WMD
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Media Lens: What Happened To Academia? – Part 1
We have long been fascinated by the silencing of academe. How does it work in an ostensibly free society? What are the mechanisms that bring the honest and outspoken to heel? The late historian Howard Zinn described how the well-intentioned desire to work for progressive change “gets tangled in a cluster of beliefs so stuck,… Continue reading
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National Security Archive Update: THE IRAQ WAR — PART III: Shaping the Debate
For nearly a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British government of Prime Minister Tony Blair collaborated closely with the George W. Bush administration to produce a far starker picture of the threat from Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) than was justified by intelligence at the time, according to… Continue reading
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Why World War II ended with Mushroom Clouds By Jacques R. Pauwels
Sixty-five years ago, Truman did not have to use the atomic bomb in order to force Japan to its knees, but he had reasons to want to use the bomb. The atom bomb enabled the Americans to force Tokyo to surrender unconditionally, to keep the Soviets out of the Far East and – last but… Continue reading
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MI5 HEAD TOLD BLAIR IRAQ NO THREAT
6 August, 2010 — The Real News Nertwork MI5 HEAD TOLD BLAIR IRAQ NO THREAT Eric Margolis: Most US media ignoring explosive testimony by former MI5 head at Iraq inquiry http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Groupvideo.6485144 MI5 HEAD TOLD BLAIR IRAQ NO THREAT, posted with vodpod Bio Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated foreign affairs columnist. His articles Continue reading
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The Chilcot ‘Inquiry’: A Theatre of the Absurd By William Bowles
Why does the extermination of an entire culture cause not a ripple in our public discourse? The answer is obvious: we don’t have any kind of discourse with those who wield power. Continue reading
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Media Lens Alert: Chilcot Inquiry – the establishment goes to work – part 2
The Iraqi “threat” was a fantasy invented by the immensely powerful, nuclear-armed bullies of the West. This is why former British ambassador to Washington, Christopher Meyer, was able to observe last month that prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001, Iraq was merely “a grumbling appendix”. Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS: THE BBC’S JEREMY PAXMAN ON IRAQ – “WE WERE HOODWINKED”
Does not government submission of evidence mark the point where serious journalism +begins+ rather than ends? What is the reason for journalism at all, if the responsibility is simply to accept what a US Secretary of Defence says because we “know” he “is an intelligent, thoughtful man, and a sceptical man”? Continue reading
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The Real News Network – The Downing Street memo Pt.1
McGovern: “It’s there in black and white – The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy” Ray McGovern talks with Paul Jay about the paper trail on the Iraq war, as revealed in the British “Downing Street memo”. Part 2 coming soon! Continue reading
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Dick Cheney’s “Executive Assassination Ring”. Was British Weapons Expert Dr. David Kelly a Target? By Tom Burghardt
Revelations that the Central Intelligence Agency launched a world-wide assassination program, and then concealed its existence from the U.S. Congress and the American people for eight years, carries an implication that death squads may have been employed against political opponents. Continue reading
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Media Lens: David Aaronovitch – A Different Kind of Compassion
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media January 10, 2008 — Media Lens If “The wages of sin is death”, the returns must seem altogether less bleak to Tony Blair. In November, Blair was reported to have received £237,000 for a 20-minute speech before an audience of Chinese entrepreneurs. While his Continue reading
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Why I believe David Kelly’s death may have been murder by Dan Newling MP
David Kelly did not commit suicide and may have been the victim of a murder and subsequent coverup, according to a campaigning MP. Norman Baker has spent six months investigating the death of the Government weapons expert, found dead in an Oxfordshire wood three years ago. Continue reading
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Media Lens: A Superb Demolition – Part 2
23 June 2006 — Media Lens The Observer’s Foreign Affairs Editor Peter Beaumont Reviews Noam Chomsky’s Failed States Beaumont continues of Chomsky: “In attempting to create a consistent argument for America as murderous bully, going back to the Seminole Wars, he edits out anything that could be put on the other side of the balance Continue reading
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War preparations or how the media ‘disappeared’ the secret memo by William Bowles
The memo contains absolutely damning evidence that virtually the entire leadership of the British government lied and lied consistently over the issue of just about everything concerning the alleged threat posed by Iraq and, as the memo states, including lying about there being any kind of legal basis for an invasion. Continue reading
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Media Lens: No Politics – Only Elections
Issues like the environment, foreign policy, poverty and defence were “all but invisible”. (Golding, email to Media Lens, June 10, 2001) Defence, for example, comprised 0.6 percent of reporting. There was no mention of New Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” deception, of the non-existent “genocide” used as a pretext for Blair’s bombing of Serbia, of his… Continue reading
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Al-Qaqa’a: ‘Benign’ Neglect by a Malign Power By William Bowles
The latest ‘revelations’ to emerge from the annals of the US occupation of Iraq concerns the ‘loss’ of over 350 tons of high explosives that the US was meant to be guarding at the military base of al-Qaqa’a. According to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the stockpile went ‘missing’ some time after January 2004.… Continue reading
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Remnants of Empire By William Bowles
The media’s response to the Butler ‘report’ has been tediously predictable, with most of the press pundits seeming to emit a collective sigh of relief as if, more even than the government, they can’t wait to see the back of Iraq and get on with what they know best – hobnobbing with their pals in… Continue reading
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Separate but Synonymous: The Media and the State By William Bowles
There could be no clearer admission of the incestuous relationship between the media and the state than the subtext within this apparently ‘objective’ reportage on the impending release of the Butler report on the government‘s justification for the invasion of Iraq. Continue reading
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A Failure of Policy Not of Intelligence By William Bowles
Anybody who has read Agee’s book on his time in the CIA will laugh at today’s ‘report’ on the CIA’s failures to correctly assess the ‘dangers’ from Saddam Hussein’s fabled WMD. In the CIA Diary Agee reveals that the primary objective of the CIA is not the gathering of intelligence (most of which appears to… Continue reading
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Blair: Out-Gunned and then brought up Short By William Bowles
On Thursday 26 February, ‘lose cannon’ Ms Clare Short, former member of the Labour Cabinet went one step further and accused the Blair government of bugging Kofi Annan’s telephone conversations as well. Blair, understandably pissed off about Ms Short’s revelations attempted to make out that not only were Ms Short’s allegations untrue but in a… Continue reading
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WHY? By William Bowles
Is it credible that after a dozen years of sanctions, investigations, overflights, hundreds of bombing raids on virtually every military target of any significance in the country, spying via human and electronic means, that Iraq, probably the most ‘watched’ country on the planet, managed to ‘fool’ the most sophisticated countries on the planet? Continue reading
The New Dark Age 