Posted on 02/14/2006 3:24:30 PM PST by SJackson
As a Ph.D. Islamologist and Arabist I really hate to say this, but I'll say it anyway: 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam. The war on terror is as phony as the latest Osama bin Laden tape.
It's a tough thing to admit because I know on which side my bread is buttered and dropping Islam from the 9/11 equation is dropping my slice of bread butter-side-down. The myth that 9/11 had something to do with Muslims has poured millions, if not billions, into Arabic and Islamic studies. I finished my Ph.D. last year, so all I have to do is keep my eyes in my pocket and my nose on the ground, parrot the party line, and I'll be on the fast track to tenure track.
The trouble is, it's all based on a Big Lie. Take the recent "bin Laden" tape please! That voice was no more bin Laden than it was Rodney Dangerfield channeling my late Aunt Corinne from Peoria. I recently helped translate a previously unknown bin Laden tape, a real one from the early '90s, back when he was still alive. I know the guy's flowery religious rhetoric. The recent tape wasn't him.
The top American bin Laden expert agrees. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies department, has just published a book of translations of bin Laden's speeches. He says that the recent tape is a fake and that it is possible bin Laden is not even alive.
Fake bin Laden tapes, "verified" by the CIA, are nothing new. Every supposed bin Laden statement since 2001 has been blatantly bogus. The last we heard from the real bin Laden came in his post-9/11 statements to Pakistani journalists: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation. ... I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. ... I had no knowledge of these attacks."
Then on Dec. 13, 2001, as George Bush was whining about the "outrageous conspiracy theories" that were spreading like wildfire, the first and shoddiest of the "bin Laden speaks from beyond the grave" tapes appeared. The video's sound and picture quality were horrible. It showed a big guy with a black beard, doing a passable imitation of bin Laden's voice, claiming foreknowledge, if not responsibility, for the 9/11 attacks, and chortling over their success. The trouble was, the big guy clearly was not bin Laden. He was at least 40 or 50 pounds heavier, and his facial features were obviously different.
The "Fatty bin Laden" tape was widely ridiculed, and I have yet to meet an informed observer who considers it authentic. (If you haven't figured this out yet, go back and look at the images from the tape and compare them to other images of bin Laden.) But the media let the fraud pass without asking the hard questions: Why was the U.S. government waving this blatantly fake "confession" video in our faces?
Perhaps due to the widespread hilarity evoked by "Fatty bin Laden," the next Osama from beyond the grave message had no images it was an audiotape delivered to al-Jazeera in fall 2002. The CIA verified it as authentic and then got a rotten egg in the face when the world's foremost voice identification experts in Switzerland reported that "the message was recorded by an impostor."
Every bin Laden message since then has been equally phony. They are released at moments when the Bush regime needs a boost and the American media go along with the fraud. Remember the bogus bin Laden tape that made headlines right before the 2004 presidential election? If you didn't figure out that it was a CIA-produced commercial for George Bush, I have some great bridges to sell you. Walter Cronkite, bless his heart, opined that Karl Rove was behind that tape. But the rest of the media just kept pretending that the emperor was clothed.
And the fraud continues. The most recent alleged bin Laden tape has been ridiculed by America's top bin Laden expert, yet the U.S. media keep right on holding a transparent fig leaf in front of the emperor! Professor Lawrence believes that this phony tape was designed to distract world opinion from the horrific massacre of Pakistani civilians by an errant CIA drone. But it may have another, more sinister purpose: to prepare public opinion for another false 9/11-style attack designed to trigger a U.S.-Israeli nuclear attack on Iran.
The real bin Laden, who insisted that he had nothing to do with 9/11, has been dead since late 2001 or early 2002. The fake messages have been fabricated by "al-CIA-duh" to support the Bush regime and its phony "war on terror." It is time for Americans to rise up in revolt against the fake terror masters who are looting U.S. taxpayers, torching our Constitution, destroying our economy, and threatening nuclear Armageddon.
Kevin Barrett holds a Ph.D. in Arabic, with a focus on Islamic studies, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth: http://mujca.com. E-mail: kevin@mujca.com
So you believe they are true?
Speaking for myself, I honestly don't know.
Kevin Barrett, a Muslim since 1992, has taught Islam, English, French, Arabic, Humanities, African Literature, American Civilization, and Folklore at colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Paris, and Madison, Wisconsin. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in African Languages and Literature (Arabic). In November, 2004, Barrett co-founded MUJCA-NET, the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth. Barrett explains his decision to move from literature to activism by citing a story from Israel Shamir, the Israeli intellectual and MUJCA-NET endorser who moved from Russain [sic] literature to anglophone activism in response to Ariel Sharons outrages of 2001:
...
Since 9/11, the USA has not been all right. (Okay, it wasnt perfect beforebut on 9/11/01 we went from Weimar America to the Neocon Reich.)
'nuff said.
OK.
If he hasn't issued any "real" tapes, then he's obviously dead.
That's what I figured too...One of those sources that should signal barf on its own...
Thanks Bill. SJackson explained to me that he likes to post the nutty things written by leftists in the media to illustrate their absurdity and I accept that. I felt I gave them adequate opportunity to respond as to why he posts those things yesterday when I politely asked, but unfortunately nothing was said until I finally got vigorous with him on this thread. I made a mistake, but it wasn't without a reason for suspicion.
You really think that it's possible KR/WH/CIA is behind these tapes??? ROFL. Okaaaaay. I'll bet we didn't "really" land on the moon, either.
What a bunch of utter crap.
Did he study under Timothy Leary?
I met him (Leary) once when he was a guest speaker at my University.
After his inchoate ramblings about his "Egg" theory, he asked me what I, as a Soc major, thought.
I smiled and very calmly stated: "The speech was very eloquent, but I didn't know that you could stack bullshit that high."
I've never seen one of him smiling which would make the cheeks puffier, but nose does not look like the one in D. Maybe D is not Osama. It's such a poor capture, I can't tell much from it and can't get the video to play because it uses RealPlayer. The subject of Photo E does not look sickly like pics I have seen of Osama.
Makes me glad to know that these MAD weirdos take themselves so seriously.... MAKES ME LAUGH OUT LOUD!!
Sjackson is a great freeper. I consider him a GREAT source for much interesting and challenging stuff.
By the way, WHO made you the arbiter, the decision maker, of what gets posted here???
And, also.... IF you do not want to know about what the MAD weirdos are saying/writing... just pass the posts by.
Thanks for reading this post from one really old vet who reads as many Sjackson posts as possible!!
Yeah thats Micheal Rivero's site. He was a loon here in the early days of FR. The guy was certifiable aluminum foil hat wearing nut!
Even if you think it's not Bin Laden based on looking at only one frame of a 20 minute videotape in which it is clearly Bin Laden as seen in close ups and from just a few feet away during the rest of the video, could it be it's Al Qaeda faking the video to show that Bin Laden is still alive when in fact he's not and not that the WH/CIA were the real culprits behind 9-11?
I mean, the CIA and NSA can't keep secret a terrorist wiretap program. You really think if they carried out 9-11 that could have been kept under wraps and someone wouldn't have leaked it by now?
Hard for me to believe you've been around FR since 2000 and you haven't a clue as to the nature of SJackson's posts. Have you hijacked the account you are using or did you suffer a recent blow to the head?
ML/NJ
A Phd in Arabic from Madison. I won't demean the accomplishment, but it's different.
By the way, WHO made you the arbiter, the decision maker, of what gets posted here???
When did I ever say I was? But I guess if you can be the "arbiter" of what I'm allowed to say to your worship SJackson, I can be allowed to say I think posting trash is a waste of time.
Sheesh, take it easy. I apologized to SJackson and we are fine with each other, so why do you need to continue to be nasty, rude and flip with me when SJackson and I made amens and told me not to worry about my having misjudged him. Take a pill.
Lord, when did you sign up, today?
If SJackson is a lefty, I'm off the deep end.
Perhaps. But anyone in a position to know these things, shouldn't be talking about them. Much less commiting them to print. An article like this is, by definition, pure speculation.
I'm some dude in a condo in SE WI, I have absolutely no way of actually knowing what happened that day, or the events leading up to the attacks. I have the same resources you do, TV, Web, radio, paper, magazines, I take what they present and form my own opinion of what probably happened. I do occasionally think about a possible conspiracy and what makes me do is the coverage and follow up to major disasters that eventually turn out to smell funny, i.e TWA 800, Waco, OKC. These things happen and instead of reporting of the events and lead-up, we hear about tolerance, pretty dead girls, and never showing the footage of 9/11 again. I know this professor is probably some slime-ball lib teaching at UW-Madistan and hates America to begin with, so I'll take what he says under advisement. Thanks for your interest in me and my opinion.
"Hard for me to believe you've been around FR since 2000 and you haven't a clue as to the nature of SJackson's posts. Have you hijacked the account you are using or did you suffer a recent blow to the head?"
I don't pay attention to names of posters and who posts what or their past Free Republic history or an exhaustive mental catalogue of their FR comments. I read the content of articles only. And I questioned why the constant postings from this source. SJackson explained himself and I accept his motives were purely innocent and out of a desire to inform. I misjudged SJackson and apologized, so don't get your panties in a twist. It's between he and myself and we resolved it. No need to be rude.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.