Media uncritically swallows U.S. claim that bin Laden planned 9/11 sequel

By Craig McKee (http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com)

When it comes to the 9/11 “terrorist attacks,” the mainstream media had very little credibility before May 2, 2011. Now they have none.

Over and over the media just repeat what U.S. officials say about 9/11, Osama bin Laden, and the “war on terror” without hesitation, and most of the time without any scepticism at all. Often, allegations made by the U.S. government are reported as if they are established facts. They might as well just print the damn press releases verbatim.

The bin Laden story becomes more and more unbelievable with every new development, and the media are eating it up without the slightest question.

Here’s how the legend goes now: After the most intensive manhunt in human history, evil mastermind Osama bin Laden is finally found and “taken out” in a heroic, Rambo-esque raid that could have been planned by Jerry Bruckheimer.

Bin Laden’s body is then buried at sea, making it impossible for any independent source to verify the circumstances of his death, or even his identity. Photos of the body won’t be released by Washington because they fear Muslims will be incited to violence. Apparently, killing him isn’t inflammatory, but taking a few Polaroids is a whole other matter.

The latest addition to the Orwellian charade is that bin Laden had a journal which shows that he was not the frail figurehead we’ve heard about. Turns out he was still running the day-to-day operations of the still very dangerous organization.

In fact, according to anonymous U.S. government sources, his very convenient journal tells us he was encouraging al-Qaeda cells to plan massive attacks against American targets and to kill as many U.S. citizens as possible. We even learned that he wanted another attack on the scale of 9/11. Boy, are we lucky he thought to write all this stuff down! Most evil tyrants are too busy plotting and killing to keep such meticulous records. Without them, we might not have realized how terrified we all should still be.

So this mother lode of incriminating evidence supposedly proves that “9/11: The Sequel” is on its way. Great to know the war on terror is alive and well. This will save all those annoying discussions about whether the military budget should be reduced or whether we should stop taking away individual rights and freedoms because of “terrorism.” Maybe we should go back to that helpful coloured terror chart!

It seems that all these bin Laden references to new attacks were just suggestions, however, because there appears to be absolutely nothing specific mentioned. Odd.

The story so far…

Let’s start with the fortified compound no one knew about even though it was right under the noses of the Pakistani military. Is it believable that they didn’t know? Is it credible that U.S. intelligence couldn’t find out where bin Laden was regardless of co-operation from the Pakistanis?

What about the months of planning that went into the raid? Apparently no one was in a rush to get it done despite the devious plots being hatched inside the compound’s walls. How well would it have gone over if Barack Obama had spent months carefully planning the raid only to have a massive terrorist attack happen before it was carried out?

Then the raid itself: first we were told bin Laden returned fire, using his wife as a shield. Then we heard that he was unarmed and never used his wife as a shield. We were told that bin Laden was somehow part of resisting the raid, but without a weapon.

And it seems we may never know more, because bin Laden was supposedly executed by the Navy SEALs. Just like Lee Harvey Oswald, there won’t be any embarrassing or revealing trial to enlighten the world.

Was bin Laden shot as we’ve been told, or has he been dead for years? We really haven’t been given proof either way. We just have to take their word for it. And the media are happy to do just that.

The most absurd part of the story was bin Laden’s body being buried at sea because of “Islamic tradition.” The first time I heard this, I thought it was a joke. Apparently the media didn’t find it funny. They were quite happy to report it like it was the most logical thing in the world.

Last night on The Colbert Report, we were treated to Lawrence Wright (author of The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11) telling us that other terror groups are now chomping at the bit to take over from al-Qaeda. We don’t even need a new enemy now; it’s enough to suggest that there will be one.

We also don’t know if the Americans knew where bin Laden was all along (a very strong possibility, I feel). If they did, they could have waited until his value as a live threat became less than his value as a dead trophy.

We do know a couple of things, though. We know there is a mountain of evidence showing that the 9/11 “attacks” could not have been carried out by 19 guys with box cutters. We know there had to have been involvement at the highest levels of the U.S. government, and perhaps other governments. This latest bit of theatre changes nothing.

We know that the FBI leadership kept its agents from zeroing in on bin Laden in the months before and after 9/11. We know that the Taliban government in Afghanistan offered to turn bin Laden over if the U.S. would show the evidence that he was guilty. They said they had evidence but it never materialized.

And we know that the FBI, by its own admission, had “no hard evidence” against bin Laden for the 9/11 false-flag operation. That doesn’t stop the media from referring to bin Laden as the mastermind behind 9/11.

The truth is that the whole bin Laden scenario sounds like it belongs in a Hollywood movie, not in the real world. People have apparently decided they are ready for a happy ending, and the U.S. government has given it to them. Whether it’s real or fictional doesn’t seem to matter.