New UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn can’t seem to escape controversy, even if most of it is political mudslinging and media spin. This week’s hot button issue is the so called controversial comments he made in the past about the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon in Washington.
A staunch anti-war advocate, in 2003 he called out what he saw as “manipulation” of the narrative by Western leaders in order to exert influence over Afghanistan.
“After September 11, the claims that Bin Laden and al-Qaida had committed the atrocity were quickly and loudly made … This was turned into an attack on the Taliban and then, subtly, into regime change in Afghanistan.”
Not satisfied with accepting his comments as a self evident fact, based on exactly what the Bush and Blair governments did – blame Bin Laden right away, invade Afghanistan where none of the alleged culprits were even found, and then begin meddling in their affairs – the majority of the mainstream media have branded what he said as something shocking and offensive.
Meanwhile the 9/11 Truthers (activists who believe elements of the US government and other actors where the real terrorists behind of the attacks) have erroneously adopted Corbyn as one of their own, even though he has never expressed that he thinks it was an “inside job.”
In a strange case of mutual goals, both the mainstream media and the online alternative media seem to want you to believe that Corbyn is a Truther. The former because they think it will paint him as crazy fringe nut job who shouldn’t be supported, and the latter because they think it bolsters their 9/11 Truth activism.
Back in reality all that can really be concluded by Corbyn’s comments is that he logically assessed the situation at the time and was rightly skeptical of the two men who are now both disgraced for their foreign policy – Bush and Blair.
If you’ve forgotten the situation in 2003, US and UK forces had been in Afghanistan for over a year traipsing around the mountains searching for Bin Laden’s high-tech bond villain cave, and had found absolutely nothing. Unable to admit they’d jumped the gun they instead decided to engage in Afghanistan’s domestic issues and fight the Taliban, who prior to the invasion had offered to hand over Bin Laden and his cohorts if Bush could provide them with his location and evidence that he was actually behind the attacks. Neither was provided, but they invaded anyway.
Likewise, beyond patriotic and frankly Orwellian statements that the media lapped up about evil Muslims, no solid evidence was presented to the public either. So Corbyn had every reason to question what the hell the troops were doing fighting the Taliban and installing puppet president Hamid Karzai. Corbyn’s comments have been absolutely vindicated, not least because US Seal Team Six thought it was ok to allegedly assassinate Bin Laden in Pakistan instead of trying him for the crimes he was accused of.
Of course this is without mentioning the the revelation that the Bush Administration seemed to have already planned to invade Afghanistan before 9/11 even happened, something Corbyn may or may not have been aware of at the time.
“President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks … The document, a formal National Security Presidential Directive, amounted to a “game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the earth,” reported NBC News in 2002.
“Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October,” reported the BBC.
Meanwhile in 2003 Bush and Blair were also starting the war in Iraq with a very similar propaganda formula. Or in layman’s terms, lying! In fact on many occasions elements of both governments would try to link Al Qaeda to Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein because the public were already scared to death of the terrorists, so if Saddam was supporting them, then we simply had to invade.
We’re still waiting on the Chilcot report to confirm what we already know – Tony Blair lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction and should be held accountable for those actions.
It’s then absurd that Blair can still be given a public platform to speak his mind after Afghanistan and Iraq, but Corbyn is forced to the fringes for pointing out some basic truths.
