Monday, January 23, 2012

"Conspiracy theory": the intellectual equivalent of a four-letter word

"'Conspiracy theory' has become the intellectual equivalent of a four-letter word: it's something people say when they don't want you to think about what's really going on."

-- Noam Chomsky, as quoted in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

Barry Zwicker, author of Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11, talks about Noam Chomsky and 9/11.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report on NDAA. He adds his voice to Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Turley, Chris Hedges, the ACLU, Amnesty International, two four-star retired Marine generals, and even the New York Times (buried but well done in their Opinionator Blog).

Saturday, January 21, 2012

George W. Bush, War Crimes, and the Mayor of London

The Mayor of London talks about George W. Bush and war crimes:
How is some tired and frightened American officer supposed to make head or tail of this sophistry, late at night in some bleak Iraqi jail? How is he supposed to calibrate the pain that comes from an organ failure or death? It is no wonder, with orders like that coming from the top, that the troopers misbehaved so tragically in Abu Ghraib. They failed to see any moral difference between waterboarding their suspects and putting hoods over their heads. They failed to see any moral difference between waterboarding them and terrifying them with alsatian dogs or attaching electrodes to their genitals. They failed to see any moral difference, that is, because there isn’t any moral difference.

That is the real disaster of the waterboarding policy — that we are left with the impression that the entire US military are skidding their heels on the slippery slope towards barbarism. And that is emphatically not the case. Yesterday at the Cenotaph we remembered the sacrifice of men and women not just in two world wars, but also in Iraq and Afghanistan. The purpose of these conflicts is not so much to defeat “the enemy”, but to defend things we believe to be inalienable goods — freedom, democracy and, above all, the rule of law.

I believe that, of all nations, America still best upholds and guarantees those things. It would be ludicrous to suggest that the waterboarding disaster, or the evils of Abu Ghraib, have set up some kind of moral equivalence between America and – say – the murderous Taliban regime, let alone Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. If you want to appreciate the difference, remember that the perpetrators of Abu Ghraib were court-martialled, and we know about US interrogation techniques because of rules on freedom of information. But if your end is the spread of freedom and the rule of law, you cannot hope to achieve that end by means that are patently vile and illegal.

Keith Olberman interviews Jonathan Turley on the Mayor's article:

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Scotland Yard Report Finds British Citizen Was Tortured in Secret CIA Site - Raymond Bonner - International - The Atlantic

Scotland Yard Report Finds British Citizen Was Tortured in Secret CIA Site - Raymond Bonner - International - The Atlantic:
The British government admitted today that a terrorist suspect whose case has drawn international attention was interrogated by U.S. officials and tortured during the two years he was held in Morocco.

The findings, resulting from an investigation by England's highest criminal prosecution agency, contradict the obfuscation, stonewalling, and denials by American officials about the case of the suspect, Binyam Mohamed.

At one point, the Obama Administration threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with the UK if a British court ordered the release of classified documents in the case.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

NDAA: How the House Voted

How the House voted on the NDAA

Republicans voted for this bill by a wide margin in the House. Still, 95 Democrats voiced their enthusiastic support in the form of a vote. Donald Payne, Democrat (NJ), did not vote. Rush Holt, Democrat (NJ), voted "no."

NDAA: How the Senate Voted (December 1, 2011)

The NDAA, which allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens without trial, was overwhelmingly passed in the Senate. The vote was 93-7, a bi-partisan attack on the Constitution.

"Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." George Carlin

Here the few Senators who stood up for the Constitution on December 1, 2011:

Coburn (R-OK)
Harkin (D-IA)
Lee (R-UT)
Merkley (D-OR)
Paul (R-KY)
Sanders (I-VT)
Wyden (D-OR)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Torturer’s Apprentice - Magazine - The Atlantic

Torturer’s Apprentice - Magazine - The Atlantic
The new science of interrogation is not, in fact, so new at all: “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” and “waterboarding” all spring directly from the practices of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. The distance, in both technique and ideology, between the Inquisition’s interrogation regime and 21st-century America’s is uncomfortably short—and provides a chilling harbinger of what can happen when moral certainty gets yoked to the machinery of torture.

What a way to go: Life at the end of empire

Chris Hedges Suing Barack Obama

"The supine and gutless Democratic Party, which would have feigned outrage if George W. Bush had put this into law, appears willing, once again, to grant Obama a pass. But I won’t. What he has done is unforgivable, unconstitutional and exceedingly dangerous."

"The oddest part of this legislation is that the FBI, the CIA, the director of national intelligence, the Pentagon and the attorney general didn’t support it. FBI Director Robert Mueller said he feared the bill would actually impede the bureau’s ability to investigate terrorism because it would be harder to win cooperation from suspects held by the military. “The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain cooperation from the persons in the past that we’ve been fairly successful in gaining,” he told Congress. 

"But it passed anyway. And I suspect it passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets, knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can."

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_im_suing_barack_obama_20120116/

Monday, January 16, 2012

The Justice for Fallujah Project

The Justice for Fallujah Project

For the families of Haditha, this is a matter of honour

"If there was any doubt that the killings that day could be classed as anything other than war crimes, a number of incriminating documents have come to light in the past few weeks that place guilt beyond doubt. Some 400 pages from the military interrogation of the offending troops, which should have been destroyed as the Americans left Iraq last year, were uncovered by a New York Times reporter at a junkyard in Baghdad."

"Not a single marine I interviewed was able to survive after their tour without a tranquilliser prescription.... It's worth remembering that most were just teenagers when they joined the force."

"The Iraqi families who turned down the insulting offer of $2,500 in compensation for each family member killed are still waiting to see justice done."

The marines urination video doesn't show the real war crime | Ross Caputi | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

This young ex-Marine bravely tells the world about the mentality behind war crimes, how horrific they are, and notes that the corporate media reports on them with indifference.

The marines urination video doesn't show the real war crime | Ross Caputi | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Should the New York Times seek the Truth -- or mindlessly regurgitate what they've been told?

"'Should the Times be a Truth Vigilante?' asked Arthur Brisbane. 'Yes,' came the resounding reply.... Having asked, in a completely innocent way, whether the Times should behave like an advocate for the readers, rather than a stenographer to politicians, the question cannot now be unasked."
The New York Times public editor's very public utterance | Clay Shirky

Dr. King and the Public Imagination

Dr. King used a wide range of references, i.e. other people's words and historical ideas, to get his message across -- and made improvements. He loved to play with words and ideas, and judge his audience's reactions. He was deeply interested in the 'art of preaching. NPR's On the Media discusses Dr. King and the Public Imagination.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Arthur Brisbane and selective stenography - Salon.com

Arthur Brisbane and selective stenography - Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free - The Washington Post

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free - The Washington Post, Jonathan Turley
[I]n a signing statement with the defense authorization bill, Obama said he does not intend to use the latest power to indefinitely imprison citizens. Yet, he still accepted the power as a sort of regretful autocrat.
An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.

The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Iran: The Neocons Are At It Again

Iran: The Neocons Are At It Again, Ralph Nader

William Schaap - Part 1/8 - The Media, CIA, FBI & Disinfo. - YouTube

William Schaap - Part 1/8 - The Media, CIA, FBI & Disinfo. - YouTube

NYT Caught Lying about Iran & IAEA Report on Civilian Nuclear Program - YouTube

NYT Caught Lying about Iran & IAEA Report on Civilian Nuclear Program - YouTube

Bill Moyers Journal Transcripts: Buying the War

Very good transcript of Buying the War. Includes a lot of interesting quotes about the media.

Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS

Media unable to dissent from "the official line"

Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS:

BILL MOYERS: IT HAD NOW BECOME UNFASHIONABLE TO DISSENT FROM THE OFFICIAL LINE - UNFASHIONABLE AND RISKY.

BILL O'REILLY: (Fox 2/26/03) Anyone who hurts this country in a time like this. Well let's just say you will be spotlighted.

Tom Brokaw: "All Wars are Based on Propaganda" → Washingtons Blog

Tom Brokaw: "All Wars are Based on Propaganda" → Washington's Blog:

In response to former White House press secretary's Scott McClellan's revelations, veteran news anchor Tom Brokaw said "all wars are based on propaganda."

Corporate Media Turns On Bloggers

Once Again, Corporate Media Turns On Bloggers

"The White House has an unbelievable ability to control the flow of information at any time but especially at a time when they are planning to go to war.” Tom Brokaw

Michael Parenti: Conspiracy Phobia on the Left

http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/michael-parenti-on-conspiracy-theories-and-the-left-wing-paranoia-about-them/

The CIA's propaganda machine

The CIA also owns dozens of newspapers and magazines the world over. These not only provide cover for their agents but allow them to plant misinformation that regularly makes it back to the US through the wire services. The CIA has even placed agents on guard at the wire services, to prevent inconvenient facts from being disseminated.

In 1977, famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein revealed that over 400 US journalists had been employed by the CIA. These ranged from freelancers who were paid for regular debriefings, to actual CIA officers who worked under deep cover. Nearly every major US news organization has had spooks on the payroll, usually with the cooperation of top management.

The three most valuable media assets the CIA could count on were William Paley's CBS, Arthur Sulzberger's New York Times and Henry Luce's Time/Life empire. All three bent over backwards promoting the picture of Oswald as a lone nut in the JFK assassination.

Among prominent journalists who've worked knowingly with the CIA are National Review founder William F. Buckley, PBS interviewer Bill Moyers, the late columnist Stewart Alsop, former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and Ms. magazine founder Gloria Steinem.

Bernstein's landmark article on the CIA and the media told of the agency's frantic efforts to limit Congressional inquiry into the matter, with claims that "some of the biggest names in journalism could get smeared." And while the CIA director at the time, George Bush, made a not-too-convincing show of discontinuing the agency's manipulation of the media, it's clear that the CIA regards the space between your ears as one of its most important battlefields.


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Wurlitzer_CIAHits.html

Dec 26, 1977 NY Times article: CIA Cable

CIA Cable, that had just been declassified, sought to discredit critics of the Warren Commission.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F30F13F83F5E167493C4AB1789D95F438785F9

CIA influence on public opinion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CIA influence on public opinion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The CIA and the Media, Carl Bernstein

Carl Bernstein, The CIA and the Media

How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up

9/11 Media Blackout

Environmentalists Against War:

Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg Says Government Ordered Media Blackout on 9/11 Questions

"It is not just the corporate media. I have had the owners of highly-regarded alternative media companies confide in me privately that they don't believe the government's version of 9/11, but that are scared of discussing it publicly because they don't want to be tarred-and-feathered for discussing "conspiracy theories."

"Even writers like Glenn Greenwald -- who are good on so many issues -- won't touch it.

"Of course -- as Ellsberg points out -- "Secrets can be kept reliably ... for decades ... even though they are known to thousands of insiders." Indeed, the whole label "conspiracy theory" is just an attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful.

People used to understand this. As the quintessential American writer Mark Twain said in a more rational age:
'A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies, which they dare not admit in public.'"

CIA Instructions to Media Assets

CIA Instructions to Media Assets

CIA Instructions to Media Assets
This document caused quite a stir when it was discovered in 1977. Dated 4/1/67, and marked "DESTROY WHEN NO LONGER NEEDED", this document is a stunning testimony to how concerned the CIA was over investigations into the Kennedy assassination. Emphasis has been added to facilitate scanning.

CIA Document #1035-960, marked "PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations, in the division "CS", the Clandestine Services, sometimes known as the "dirty tricks" department.

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results.
2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.
3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:
a. To discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.
b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)
4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:
a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider. The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the attack on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics. (A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P. Taylor, D.C. Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative, without acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the world that the Nazis were to blame.)
b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.
c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.
d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of the Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of probabilities into certainties.
e. Oswald would not have been any sensible person's choice for a co-conspirator. He was a "loner," mixed up, of questionable reliability and an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service. [Archivist's note: This claim is demonstrably untrue with the latest file releases. The CIA had an operational interest in Oswald less than a month before the assassination. Source: Oswald and the CIA, John Newman and newly released files from the National Archives.]
f. As to charges that the Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.
g. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)
5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
--William Colby, former CIA Director, cited by Dave Mcgowan, Derailing Democracy
"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month."
--CIA operative, discussing the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. Katherine the Great, by Deborah Davis
"There is quite an incredible spread of relationships. You don’t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level."
--William B. Bader, former CIA intelligence officer, briefing members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein
"The Agency's relationship with [The New York] Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. [It was] general Times policy ... to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible."
--The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein
"Senator William Proxmire has pegged the number of employees of the federal intelligence community at 148,000 ... though Proxmire's number is itself a conservative one. The "intelligence community" is officially defined as including only those organizations that are members of the U.S. Intelligence Board (USIB); a dozen other agencies, charged with both foreign and domestic intelligence chores, are not encompassed by the term.... The number of intelligence workers employed by the federal government is not 148,000, but some undetermined multiple of that number."
--Jim Hougan, Spooks
"For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the government.... I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations."
--former President Harry Truman, 22 December 1963, one month after the JFK assassination, op-ed section of the Washington Post, early edition










Bias at The New York Times

NYT Misleads Readers on Iran Crisis
Paper disappears some inaccurate reporting

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4454

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Truth Has Fallen and Has Taken Liberty With It - PaulCraigRoberts.org

Truth Has Fallen and Has Taken Liberty With It - PaulCraigRoberts.org:

"America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based."

Thursday, January 5, 2012

9/11 Motive & Media Betrayal - YouTube

Dan Rather stumbles over a new report that connects the 9/11 attacks to our policies in Israel. Unfortunately, this is the only video that I can find with this clip.

9/11 Motive & Media Betrayal - YouTube

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

After September 11: Our State of Exception, Mark Danner

After September 11: Our State of Exception

"For the overwhelming majority of Americans the changes have come to seem subtle, certainly when set beside how daily life was altered during World War II or World War I, not to mention during the Civil War. Officially sanctioned torture, or enhanced interrogation, however dramatic a departure it may be from our history, happens not to Americans but to others, as do extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention; the particular burdens of our exception seem mostly to be borne by someone else—by someone other. It is possible for most to live their lives without taking note of these practices at all except as phrases in the news—until, every once in a while, like a blind man who lives, all unknowingly, in a very large cage, one or another of us stumbles into the bars.

"Whoever takes the time to peer closely at the space enclosed within those bars can see that our country has been altered in fundamental ways."

Mark Danner We Are All Torturers Now

Mark Danner: We Are All Torturers Now

"The system of torture has, after all, survived its disclosure. We have entered a new era; the traditional story line in which scandal leads to investigation and investigation leads to punishment has been supplanted by something else. Wrongdoing is still exposed; we gaze at the photographs and read the documents, and then we listen to the president’s spokesman 'reiterate,' as he did last week, 'the president’s determination that the United States never engage in torture.' And there the story ends."

Mark Danner Torture and Truth

Mark Danner Torture and Truth:

Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it "is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act."

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Atrocities in Plain Sight

"I'm not saying that those who unwittingly made this torture possible are as guilty as those who inflicted it. I am saying that when the results are this horrifying, it's worth a thorough reassessment of rhetoric and war methods. Perhaps the saddest evidence of our communal denial in this respect was the election campaign. The fact that American soldiers were guilty of torturing inmates to death barely came up. It went unmentioned in every one of the three presidential debates. John F. Kerry, the ''heroic'' protester of Vietnam, ducked the issue out of what? Fear? Ignorance? Or a belief that the American public ultimately did not care, that the consequences of seeming to criticize the conduct of troops would be more of an electoral liability than holding a president accountable for enabling the torture of innocents? I fear it was the last of these. Worse, I fear he may have been right."

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Atrocities in Plain Sight

Monday, January 2, 2012

License to lie | Salon Books

License to lie | Salon Books:

"Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and Rove pulled off a much more sophisticated job: a bureaucratic coup d'etat. Without firing a shot, they silenced critics, squelched unwanted facts, and created their own false but salable reality. As a result, they were able to launch a war justified by lies and driven by nothing more than Bush's ignorant whim. It is, truly, the heist of the century."

"At this point, one could forgive readers for asking, 'How many more damning portraits of the Bush administration do we need?' From yellowcake to Joe Wilson to Abu Ghraib, the list of Bush scandals and outrages is endless, but nothing ever seems to happen. As the journalist Mark Danner has pointed out, the problem is not lack of information: The problem is that Americans can't, or won't, acknowledge what that information means."