fter weeks of digging, at the end of the day it was clear - sickening but clear. Although I grieved for the precious lives that were lost on September the 11th, combined with the hundreds of thousands that died as the result of the brutalities carried out under the banner of American Foreign Policy, these were a mere drop in the bucket. A New York life is no more precious than a Palestinian’s or a Somalian’s – its all senseless killing. The reality was that this was a war against Muslims that did not begin on September 11th but rather in its current form, two decades earlier with seeds planted shortly after World War II. This war was provoked by the American government under the guise of its Foreign Policy with less than pious motives, that served the interests of the Zionists and the privileged, with the media as the tool of choice to persuade the masses and cover over a multitude of what can only be called crimes against humanity, and that implicated a host of individuals, organizations and governments.

By the end of October, I was actively archiving daily news items from independent sources and mainstream press and armed with knowledge of the history of the conflict, I began to see how the whole dirty mess was now being “spun” in the news we were being presented with daily. Every day was another day of killing (by this time American and allied forces had invaded Afghanistan), of rounding up Muslims everywhere, particularly in the US and of passing sweeping new laws that gave the US government unlimited power. Every night was another night that we were presented a nice clean picture of what a good thing America was doing for the “oppressed” Afghanis now that we were “liberating” them from Taliban rule, how Osama bin Laden would be captured “dead or alive”, how America and the world was much safer and why all of us in the West should go shopping to keep the economy moving. Many an early morning I would look at the photos coming in of the dead and wounded and all I could do was cry. Go shopping???

In December, the United States bought up all available commercial satellite time worldwide. As a publisher, I knew full well the impact of this. Independents could no longer get their photos out to the world, Afghanistan was in locked down and the American propaganda machine was now free to spin the present and the future just as they had the past.

By the time we closed for the Christmas break, I had a permanent knot in my stomach. My only agenda when I started this work was to find out what Bin Laden, if he was the perpetrator, wanted and where the breakdown came. Now I was horrified, disgusted and frankly outraged.

With business still limping along, I could not get any of this out of my mind. My garden, dinner parties with friends or trying to refocus the business could not take my mind off what I had come to know. I couldn’t just sit idle knowing what I knew and that most in the West had absolutely no clue about. I thought long and hard about it. What can I, one woman enjoying semi-retirement on the beautiful banks of the Pacific Ocean in the remote mountain village of Lions Bay really do about it? Why should I even care? I knew the war would not end after a few months in Afghanistan – the long history of an abusive American Foreign Policy dictated that. I started to think about what resources I had that could maybe, just maybe, be mobilized. I had a wealth of publishing experience and I knew the game inside out. I owned a web development company that had a small but crack team that could give me access to the broadest market possible for the least amount of cost. I had access to high level servers. I had proven marketing and communications skills and expert designers at my fingertips. I had created successful products in the past. And I had my (albeit small) life savings.

And with that, I made the decision to launch a website with the hope of informing the public about some of the things I had come to know and to give voice to the other side of war on “terrorism”

By the end of the holidays, I had told my closest supporters that I was going to launch the portal, strive to become an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and that speaking out on these issues would become my life’s work. This met with a variety of reactions from “what do you need that for” to “yes, but are you going to make any money at it”. And with some, the very idea hit a nerve. I knew then there would be no support structure to rely on. I would have to go it alone as the site would be controversial and hard-hitting - as the truth always is.

I named the portal as a reference to Benjamin Barber’s best seller, Jihad vs. McWorld, an excellent work that explains the clash of two civilizations, but that entirely omits the reason why. The result was Jihad Unspun.

The next step was to put together the concept, the marketing and financing strategy, timeline and production schedules. To be taken seriously and hit the target market, the information would have to be presented at a high level, in a manner that Western viewers were accustomed to receiving it. The CNN’s of the world have untold millions to work with – I had a mere drop in the bucket and some fledgling revenues. I knew we would have to be good to accomplish the goal and that I would have to draw on everything I and those around me were professionally capable of to pull it off. I focused on our strengths; publishing, design and cutting edge systems development.