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How US Media Propagated Sep 11 Attacks - By- Shaili Chopra Shaili is currently a senior graduate student in Economics Honours at Delhi University, India. She is the features editor of a print magazine called "Campus dot com" for the university itself. She is a fond cook and a intrepid traveller. She is fond of writing and poetry. Her poetry and writings are published in many magazines, Newspapers and on websites.

Smoke and debris blotting out the sun, were carried by television into homes and workplaces across the nation -- It all sounds like a dramatic start to an article but a second read hits its reality into the face. Something quite like "the mushroom of human flesh" we had read in chapters on Hiroshima.

The media made us live spectators to what happened to the WTC towers. But the same media instigated America to believe it was a challenge to its supremacy. And perhaps it is the same media waiting to watch and show the war that will wage much due to its own propaganda. Another Kosovo, Bosnia or Cuba.

While covering the larger picture, American chauvinism was devoutly expressed in taking a White Man's view of the terrorist attack. Some channels overpowered by patriotic emotions, groped for rejoicing and celebration in the other parts of world, insidiously blaming people for the attacks. "7 out of every ten people want a military attack," carried a newspaper. Such scary statistics only propagate war. We forget America claims to be the melting pot of cultures thriving economically and contributing thus. Clinton had said once, "Our Asians will outdo Asians". But suddenly America has become the white man's land and there is no news whatsoever about the status of the non-white Americans living there, what they feel and how they can help. The non-American in America is now an enemy. While the Asian community is spamming each other with requests to stand by America, Asians are being ostracized in the open.

It is rather obvious that the media is biased and its perspective is based on fiery and hasty perceptions. Yes, there is a gush of pain and emotion for those dead but is the solution in a war, a proof of American anger, and might, which is now being questioned? What we forget is that terrorism is indivisible and needs to be dealt with at a cogent level by a united body, sensibly rather than arbitrarily bombing and striking nations. Do you know who did it? The Muslims. Which Muslims? Those in Afganistan? Pakistan? India? Indonesia? You see a muslim is a muslim is a mulism for the American. How will you distinguish the terrorist and the innocent? Ordinary civilians on ordinary pursuits become targets.

"American missiles blowing up Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana a few days later and about a Lebanese militia - paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps. Ask an Arab how he responds to 20 or 30 thousand innocent deaths and he or she will respond as good and decent people should, that it is an unspeakable crime. But they will ask why we did not use such words about the sanctions that have destroyed the lives of perhaps half a million children in Iraq, why we did not rage about the 17,500 civilians killed in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, why we allowed one nation in the Middle East to ignore UN Security Council resolutions but bombed and sanctioned all others who did. " (Robert Fisk, Independent).

Kosovo watching itself crumble to whims of NATO strikes as the civilians were taught a lesson. Why were bombing of civilian flat buildings in Moscow mentioned in passing? Vietnamese covered up for?

Where all will the war spread? Until American ego has cooled down? There is a huge discrepancy here. It is likely when you head to kill 100 military men, you'll find 500 bodies. What is frightening is that it is not a war between nations but between strangely extreme ways of life, liberal on one hand and fundamental on the other. Will the terrorist back their bags and sit in a rat hole after America has 'bombed' Afghanistan? Oh! Just like all of them did after the Gulf war! They all are not only existing until today but flourishing in their operations.

It is a gross underestimation to ignore that many thousands and more are now scheduled to die in the West Asia, perhaps in America too. This war is not only confined to Osama and his friends but will spread into one that includes Muslims, Sikhs and then the entire of Central Asia. For the Americans, they all look like descendants of one blue turbaned family! An instance in evidence is the killing of a Sikh in the States.

There is a vacuum here suffocating human belieFs; reducing them to a painful knot in the stomach - a knot that yells with trembling fear, " Where are we going now- WAR?". Theology vs technology, the suicide bomber against the nuclear power, the terror versus the terrorist, the ordinary man versus the feiriest of weapons, FEAR.

Do we need bad times?

Footnote
The author wrote this article before U.S. launched its military strikes on Afghanistan

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