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15/01/02 (105 review reads) |
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Does the media tell us the truth? YES and NO.
Here are NONA'S MEDIA AWARDS for January 2002.
In FIRST place (equal) : THE NEWS OF THE WORLD
For its coverage of Lockerbie and the Ice Cream Wars.
THE SUNDAY HERALD
For its stories on bin Laden, Lockerbie, and drink problems.
THE MIRROR
For its accounts of the War against Terrorism , and Lockerbie.
THE GUARDIAN
For its coverage of the Attacks on America and Tanzania's Air
Defence System.
The News of the World has given us some stunning stories:
"The Real culprit behind the Ice Cream War murders." This was a story about murder and alleged police corruption in Glasgow.
and "The News of the World reveals sensational claims that CIA agents were ... deeply implicated in the (Lockerbie) disaster which claimed 270 lives.... (The CIA) were letting terrorists smuggle (heroin) across the Atlantic...." Only the News of the World would be brave enough to print that.
The Sunday Herald had a front page story: "UN claims Lockerbie trial rigged" and inside Neil Mackay's detailed story referred to alleged CIA interference in the Lockerbie investigation and trial. Neil Mackay had another world class story on 7 Oct 2001 about the bin Laden family links to Bush, John Major and other members of the elite. The Sunday Herald also ran an excellent story, under the headline "Sad Scots told: relax or burn out", about binge drinking and poor parenting skills.
The Mirror had the front page headline about Afghanistan: "This War is a Fraud." Now that is great journalism. T
he Guardian and Channel 4 News had given us similar stories, but, not as their lead item.
The Mirror also gave us (11/9/01) : "Lockerbie: The Lost Evidence." The story by David Pilditch gave us some sensational new evidence that "could free jailed Libyan." It was a great story and brave of the Mirror to put it on the front page.
The Guardian's George Monbiot has distinguished himself by exposing the apparent falsity of the CIA/FBI evidence relating to 11 September. Guardian writers also alerted us to information suggesting that the US had planned its attacks on Afghanistan well in advance. Other interesting stories were about MI5 vetting BBC staff and about phoney Herr Blair's efforts to sell military equipment to the world's poor and starving.
Does the media tell us the truth? Yes and No. The above newspapers have some individual journalists who are world class. But too often, the media lets us down.
Let's take the story of the the biggest mass murder in British history: the story of the plane that crashed into Lockerbie.
Who brought down the plane? The Iranians? The Libyans? Or a 'rogue' element of the CIA dealing in HEROIN? And did the media tell us the truth?
The story starts with the US Congress.
THE US CONGRESS: cut off all funding for the CIA's attempts to arm the fascist Contras, the terrorists trying to undermine the democratic government of Nicaragua. US Lt Col Oliver North then secretly funded a private army. He stockpiled arms and shipped them to both the Contras and Iran, in defiance of US law!
PRESIDENT REAGAN'S DIARY 17/1/86 "I agreed to sell....missiles to Iran."
TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS by Goddard & Coleman (publ.Ted Smart) and other sources : According to this book, Charles McKee, a US military attache in Beirut, discovered that a 'rogue' CIA unit called COREA was doing business with Monzar Al-
Kassar, a Syrian 'arms dealer and drugs trafficker.' Al-Kassar 'was part of' the secret network' run by US Lt Col Oliver North, whereby arms were sold illegally to Iran. It wasn't just arms that were involved in the plot.
'With the full knowledge of elements of the CIA, Lebanese HEROIN was being smuggled into the USA on board Pan Am flights.'
McKee, having collected all the evidence in his briefcase, decided to fly to the USA to tell the CIA chiefs what was going on. He flew on Pan Am 103 which came crashing down over Lockerbie on December 2nd 1988.
JIM WILSON, a Lockerbie farmer : There were bodies and suitcases in his fields. One suitcase was packed with a powdery substance that looked like drugs. The name printed on the suitcase did not appear on the list of passengers.
SCOTTISH RADIO REPORTER DAVID JOHNSTON : The police investigation, after the Lockerbie incident, was held up for at least two days while the CIA hunted for and inspected the luggage of their dead officers.
LOCKERBIE FATAL ACCIDENT INQUIRY : Police surgeon David Fieldhouse, accompanied at all times by at least one police officer, was the person who searched for bodies after Pan Am flight 103 hit Lockerbie. He found and labeled 59 bodies. According to Dr Fieldhouse one body apparently disappeared. It was later claimed by the authorities that there were only 58 bodies.
A MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM searching for debris at Lockerbie 'came across a huge red or orange tarpaulin in an open field...Above the tarpaulin hovered a helicopter. A man with a gun stood in the door....'
WASHINGTON POST ( Columnist Jack Anderson, Jan 1990) : "President Bush and British Prime Minister secretly agreed last spring to play down the truth about who blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland."
NOW, that just about sums it all up. If it was a rogue element of the CIA that was involved, we were not
to be told.
In the first few years after the Lockerbie incident, the intelligence services fed information to the media that the Iranians and Syrians were to blame for Lockerbie. The media bought the story.
SUNDAY TIMES : 'Iran paid the PFLP-General Command (Syrian based) up to ten million dollars in advance to carry out a revenge attack for the shooting down of an Iranian airbus by an American warship in the Gulf in July 1988.' The Sunday Times explained that Marwan KHREESAT made the bomb.
Before the Lockerbie incident, KHREESAT had been arrested by German police, and a bomb of the type used at Lockerbie had been found in his car! Wow!
KHREESAT was released for lack of evidence! Wow!
Khreesat was working for the CIA. Source: Lockerbie-The Flight from Justice, by Paul Foot.. (My view is that most Moslem terror groups are controlled by intelligence agencies.)
The intelligence services were keen to bring Malta into the story. Perhaps they wanted to take attention away from Frankfurt, where 'heroin' had allegedly been part of the story.
GRANADA TELEVISION : Their documentary on Lockerbie showed an Arab checking in a bag at Malta's airport. The idea was that the Lockerbie bomb had been transported to Germany on Air Malta.
AIR MALTA : sued Granada for libel (source Lockerbie, The Flight from Justice, by Paul foot). Extensive research showed that all 55 bags checked in on the Air Malta flight could be ascribed to passengers, none of whom travelled on to London.
Granada settled the action before it got to court
(The bomb suspected of having been used in the Lockerbie incident was connected to altitude sensitive devices designed to set off a 45 minute timer at 3,000 feet. The only sensible place to load such a bomb onto the plane was London.). .
In 1990, President Bush wanted the help of Syria against Iraq, because of events in Kuwait.
The intel
ligence services now began to feed completely different information to the media. The blame was no longer to be put on Iran and Syria. The blame was to be put on somebody else.
Vincent CANNISTRANO had worked with Oliver North in the illegal Iran-Contra affair (selling arms to Iran). He was head of the CIA inquiry into Lockerbie at the time when the CIA had been trying to blame Iran and the Syrians. He was also an expert on Libya and had a history of issuing information damaging to Libya.
Would the media believe Cannistrano and the intelligence services when they now began to hand out 'evidence' that the Lockerbie incident had been caused by the Libyans?
(The case against Iran/Syria had looked so detailed and convincing, and all of the British press had accepted the story.)
Yes, the British media bought the story of Libyan involvement.
The CIA's chief witness was Tony GAUCI, a Maltese shop owner. The Lockerbie bomb was alleged to have been wrapped in clothing purchased from his shop.
In 1989 GAUCI had been shown a photo of Mohammed Salem, a Palestinian. Gauci agreed that the photo 'looks like the man but it is too young by 20 years.' Salem was in his mid thirties. Also in 1989, Gauci was shown a photo of Abu TALB, a Palestinian who was part of the same terror group as Jordanian bomb maker KHREESAT. Gauci said 'I thought that (TALB) was the man who bought the clothes from me.'
In 1989 Gauci told the police that the man who bought the clothes was 'six foot or more in height' and over 50 years old.
At the Lockerbie bomb trial, the prosecution (of the Libyan MEGRAHI) claimed that it was MEGRAHI who had bought the clothing. But MEHRAHI was 5 feet 8 inches tall and in 1988 he was aged 37.
The United Nations sent Dr Hans Kochler to report on and evaluate the Lockerbie trial.
THE UN REPORT : "There is not a single piece of material evidence
linking the accused to the crime....the trial....was not fair."
Dr Kochler came to the conclusion that 'government agencies' (did he mean the CIA?) had controlled the evidence.
And what did the British media have to say about this trial that was 'not fair'?
Most of the media, as usual, went along with the wishes of the CIA. There were big headlines denouncing the 'guilty' Libyan.
And what did the families of the victims of Lockerbie think? Many began to lose faith in British justice. Dr Jim Swire wrote in the Herald: "SADLY WE HAVE REACHED A POSITION WHERE WE DISTRUST THE MOTIVES OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN IN POWER IN THE WEST."
Then we have the 9/11 Attacks on America; and again we have the bulk of the media accepting the handouts from the CIA as if they were gospel.
A letter is mysteriously found in a crashed aircraft. The black boxes may NOT have survived, but the letter has. Then it's John Simpson finding documents left lying around in a house in Kabul. Then it's anthrax.......
And are we still a democracy? After Lockerbie, many people had their doubts. BUT, there ARE still a few journalists willing to tell us the truth! Thank heavens for the independent minded journalists at The News of the World, The Mirror, The Sunday Herald, and the Guardian, who gave us the stories referred to above.
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spoonfacer - 26/01/02 good stuff...proper investigativce journalism sometimes seems to be a dying art. does it have the clout it once had? |
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