Legal Schnauzer (friend of Gov. Don Siegelman) FINALLY gets noticed by The New York Times

[Octafish]

32. That's why DU and the Internets are important.

Last edited Thu Jan 16, 2014, 07:48 PM - Edit history (1)

This is why I think the world of real journalism: Justice, Democracy and Liberty (for starters) depend on it.

Mind The Credibility Gap: Syria And The History Of US War Disinformation

By James Henry
WhoWhatWhy.com on Sep 30, 2013

Americans—and others—are in heated discussion these days over whether an attack on Syria might be justified by alleged use of chemical weapons. But no such discussion is complete without consideration of a long history of disinformation disseminated in order to drum up support for overseas wars.

SNIP...

Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish

Was this just a small mistake? To quote a recently declassified NSA internal history titled, Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish:

“… it is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night [emphasis original].”

Even more troubling, subsequent inquiries revealed that the Navy, the intelligence establishment, and the Johnson administration all knew the attack claim was a calculated lie, part of a deliberate strategy of justifying a widened conflict. In point of fact, the CIA had been orchestrating the shelling of the North Vietnamese coast, and the Maddox had been sailing provocatively close to shore–in North Vietnamese waters.

When North Vietnamese patrol boats approached, the Maddox fired on them first. This was not a case of North Vietnamese aggression. Yet, this story became the justification for a war that cost the lives of 58,220 Americans and well over a million Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians, plus hundreds of thousands of wounded on all sides.

War with Iraq: Part One

Then came a few small wars based on big lies: the invasion of Grenada, the invasion of Panama, and the proxy war in Nicaragua among them. But the Vietnam disaster had turned so many Americans against large-scale military commitments abroad that it wasn’t until 1990 that the US public came to support another big war-–this time following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the oil-rich kingdom of Kuwait.

As usual, Americans were presented with a context-free story of what supposedly happened – a story that contained no hint of behind-the-scenes diplomatic machinations encouraging Hussein to think the US would not oppose his marching into Kuwait. And this simplistic black-and-white tale was bolstered with emotionally charged imagery of dead babies – a staple of war propagandists going back to World War I and before.

Saddam the Baby Killer

Remember Nayirah, the young Kuwaiti girl who testified before Congress? She said she saw Iraqi soldiers storm the hospital where she worked, and dump newborn babies out of their incubators, leaving them on the cold floor to die.

It was all an elaborate fraud. Soon after the war ended, a New York Times article outed the outrageously brazen trick being played on the American people by its own government. Nayirah, it turned out, was no ordinary Kuwaiti—she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. And her testimony about dead preemies “was arranged by the big public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton on behalf of a client, the Kuwaiti-sponsored Citizens for a Free Kuwait, which was then pressing Congress for military intervention.” In short, the “atrocity” never happened.

CONTINUED...

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/09/30/mind-the-credibility-gap-syria-and-the-history-of-us-war-disinformation/

Now, the same folks 'n' forces want to make Iran glow -- just for the OIL (as Ray McGovern succinctly and acronymically reminds us).

Gates Conceals Real Story of "Gaming" Obama on Afghan War

By Gareth Porter
Monday, 13 January 2014 09:31, IPS News | Report

Criticism in the memoirs of former secretary of defence Robert M. Gates of President Barack Obama’s lack of commitment to the Afghan War strategy of his administration has generated a Washington debate about whether Obama was sufficiently supportive of the war.

But the Gates account omits two crucial historical facts necessary to understanding the issue. The first is that Obama agreed to the escalation only under strong pressure from his top national security officials and with very explicit reservations. The second is that Gen. David Petraeus reneged on his previous commitment to support Obama’s 2009 decision that troop withdrawal would begin by mid-2011.

Gates makes only the most glancing reference in the newly published “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War” to the issue of the beginning of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The former defence secretary refers to “suspicion and distrust of senior military officers” by both Obama and vice president Joe Biden. And he describes a Mar. 3, 2011 National Security Council meeting in the White House situation room which Obama opened by criticising the military for “popping off in the press” and vowing to push back against any military delay in beginning the withdrawal.

Gates quotes Obama as saying, “ If I believe I am being gamed . . .” and says he left the sentence “hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire.”

Gates writes that he was “pretty upset,” because he thought “implicitly accusing Petraeus” of “gaming” him at a big meeting in the Situation Room was “inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus.”

“As I sat there,” Gates recalls, “I thought: the president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand [Afghanistan President Hamid] Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

CONTINUED...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/21181-gates-conceals-real-story-of-gaming-obama-on-afghan-war

Without people who give a damn -- and bother to read, let alone research and write -- we are up the War Party's creek without a paddle or a light, let alone a dry match. Thank Moon for DU.