February 13, 2002

9:49 PM

Was the fix in on 9/11? My guess is if the accusations the author makes are true we'll never know, but if just one of them is true...
posted by tankboy (53 comments total)

... you'd probably see armed revolution in the streets.
posted by tankboy at 9:50 PM on February 13, 2002

I bet not a damn thing would happen. I'm cynical, I guess. If Clinton was still in office, all of these accusations would have been grounds for an investigation. Now, nobody gives a shit.
posted by tcobretti at 10:08 PM on February 13, 2002

This is complete bullshit. I'm sorry, nobody gives a shit because this is utter insanity. The US government slaughtered thousands of people, damaged the US economy, and cost billions of dollars to hundreds of blue chip companies (and they say Enron proves campaign contributions don't buy influence...boy) for some oil? I don't buy it. And I was in Washington for the anti-war rally, I voted for Nader, I refuse to buy clothing from the GAP...I'm an all around pinko bastard.

It's not even worth going through the list of his contentions, they're so simple minded and fantastic. Some people can't accept the fact that things actually happen without mommy and daddy's permission.
posted by Doug at 10:25 PM on February 13, 2002

Good Grief. Somehow I don't think it would matter whether it was Bush or Clinton, the URL "http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/urgent.htm" is probably just not going to be considered a source of anything remotely legitimate. Democrats won't use it against Bush. Republicans wouldn't have used it against Clinton, because they all know they'd laughed out of town.
posted by MidasMulligan at 10:26 PM on February 13, 2002

Republicans wouldn't have used it against Clinton, because they all know they'd laughed out of town.

Yeah, Whitewater certainly wasn't laughable (sarcasm).
posted by tcobretti at 10:31 PM on February 13, 2002

Yes, Austin Indie Media looks to be a reputable source :-P Conspiracy kooks are of every political stripe.
posted by scottfree at 10:32 PM on February 13, 2002

Oh, by the way, if you want a good little conspiracy - I notice that the article links to the emperors-clothes.com domain 26 times throughout the article. At the bottom of these pages is the following:

"Emperor's Clothes Urgently Needs Your Help!
=======================================

Emperor's Clothes has only one source of income - your donations. We want everyone to read our articles, whether they can afford to contribute money or not. But if you can contribute, please do; we urgently need the help. We are considerably behind on all our bills - rent, utilities, long distance and overseas telephone and Internet costs. "

Damn convenient timing that something like this would be making the rounds.
posted by MidasMulligan at 10:35 PM on February 13, 2002

I'm with Doug (except for Nader)
posted by aaronshaf at 10:35 PM on February 13, 2002

Amen, Doug.
Some people always seem to feel the need to create a grand unified theory of why people do bad things. I frankly think that conspiracy theorists actually find comfort in their theories.
If everything is a grand conspiracy, then there is an order to things, good guys here, bad guys there, every loose end neatly tied up. If they're wrong(which of course, they are) then the world is in chaos and nobody's really in charge, which is much too frightening for some people to face.
I personally gave up taking conspiracy theorie seriously because they always seemed to blame the US goverment. I mean, come on, anyone whose everyone who's ever been to the DMV knows that the governmnet is incapable of doing anything "systematically" let alone orchestrating an apocalyptic scheme like this.
posted by jonmc at 10:36 PM on February 13, 2002

The author does admit readily that, "Some points of the evidence are "provable" with documentation; some are "strongly compelling", some are "circumstantial", some are "speculative" and some of them are simply logical musings and common sense observations." I would prefer if the author would go back through his own diatribe and re-edit it to remove everything except the "provable" and "strongly compelling" stuff, removing the circumstantial crap. My estimation is that had they done this, the article would be less than one third the size it is now.

He's not doing his argument justice. It reads like Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theorists. It can't be taken seriously. The intent of this article is to stir a hornet's nest, not to find a solution to the problem. Even so, I think the guy does bring up some valid points, hidden within the rhetoric. Unfortunately no one's gonna take this guy seriously cuz of the way he presents his findings and conclusions.

I don't think his more compelling evidence indicates outright conspiracy on the part of the Bush Administration. What I see here is that on many levels, our domestic security procedures had chinks in the armor, and in some places it just outright failed and needs to be improved.

Yes there should have been fighters escorting the planes within minutes of their flying off course. The second someone in the air traffic control tower realized the planes were going off course and were not responding, steps should have been taken. The military should have been notified. The fact our military didn't respond quickly enough doesn't mean they were purposefully allowing it to happen. It does however indicate that someone somewhere was asleep at the wheel. Our "homeland security" needed to be re-evaluated. I would like to see respectable journalists investigate this with more scrutiny, but with whacko voices making accusations wantonly with misinformation, no one's going to take the issue seriously.

So we may never know the truth.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:41 PM on February 13, 2002

i've seen wag the dog, and you know what, i wouldn't put it past the puppethead to do something like this.

but anyone who has some sort of proof would be quickly silenced due to the new mcarthism going around.

wait, i didn't say anything!
posted by jcterminal at 10:45 PM on February 13, 2002

Indymedia: The Weekly World News of the "intellectually and morally" enlightened.
posted by AFrayedKnot at 11:03 PM on February 13, 2002

You guys just have your brains scrambled because you don't have your tinfoil hats on.

<voice type="Hopper">They're in your brain, man!</voice>
posted by owillis at 11:09 PM on February 13, 2002

Well, when you see Bush doing stuff like planning to take out Saddam Hussein, you kind of have to wonder. I don't remember Saddam or any of his supporters piloting any planes on Sept. 11th. Why are we taking the war machine over to Iraq? Because we've got all the big iron and men over there? Is this for Bush to settle a score for his dear old Dad?

Most of this Indymedia stuff is garbage though. It'd be nice if he could show real evidence, find a hard copy of the actual orders from the USAF asking for a stand down on that morning, etc.
posted by mathowie at 11:18 PM on February 13, 2002

Is this for Bush to settle a score for his dear old Dad?

Mostly, yes. Plus war = approval ratings. Doesn't hurt that it's not exactly easy to sympathize with Saddam.
posted by owillis at 11:33 PM on February 13, 2002

I call a permanent moratorium on Indymedia links. I'd rather see a link to CNN. Or Plastic, for that matter.

And not taking out Saddam was Bush senior's biggest mistake. I would say it is more like cleaning up after dear old dad than settling the score. Bush Sr. had the chance and he wanked.
posted by evanizer at 11:33 PM on February 13, 2002

And not taking out Saddam was Bush senior's biggest mistake. I would say it is more like cleaning up after dear old dad than settling the score. Bush Sr. had the chance and he wanked.

And what threats has Hussein made on the US since then? Anything serious? I got the feeling he's just a harmless figurehead over there and our sanctions haven't affected him, nor has he been a threat to us. Why take him down now? It seems like we're asking for trouble, by looking like the worldwide bully, especially if we're going to just sweep through the "axis of evil" bombing away.

I know I won't feel safer if we start taking out countries and leaders willy nilly like this.
posted by mathowie at 11:42 PM on February 13, 2002

This is gonna be the best war ever! Have a great summer!</yearbook>
posted by kirkaracha at 11:44 PM on February 13, 2002

I know I won't feel safer if we start taking out countries and leaders willy nilly like this.

Well, do a comparison of what we now know about WWII and what the War Dept. and press were telling the american public at the time. Then do the same for Korea, Vietnam, anything military/spy action in the 70's or the Cold War for that matter. At risk of pumping Chomsky into sainthood, the gap between reality and PR is SO HUGE in those cases, nutcases like IndyMedia actually have a shot at sounding sane.

Twenty five years from now we may know what this stuff was all about, but when the only reality we see is a hall of mirrors, what chance do we have at doing a decent evaluation of motivations over the innevitable attack on Iraq??
posted by victors at 11:52 PM on February 13, 2002

I try to avoid using strong declaratives - but THAT article appears to be primarily made of the imaginations of an incredibly paranoid person. I am not always completely closed to the arguments of conspiracy theorists (e.g. United Flight 93 Crash Theory Home Page had some interesting arguments that were worth looking into). But the writer of this article seems to be out there....
posted by justlooking at 12:03 AM on February 14, 2002

And not taking out Saddam was Bush senior's biggest mistake. I would say it is more like cleaning up after dear old dad than settling the score. Bush Sr. had the chance and he wanked.

The UN resolutions during the Gulf War did not authorize George HW Bush to "take out" Saddam. They were authorized to get Kuwait its independence back and decimate Iraq's armed forces. That's it.

Most of the people alleging GWB "taking care of Daddy's leftover business" conspiracy theories in this thread would have been the ones shrieking the loudest if GHWB had gone ahead and toppled Saddam in 1991.

posted by aaron at 1:20 AM on February 14, 2002

Personally I don't think CNN's much more trustworthy as a news source than Indymedia - it's just a whole sight more purdy.

The claims in the article are for the most part ridiculous, but I agree with one thing: there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the US was going to launch some kind of military action towards Afghanistan at some point. It is reasonable, furthermore, to argue that Osama bin Laden had already been pegged as a chief suspect for these kinds of attacks even before 9/11. So we do have a right to ask: what the hell were our intelligence forces doing and where the hell were the fighter planes?
posted by skylar at 1:24 AM on February 14, 2002

*cough* bullshit *cough*

Doesn't anyone just go outside for a walk anymore?
posted by canoeguide at 1:34 AM on February 14, 2002

Despite the obvious flaws in this article, I suggest that one shouldn't cross out indy media because of this piece alone. IM is practically a free forum where anybody can post news, "news" and analyses, without any editorial review. In fast developing action this is a plus (witness Genoa where indymedia italia was the news source on what was happening in the city). The opinions/articles are as good as the person that writes them, no more no less.
posted by talos at 3:41 AM on February 14, 2002

I rather not comment on the document itself, but I thought this was interesting though:

That is why Operation Northwoods is so important. For we now know that in 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed staging phony attacks to destroy U.S. property, killing Cuban refugees and U.S. citizens, in order to create a wave of indignation and rage, to justify an invasion of Cuba that could have killed hundreds of thousands of people and possibly led to nuclear war.

http://emperors-clothes.com/images/north-int.htm and http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/

I know this stems from the cold war era and such, but still, it's pretty scary stuff.
posted by sans at 4:23 AM on February 14, 2002

Alas, the Indy source is losing credibility , over and over, by resorting to such stuff as an alternative to mainstream press. The mainstream press may tilt the news and their articlesk but they remian mainstream because they have been accused merely of bias, not madness.
Example: referendces given incloude one site I went to and it was a compilation of "facts" to prove it was all done by the Lossad and the Israeli! Right. And that agrees with the Arab kooks in their papers too.
A "plot" this vast could not with ease be covered over, and our failed intelligence is now under investigation. You can bet that those in high places will not allow their reputations to be besmirched and their jobs put in peril to protect Bush et al.
posted by Postroad at 4:33 AM on February 14, 2002

Just after my post I cam upon this from a reliable paper and it puts the lie to the nonsense concocted in the URL posted :
new evidence from '95 on 9/11 plot by Bin Laden
posted by Postroad at 4:35 AM on February 14, 2002

Pure & utter crap. On the first charge alone, that the US Air Force was ordered to "stand down," they lose all credibility. I'm not a pilot, but I am in the Air Force, and there is simply no way that such an order would have been implemented. And, even for the sake of argument, if it HAD, there are so many people that would have been involved and known about the stand-down order that it would be impossible for it not to have surfaced in "legitimate" media. In other words -- too many Americans (serving in the AF) would have had to take part in such a cover-up. A few people (in the AF) may be simply order-taking robots who never question their leaders, but the vast majority are smart, intelligent, dedicated patriots who, if this were true, would have "blown the whistle" long ago.
posted by davidmsc at 4:40 AM on February 14, 2002

davidmsc, regardless of the "conspiratorial" musings in this particular article, being in the USAF, what's your opinion on the issue of incompetence at top levels in the Air Force, for not averting the strike against the Pentagon? It struck me as particularly impressive that this strike was allowed to happen, and that no one was fired for this inexcusable delay. I mean this article doesn't prove collusion but it indicates ineptitude at some level, doesn't it?
posted by talos at 5:16 AM on February 14, 2002

Hey, nobody's "taking out countries willy-nillly". If Iraq is next, the action is totally justified. He's got a well-documented history of building weapons of mass destruction, hiding them from the international community and actually using them on his own people. He has very plainly stated that America is Satan and must be destroyed. He has demonstrated a willingness to wage unprovoked war on his neighbors.

Now, given what was done to us on 9/11 by al-queda -- an entity much less well organized than Saddam's Iraq, with a miniscule fraction of the resources, both financial and human -- well, how much warning do you want? Do we have to wait until he strikes us first? Is that what everybody here is advocating?

Folks, the man is pure evil and poses a threat to us. I don't get why so many here are content to just wait and see what happens.

Regarding the article linked at the top: you have much more faith in the competence of the U.S. government than I do if you think that could be carried off in total secrecy. It's completely inane.
posted by luser at 5:27 AM on February 14, 2002

" ... Now, given what was done to us on 9/11 by al-queda -- an entity much less well organized than Saddam's Iraq, with a miniscule fraction of the resources, both financial and human -- well, how much warning do you want? Do we have to wait until he strikes us first? Is that what everybody here is advocating?..."

Yes. This is what I don't get. We were caught quite by surprise when the WTC got hit. What do we do now ... wait until much larger numbers get wasted when a water supply is poisened? Nerve gas is used on a subway system? It still hasn't fully sunk into to people that there are real risks here.
posted by MidasMulligan at 5:56 AM on February 14, 2002

talos: The cost-benefit analysis for enough fighter cover to shoot down hijacked airliners over the continental US is tilted very far to the "not worth it" side, even after the events of September 11th. The country is too big, the targets are too far apart, and keeping lots of fighters at high states of alert is expensive, and it still isn't guaranteed to do anything, because if you storm the cockpit right after takeoff you can crash a plane into the Pentagon within five minutes, while the nearest fighters are on the ground 100 miles away.

The Air Force made the rational decision based on all available evidence, and it's not even clear that it was wrong in hindsight. Punishing people under those circumstances is counterproductive at best.
posted by jaek at 6:04 AM on February 14, 2002

please can you provide the evidence that saddam hussein presents a clear and present danger to the people of the us, luser and midas.

it is hard not to see that the us presents a clear and present danger to the people of iraq.

'It was the same in Iraq where Washington propped up one of America’s current bogeymen, Saddam Hussein, as a counterbalance to Ayatollah Khomeini’s anti-American regime in Iran. Saddam could do no wrong in the eyes of his Western supporters - until he invaded oil-rich Kuwait. He even gassed whole villages of Kurds and still managed to keep on the right side of the United States and allies like Britain. After the Gulf War, US-led economic sanctions against Iraq triggered mass starvation and the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children.'
posted by asok at 6:16 AM on February 14, 2002

jaek: I understand all this, but still, 45' after two planes had crashed into the WTC, it is incredible that another plane was allowed to crash into the Pentagon. I'm not talking about the first two planes but someone should have stopped the third one.

luser: Errr... folks, unlike Al Qaeda Saddam is not into suicide. The idea that people in the US are threatened by Iraq seems ludicrous to say the least. Iraq is a country, Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. Big difference.
Also, bear in mind that Iraqis live in large numbers in Iraq and there's no way one can dispose of Hussein without killing quite a few of them. Iraqis are in vastly greater danger of being pulverized by US & UK bombs today than US citizens are from being harmed by Iraq in any forseeable future.
posted by talos at 6:24 AM on February 14, 2002

I'm sorry, I just cannot believe the number of posts here that do anything less than call out this article as complete and total bullshit. To suggest that the U.S. government would somehow be involved in a plot to kill thousands of its own citizens and throw its own economy into a tailspin is crazy, crazy, crazy. Where's snopes when you need it?

asok, maybe this statement from President Clinton in his 1998 state of the union address will suffice: "Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them"

talos: "The idea that people in the US are threatened by Iraq seems ludicrous to say the least. Iraq is a country, Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. Big difference." I don't doubt for a minute that if Hussein could detonate a nuclear bomb in the middle of Times Square, he would do it. Just because you're running a country doesn't mean you can't be a terrorist.
posted by pardonyou? at 6:34 AM on February 14, 2002

I still don't get this thing whereby it's okay for the US and UK to build and store 'weapons of mass destruction', but not everyone else. Doesn't that make us look like complete arseholes?
posted by skylar at 6:48 AM on February 14, 2002

pardonyou?: talos's point was that Hussein's Iraq, unlike Al-Qaeda, has a sense of self-preservation. The threat of retaliation has been, and continues to be, the US's main defense mechanism.
posted by droob at 6:53 AM on February 14, 2002

pardonyou?: I do doubt that Saddam would detonate a single firecracker on US soil because he doesn't want to die. The guy is mad, but smart enough to figure this out. He is not a islamic martyr in the making.
This observation has the interesting corrolary that if he understands that he is targeted to be killed anyway he just might attempt something against the US, but even then one questions if he has the capability to do so.
posted by talos at 6:54 AM on February 14, 2002

see? like talos said.
posted by droob at 6:58 AM on February 14, 2002

OK, asok.

Does Iraq pose a threat to the U.S. today? Consider that Mohamed Atta flew from the U.S. to meet with a prominent Iraqi agent in the Czech Republic five months prior to the attack, and at least once one year prior to that.

Consider that "two Iraqi defectors have described a terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, where students practiced taking over a Boeing 707 – the same type of plane used in the terrorist attacks on America. Charles Duelfer, former Deputy Director of UNSCOM, confirmed that during inspection visits to Salman Pak, he had seen the 707 exactly where the defectors said it was."
(from here)

Consider that the Iraqi intelligence agency planned to kill President Bush Sr. in 1993 during a Bush visit to Kuwait City.

I would not have believed that after 9/11, there are still so many people who advocate doing nothing in the face of what seems an obvious threat.

I once found it incredible that in the late 1930s and through '40 and '41, there was still significant political support for the idea that Hitler was not a threat, that it was foolish to get involved in the effort against him. I am NOT tripping on Godwin here, or even comparing Saddam to Hitler. But I no longer find that environment incredible, though no less incomprehensible. I'm seeing it all over again today. "Peace in our time/thank you herr hitler/tell that to the polish/tell that to the jews"
posted by luser at 7:05 AM on February 14, 2002

talos and droob, I get your point, I just don't know if I buy what you're trying to sell. While Hussein doesn't look like he wants to die, I'm not so sure he wouldn't be prepared to die if he could inflict some major damage on the U.S. first. But I guess none of us really know for sure what goes on in the mind of a madman.
posted by pardonyou? at 7:10 AM on February 14, 2002

I'm going to rant on here, I just find some of these attitudes upsetting. Skylar, if you don't understand why we have nuclear capabilities, I can't help you. Read a book about the cold war. Read a book about the U.S. war in the Pacific against Japan. If you don't understand the difference between the foreign policy of Iraq and the U.S., ask an Israeli what it feels like living a Scud's throw away from a regime pledged to your country's obliteration. Asok, I won't deny that some of the alliances and arrangements we maintained during the Cold War were basically criminal. Fine. What should be our penance for this? More WTCs? More Pentagons? At what point do we decide to "be here, now", and adjust to that reality?
posted by luser at 7:17 AM on February 14, 2002

Regarding the "moratorium on non-mainstream news links," what exactly are US interests anyway -- if not the interests of corporations? As if CNN wants you to have the information you need to balance your opinion. More people die every day from smoking cigarettes than in all of the attacks. Where's our War on Tobacco? There's a clear and present danger certainly. I guess mere death tolls are meaningless in the eye of nationalism.

Read between the lines. What's the best thing that could have happened to develop both military influence in strategic foreign interests (oil) as well as the domestic police state necessary to supress opposition as the shift from industry to service economy contributes to a continuing US recession/depression. Something must prop an unsustainable economic model -- war makes an ideal crutch. Not a far stretch of the imagination, if you still have one.

A loose analogy: who do you think would rather assassinate Arafat -- Israel or Palestine?

Criminal alliances are fine. No penance required. </sarcasm>
posted by greensweater at 7:27 AM on February 14, 2002

pardonyou?: The kind of political animal who takes over his country through a maze of byzantine plotting and conspiracy, who lives in opulence and luxury while his people are starving, who buddies with the Soviets AND the Americans depending on his interests, who institutes a most secular state and massacres all religious opposition in the blink of an eye, who uses chemical weapons against the Kurds, that kind of murderous megalomaniac, one can safely assume, does not have an ideological quibble with any country, surely values his own life more than anything else in the world and is not prepared to kick it all away for martyrdom. This guy kills for his personal profit not just for kicks.

luser: Check out this old article questioning Iraq's ties to the WTC bombers. While the meeting in Prague might have been for a different reason.
I remind you that there is no neighbouring country to Iraq that considers them any sort of threat. If they're not scared why should the US be?
posted by talos at 7:37 AM on February 14, 2002

what exactly are US interests anyway -- if not the interests of corporations

Are you even aware that we were attacked last year? 3,000 people were killed. Oh, wait. Yup. They all worked for corporations. Except the rescue workers.
posted by luser at 7:48 AM on February 14, 2002

I remind you that there is no neighbouring country to Iraq that considers them any sort of threat.

How could this possibly be? My guess would be that they're thinking if Iraq dares so much as to move an inch nearer their borders, the US will come back and bomb Iraq into submission. It's the same principle as the school bully acting nice while the teacher's looking.
posted by darukaru at 7:59 AM on February 14, 2002

what exactly are US interests anyway -- if not the interests of corporations

greensweater, I'm not sure what world you're living in, but as far as I can tell, the vast majority of governmental agencies are set up specifically to regulate corporations (i.e., to force them to act a certain way that, left unregulated, they would not). Many of these agencies are specifically set up to protect the rights of individuals against the unfettered discretion of corporations. A very short list includes the FDA, CDC, NIH, HUD, OSHA, DOL, OFCCP, EEOC, FAA. A big part of my job is dealing with governmental agencies that are trying to extract a pound of flesh from my "evil corporation" -- and there are dozens of other employees who do the same job, day in and day out. I certainly don't get the feeling that US interests are just the interests of corporations. But if Ralph Nader says it, it must be true.

And to the extent the government policy does align with corporate objectives, I don't see how that's a problem. Last time I checked, corporations were also known as "job providers." Corporations do poorly, workers do poorly, economy does poorly, country does poorly.
posted by pardonyou? at 8:07 AM on February 14, 2002

I remind you that there is no neighbouring country to Iraq that considers them any sort of threat.

Are you being serious? Kuwait and Saudi Arabia both consider Iraq to be a threat (why do you think the Saudis haven't kicked us out yet?). Israel also considers Iraq a threat, while they aren't technically neigbors.
posted by jaek at 8:14 AM on February 14, 2002

In the world I live in, Enron just squandered its employees' pensions (really? corporations can be evil?) -- while congress debates raiding SS & Medicare to cover defense costs. Back to the thread, though...

The interconnectedness of huge corporations, including media conglomerates, biases the mainstream media. Not evil, just inevitable. The overall agenda is globalization - driven by profit, pure and simple. Ultimately, our economy's increasing need for foreign labor resources is what drives foreign policy (ie US interests). It goes beyond mere retaliation. Do you think we're in it to share our 'culture' with the unenlightened & spread the word of democracy?

My point is, CNN does not have a corner on Truth. But they want you to think they do. So of course dissenting views are denounced... sound like any other media outlet you may be familiar with?

luser - thx for the heads up.
posted by greensweater at 8:51 AM on February 14, 2002

For even more elaborate conspiracy theories, dig through the trash in the Pravda forums. Never explain something away as incompetence or bad luck, if malice and malfeasance would enable you to take a swipe at those you dislike. BTW, that's quite a tip about "THEM!" and where "THEY!" are hiding. We discussed Iraqi weapons inspection in another thread. You'll also find some good background on Iraqi bio capabilities in the bestseller "Germs."
posted by sheauga at 9:17 AM on February 14, 2002

jaek: W. Cohen: Regarding Iraq, the Senior Defense Official said the U.S. is succeeding in its policy of containment. Iraq "is not a threat to any of its neighbors.
H. Mubarak: Mubarak said that... Iraq is not "a threat to the world"
Kuwait: KUWAIT (Reuters) -- Kuwait on Monday welcomed a call for United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq for invading and occupying its territory 10 years ago to be lifted.
posted by talos at 9:48 AM on February 14, 2002

sound like any other media outlet you may be familiar with?
Sounds like every other media outlet, including Indymedia.
posted by darukaru at 10:08 AM on February 14, 2002

"Read between the lines. What's the best thing that could have happened to develop both military influence in strategic foreign interests (oil) as well as the domestic police state necessary to supress opposition as the shift from industry to service economy contributes to a continuing US recession/depression. Something must prop an unsustainable economic model -- war makes an ideal crutch. Not a far stretch of the imagination, if you still have one."

And most especially if you have an overactive one. This US recession is much milder than the last few, and we are already emerging from it. The economic model you call "unsustainable" has produced the largest and most powerful economy in the world.

Yawn. Virtually every time we go to war all manner of voices make the claim that it is motivated by a President wanting to solve economic (or some other sort of) problems. Even Clinton was accused of using military action to distract attention from his personal scandels. War does, on the whole, provide a temporary boost to the economy. WWII, for instance, in fact helped us move the final steps out of the great depression. Does this mean we shouldn't have fought against Hitler?

My point is, CNN does not have a corner on Truth. But they want you to think they do. So of course dissenting views are denounced... sound like any other media outlet you may be familiar with?

I don't think CNN wants you think they have a corner on truth. In fact, I don't think they care whether you believe or disbelieve them, love them or hate them. They simply want you to watch them. That's how they get money.

Simply because something is a source of news other than CNN does not make it "dissenting". CNN is a company, not a bloody political party or religious ideology. And there are thousands of sources of news - just being "not CNN" doesn't make you right. A lot of "dissenting" views may be denounced not because of their courageous dissent, but because they are big stinking piles of horse crap.
posted by MidasMulligan at 12:19 PM on February 14, 2002