Just Out of Curiosity

This is the kind of response you will get from some people when you point out that we are being lied to about why we were attacked on 9/11: "Just out of curiosity, Tom, would it be enough for us to abandon the Israelis, or would we actually have to march them into the ovens to make you and your Chomskyite pals happy?"
This is the kind of garbage Michael Reynolds ("MightyMiddle.com") throws at someone who points out the motives for the 9/11 attacks. It is an over the top sick minded attack the messenger tactic. Dirty tricks are often used by those excusing the manipulations and lies carried out in service of the Israeli agenda, specifically the Zionist agenda.

Reynolds' sick-minded insinuation was designed to abort the conversation about the fact that pundits and politicians are deceiving the American people about why we were attacked on 9/11. Below are the posts that preceded Reynolds' tantrum:

Reynolds posted his anger that "we were lied to" about whether the Saudis had removed things like "True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly" and "It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God ..." from some children's textbooks in Saudi Arabia. Reynolds mentioned that and "that Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Osama Bin Laden and of Al Qaeda and of the majority of 9-11 terrorists."

I wrote that, "I don't like the implied context of this focus on their textbooks. The implied argument that their religious views are the reason we were attacked on 9/11. The motivation of the terrorists is from POLITICAL issues that have to do with REAL wrongs.

This focus on the textbooks is a dishonest game to point the finger and say "see, that is why they attack us".

Why they attack us has been explicitly stated several times for several years. And the specific foreign policies motivate those that are not particularly religious, like Ramsi Yousef. Osama bin Laden openly declared war on the U.S. a few years before 9/11. In interviews he talked about making Yousef a model. (Yousef was behind the '93 bombing of the WTC) Yousef explained the motive in a letter to the NYT: "This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region."

Instead of lecturing people about how to teach their children their religion (what is to you anyway other than what I see as the implication that this is supposed to be what motivated the 9/11 terrorists) The focus should be on what really motived them and that is U.S. foreign policies, namely U.S. support of Israel.

I mean, doesn't it make you sick to your stomach that Bush and others have the audacity to try to con Americans about why we are risking our lives and losing the lives of fellow Americans? One of the first things Bush did after 9/11 was lie to the American people about why we were attacked. Should the American people be robbed of the freedom to decide for themselves if they want to risk their lives over specific foreign policies?"

Reynolds argued, "Do you draw sharp lines between the political and religious positions of right-wing Christians? I doubt it." He continued with his attempt to obscure what it is that motivates the terrorists.

I replied, "When a rightwing Christian bombs an abortion clinic, I don't see people trying to play it off as "hatred of our freedoms" while suppressing the fact that abortion policy is what they aim to end.

Pundits and politicians are deceiving the American people about these foreign policies. Thomas Friedman LIES when he wrote that terrorists "have no specific ideological program or demands. Rather, they are driven by a generalized hatred of the U.S., Israel and other supposed enemies of Islam." He is a liar, it is not "generalized hatred" it is specific things! It is beyond the pale to feed the public lies about life and death issues. Friedman wrote that in 1998, after years of crystal clear messages from the 1993 letter to the NYT to the 1998 Fatwa which lists 3 specific policies, U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula., U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people, U.S. support of Israel. Do you care at all t about what Friedman is doing to the public?

The political extremists are NOT pushing violence just because someone is not Muslim, political policies are the motivating factor for the violence:
A former member of an extremist Islamic organization which is part of al-Qaeda explained how the organization's recruiters operate on susceptible young men. "Someone approached me in the mosque as I was praying, and started to talk to me about injustice in the Middle East, the poverty, our impotence in the face of Israel. He made me want to listen to him - to find a solution. At first these people don't talk about violence. They concentrate on how much injustice America has caused in the world and how to get rid of this unfairness. They mention Palestine, they call on you to uphold your national dignity, to defend people, and suggest for that you must sacrifice yourself. Then your people will live after you and will always remember you." The young man, himself an Egyptian, speaking in the privacy of a quite courtyard in Cairo, believed this was the way Mohamed Atta was approached. "Al-Qaeda" by Jane Corbin p125

Ralph Bodenstein, from his knowledge of Mohamed Atta's political views, believes that the date of [Atta's] will is significant. The 11th of April was shortly after the Israelis bombed aUN refugee camp in southern Lebanon, killing several hundred Palestinian civilians. The Israeli operations was called 'The Grapes of Wrath', but the wrath was largely in the Arab world, where people were incensed at the muted criticism of Israel in the West. Ralph thinks this is what caused the jihad. [ Ralph must be thinking of the beginning of the operations because "The undisputed context, of course, is that Israeli forces from April 11 to 27 were attacking various targets in Lebanon, including Lebanese civilian infrastructure" Israel protested the U.N. conclusion that the camp shelling wasn't an error. That camp shelling was on April 18. A preliminary UN report said that Israel fired knowingly on a southern Lebanon UN compound on April 18.]

And here is the motive of the the motive of the "mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks":
"By his own account, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." Watch this video and tell me it doesn't make you sick to your stomach how Hamilton and others have suppressed discussion of the MAIN MOTIVE. It WASN'T some "radical ideology."

Bin Laden commented on the lies: "... the Mujahideen saw the black gang of thugs in the White House hiding the Truth, and their stupid and foolish leader, who is elected and supported by his people, denying reality and proclaiming that we (the Mujahideen) were striking them because we were jealous of them (the Americans), whereas the reality is that we are striking them because of their evil and injustice in the whole of the Islamic World, especially in Iraq and Palestine and their occupation of the Land of the Two Holy Sanctuaries." -Osama Bin Laden , February 14 , 2003

The American people's rights have been violated by powerful groups working to manipulate them. Friedman is just one of the many media con men serving this vile and dishonest agenda. That doesn't bother you?"

and that is when he hurled his manipulative and totally outrageous question at me. Previous times has skirted the issue, this time when I asked him point blank he evades and throws a totally insane question at me. Previous posts I made raised the issue but Reynolds always evaded the fact that we are being lied to about why we were attacked on 9/11:

The U.S. signed the UN Charter. We are supposed to be a nation of laws. the war on Iraq was illegal. And I think the examples I gave about WMD intelligence were straight forward. You want to avoid what it means. Can you at least agree that when Donald Rumsfeld said "WE KNOW WHERE THEY ARE" he was not telling the truth?

You write on your blog that "your larger motive" for supporting the Iraq war was "the Tom Friedman argument." I suggest that this is a big part of the problem because Friedman has lied to you and he is manipulating you.

Friedman lies about bin Laden's motives. Friedman claims, " the fact is that bin Laden never focused on this issue. He only started talking about "Palestine" after September 11, when he sensed that he might be losing the support of the Arab street. " (p311 of Longitudes & Attitudes ) and " Osama bin Laden never mentioned the Palestinian cause as motivating his actions until he felt he was losing support in the Arab world. " (p361-362 of Longitudes & Attitudes ) What Friedman has written is a flat out lie. To give just one example that disproves what Friedman wrote: "Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. " - Osama bin Laden May 1998

Please don't try to make excuses for what Friedman is doing. It should be obvious why Friedman tries to con the American people.

Once you understand what the 9/11 motives actually were (and not what people like Friedman want you to think they were) you can see that attacking Iraq was outrageous.

Once you look at the facts about the 9/11 motives you can see that lack of democracy in Iraq had NOTHING to do with the motivation of the terrorists for the simple fact that they know that Iraq was one of the countries that the U.S. was not currently propping up. Lack of democracy in Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist threat, they didn't blame us for it! Can you see now how outrageous the war on Iraq was? In fact, the CIA Warned That a U.S. Attack on Iraq Could Ignite Terror!

McCain and other politicians are extremely offensive. He talks about respect? How much respect does this man have for the American people for him to play along with a lie about why are lives are at risk from terrorists attacks? He LIES when he claims we were attacked on 9/11 "for who we are." This is a grave violation of the rights of the American people, you want to talk cynicism? What kind of person cons his fellow citizens into continuing to put their lives at risk?

Michael, how can you support a man who is robbing the American people of their freedom of self determination? This is life and death, to lie about these things is really low. How more cynical can one be to rationalize feeding the public a lie about why their fellow citizens have lost their lives?

Dishonesty about 9/11 motives robs Americans of the freedom to decide for ourselves if we want to put our lives at risk over specific foreign policies. http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/05/dishonesty-about-911-motives-robs.html

Those that push the lie are not sincere. They intentionally omit things in order to misrepresent what the motives are. This should make you think about how honest they were about Iraq intelligence! The Bush administration cited Hussein Kamel's testimony to back up their claims of WMD while ignoring the fact that Kamel said " All chemical weapons were destroyed , I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons—biological, chemical, missile, nuclear—were destroyed." "Drumheller also said the Bush administration paid no heed to Naji Sabri, Iraq's foreign minister, who had made a deal to reveal military secrets, and who said there were no secret weapons " "It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure," Drumheller said.

Look how Tenet selectively quotes from the key sentence being sure to omit this part about WHY they are attacking: "in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."