The 9/11 Decade: The Image War

The US and al-Qaeda tried spin, threats, lies and censorship to win the propaganda war, but did anyone succeed?

Since then, the US and al-Qaeda have competed furiously to win 'hearts and minds' with elaborate media strategies. Spin, threats, lies, censorship, the killing of journalists; how far has each side been prepared to go to win the propaganda war?

In the 'war on terror' the exploitation of images was to become a matter of life and death, as both the US and al-Qaeda bombarded the world with media designed to win people over to their side.

It started with 9/11 itself: an act of terror staged as a global media event and the catalyst for a decade of propaganda war.

But al-Qaeda's canny use of 9/11 imagery, which included saving footage of the attackers for release at a later date so as to maximise publicity, gave way to serious errors in judgement as the group's use of beheadings not only terrorised viewers but also alienated one-time sympathisers.

The US, for its part, did not perform any better with Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib becoming prime examples of how to lose a war.

And so, the image war goes on.

On this image war no other news organization more despised than Al Jazeera which was targeted by the U.S. and its allies among them was cameraman Sami al-Hajj

An al-Jazeera journalist was held at Guantánamo for six years partly in order to be interrogated about the Arabic news network, the files disclose. Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese cameraman, was detained in Pakistan after working for the network in Afghanistan after 9/11, and flown to the prison camp where he was allegedly beaten and sexually assaulted.

His file makes clear that one of the reasons he was sent to Guantánamo was "to provide information on ... the al-Jazeera news network's training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network's acquisition of a video of UBL [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL".

Charles Koch: Obama Is Saddam Hussein

If I were an American and someone referred to the president, any president as a reincarnation of Saddam Hussein a man kill thousands of his citizens which included a chemical gas attack on a Kurd village in 1988 which killed unknown number of people I just might be a little pissed not matter my opinion of Barack Obama.

Charles and David Koch are ultra right wing American billionaires who fund various conservative think tanks and organizations.

On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995, and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small.

The 9/11 Decade: When Human And Civil Rights Left The Building

One of the casualties of the September 11 2001 on New York and Washington was the revocation of human and civil rights by governments that were considered bastions of representative government: The United States, Great Briton, Germany and Japan among many others. They supported renditions of suspected terror suspects to Syria, Egypt and Thailand all with a history of torture. Documents recently uncovered show that the C.I.A and MI6 sent suspected terrorist suspects to Qaddafi's Libya to be tortured including this man.

Abdel Hakim Belhadj was put on a CIA “rendition” flight to Tripoli, where he says he was repeatedly tortured, after British intelligence officers provided information on his movements. Mr Belhadj, who is now a leader of the rebel forces that have ousted Gaddafi, has demanded an apology from Britain for its part in the “illegal” 2004 operation and has suggested he might sue the Government. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary at the time, denied any knowledge of the incident, and tried to shift the blame on to MI6 saying: “No foreign secretary can know all the details of what its intelligence agencies are doing.”

Julian Assange Should Be In A Mental Institution

That was the pronouncement made by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati after Wikileaks published a U.S. Department of State cable accusing her of being an egomaniac.

Terming the allegations against her, her government, its officials and partymen as "baseless", she said, "They are wrong, mischievous and derogatory and an effort to damage the image of the government and condemned them". The chief minister also criticised those indulging in "dirty politics" and a section of the media for showing "one sided report" without taking the reaction of the government .This is indicative of their anti-Dalit mentality, she said. According to the WikiLeaks report on Mayawati, the chief minister was obsessed with security and that she had once despatched a plane to get her favourite sandals from Mumbai.

There is a slight problem with her statement Wikileaks didn't write the cable the U.S. Department of State did.

The 9/11 Decade-The Intelligence War

Immediately after 9/11, the US announced that 'the gloves were coming off' in the fight against al-Qaeda. A unique Presidential Finding gave the CIA greater powers than it had enjoyed in its history. Electronic eavesdropping, kidnap, rendition and water-boarding were the results. This film explores how the CIA fought al-Qaeda in the shadows, focusing on the monitoring of its communications, the group's escape from Tora Bora and the problems this raised. We examine the highs and lows of the intelligence war, revealing how the US nearly lost outright in 2003 and how al-Qaeda negated its own advances through a bloody campaign to eliminate Iraq's Shias.

Six In The Morning

U.S. Appeals to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote on Statehood By STEVEN LEE MYERS and MARK LANDLER WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation this month over a plan by Palestinians to seek recognition as a state at the United Nations, but it may already be too late, according to senior American officials and foreign diplomats. The administration has circulated a proposal for renewed peace talks with the Israelis in the hopes of persuading the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to abandon the bid for recognition at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly beginning Sept. 20.

The hunt for Gaddafi – and his victims – goes on Samia Nakhoul and Mohammed Abbas in Tripoli and David Randall report on the search for the former dictator and for the disappeared Sunday, 4 September 2011 There are two desperate searches going on in Libya this weekend. One is the hunt for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the other for tens of thousands of his victims. Many of these victims will be dead, some may be wounded but alive; but their relatives won't know which until they can trace them or their bodies. And so, across the country, at hospitals and burial grounds, relatives arrive to ask questions, show photographs, and hope for answers. Many will never be given them.

'It Is Possible to Pull the Plug' The Internet and Iran SPIEGEL: Iran has announced its intention to completely cut itself off from the Internet. Is such a thing realistic? Howard: The government in Tehran has already shown itself to be capable of such a thing. Following the controversial re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009, the country was cut off for about 24 hours. But when a regime shuts down the Internet, it is usually also a last, desperate measure. SPIEGEL: Even in 2009, the country wasn't completely offline.

Elections to be held by March 2012, says Mugabe HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Sep 04 2011 　　 "We cannot go beyond March next year," Mugabe was quoted as saying by the state-run Herald while addressing his Zanu-PF members. "I will definitely announce the date. "Once I announce the date, everyone will follow. I have the constitutional right to name an election date with the GPA (Global Political Agreement) or no GPA." Mugabe's announcement marks a major about-turn for the veteran leader who has previously said elections would be held this year.

Witness to a decade that redefined Southeast Asia As he leaves his post in Bangkok, a correspondent looks at how a rising China has changed the Southeast Asia region after 9/11. By Simon Montlake, Correspondent Bangkok, Thailand It was the summer of 2001. I was covering an election in East Timor, a newly minted nation at the end of the world. It was my first assignment for the Monitor, the start of a decade of reporting in Southeast Asia, filing hundreds of stories from across a diverse region of 600 million people. Two years earlier, East Timor had broken free of Indonesia's brutal occupation. It now aspired to join the ranks of global democracies, including the mightiest of all, the freedom-loving United States. Never mind that Washington had backed Indonesia's dictator General Suharto and other Asian strongmen. The cold war was over, Suharto was gone, and Southeast Asia's tiger economies were roaring again, all under the protection of the US security umbrella.

India's Anna Hazare, from village activist to national campaigner 　Anna Hazare started out as a grass-roots activist in Ralegan Siddhi, but now he is an anti-corruption crusader tackling the Indian political establishment. His supporters believe he will win. By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times September 4, 2011 Reporting from Ralegan Siddhi, India— Suman Gaikwad's husband had a drinking problem, as did many other farmers in this small village where, in the late 1970s, dozens of shops sold fruit wine and other home brews. Back then, domestic abuse was common and families went hungry if their men diverted money to buy booze and cigarettes. Things changed, though, when squat, burly Anna Hazare returned from the army, determined to uplift the community.

The Burma Boy