Misinformation

Dear Gentle Reader, Have you ever hear someone on the car radio make an assertion that is so outlandishly inaccurate that you want to pull off to the side of the road and make a call with your cell phone?

Today I was driving along, listening to a call-in program on a local station that is an outlet for Progressive Radio. The host seemed to be knowledgeable about the situation in the Middle East until someone called in and rattled his cage about the recent victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections.

The host MUST have been shaken because I heard him say, "Well, our invasion of Afghanistan was justified because they attacked us first on 9-11."

WHAT? As far as I have read, there was not one Afghan on any of the airplanes involved in the 9-11 attacks. Furthermore, numerous archived sources show that the U.S. had made plans to invade Afghanistan months before 9-11. Below is the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) headline and link:
BBC - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JULY 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stmsouth_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm

Story: US 'planned attack on Taleban'
The wider objective was to oust the Taleban By the BBC's George Arney A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks. 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. Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin. Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar. The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government . . .

Another account of this information having been conveyed by the U.S. government to India (one month earlier) is at this link:
India Reacts - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JUNE 2001. http://www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10∓ctg=policynat2.asp?recno=10∓ctg=policy

I’ve read that many Americans still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9-11, although no Iraqis were involved either. Somehow, the newspapers and television reports have failed to communicate to their audiences that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan was responsible for the 9-11 attacks.

But I would expect a "progressive" talk show host to be better informed.