6
4
3
"Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy."
The report directly contradicted what Bush had been saying about "why they hate us," letting the elephant out of the bag and into the room, so to speak.
But, you say, you didn't hear much about that report either, despite 24-hour cable "news" networks and the "change-everything" importance of 9/11 in justifying U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
Creative Editing
If you've read down this far, you will not be surprised that the FCM ignored the Defense Science Board findings for two months. On Nov. 24, 2004, The New York Times, erstwhile "newspaper of record," finally published a story on the report -- but only after some highly instructive surgery.
Thom Shanker of the Times quoted the paragraph beginning with "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom'" (see above), but he or his editors deliberately cut out the following sentence about what Muslims do object to, i.e., "what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights" and support for tyrannical regimes.
The Times did include the sentence that immediately followed the omitted one. In other words, it was not simply a matter of shortening the paragraph. Rather, the offending middle sentence fell victim to the "delete" key.
Similarly creative editing showed through the Times' reporting in late October 2004 on a videotaped speech by Osama bin Laden. Almost six paragraphs of the story made it onto page one, but the Times saw to it that the key point bin Laden made at the beginning of his speech was relegated to paragraphs 23 to 25 at the very bottom of page nine.
Buried there was bin Laden's assertion that the idea for 9/11 first germinated after "we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American-Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon."
There is other evidence regarding the Israeli-Palestinian motive behind 9/11.
Though Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not allowed to talk to the attorneys in the 2006 trial of 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, the judge did allow into the official record a statement by Mohammed on the "Purpose of the 9/11 Attacks," which was drawn from "numerous written summaries of Sheikh Mohammed's oral statements in response to extensive questioning."
The following statement from Sheikh Mohammed appears on page 11 of Defense Trial Exhibit 941 from "United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Criminal No. 01-455-A":
"Sheikh Mohammed said that the purpose of the attack on the Twin Towers was to "wake the American people up.' Sheikh Mohammed said that if the target would have been strictly military or government, the American people would not focus on the atrocities that America is committing by supporting Israel against the Palestinian people and America's self-serving foreign policy that corrupts Arab governments and leads to further exploitation of the Arab/Muslim peoples."
Some recent articles about Mohammed's upcoming trial also have mentioned the Israel-Palestine motive behind 9/11, though usually in passing and deep inside the stories. For instance, Sunday's New York Times carries a front-page article giving a "portrait of 9/11 "Jackal,'" Mohammed.
But one has to read deep into the jump on page 26 to learn that the original plan for the 9/11 attacks envisioned Mohammed flying on one of 10 planes that were to be hijacked and that "he would be on the one plane not to crash, and after the plane landed would emerge and deliver a speech condemning American policy on Israel."
Revisionist View
