...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, August 11, 2003
      ( 9:32 AM )
 
Looking for Truth in All the Wrong Places?

How about the scoop on how W got into the Air National Guard (via Buzzflash, via Suburban Guerrilla)?

How about the truth about the 2000 election in Florida - beyond the rhetoric and right into the start of the chain of lies?

How about the truth about how globalization, the World Bank and the IMF are deliberately disabling sovereign nations - with a little help from the US?

I'm currently reading The Best Democracy Money Can Buy By Greg Palast. If you don't read every column by Palast, you might want to start now. He is literally one of a handful of writers actually investigating subjects and reporting the truth. Unfortunately, he gets published in other countries more than he does here. Why is that? Because the US version of journalism has so deteriorated into doing the least amount of work so that the most amount of profit can be made that true investigation and reporting rarely happens in this country. As Palast says in his book, the work of the reporters in All The Presidents Men was so rare, it had to be made into a movie.

So let's talk about the most recent cover-up that Palast is uncovering: George Bush tries to distract the American public from the fact that the administraiton is hiding evidence of its buddy Saudi Arabia's backing of terrorism, specifically the 9/11 attack, by announcing that he is against gay marriage and will seek to "codify" that...

Well, well, well. President George was in one hell of bind
this week when it turned that that Saudi Arabia funded Al
Qaeda, not Iraq. Realizing we'd invaded the wrong country,
Bush did the honorable thing: he's come out against gay marriages.

This caused some real confusion in my staff where a gay member
of our investigations team announced he was changing his
allegiance from Howard Dean to George Bush. "Bush Saves Gays from
Marriage! Bush Saves Gays!" he rushed around the office beaming. "Gay
people exempt from going to in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner! Gay-mericans
exempt from PTA meetings and hiring divorce lawyers!"

All humour aside... the administration is up to its old dirty tricks again...

And now, the New York Times tells us, the US Senate has
been embarrassed into holding hearings on those Saudi
charity fronts including one named WAMY.

Of course, this is ancient news to those who watched my
report on WAMY and Saudi funding of terror -- broadcast on BBC's
evening news on November 9, 2001. (In the USA, that report
earned me the title of 'conspiracy nut.' In America, a 'conspiracy nut'
is defined as a journalist who reports the news two years before
the New York Times.)

And here's the ugly little punchline to the story you WON'T read in
the Times. Why has the Bush Administration covered up for WAMY and
the Saudi's other blood-soaked 'charity' operations?

[...]

...following the bombing of our embassies, the Clinton Administration
sent two delegations to Saudi Arabia to tell their royal highnesses
to stop giving money to the guys who are killing us. But Mr. Bush,
once in office, put the kibosh on unfriendly words to the Saudis.

Furthermore, in the summer of 2001, Mr. Bush disbanded the US
intelligence unit tracking funding of Al Qaeda. What is it our G-men
were uncovering? According to two separate sources speaking to
BBC, the funders of Al Qaeda fronts include those who have
previously funded Bush family business and political ventures.

[...]

And there's this: a document marked "Secret" and "199I"
(meaning 'national security') which found its way out of the offices
of the FBI in into the office of our BBC/Guardian newspaper team.
It indicates (and whistleblowers confirmed) that, prior to the
September 11 attack, the Bush Administration held back agents of the
FBI from tracking two members of the bin Laden family. According to
the buried FBI report, the bin Laden lads were operating in the USA
for "a suspected terrorist organization", WAMY.

But we mustn't ask too many questions of the Bush Administration's
blindfolding the FBI, nor, Heaven forbid, discomfit the Saudis over their
contributions to Terror-R-Us. After all, in BushWorld, Saudi Arabia and
America have shared values: we want our boys to kill, not to kiss.

It's obvious that the US press is far more comfortable reporting on Arnold Schwarzenneger's possible governorship than it is reporting on what our government is hiding from us - and how this very administration that claims the hero's pulpit actually contributed to the largest attack of civilians on US soil ever. What's really sad is that while the press/media whiles away its time joking about "Total Recall," BushCo continues to endanger our very lives. Is this the kind of "free press" we really need - one that squanders its rights in order to squash the truth?

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