On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, journalists are spewing forth endless retrospectives—asking people to recall “where were you when,” interviewing anguished families of victims, and probing whether politicians have been successful in their “war on terror.” It is unlikely, however, that journalists will look at themselves and their profession and ask, “How did we do post 9/11?” They should.

The role—many would say, failure—of the media in the run-up to the Iraq war has been widely debated. But two questions more immediately related to 9/11 have been less loudly argued: Did we exaggerate the threat of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, thus contributing to the collective paranoia, intrusive security measures at airports, and multi-billion dollar security industry that survives on fear? And did we fail to monitor the erosion of civil liberties?

During the Cold War, a communist-under-every-bed hysteria was fueled by demagogic politicians, aided and abetted by journalists who didn’t want to risk being branded anti-American, or who perhaps shared the view. I remember a reporter in Egypt once telling me that she knew how to see her stories get on the front-page: put a reference to “communism” in the first three graphs. After 9/11, Al Qaeda terrorists were ubiquitous, and “linked to Al Qaeda” became a journalistic mantra, still in wide use today.

When I was in Southeast Asia from 2002 until 2006, stories about the Philippine organization Abu Sayyaf routinely asserted that it was “linked to Al Qaeda.” Yes, at one time in the early 1990s, Osama bin Laden may have given money to the organization, but after 9/11 it degenerated into a lawless gang of bandits that kidnapped and murdered for money, without any ideological commitment.

What does “linked to Al Qaeda” mean, anyway? That the “linked” group’s leaders pledge allegiance to Osama bin Laden? That some members trained at Al Qaeda camps, or that the terrorists share a hatred of the United States and Jews?

Osama bin Laden wasn’t Einstein, not even Lenin or Che Guevara.

He was Charles Manson ...

Read the full article on The Atlantic Monthly HERE

More Atlantic articles on 9/11 HERE

Raymond Bonner was an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent for the New York Times and a staff writer at the New Yorker. His book about an innocent man sent to death row, Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong, will be published in 2012. He lives in London.