The Economist

The first attacks may indeed be just “a few days away”. But another sort of war is already under way, one in which journalists are already playing an important role as a conduit or filter, though not just the scribblers and broadcasters from the West. It is the propaganda war. That word has come to have a derogatory meaning, of the dissemination of untruths. In this case, America's task is (in truth) to disseminate truths, about its motives, about its intentions, about its current and past actions in Israel and Iraq, about its views of Islam. For all that, however, this part of the war promises to be no easier to win than the many other elements of the effort.
Success in the propaganda war is a vital preparation for military action; it will be vital if the coalition of allies is to be maintained during that action and amid the inevitable setbacks; and it will be most vital of all if defeats of these particular terrorists are to be followed up, as they should be, by a wider effort to make the ensuing peace more secure, within Central Asia and the Middle East as well as at home.