Breaking News: September 11, 2001

CAIR Network has a section on their website to report the hate crimes and have also given some tips. Please look into them. The hate crimes should be reported.

http://www.cair-net.org/ireport/

#486 Sadhana

I went back and read your #191. It was incisive. Did Urstruly ever answer any of the points you raised? Probably not since he`s just another garden variety bigot with an inflated ego.

I`m with Senator McCain on this one.

{{Early public opinion polls show that Americans overwhelmingly favor a swift and forceful retaliation, even if it means casualties, a sentiment shared on Capitol Hill. ``Americans know now that we are at war, and will make the sacrifices and show the resolve necessary to prevail,`` said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. ``I say to our enemies, we are coming. God may show you mercy. We will not.``}}

#491 nasah

Sorry i don`t get the point. If you are saying that had you stayed in india your children would not have become US diplomats and CNN vice presidents, i quite agree that it would be improbable. But then, they could have become Star TV vice presidents and indian diplomats.. Am i missing something?

Yahmla_Jat/SD #various
I guess you meant me. Whats your problem here?

``Just Keep your mouths shut about who is responsible. Keep your racism locked in your attic. I can understand Sadhna`s motive. It`s her job and with the integration of Mossad with Raw and other agencies, including Indian Institute of Psychological Research in Delhi, she may have to be more aggressive but what about the rest of you, zeno-kiss, Hamidm and the rest of you Pakistani and Indian clowns? ``

And YOU obviously live at the bottom of a well. The attacks and who is responsible is being discussed all over the world. The US and Pakistani governments are even making plans and talking about them in public. But according to you chowkwallahs should keep quiet and I am a spy? Everyones who reads hears and comments on it are spies too?

HAMID from USA piece in Dawn as quoted by Nabeel:

“From today`s edition of Dawn

``One-sided view of US tragedy

I am an American citizen of Pakistani origin and have lived in the USA for 35 years, far more years than I spent in the country of my birth. My children were raised here and all four of my grandchildren were born in the United States. America has given me freedom to practise my faith. Over the years I have come to love this land.

I hope and pray that it was not the work of Muslims because my religion is a religion of peace in which there is no place for suicide and compulsion.

But I have concerns about the way the US media and fellow citizens are taking only a one-sided view of this tragedy. I have been glued to the TV and have concluded that such an organized flawless operation could not be the work of any Muslim terrorist group. They do not have the resources and organization to pull through a successful operation as this one”…..

HAMID

USA”

And here is what Mr. HAMID from USA should know:



I am (ALSO) an American citizen of INDIAN origin and have lived in the USA for 45 years, far more years than I spent in the country of my birth. My DAUGHTERS were raised here, and all six of my grandchildren were born in the United States.

America has given me freedom to practice my faith and my profession -- and treated my daughters with the RESPECT and an EQUALITY that has allowed them to become CNN vice presidents and US diplomats – ONLY IN AMERICA, the LAND OF THE FREE, folks. Over the years I (TOO) have come to love this land.



This terrorist carnage has been committed against MY BELOVED LAND and against MY BELOVED PEOPLE.

And here are the names of the criminals who perpetrated this MONSTROUS CRIME against MY people:

The suspected hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, were Walid Al Shehri, Wail Alsheri aka Waleed Alsheri, Mohammad Atta, Aabdul Alomari and Satam Sugami.



Aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the south tower of the World Trade Center, the suspected hijackers were Marawn Alshehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri, Hamza Al Ghamdi and Ahmed Al Ghamdi.



Those believed to be the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon, were Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqued, Nawaf Al Hazmi and Salem Al Hazmi.



The suspected hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania, were Ahmed Al Haznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrah and Saeed Alghamdi.

THIS is the real-sided view of the tragedy

The above mentioned depraved criminals may be Muslims but THEY DEFINITELY ARE NOT MY PEOPLE.

HASAN

USA

To ALL DESI PEOPLE

Yesterday, a group of people abused some Indian Muslims near a bus stop. I also read in the news that some Sikhs were also attacked in few places because of their turbans. Some of us have contacted as many Indians and Pakistanis as possible and urged them to help each other. I appeal to all Desi community especially Indians since they are the largest in number to come together and guard against the hate crimes. The office going population may be ok but the atmosphere is more tense in colleges where there are a lot of hotheaded teenagers. I urge people not to respond to any kind of racist comments by their peers and show restraint. Indians especially Hindus must come forward to protect other Indians like Muslims and Sikhs and also Pakistanis. All desi should also participate in blood donation campaigns and give donations for the families of the victims. Recriminations can wait.

PS This doesn`t mean I have become Pak lover. But I never let my hatred for Pakistan as an enemy country come in my way of helping innocent Pakistanis. This is the reason no matter what I say about Pakistan, I never abuse or call any Pakistani names even on Chowk unlike many others who resort to maa-behan against their ideological opponents. What I want to say this time is, that no matter what your differences with each other on an ideological level are, you shouldn`t forget your duty as a human towards your fellows. That is all that I have to say.

PPS Once all this is over, I will resume my Pak(not Paki) bashing). Till then I have more important things to do.

To ALL DESI PEOPLE

Yesterday, a group of people abused some Indian Muslims near a bus stop. I also read in the news that some Sikhs were also attacked in few places because of their turbans. Some of us have contacted as many Indians and Pakistanis as possible and urged them to help each other. I appeal to all Desi community especially Indians since they are the largest in number to come together and guard against the hate crimes. The office going population may be ok but the atmosphere is more tense in colleges where there are a lot of hotheaded teenagers. I urge people not to respond to any kind of racist comments by their peers and show restraint. Indians especially Hindus must come forward to protect other Indians like Muslims and Sikhs and also Pakistanis. All desi should also participate in blood donation campaigns and give donations for the families of the victims. Recriminations can wait.

PS This doesn`t mean I have become Pak lover. But I never let my hatred for Pakistan as an enemy country come in my way of helping innocent Pakistanis. This is the reason no matter what I say about Pakistan, I never abuse or call any Pakistani names even on Chowk unlike many others who resort to maa-behan against their ideological opponents. What I want to say this time is, that no matter what your differences with each other on an ideological level are, you shouldn`t forget your duty as a human towards your fellows. That is all that I have to say.

PPS Once all this is over, I will resume my Pak(not Paki) bashing). Till then I have more important things to do.

Re aamir

Bush`s intelligence etc may be suspect, but at the moment, the whole nation is solidly behind him. You don`t have to have a Oxbridge vocabulary when you`ve got the resolve of the whole country behind you. The last poll put his ratings at beyond 91% This may not hold over the long run, but for now, remember, he is carring a big stick, and he is very very angry and resolute.

Re aamir

Bush`s intelligence etc may be suspect, but at the moment, the whole nation is solidly behind him. You don`t have to have a Oxbridge vocabulary when you`ve got the resolve of the whole country behind you. The last poll put his ratings at beyond 91% This may not hold over the long run, but for now, remember, he is carring a big stick, and he is very very angry and resolute.

soysauce #484
``Indians would do well not to invite the monster to their backyard.``
I agree with what you say(#191). Even Pakistan willnot, hopefully, at the same scale as before, because the world has changed since then(hopefully).

I`m just hoping Pakistanis will be able to do for themselves, under US pressure, what they couldnot garner the internal consensus to do earlier.

Nau Dou Gyara Kamikazes:
Endless Queries

zeno kiss #467:

...pardon me...


...who benefits?...that is the question I had been asking...and other questions have since drowned me in a sea of speculative queries...here is a sampling...


...you speculated that shias stand to gain most from this or may have initiated this...probably forgetting that shias are as indistinguishable from sunnis as indians are from pakistanis in the street of west...nevertheless extending the list...beginning with your post:


---shias
---israel
---us defence industries/conglomerates
---the group of seven/eight/twenty three/whatever
---the worldwide anti-muslim coalition (name your favourite group, country or conspiracy here)
---certain posters here from both the wrong sides...we all know know who they are...they would be robbed of a raison d’etre for their existence.





(...are we wary of lessons from the past?...let me illustrate...saddam hussain was a favourite poster boy when it served us interests...remember the video tape of us ambassador egging saddam to do his thing in kuwait?...and now he is the most reviled person...remember the blind cleric abderrehman?...now languishing in some us jail...he was another rising cia protégé till his usefulness evaporated...remember zia? may he float for ever!...remember that bin laden offspring?...oh wasn’t he another cia posterboy?...my, my...how times change...or wait!...is he still doing their bidding?...now how can I even think like that?)





...some thoughts over the media frenzy to wipe off these terrorist scums off the face of this earth...


...so now that the big brother is building a consensus (a la Dad) over flattening already flat and barren pieces of real estate far way from home to placate the home public...(the us is still not over its post vietnam body bag syndrome)...brushing all questions as to why the powero uno is the most hated country in major capitols of the world...comes this query to mind...


...is there anything anyone anywhere can do to override the determination of individual/s willing to gamble with their life/lives?...this is really perplexing for me...obviously we can do duck all to prevent future actions/disaster by determined kami-kazes...even if they serve us plastic spoons and knives in flight...also, obviously...we can only minimize their action not prevent it...


...and that kind of prevention can come not from carpet bombing...that is only a sure way of cloning other kamikazes...


...pardon me again, am only inundated with queries today...


regards,


temporal

#449 Sadhana

``President George Bush has said that the US will not make a distinction between terrorists and those states that harbour and support terrorism``

This means didly squat for india. The US defines terrorism as anything inimical to *its * interests not india`s.

The indians here and in indian press have been whipping a frenzy about what may come to pakistan. Let`s remember that, ultimately, afghanistan is where it is because of the US. Under soviet occupation, afghanistan was a livable, if poor, country. Under arabic-pak occupation it`s in the stone ages. The US nurtured the mujahideen and used them and then abandoned the people of afghanistan when internecine wars broke out. The land of democracy and freedom had absolutely no interest in ensuring a peaceful transition to a democratic government in afghanistan. This was criminal. Even more criminal was turning a blind eye to the taleban or even aiding their coming to power in a blitzkreig because a fundamentalist afghanistan would be a check against iran. As someone said, these criminal actions are finally coming home to roost. The US knows very little about peace and democracy. All it knows is force, power and militarism. Every country it has touched - from guatemala to haiti to afghanistan has been a disaster.

I`m afraid that it would be nothing but another disaster if the US, once again, plants its feet in south asia. Indians would do well not to invite the monster to their backyard.

I am pleased to report a backlash to the backlash.

Americans that friends and myself have come into

contact with have expressed concern at our safety

and are going out of their way to express their

solidarity with Muslims. What a decent and humane

society.

Meanwhile Indian journalists continue to gleefully

goad American leaders to do something bad to

Pakistan. This is in stark contrast to Indian

journalists appearing in talk shows broadcast in

India and Pakistan, where they talk about the lack

of evidence against Usamah and the need for the

USA to exercise restraint. ``Baghal may chakoo, Mun

pay Ram Ram?`` With the Mun in India and the Baghal

in DC?

I think the contrast between how educated

Americans and educated Indians are handling all

this, truely demonstrated the difference between

Civilizations.

By the way Hindu shops in Chicagos have been

attacked, Sikhs have been beaten up, and even a

Lebanese Church in Australia was set alight.

Hindus are playing with fire. Westerns see this as

a matter of race rather than religion.

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Terrorism, Television and the Rage for Vengeance

Copyright: http://www.iviews.com

Published Thursday September 13, 2001

By Norman Solomon



We stare at TV screens and try to comprehend the suffering in the aftermath of terrorism. Much of what we see is ghastly and all too real; terrible anguish and sorrow.

At the same time, we`re witnessing an onslaught of media deception. ``The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing,`` Aldous Huxley observed long ago. ``Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.``

Silence, rigorously selective, pervades the media coverage of recent days. For policy-makers in Washington, the practical utility of that silence is enormous. In response to the mass murder committed by hijackers, the righteousness of U.S. military action is clear -- as long as double standards go unmentioned.

While rescue crews braved intense smoke and grisly rubble, ABC News analyst Vincent Cannistraro helped to put it all in perspective for millions of TV viewers. Cannistraro is a former high-ranking official of the Central Intelligence Agency who was in charge of the CIA`s work with the contras in Nicaragua during the early 1980s. After moving to the National Security Council in 1984, he became a supervisor of covert aid to Afghan guerrillas.

In other words, Cannistraro has a long history of assisting terrorists -- first, contra soldiers who routinely killed Nicaraguan

civilians; then, mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan ... like Osama bin Laden.

How can a longtime associate of terrorists now be credibly denouncing ``terrorism``? It`s easy. All that`s required is for media

coverage to remain in a kind of history-free zone that has no use for any facets of reality that are not presently convenient to acknowledge.

In his book ``1984,`` George Orwell described the mental dynamics: ``The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary.``

Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced ``people who feel that with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose.`` He was describing the terrorists who had struck his country hours earlier. But Powell was also aptly describing a long line of top officials in Washington.

It would be very unusual to hear a comment about that sort of hypocrisy on any major TV network in the United States. Yet surely U.S. policy-makers have believed that they could ``achieve a political purpose`` -- with ``the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people`` -- when launching missiles at Baghdad or Belgrade.

Nor are key national media outlets now doing much to shed light on American assaults that were touted as anti-terrorist ``retaliation`` -- such as the firing of 13 cruise missiles, one day in August 1998, at the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. That attack, depriving an impoverished country of desperately needed medical drugs, was an atrocity committed (in the words of political analyst Noam Chomsky) ``with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and probably killing tens of thousands of people.``

No one knows the exact number of lives lost due to the severe disruption of Sudan`s meager drug supply, Chomsky adds, ``because the U.S. blocked an inquiry at the United Nations and no one cares to pursue it.``

Media scrutiny of atrocities committed by the U.S. government is rare. Only some cruelties merit the spotlight. Only some victims deserve empathy. Only certain crimes against humanity are worth our tears.

``This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil,`` President Bush proclaimed. The media reactions to such rhetoric have been overwhelmingly favorable.

But the heart-wrenching voices now on the USA`s airwaves are no less or more important than voices that we have never heard. Today, the victims of terrorism in America deserve our deep compassion. So do the faraway victims of America -- human beings whose humanity has gone unrecognized by U.S. media.

Underlying that lack of recognition is a nationalistic arrogance shared by press and state. Few eyebrows went up when Time magazine declared in its Sept. 10 edition: ``The U.S. is at one of those fortunate -- and rare -- moments in history when it can shape the world.`` That attitude can only bring us a succession of disasters.

_______________________________________________

Norman Solomon`s latest book is ``The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media.`` His syndicated column focuses on media and politics.