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too many questions, not enough answers..

  
 
rizla mission
12:38 / 17.10.01
..is how I'm feeling right now in regards to the current situation.

(it's a bit of a rant this)

Normally, when 'important events' go down, the mainstream media can at least be relied on to provide the basic facts of a situation, even if they aguably do so in a biased or incomplete fashion..

But since 9/11, there's loads of stuff that NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW..

Just how many people in total have been arrested for terrotism in US and Europe?

How many of them are suspected of a direct connection with the WTC attacks, and how many of them have just been rounded up on the basis of being Muslims with 'extreme beliefs' or supposed connections with terror groups?

Exactly WHAT is being bombed in Afghanistan?

Exactly WHAT is the Western allies plan, assuming they actually have one?

What about terror groups in based in other countries? Are we gonna bomb them too?

If Afghanistan the target just cos they're not very powerful and nobody much likes them?

And the Anthrax thing opens up so many unanswered questions I can't even begin to list them..

It's been a pretty cliched thing to say recently, but "truth is the first casualty of war", and media coverage has been by turns inconclusive, contradictory, over-emotional and completely subjective, repeating endlessly soundbites and opinions that mean next to nothing whilst almost ignoring stuff which I'd class as being pretty fucking important..

Hunter S Thompson is his recent column written a day or two after 9/11 (can't find link -oops - it's in another thread) says that censorship, propaganda and disinformation are going to be inescapable in the near future, and to my mind he's been proved right...

I hate to come over as overtly paranoid, but just how musch stuff do you think we're simply NOT BEING TOLD?

Why are news sources suddenly so .. INCOMPETENT, at a time when they should be anything but?

But then on the other hand, does ANYONE - sinister government agencies and the military-industrial complex included - really know what's going on?

For precisely these reasons, I'm having difficulty really formulating a coherent response to the current situation (but then I do at the best of times).

Is anyone else having similar problems? It's almost like .. trying to grope around in the dark - the only people who claim to know what's going on are clearly opinionated and sided with one particular cause..

(I'm about to lapse into a discussion of whether or not the world is run on a principle of chaos, and whether anyone has ever known what's going on, but I don't want to make this silly, rambling post any longer, so I'll save that for another day when I've had a bit more of a think about it)
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:07 / 17.10.01
I think your first two questions, Rizla, are being withheld from us and that someone indeed has the full picture in that regard. The others, I think there is disagreement among the various powerful people who are in charge, and that reflects in the vague coverage the media gives to those issues.

I am having a difficult time making up my mind myself, regarding a lot of things. I know I don't think an air way is justified or effective. I also know that I think the Taliban should be removed (I have long been of the opinion that they were the most repressive regime on the planet). But other than that, I'm not sure what remedies are desirable and likely.

Incidentally, did anyone else see that CNN has submitted 6 questions in writing to Osama bin Laden and that they expect him to answer them in his next videotaped statement to the world? Who brokered that deal?
 
 
Not Here Still
16:25 / 17.10.01
There are very few answers to a lot of questions because, basically, people are only telling you what they want you to know - and they are clamping down hard on anything which deviates from this.

You can generally expect Government agencies to have to give certain information out - but, at the moment, people will not be able to access anything but biased information.

And I don't mean media bias, I mean the bias being put on the info from both sides in the 'war', if to suggest such a thing as 'sides' is not itself too simplistic.

As to whether there are peole not involved in the terrorist attacks being arrested, you can probably take it as given, knowing what bastards some in positions of power can be, that the 'War on Terrorism' will be used as a catch-all to get some who your Government doesn't like - wherever you are, and whoever they are.

>>I hate to come over as overtly paranoid, but just how musch stuff do you think we're simply NOT BEING TOLD?

Lots of things - but how much do you think you are simply not told every day?
There is a supposed 'justification' to Government censorship at the moment - becasue we are at 'war', they do not have to tell anyone anything they do not like.

And they've been abusing it - have a look at some of the recent attacks on the BBC's Kate Adie, for instance.

>> Why are news sources suddenly so .. INCOMPETENT, at a time when they should be anything but?

Because they can't get anyone on the ground. In places like Iraq and Kosovo, people like the BBC's John Simpson were able to get in and report on what was happening.
In doing so, they were able to get some of what was happening - and at least tell people some of the news without Governmental interference.

In Afghanistan, hardly anyone can get in - and so we are relying on what the US/UK coalition or the Taliban tell us.

I'd suggest not trusting either source, really.

>>Exactly WHAT is being bombed in Afghanistan?

Terrorist training camps, Rizla old boy. Because the intelligence of the US and UK is really good. They can defintely pinpoint these camps, and they promise not to hit any Chinese embassies this time (although Red Cross centres are a different matter.)

>>What about terror groups in based in other countries? Are we gonna bomb them too?

Well, George said so. And said he'd go after those who funded terrorists. Look forward to the CIA being shut down....

>>If Afghanistan the target just cos they're not very powerful and nobody much likes them?

No, not at all. They're strategically important, too.

>>But then on the other hand, does ANYONE - sinister government agencies and the military-industrial complex included - really know what's going on?

No, but no-one ever does. Except perhaps Laila.

[ 17-10-2001: Message edited by: Not Me Again ]
 
  
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