In another generation, when France's Muslim population hits the +25% mark and we hear demands for an independent Islamic state in what was France, do French authorities become occupiers? If French Islamic "freedom fighters" blow up French nurseries, busses, pizza parlors, will we hear the explanation that these atrocities are merely zealous warriors against occupation?

Why are US forces seen as occupiers in Iraq? We have removed a criminal, totalitarian Nazi regime, pumped massive amounts of aid into the country, rebuilt infrastructure a bit faster than the "freedom fighters" blow up the infrastructure, permitted the emergence of political institutions which have generated a constitution, prepared for national and local elections ... we are "occupiers" because we are seen as Christians present on holy Islamic soil.

What some folks don't seem to get is that we did not start this clash of civilizations. September 11, 2001 is the anniversary of a bloody wake up call - that a civilization is engaging in a religious war against the West.

Want to hear what that civilization is saying about 9/11?

Check out the current MEMRI

Here is a part of their recent review of Middle East media coverage of the anniversary - tell me there isn't a religious/cultural war going on:

Introduction
Days following the release of the September 11 Commission report this summer, Sheik Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the former dean of the faculty of Shariah at the University of Qatar and a leading Arab reformist, wrote an article in the London Arabic daily Al-Hayat on August 2, 2004, asking, "Why won't we [Arabs] take the opportunity of the appearance of the September 11 commission's report to ponder why destructive violence and a culture of destruction have taken root in our society? Why won't we take this opportunity to reconsider our educational system, our curricula, including the religious, media, and cultural discourse that cause our youth to live in a constant tension with the world?"
Within hours of the September 11 attacks, conspiracy theories began to emerge in the Middle East.(1) They were repeated by the highest echelons of powers, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was quoted in the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram weeks after the attack: "I find it hard to believe that people who were learning to fly in Florida could, within a year and a half, fly large commercial airlines and hit with accuracy the towers of the World Trade Center which would appear, to the pilot from the air, the size of a pencil. Only a professional pilot could carry out this mission." A year following the attacks, Saudi Arabia's powerful Interior Minister Prince Nayef more explicitly blamed "the Zionists."

During this past year leading up to the third anniversary of the attacks, there has been a consistent stream of articles and TV programs in the region's government-controlled media continuing to focus on conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks. The commemoration within the region's media includes statements made by leading professors, religious leaders, government officials, and even Muslim-Americans.

These conspiracy theories primarily state that Arabs and Muslims were not involved and that the U.S. government and/or Jews/Israel are the true culprits. While it should be no surprise that Iran, a country with no official ties with the U.S., is supporting many lies regarding September 11, the U.S.'s closet Arab allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are also supportive of these lies.

The Egyptian Media
In Egypt, Former Dean of Humanities at 'Ein Shams University, Mustafa Shak'a, was interviewed by Iqra TV on June 16, 2004. Shak'a attributed the September 11 attacks to the U.S. and the Jews: "To this day, we don't know who attacked the U.S. on September 11. Why is the attack attributed to bin Laden although it has not been proven that he was involved in the operation? It is way above his capabilities. Those who created him have made him a legend. The operation was 100% American, and this is not the place to elaborate, but what proves the operation was a Jewish one is that five Jews climbed up a high building and filmed the first attack of the first plane…"(2)

Another Egyptian professor, Galal Amin of the American University, wrote an article for Al-Ahram in April 2004: "The claim that the Greater Middle East Initiative aims, wholly or partly, to eliminate terror of the type seen on September 11, 2001 is unconvincing, for several reasons. One is that there is still doubt that the September attacks were the outcome of Arab and Islamic terror. No conclusive proof to this effect is yet available. Many writers, American and European, as well as Arab, suspect that the attacks were carried out by Americans, or with American assistance, or that Americans knew about them and kept silent. Such doubts are strong and rest on damning evidence, but the U.S. administration forcefully censors them and bans any discussion of the matter – something that, by the way, makes one suspect the U.S. administration's commitment to 'knowledge.' But enough of that."

In an article in the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya titled 'The Secret Israeli Weapon,' published on April 23, 2004, deputy editor Abd Al-Wahhab 'Adas accused the Jews of perpetrating all terrorism throughout the world, including the September 11 attacks: "Actually, it is they who are behind the events of September 11. Proof of this is what was broadcast by the Canadian news agency on September 17 … that prior to the events the CIA had received a report that the Mossad would carry out an attack operation on American territory, in a new attempt to divert attention from the barbaric Israeli operations against the Palestinian people. Further [proof] of this is the news in the American papers at that time, that 4,000 Jews of American origin who worked at the World Trade Center received instructions from the Mossad not to go to work that day. We also find a heavy blackout by America regarding the results of the investigations into the September 11 events. So far it has published no conclusions, and has not told us who the real perpetrator of these events is, as revealed by the investigations. Since America knows very well that the Jews and the Mossad are behind these events, it will never declare the results of the investigations..."

On August 9, 2004 Galal Dweidar, editor of the Al-Akhbar Egyptian government daily, wrote an article titled 'Barbarian Imperialist Occupation,' questioning who was really behind the attacks: "…There are strong doubts on the identity of those who schemed the terrorist action that targeted the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York…"

To commemorate the attacks of two years earlier, on September 11, 2003 Al-Arabiyya TV conducted an interview with Egyptian Muhammad Al-Amir Atta, father of Muhammad Atta, a leader of the 19 hijackers. He characterized the September 11 attacks as "100% made-in-America. All the facts that have been verified and published in the press, on television, and in the statements of officials in the U.S. and abroad prove definitively that this even is an American product, as I said on Egyptian television 72 hours after the event… The subject [at hand] is not my son; it is more general. Is my son or any of the other 19 young men – four of whom died over a year before the event – are these young men the ones who went to the 4,000 Jews and Americans who work at the World Trade Center to tell them not to go [there]? What I am saying was not stated in the newspapers, not stated by you, and not by me; rather, it was stated by America, and that is the truth. Four thousand American Jews did not come to work on September 11. [Moreover], none of the 101 Jewish businessmen – without exception – who booked tickets for business purposes for the four flights in America boarded the four planes, and none of them notified the airlines [that they would not be boarding]. About a week after the event, the American authorities arrested 117 Israelis – and not only Jews but Jewish Israelis – who had come from Israel to the U.S. and live in different groups located in the same vicinity in Florida. They were found to be holding detailed maps on the routes of the four planes. They were questioned, but no information was released. [Moreover], the FBI announced it had recorded two telephone calls on the 11th made by two congressmen at the Capitol to two American newspapers, in which they said, 'The zero hour has come, and the competition begins tomorrow.'"

For its September 10, 2003 edition, the Egyptian weekly Akher Sa'a interviewed several experts for articles commemorating September 11, 2001. Among them was General Mahmoud Khalaf, an Egyptian strategic expert, who said: "What took place on September 11 was a conspiratorial plan by the U.S. to justify invading Afghanistan and later Iraq. In 1999, books were published exposing a plan by far right-wing American hawks to fulfill the dream of a large empire, and there was an opportunity [for this] on September 11. They did not wait for investigations to expose the perpetrator of the operation, not even for those exposing the negligence in preventing the event. The American invasion of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, in other words, only three weeks after the September 11 event. This is not at all a sufficient period in which to transfer [military] forces, train them, and draft the operational plans. This proves these plans were ready at an earlier date and that the forces were close to Afghanistan, the results of which are unknown to this day. [In addition], the declared goals were not achieved. Afghanistan did not develop, it has not democracy or control, and bin Laden was not caught. But what was achieved is that the Americans positioned themselves along the borders of Russia, China, central Asia, and in the center of Islamic countries."

Also interviewed for Akher Sa'a was General Ali Hafzi, governor of the northern Sinai district: "The September 11, 2001 event was meant to determine and direct the events of the 21st century in order to force American hegemony on the world and to enable it to be the sole superpower in the world and prevent the Soviet Union from returning, or prevent the emergence of new superpowers, such as China, Japan, and others… The Americans have not yet announced the results of the investigation of the event. Moreover, an important document published after the event says that 6,000 Jews who used to work daily with the companies and offices housed in the World Trade Center did not go to [that area] on the day of September 11. Let us take a look at what [the U.S.] has achieved so far, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. has already reached the border of the former Soviet Union in order to prevent an attempt on the part of [the Soviets] to reemerge. It has also reached the Chinese border in order to keep it from spreading to a particular local or regional border so that it does not reach the stage of becoming a world superpower…"




Enjoy the Music. Trust your ears. Laugh at Folks Who Claim to Know it All.