9/11

[professor]

Short answer-
The media have never been super concerned with telling the truth.

[*Deidre*]

Please forgive me for bringing this painful subject up, but I was curious as to peoples view on the medias' reaction to that tragedy. It was billed as a "terrorist" act and yet it was religiously motivated. Why then did the media not report it as such?

Depending on the media outlet covering the story, it was dubbed as religiously motivated. Since the news networks have all basically turned into editorials and outlets for sharing opinions not facts, it's pure speculation as to what motivated the attacks on 9/11.

[downbeatplumb]

Short answer-
The media have never been super concerned with telling the truth.

If by "media" you mean fox news then you are correct

[Thumpalumpacus]

On a random speech, Bush had a verbal flip and called it a crusade. Just saying, cause in his mind, it certainly was.

And I bet that got the rightards fired up to some degree, but had the war been officially branded a crusade of the religious sort, the effort may have been weighed down considerably. Terrorism, in a sort of "Family Fued- survey says.." sense, is a safer bet garnering more votes.

Some of the cover sheets from DoD briefings indicate that high-level government officials held our war there to be a religious war of sorts:







There are many more like this, too.

---

If by "media" you mean fox news then you are correct

The idea that Fox is the only outlet with spin is naive.

[Exian]

Oh, I've never seen those before. Do you take those to mean the war was officially sold as Christianity vs Islam? I wonder if those DoD breifings are as pervasive as the media outlets? I wonder if similar biblical quotes weren't used in other US war efforts? It wouldn't surprise me, seeing as "Christian" is almost a prerequisite to hold any official position.

[abaris]

Oh, I've never seen those before. Do you take those to mean the war was officially sold as Christianity vs Islam? I wonder if those DoD breifings are as pervasive as the media outlets? I wonder if similar biblical quotes weren't used in other US war efforts? It wouldn't surprise me, seeing as "Christian" is almost a prerequisite to hold any official position.

Cheney certainly believed in the revelations of Halliburton and the miracle of the stock market, once Iraq was invaded and the contracts handed out.

But his puppet in the Oval Office showed symptoms of serious religious infection at every given opportunity.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Oh, I've never seen those before. Do you take those to mean the war was officially sold as Christianity vs Islam? I wonder if those DoD breifings are as pervasive as the media outlets? I wonder if similar biblical quotes weren't used in other US war efforts? It wouldn't surprise me, seeing as "Christian" is almost a prerequisite to hold any official position.

Those cover sheets weren't released to the media; they were uncovered in a Vanity Fair article about five or six years ago. The war wasn't sold to the public as a religious war, but rather as a combination of GWoT and Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs -- the public was fed the spectre of a nuclear Iraq arming terrorists. Those cover sheets were for in-house briefing materials and not intended for public consumption at all, as the classification verbiage clearly shows ("top secret") -- almost as if those who saw this as a religious crusade knew that making such attitudes public would certainly call into question their claims vis WMDs and terror links.

As for religious invocations in other wars, in WWII clearly many Americans at the highest level of government and military leadership regarded our war against Germany as a righteous crusade blessed by their god; but to my knowledge, the religious overlay of emotion wasn't echoed in official documentation as was the Iraq invasion.

Other wars, to a greater or lesser extent. WWI was viewed more politically ("make the world safe for democracy" was Wilson's catchphrase). The Spanish-American war was, on the surface, a war against cruel imperialist oppressors, while in reality it was simply a land grab by an upstart Great Power against a tottering empire. The Civil War definitely had religious overtones attached to it, including Lincoln himself invoking his god at times.

[abaris]

The Spanish-American war was, on the surface, a war against cruel imperialist oppressors, while in reality it was simply a land grab by an upstart Great Power against a tottering empire.

I believe, it was the first war for the benefit of corporations. In this case, if I remember correctly, it was the United fruit company and bananas.

[Thumpalumpacus]

That was certainly the fallout. Of course, throughout the 20s and 30s we weren't shy about throwing the Marines at any Caribbean government that tried to tax the plantation-owners.

[abaris]

That was certainly the fallout. Of course, throughout the 20s and 30s we weren't shy about throwing the Marines at any Caribbean government that tried to tax the plantation-owners.

Yeah, you're right of course. I mixed that up with what's called the banana wars, which was a series of small conflicts in the interest of fruit companies.