Before Dismissing The Conspiracy Theories

Jordan Times ^

[RCW2001]

By Dr Naseer Alomari

THE ARAB media outlets are often ridiculed for elaborating conspiracy theories. Highly “professional” and “balanced” American journalists condescendingly invite the “novice” Arab news outlets to be realistic, report facts, and accept what they consider uncontroversial truth. The reason why conspiracy theories are entertained in the Arab world is a pattern of conspiratorial reporting by some major American media outlets. The things that are left underreported or even unreported are picked up in the Arab world for further analysis. The conspiracy, as seen by many Arabs, lies in the amount of emphasis put on certain events, while ignoring what would be real “breaking news”. The conspiracy is in the way the major American media outlets pick and choose what the American public can hear. On May 13, Fox News reported that the police pulled over two Israeli nationals who were driving a truck “near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station and found to have traces of TNT on the gearshift and traces of RDX plastic explosive on the steering wheel”. No “respected” news anchor raised the question of whether a link exists between terrorism in America and the Israeli government. The events that led to the arrest of the two Israeli nationals were purely incidental. Could this be part of a bigger plot that aims to tarnish the image of the Arab and Muslim minorities in the United States and link Arab governments to terrorism? We will never know because the American media chose not to follow up. The list of suspicious Israeli espionage activities goes on and on. The Associated Press reported on March 5, 2002, that American “authorities have arrested and deported dozens of young Israelis since early last year who represented themselves as art students in efforts to gain access to sensitive federal office buildings and the homes of government employees”. If that does not constitute a pattern of misbehaviour that is worthy of reporting by the American media, what is? In contrast, a poem by the Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain, in which he praised Palestinian resistance, is treated as breaking news that is worthy of extended coverage. The most perceptive and open-minded Arab is left with no choice but to question the dubious relationship between the American media and the invisible hands of the Israeli government on what news items are reported to the American public. Conspiratorial reporting turned underreported the terrorist plot by a Jewish American group that planned terrorist attacks on American citizens. On Dec. 13, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that “the chairman of the militant Jewish Defence League and another of the group's top officials faced federal charges for plotting to blow up a Los Angeles area mosque and an office of Rep. Darrell Issa” who is an Arab American. Why do some American media outlets believe that Americans need not know this? Why is this reported hesitantly? Why is a Saudi poem more serious than this? Israeli loyalists in the United States have tightened their grip on what the American people can hear. They strive to pit the American public against the Arabs, they aim to manufacture a military confrontation between America and the Arab world, and they spare no effort to keep the American public in darkness vis-ý-vis the suspicious activities of the Israeli government on American soil. Does that not make a conspiracy? The writer, a Jordanian assistant professor of education at Marist College, New York, is involved in local Arab and Muslim community centres. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

[scratchgolfer]

A vanity conspiracy site. Figures.

[Grampa Dave]

In a few years after Opec and its Islamic thug nations have translated "You are either with us or against us!"

I will then mean

The NOpecker Princes!

Thanks, this is great.

Our goal is to turn the Opecker Princes into The NOPECKER Princes!

[MarMema]

Threads for Whidbey Island truck mystery -

thread 1

Thread 2

dud thread

apparent conspiracy posting about the incident

[MarMema]

The thing is my husband is a chemist/toxicologist and tells me those tests are not so easily false positives. He wasn't hysterical or anything, he just raised his eyebrows and made the comment that he didn't think lighter fluid or whatever was going to cause two false positive tests, as reported in the story.

And from further discussion with him, I don't personally believe the initial tests were both false positives. I work in a medical laboratory, which certainly has a higher standard perhaps, but to get two false positives in my field would be a huge coincidence.

So that's one thing...and the other is that Whidbey Island seems to have a lot of mysterious happenings. A photo of the Deception Pass bridge was found in Afghanistan among the terrorist stuff. The supposed story about the truck drivers going that way back to Canada is a crock, imo. And just north of us in Canada is a hotbed of islamic scum. So we just tend to think Whidbey is high on their list of targets, in our home.

Just last week they welcomed home men from Enduring Freedom in a huge celebration of patriotism. I think it was yahoo that had the photos of it.

I have no clue what the conspiracy site is trying to say but I do think something odd happened and I would like to know what it was. Whidbey is good, patriotic, American people, lots of military family, and some good friends of ours too.

[ThinkNot]

How dare they spread vicious truths like that!

[MarMema]

From the article in the PI about the story being a dud -
Smith said delivery trucks from British Columbia routinely pass through the island on their way to the ferry slip at Keystone, a short-cut to the Olympic Peninsula.

Oak Harbor is just north of Keystone on this map. Those truckers would have had to take two ferries to cross the border, and those ferries do not run at midnight. They were not going to be crossing the border that night so where were they going?
They could have crossed the border if they had gone back to I-5 and headed north, at midnight or any time, but that border crossing is picky and hard to get through. We never make it through without being pulled over as we have children from Russia.
I am not generally into the tin foil thing, but this is bogus all the way.
Anyway the PI is a crock in itself.

[MarMema]

And btw, that border crossing where these truckers were supposedly headed is thought to be a cinch to get through. It is, in fact, the same border crossing where Ressam was stopped on his way to LA with explosives. I saw the agent on tv talking about having stopped Ressam, crying, and pretty much attributing the instinct or impulse to hold Ressam to God or some higher power, admittedly because they normally don't give things like that a second thought at that crossing.
Though I suppose they may be doing so now, it is still a tourist crossing, primarily. No one who wants to make time and get somewhere takes that route.

[xlib]

The list of suspicious Israeli espionage activities goes on and on. The Associated Press reported on March 5, 2002, that American “authorities have arrested and deported dozens of young Israelis since early last year who represented themselves as art students in efforts to gain access to sensitive federal office buildings and the homes of government employees”. If that does not constitute a pattern of misbehaviour that is worthy of reporting by the American media, what is?

The US Govt actually DEPORTED foriegners suspected of suspicious activity? That IS news!

[hellinahandcart]

They were not going to be crossing the border that night so where were they going?

I was confused when I read that too, because in the first article about this, it was stated that the men claimed to have been delivering furniture from California. Not Canada. Maybe the PI was purely speculating about their ultimate destination, based solely on the proximity of Whidbey Island to the Canadian border, and that's why they threw that paragraph in. But a border-crossing may not have been what the men intended to do at all, and the mention of ferries and checkpoints would be a total red herring in that case.

Maybe they just meant to return to their point of origin, wherever that was. If the truck was rented in California, they were probably returning to California. Just because it wasn't in the PI (you did say they sucked, after all) doesn't mean the FBI and police haven't checked out where the truck came from, and anything else they could find in the way of receipts or purchases to establish the previous whereabouts of these two guys.

I can't get past the fact that it was a rented truck, which had no explosives in it. Unless they're able to dig up something else on these guys, I'm afraid it's going to be strictly deportation for them.