behind?
Even those who themselves doubt the official 9/11 story take pains to stress that they are not “conspiracy theorists.” In an August 2007 column for The Independent titled “Even I Question the Truth About 9/11,” Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk presents several aspects of the official story that bother him, such as: “What about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose “Islamic” advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comradesin- murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the “Fajr” prayer to be included in Atta’s letter.
Fisk wonders about the long awaited (and still pending) report from NIST about the free fall collapse of WTC 7, and the three al Qaeda “hijackers” who are still alive.
But before going into his doubts, Fisk feels compelled to first differentiate himself from the others who have such doubts. He refers to people who ask him questions about 9/11 at lectures as “ravers.” And he closes with “Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist.” In an article for the Guardian, Peter Tatchell puts forth the case for a new investigation in “9/11 The Big Coverup”, (2007) but then distances himself from 9/11 truth groups. He writes that some groups “promote speculative hypotheses, ignore innocent explanations, cite nonexpert sources and jump to conclusions that are not proven by the known facts. They convert mere coincidence and circumstantial evidence into cast-iron proof.” He states “I do not believe in conspiracy theories.”
David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation, did his level best to squash any questions about the official account in a piece for Alternet in 2002. He adopts the now predictable tone of condescension and disdain for 9/11 activists, starting his piece with: “Please stop sending me those emails. You know who you are. And you know what emails I mean…”
Corn asks: “Would George W. Bush take the chance of being branded the most evil president of all time by countenancing such wrongdoing?” From the vantage point of 2008, I can only answer: Yup.
Why have the liberal media so fallen down on the job regarding 9/11? Why do they ridicule and belittle the citizen journalists who have taken on the task that they refuse to do? There is a peculiar disconnect between the views liberal journalists purport to hold of our current leaders, and their unshakable faith that we were told the truth about 9/11. Oh, they may admit that there was a little fudging around the edges, but basically they buy the official story, hook, line and sinker. Not only do they buy it, they exhibit a nearly pathological rage at those who don’t buy it. Theoretically, journalists believe in the value of digging for truth, so there is something very odd about this situation.
What accounts for this strange state of affairs? I have a couple of ideas.
There has been an enormously successful propaganda campaign to paint conspiracy theorists in the worst possible light. According to Wikipedia, the term “conspiracy theorist” was first used in 1909, but not until the 1960s did it acquire its “current derogatory sense.”
According to Wikipedia, “The term is used pejoratively to dismiss claims that are alleged by critics to be misconceived, paranoid, unfounded, outlandish, irrational, or otherwise unworthy of serious consideration. For example ‘conspiracy nut’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’ are used as pejorative terms.” If conspiracy theorists are such wacky moon bats, then surely no conspiracies exist?
Not at all. To quote Wikipedia:
History contains numerous proven conspiracies, some of which were not the subject of any widespread speculation until they were exposed. Historical conspiracies include:
* The Pazzi conspiracy, which
included the Pope, of the late 1400s. * The Main Plot of 1603
* The Bye Plot of 1603
* The Gunpowder Plot of 1605
* The conspiracy of 1865 to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and members of his cabinet
* The 1894 (and ongoing) French government’s attempted cover-up following Emile Zola’s accusations in the Dreyfus Affair
* The 1903 efforts by the Tsar’s secret police to foment anti-Semitism by presenting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an authentic text.
* The 1939 Operation Himmler and its Gleiwitz incident
* The 1948 (and ongoing) Operation Mockingbird
* The 1953 (and ongoing) MKULTRA mind control program
* The 1954 Lavon affair
* The 1962 Operation Northwoods
* The 1969 Manson Family murders
* The 1972 Watergate burglary and cover-up
* The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
* The 1987 Iran-Contra Affair
* The 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
Some theorists, like Charles Pigden, argue that the reality of such conspiracies should caution against any casual dismissal of conspiracy theory. Pigden, in his article “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom,” argues that not only do conspiracies occur but that any educated member of society will believe in at least one of them; we are all, in fact, conspiracy theorists.
Authors and publishers, such as Robert Anton Wilson and Disinfo, use proven conspiracies as evidence of what a secret plot can accomplish. In doing so, they demonstrate that the label “conspiracy theory” does not necessarily indicate that a theory is false. Theories cited in making this case include those listed above as well as:
* the Mafia
* the Business Plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933
* various CIA involvements in overseas coups d’état
* the 1991 Testimony of Nayirah before the US Congress to rally the support of the US public to launch the Gulf War
* the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male
* the General Motors streetcar conspiracy
* the plot by the British Secret Service to destabilize Prime Minister Harold Wilson, among others.
* the plot by some Gaullists of the French Secret Service to destabilize future president Georges Pompidou, known as the Markovic affair
* the series of incidents in Italy connected to the so called “strategy of tension”
* Operation Gladio
Despite the existence of these well documented conspiracies that were kept secret for many years, to believe in a conspiracy before it has been exposed apparently marks one as cuckoo.
When I studied the evidence about 9/11 and voiced my doubts to a friend, she immediately shot back that she wasn’t interested in “conspiracy theories.” I hadn’t advanced any theory at all, I had only said that I had questions, that things didn’t add up. But this liberal friend with a Ph.D had drunk the Kool Aid, she knew that people who said the things I was saying, were “conspiracy theorists.”
The PR efforts of the CIA and Pentagon have been enormously successful. They have convinced most Americans, and even many journalists, that only lunatic fringe nutcases doubt the official story about 9/11. The PR campaign around 9/11 has been so vast and so complete that even those who have doubts are reluctant to voice them, for fear of losing their credibility and being branded a voice lowered to a whisper “conspiracy theorist.”
That is my safe explanation.
Here’s the unsafe one: some of these journalists may be on the CIA’s payroll. The ongoing conspiracy listed above, Operation Mockingbird, involves the CIA infiltrating the media to influence the news. Rolling Stone reported in 1977 that journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time and The Miami News were doing the CIA’s bidding. Thirty years have passed since the Rolling Stone report, who is doing the CIA’s bidding now?
To be sure, there are a few wild theories in the 9/11 camp. Nature abhors a vacuum, and when there is a dearth of credible information about a major event, speculation is inevitable.
But any harm done by spurious speculation is trivial compared to the enormous force for good that serious 9/11 researchers, writers and film makers have been. If there had never been a David Ray Griffin, a Dr. Stephen Jones or a Dylan Avery, the facts about that ghastly event might never have been exposed, and our nation would be more lost, more confused and have less chance of righting itself than it has now. Those who so cavalierly dismiss their thousands of hours of research with snide and contemptuous remarks are blind to the enormous debt of gratitude owed to the 9/11 truthers, who labor tirelessly to expose this horrible wrong to the world.
Something is deeply rotten in the state of Denmark, like a metastasizing cancer on the soul of our society. Until it is diagnosed and cut out, we cannot progress and indeed will regress to an ever more animalistic state. It is sad and frightening that those who aspire to be a voice of progress and compassion—our liberal media—have failed so utterly to assist with the surgery.
Sheila Casey is a DC area journalist. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Denver Post, Common Dreams, and BuzzFlash. She blogs at SheilaCasey.com