.. normally, a lie is a lie is - just a shitty lie ...
.. it's like a switch; it's either truth - or it's a filthy lie ...
.. but *these* lies simply cry out: they really *need* superlatives!
-=*=-
Preamble: Recall that (so they say), one can find *anything* on the 'net. Ergo, it is one function of a 'truth-seeker' to try to sort out the facts (few) from the lies (many). What we *do* know, is that, say, there were *none* - not just one tiny, single WMD. We also know, that there was *no*, repeat *no*, (significant) contact between Saddam and al-Qaeda, etc., and the dance went (goes) on.
So here, a few snips (article cited by BobW, thanks):
How Torture Trapped Colin Powell
By Ray McGovern
May 18, 2009
1) «"Within an hour, [CIA Director George] Tenet and [CIA Deputy Director John] McLaughlin dropped a bombshell on the table in the [CIA] director’s Conference Room: a high-level AQ detainee had just revealed under interrogation substantive contacts between AQ and Baghdad, including Iraqis training AQ operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons."
...
Not realizing that the new intelligence was tainted, "Powell changed his mind and this information was included in his UNSC presentation, along with some more general information from the previous text about Baghdad's terrorist tendencies," Wilkerson said.»
[consortiumnews/McGovern]
2) «Remember, Tenet and McLaughlin had been warned about Curveball long before they let then-Secretary of State Powell shame himself, and the rest of us, by peddling Curveball’s wares at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003.»
[consortiumnews/McGovern, ibid.]
-=*=-
Until reading this article, I had extended the 'benefit of the doubt' to McGovern, now I'm not just unsure of him, I'm downright suspicious.
Caveat: IF Powell was (allowed himself to be) deceived THEN that's most likely what he wanted to happen. From 'Bringing up Baby:' "Do what you want! (I know you will anyway,)" and note: doing what one wants should be contrasted with doing what one should.
(Recall something else: we are confronted with the largest, most powerful - and by far and away the most brutal/evil - empire our poor world has ever had the misfortune to suffer under. Amongst other things, they have a military (Pentagon) which is dedicated to world-conquest, and an intel facility (CIA) dedicated to every filthy trick in the book, ever, and no exceptions. (Previous sentence is called 'damning with faint praise.') To suggest that this Pentagon, this CIA did not know all pertinent details, is to simultaneously suggest they should all be instantly fired - if not summarily executed on the spot. They all knew, alright - including, I now suspect, this McGovern.)
It is, to this observer, simply *not* credible, that Powell, a life-long so-called 'professional' soldier, proud product of the Pentagon, once thought of as a presidential candidate-pretender, was unwillingly deceived - if deceived at all. No credulity can ever be stretched that far. (Possible exception, I suppose: the poor, dumbed-down sheople - baa-aa-aa!)
-=*=-
Although the 'forces of darkness' arrayed against us have all the guns, we have a 'very unique' (haw! My little joke); a unique advantage - which is that there is only one truth, but many (potential) lies. I've pictured this as a relatively few intensely bright points of 'truth-gold' scattered amongst a vast pitch-black universe of 'lie-space.' One upshot of this, is that we dedicated truth-seekers need only keep track of the one (true!) reality, whilst the liars have to integrate their selection from all possible lies into some sort of presentable - they hope believable (that word 'belief' again) - whole.
And that's what the cited article reminds me of - someone floundering around, trying to say "Well yes, this lie belongs to our 'pushed-paradigm' tapestry, but no, this one doesn't..." There can never be any excuses made - for any single one of Powell, Cheney, Bush et al. - they are nothing other than common criminals, which/who their *corrupt* system(s) elevated to the 'highest' offices of their land's *venal* regime. We know that; we see it in action - Afghanistan, Iraq, the vicious threats vis-à-vis Iran, not to mention all the rest of the ghastly stuff - only a few 'highlights' (actually of course, 'low-lights'), starting with the genocide against their own indigenes, Hawaii in 1893, Guatemala post WW2 - the whole sordid, infamous list - and now to be, as good (actually as bad) as seamlessly continued by the Dummocrats and Obama.
-=*end*=-
PS It should not need saying - but we're surrounded by moral, business and political failure, so my 'should not' becomes an absolute 'must;' people deploy lies to deceive. The US (plus Israel) are simultaneously the biggest liars, and the worst murdering-to-steal criminals on the planet. They lie because they *have* to; to admit their crimes would see them all go straight to gaol. And that, dear reader, is our task - to get those filthy, lying criminals right into gaol - ASAP. Only so, and not just BTW, can we ever hope to save our once jewel-like planet.
2009-05-20
utterly, *eff'n stupendous* lies!
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Almost independent of the 'lie' narrative, what sparked my anger at McGovern was this bit: "long before they let then-Secretary of State Powell shame himself, and the rest of us ..." - my objections are two, (1) that McGovern could have the nerve to suggest that Powell could be *in any way* excused, and (2) than any US spy had anything *but* shame associated with them.
ReplyDeleteI say the above in the 'hypocrisy' frame; see in particular BobW's citation The American Way, In Defense of George W. Bush that I already mentioned today, whereby the US claims 'hero' status but is perhaps the worst (possibly equal with Israel) villain on our once jewel-like planet. It's not what anyone says, it's the accumulation of what they do; and seen from the point of torture, say - as a single, current example of *many*, what we see from both the CIA and the US regime is something utterly evil.
Having said all that, here's a new one from McGovern:
May 22-24, 2009
Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism
Cheney Breaks the Taboo
«"Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy."»
[counterpunch/McGovern]
My quote is once again a quote of a quote of a quote. Worth reading the lot.
Next grovel from McGovern is there: The Impossible Rehab of Colin Powell.
ReplyDeleteNot 'just' Powell, not McGovern himself, not the CIA, not the entire (supply your own *worst* qualifier) US regime, but *all* the US sheople, including the few truly smart people (aka the goodies), and especially their criminal élite (except there's nothing at all élite about criminality) - none of them can ever expect any sort of 'rehabilitation,' because the criminality (all of the ugly mass-murder to enable theft, pillage, looting, plunder and rapine) - all of that was done *deliberately*, as a so-called 'democratic' society. They *all* bear the 'responsibility.' Just like *all* Jewish people (in and out of Israel) bear the responsibility, for the same (all of the ugly mass-murder to enable theft, pillage, looting, plunder and rapine) - they inflict on the hapless *innocent* Palestinians.
All any of those rotten types can ever do is (a) stop their foul murdering to steal, (b) make as full a reparation as is possible, and (c) say "Sorry!" - and bloody-well mean it.
(Just not gunna happen: sooo, US/Israel; wear the tag: mass-murderer to enable theft. *All* of you, every last wo/man, "Jack!")
Just a 'small' explication: "the few truly smart people," although listed in close proximity to "their criminal élite" in the above comment are of course 'worlds' apart; "smart criminals" being an archetypal oxymoron.
ReplyDeleteHypocrisy! You want hypocrisy? Glenn Greenwald describes some.
ReplyDeleteBoth Likud Party members in Israel as well as their Americans supporters – including members of both parties in the U.S. Congress – are beginning to complain that the Obama administration is unduly "interfering" in Israeli politics by insisting on a full cessation of settlement growth. The Jerusalem Post today reports: "US President Barack Obama's administration's criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's policies has crossed the line into interfering in Israeli politics, top Likud ministers and MKs said Tuesday." Yesterday, Politico's Ben Smith similarly documented that "the administration’s escalating pressure on Israel to freeze all growth of its settlements on Palestinian land has begun to stir concern among Israel’s numerous allies in both parties on Capitol Hill."
That's just the start, there's lots more. As we have come to expect.
Hillary Clinton demands China investigate and disclose its past abuses.
ReplyDeleteNow compare that with Obama's refusal to investigate the Bush Administration's (alleged) crimes. Glenn Greenwald does. And read the comments - some very good ones.
A great example of how he's unclenched his fists:
ReplyDeletea) Obama tells Ahmadinejad to visit Nazi death camp
Posted June 5, 2009 23:00:00
«US President Barack Obama on Friday said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who again this week called the Holocaust a "great deception", should visit the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp.»
b) Obama slams Holocaust deniers in camp visit
Posted June 6, 2009 07:32:00
«On a visit to Germany, US President Barack Obama has bluntly challenged Iran's president to visit a concentration camp and lashed out at Holocaust deniers.»
And I'm supposing that the AusBC just 'forgot' to 'balance' their reporting with something like this:
From recall, I thought Ahmadinejad said that whatever did or did not occur, vis-à-vis the Holocaust, it never can and never will justify the Israeli genocide of Palestinians = murder to steal Palestinian land and water...
Then, I searched for 'Holocaust june 2009 site:president.ir' and got just the one, older 'hit:'
Real Holocaust taking place in Palestine: Ahmadinejad
«The visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here on Monday stressed that the real Holocaust is currently taking place in the occupied Palestine.
Addressing a group of Iraqi ulema, scholars and university professors, he regretted that the international bodies do not show any reaction to the crimes being committed against Palestinian nation.»
The 'best of the rest' go like this:
«TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a great deception on Wednesday, reiterating a view that has been denounced by moderate rivals in this month's election.
The conservative president, quoted by state broadcaster IRIB, made the remark during a speech containing his latest verbal assault on Israel, which the Islamic Republic does not recognize.»
i.e. no direct, checkable quote.
Sooo, without giving a checkable link, I wonder who is perpetrating what "great deceptions" here?
Thankful for 'small' mercies; g'day BobW.
ReplyDeleteI just got around to reading your today's GG-citation; and this comment caught my eye. The small mercy? That the AusBC is not quite that bad.
Once, ID, such stories were satires. The NYTimes is not quite as bad, but, as Glenn Greenwald reports, it is trying:
ReplyDeleteThe proposal would ease what has come to be recognized as the government’s difficult task of prosecuting men who have confessed to terrorism but whose cases present challenges. Much of the evidence against the men accused in the Sept. 11 case, as well as against other detainees, is believed to have come from confessions they gave during intense interrogations at secret C.I.A. prisons. In any proceeding, the reliability of those statements would be challenged, making trials difficult and drawing new political pressure over detainee treatment.
Don't use the "T" word. But it is not just the one media outlet:
The steadfast, ongoing refusal of our leading media institutions to refer to what the Bush administration did as "torture" -- even in the face of more than 100 detainee deaths; the use of that term by a leading Bush official to describe what was done at Guantanamo; and the fact that media outlets frequently use the word "torture" to describe the exact same methods when used by other countries -- reveals much about how the modern journalist thinks. These are their governing principles:
There are two sides and only two sides to every "debate" -- the Beltway Democratic establishment and the Beltway Republican establishment. If those two sides agree on X, then X is deemed true, no matter how false it actually is. If one side disputes X, then X cannot be asserted as fact, no matter how indisputably true it is. The mere fact that another country's behavior is described as X doesn't mean that this is how identical behavior by the U.S. should be described. They do everything except investigate and state what is true. In their view, that -- stating what is and is not true -- is not their role.
The whole world knows that the U.S. tortured detainees in the "War on Terror." Yet American newspapers refuse to say so.
"So the interrogator waved his magic wand and the horrid foreign terrorist gladly confessed. At least we now know why the "Hindenburg" exploded, who shoot JFK, the 13 secret herbs and why the chicken crossed the road. If you send an addressed, stamped plain brown envelope we will send you photos of what the interrogfator did with his wand next."
Ahmadinejad - where would the neocons/Zionists be without him? He's been so useful, after all:
ReplyDelete... After all, the Iranian president’s outlandish statements have been a propaganda gold mine for those pushing military action against Tehran, and no warmongering op-ed would be complete without a ritualistic invocation of his (mistranslated) call to “wipe Israel off the map”. At last month’s AIPAC conference, Ahmadinejad was the undisputed star of the show; large glossy photos of him touring nuclear facilities in a lab coat were distributed to every conference-goer, and the largely geriatric audience was bludgeoned into a state of terror with constant juxtapositions of Hitler and Ahmadinejad, Auschwitz and Natanz. An alien who descended on the conference might be forgiven for thinking that Ahmadinejad was president of Israel or the U.S. rather than Iran, since he was far more discussed and displayed than Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, or Barack Obama.
But what if the Iranian elections bring a more moderate person to the presidency?
Now that it seems possible that Ahmadinejad might lose, however, the same people who spent the last four years obsessively focusing on the Iranian president’s every utterance have suddenly discovered that the Iranian presidency doesn’t matter after all. In the same discussion at Heritage, Pipes reminded the audience that it is Supreme Leader Khamenei rather than the president who controls foreign affairs and military policy. Similarly, AIPAC is now pushing the line that Iran’s elections will not affect their nuclear policy. While it is perfectly true that the Iranian president has little control over foreign policy, it would have been nice to see some acknowledgement of this from the Iran hawks prior to the elections, instead of constant harping about the “existential threat” that the dastardly Ahmadinejad poses to Israel and the U.S.
It is not as if the neocons/Zionists and their acolytes weren't repeatedly informed of the nature of the Iranian political structure. They ignored these and chanted their mantras over and over ... soon they might need to learn some new ones whuch they will then repeat, etc, regardless of any such inconveniences as facts.
Give them an inch ... an example of what can happen if people are not called to account.
ReplyDeleteJERUSALEM - ISRAEL on Saturday accused the UN nuclear watchdog of 'impotence' in dealing with alleged illegal nuclear activities in Iran and Syria.
'The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report shows the incompetence of the IAEA in exercising full and effective control over Iran because of the country's refusal to cooperate,' said the Israeli Atomic Energy Agency.
'This document proves that the international community and Israel can not rely on the IAEA when it comes to Iran,' it said
Yes, really! In case anyone needs a reminder.
None of this has deterred the Israelis, though, from speaking out against the alleged ambitions of others. In fact, Israel has been at the forefront of countries demanding that the IAEA get tough with Iran. The Israelis are not at all embarrassed that Tehran is a signatory to the NPT and they are not; nor does it bother them that no one thinks the Islamic Republic has nuclear weapons, while the Jewish state is estimated by experts to possess something in the order of 200-300 warheads, not to mention a variety of air-, land- and sea-based delivery systems.
The unbridled hypocrisy of Israeli policy and rhetoric on this issue constitutes a major test for the IAEA, and indeed for two cornerstones of modern diplomacy: arms control and collective security. If the presumed violations of some countries are to be “punished” pre-emptively while those of others go unchecked, there is little point in cooperating with the co-opted organization that enforces its own regulations according to Washington’s whim. Israeli impunity relies on America for its sustenance, and the nuclear question is a case in point: US law is very clear in banning foreign aid to countries that either do not sign or fail to obey the NPT, but somehow more than $3 billion in illegal funds gets from Washington to Israel every year with nary a word of protest on Capitol Hill.
If only the response to such hypocrisy was "but, sir/madam what about ...?"
And the lies keep coming - Saddam interrogation tapes released and misrepresented.
ReplyDeleteA familiar story, different arena.
Evicdence? Well ....