POST-TRUTH And Other Lies

The main assumption of the prophets of the horrors of the Post Truth (sometimes called simply fake news) is that there is an official truth (brought to you by the corporate media), and that whatever contradicts that "truth" are the lies that the media is now snobbishly calling Post-Truth (*).

But the fact is corporate media lie, hide the truth and manipulate on a daily basis.

They have been telling each other lier since printed press exists, but they don't like someone else telling them. And they hate not being the only ones to be able to reach the masses.

But you may be one of those who believe that corporate media don't lie, at least not on purpose, maybe sometimes just by accident.


1st Case Study: Panama Papers


Remember the Panama Papers? Well, there were several interesting facts about them, or more precissely, about how the media treated them.

- First, I think it is quite surprising that the BBC made 4 tweets about Putin's friend before making any tweet about David Cameron's father (who was also in the papers), burying it in a secondary account with only around 300K followers (while Putin's friend deserved the most popular account, with several milions of followers.

But the most interesting aspect were the questions about the source of the papers. While we have seen how all western media assume russian hackers (under Putin's orders) are behind any leak in the USA or the EU even without any proof (or just the word of the CIA or the NSA, which means the same), asking who was behind the Panama Papers was like defending Putin himself. And the most funny thing, saying that Soros and the US government were behind the Papers was spreading fake news, although anyone could check it with just a few clicks in the website of one of the organizations (https://www.occrp.org/en - go to the bottom of the website).

2nd Case Study: Chemical attack in Syria of the April 4th, attributed to Assad.

It was fascinating to see how all western media accused Assad of the chemical attack in Syria, without any evidence and without even wondering why the hell would he do that.

The New York Times tried to answer this question, arguing that "rather than an inexplicable act, analysts say, it is part of a carefully calculated strategy of escalating attacks against civilians."

First, this "analysts say" sounds too much to the "some people say" of the Fox News.

Second, and most important, it just doesn't answer the question seriously. Even if this alleged "calculated strategy of escalating attacks against civilians" was real, it doesn't answer the question "WHY NOW?". Let's be serious here, if Assad wanted to do this, he could just perfectly wait until his position was safe.

Why did the western media believe the US army so blindly? How many times have we heard that the US government or army had indisputable evidence about some crime but we never got to see that evidence?

And why should we believe the word of the US government or army? It is not like they haven't lied before about chemical weapons in order to bomb one country (just think of Iraq).

So why didn't the western media consider that it could have been the rebels?

First, we know that the rebels have used chemical weapons several times already:

"Khan al Asal, 19 March 2013:  111.  The United Nations Mission collected credible information that corroborates the allegations that chemical weapons were used in Khan al Asal on 19 March 2013 against soldiers and civilians."

"Jobar, 24 August 2013:  113.  The United Nations Mission collected evidence consistent with the probable use of chemical weapons in Jobar on 24 August on a relatively small scale against soldiers…"

"Ashrafiah Sahnaya, 25 August 2013 117.  The United Nations Mission collected evidence that suggests that chemical weapons were used in Ashrafiah Sahnaya on 25 August 2013 on a small scale against soldiers." [United Nations website]

Second, there are serious reasons to believe that the rebels (aided by foreign governments) have been planning and probably had already executed false flag attacks:

"Accumulating evidence offers persuasive proof that Syrian rebels supported by Turkish intelligence – not Syrian Army troops – bear responsibility for the infamous sarin nerve-gas attack killing hundreds of people on Aug. 21, 2013 in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus. The incident bears all the earmarks of a false-flag attack." [Mintpress News]

zerohedge explains why the April attack could be in fact another false flag action, including a removed article from The Daily Mail from 2013!

"Leaked emails have allegedly proved that the White House gave the green light to a chemical weapons attack in Syria that could be blamed on Assad's regime and in turn, spur international military action in the devastated country.

A report released on Monday contains an email exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britam Defence where a scheme 'approved by Washington' is outlined explaining that Qatar would fund rebel forces in Syria to use chemical weapons. "

And like this we could continue, with endless examples of how corporate media lie, hide and manipulate. We could remember the Noam Chomsky case against The New York Times regarding Cambodja and East Timor (nowadays could be Syria and Yemen), we could remember how they convinced the American people to "free" Kuwait on fabricated stories, how the Kosovo war was promoted by Madeleine Albright with the collaboration of the media, we could go on and on (and maybe we will add some more examples in the future).



Other study cases:


The death of Aylan Kurdi

When the horrible photo of Aylan Kurdi's small body appeared in the newspapers, to say that the main reason of his family's trip was that his father wanted new teeth was a lie, fake news, although the aunt of the child herself, who paid for the trip, explained it in tv.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22FenqnfWQk]

But the "truth" was that the Kurdi family were escaping war the war in Syria, although they came from Turkey were Aylan's father, although with small salary, had a job. 
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3232251/Aylan-father-s-REAL-story-Abdullah-Kurdi-forced-deny-smuggler-new-questions-emerge-picture-shook-world.html].


Gulf War

"Although there were human rights abuses committed in Kuwait by the invading Iraqi military, the alleged incidents which received most publicity in the US were inventions of the public relations firm hired by the government of Kuwait to influence US opinion in favor of military intervention." "Among many other means of influencing US opinion, (...) the firm arranged for an appearance before a group of members of the US Congress in which a woman identifying herself as a nurse working in the Kuwait City hospital described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor.[98]

The story was an influence in tipping both the public and Congress towards a war with Iraq: six Congressmen said the testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq and seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate. The Senate supported the military actions in a 52–47 vote. However, a year after the war, this allegation was revealed to be a fabrication. The woman who had testified was found to be a member of Kuwait's Royal Family, in fact the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the US.[98] She hadn't lived in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion.

The details of the Hill & Knowlton public relations campaign, including the incubator testimony, were published in John R. MacArthur's Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), and came to wide public attention when an Op-ed by MacArthur was published in The New York Times. This prompted a reexamination by Amnesty International, which had originally promoted an account alleging even greater numbers of babies torn from incubators than the original fake testimony. After finding no evidence to support it, the organization issued a retraction. President Bush then repeated the incubator allegations on television." [Wikipedia]


Obama's great uncle and Auschwitz

Remember when Obama lied about his uncle liberating Auschwitz?
Never heard of that? Not a surprise, because the same mainstream media that are so eager to audit Trump's lies, do't seem to care much about Obama's lies. But he did say that his uncle (in fact it was his great uncle, but ho cares about such "small" details...) liberated Auschwitz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVRaA_Z7430), despite the fact that it was the Soviet Army that liberated it 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp#Evacuation.2C_death_marches.2C_and_Soviet_liberation).

For instance, if you search "obama+auschwitz" from site nytimes.com, the only results you get back is from a blog entry (https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/obamas-staff-corrects-wwii-story/). The official excuse given was the Obama's uncle helped liberated another, less known camp, Buchenwald, and he had "simply" confused the names.

Can you imagine what the press would have said if Trump had made such "mistake"? If you think it is not so important that the President of the USA doesn't know who liberated the most infamous concentration camp in WW2 history, maybe you think this is more important (despite not being either in any NYT fact-check:

"He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

Then he got elected.

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside." [https://www.commondreams.org/news/2009/12/13/obamas-big-sellout-president-has-packed-his-economic-team-wall-street-insiders]


War in Bosnia

Western media explained us for years (and still do) how Milosevic planned and guided the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

Well, one thing is sure: they didn't have any evidence of that, as the International Court for the Former Yugoslavia has made clear:
"...there was no sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milošević agreed [with Radovan Karadžić] with the common plan [of ethnic cleansing]"
[http://www.icty.org/x/cases/karadzic/tjug/en/160324_judgement.pdf]

So, if after more than 20 years the tribunal created to investigate the war crimes was not able to find any evidence linkin Milosevic with the ethnic cleansing, what was the news accusing him based on? It means they were lacking any fact.


War in Kosovo

They also told us how NATO was bombing Serbia to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, although this was a lie, becasue the so called ethinc cleansing, started after the bombing, as proven in this documentary from the BBC
[http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bf9e62b3abd846d398e2629c4fbf10d5]


Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

One example that I have already covered in previous posts is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. As Wikipedia says, it "is frequently quoted by major Western news media, such as Voice of America, Reuters, BBC, CNN and National Public Radio."

But if you continue until the description of this organization you will have a surprise: "The organisation is run by one man, Rami Abdulrahman (sometimes referred to as Rami Abdul Rahman), from his home in Coventry. He is a Syrian Sunni Muslim who owns a clothes shop." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Observatory_for_Human_Rights)


Cologne New Years Eve

"Several media outlets at first did not cover the story and, according to Jörg Luyken, only started reporting on the incidents on 5 January, after a wave of anger on social media made covering them unavoidable.[49] This delay was criticised by several politicians, including Hans-Peter Friedrich.[192] The public television channel ZDF later acknowledged that they had failed to report on the incidents despite having sufficient knowledge to do so.[193][194]

ZDF later called the delay in reporting a "clear misjudgment", and said since then, it has been "over-whelmed with hate and anger".[176] This has reinforced discontent previously held by parts of the German public with news coverage relating to the European migrant crisis, as well as a readiness to support the idea of the "Lügenpresse" (literally lying press).[176][195]

The delay in reporting on the assaults in the media lead to accusations that the authorities and the media attempted to ignore or cover up the attacks to avoid criticism against the current asylum and migration policy of the government.[1][196][197] The BBC's Gavin Hewitt wrote, "What has fuelled the sense of crisis is the suspicion - now widely held - that the German establishment is not telling the truth."[176] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany#Criticism_of_late_media_reporting]


(*) About the origins of the post-truth concept:

It is funny that the concept post-truth is now used by the media to talk about Russia and other non-aligned countries, because in their origin it was almost dedicated to american politcs:

"According to Oxford Dictionaries, the term post-truth was first used in a 1992 essay by the late Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich in The Nation. Tesich writes that following the shameful truth of Watergate, more assuaging coverage of the Iran–Contra scandal and Persian Gulf War demonstrate that "we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world."[10][11] In 2004, Ralph Keyes used the term "post-truth era" in his book by that title.[12] The same year American journalist Eric Alterman spoke of a "post-truth political environment" and coined the term "the post-truth presidency" in his analysis of the misleading statements made by the Bush administration after 9/11.[13] In his 2004 book Post-democracy, Colin Crouch used the phrase "post-democracy" to mean a model of politics where "elections certainly exist and can change governments," but "public electoral debate is a tightly controlled spectacle, managed by rival teams of professionals expert in the techniques of persuasion, and considering a small range of issues selected by those teams." Crouch directly attributes the "advertising industry model" of political communication to the crisis of trust and accusations of dishonesty that a few years later others have associated with post-truth politics.[14]

The term "post-truth politics" was coined by the blogger David Roberts in a blog post for Grist on 1 April 2010, where it was defined as "a political culture in which politics (public opinion and media narratives) have become almost entirely disconnected from policy (the substance of legislation)".[15][16]" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics]

BLUE WHALE

First of all, let's see what Wikipedia says about Blue Whale, for those who haven't heard about this wrongly-called "game":

"The term Blue Whale game refers to a trend on Russian-speaking social media, linked to a possible increase in child and teenage suicides, though no suicides have been definitively linked to the game. There have been photos of self-cutting wounds shared on social media alongside the game's hashtags. The game is based in the relationship between the challengers (also called players or participants) and the administrators.[ It involves a series of duties given by the administrators that players must complete, usually one per day, some of which involve self-mutilation. Some tasks can be given in advance, while others can be passed on by the administrators on the day, the last task being suicide. It is believed that the first case of suicide related to the game occurred in 2015 in Russia."

One wonders how is this possible? Who can create such horrible "game", and even more difficult to understand, who would want to play it?!

I have been thinking about it. And my main conclusion is that it is the symptom of the biggest problems of our society: the destruction of moral values.

Is this process "an accident", or has it been carried (and it is being carried) on purpose? Personally I believe it is the latter, but this is not the point of this post. I want to identify some of the mechanisms by which the destruccion of moral values is done:

- Destruction of family. Family is the first and usually the strongest support of the individual. The destruction of family is the first step in the isolation of the individual.

- Reduction of the duration of childhood. This was already denounced by Neil Postman in 1982: "In perhaps his most provocative book, The Disappearance of Childhood, Postman attempts to explain why the dividing line between childhood and adulthood is rapidly eroding in contemporary society, and why the social role of the child may well disappear in modern industrial society."

- Teenagerization. Adults become more and more selfish, egoistic and unable to cope with frustration.

- Individualism.

- De-christianization. GK Chesterton is often quoted as saying "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything."

Although this quote is difficult to trace, several other observations by GK Chesterton make the same point:

"You hard-shelled materialists were all balanced on the very edge of belief — of belief in almost anything." [GK Chesterton, "The Miracle of Moon Crescent" (1924)]

"The nineteenth century decided to have no religious authority. The twentieth century seems disposed to have any religious authority." [GK Chesterton, Illustrated London News, April 26, 1924]

But my favorite is the following one, that explains why all the previous points make sense, why somebody would want to destroy the moral values of our society:

"A man who refuses to have his own philosophy will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else's philosophy." [GK Chesterton, "The Revival of Philosophy," The Common Man (1930)]

Why Russia?

One question that arises is why did this phenomen begin in Russia? The main reason is the moral catastrophe that the Yeltsin (*) Era brought to Russia. The consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yeltsin's presidency expanded like waves in the water across Russia. That period of "freedom", ultracapitalism, individualism, hedonism had many, if not all, the elements described above. Putin's nowadays support is, partly, the people's reaction to that period. In opposition to that period of surrender to foreign powers, and absence of moral or national values, Putin's presidency has placed the Orthodox Church in a predominant position, and uses any opportunity to organize events to remember and honor the successes and sacrifices of ancestors (as it is perfectly shown by the annual Victory's Day celebrations).

(*) Important to remember the support that Yeltsin had from Western powers, elites and politicians.

EUROVISION

So one year has passed since the 2016 Eurovision contest, and one thing seems clear: nobody remembers the song that won for Ukraine, making it clear that it was a political decission.

If you doubt it, just check the Spotify streams of the Eurovision 2016 songs: the winner of the festival is the 18th song most listened.

Even the Estonian and Finish songs, that did not qualify for the final, had more streams than the winner...

CUI PRODEST

"Cui prodest" (or "Cui bono") is a latin phrase meaning "whom does it profit?". It points out that "the person or people guilty of committing a crime may be found among those who have something to gain" [Wikipedia].

Cicero attributed this expression "a very honest and wise judge". And it seems indeed that this reasoning, "who profits of something?", should be the first question when looking for a culprit (this does not mean that it has to be the only question).

But as we know that common sense is the less common of all senses, it is often just ignored by the media and the population who benefits from a certain action, and it is often that the person or people blamed by the media do not only not benefit from that act, but the contrary.

I will now put a perfect example of this: the "famous" chemical attack in Syria, that all Western media attributed to Assad even before knowing about the attack. But the thing is, why would Assad do it?! What does he achieve with that?

This question, this doubt, is so obvious that even the New York Times tried to explain it to its readers:

"The diplomatic situation had been looking bright for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. With the help of Russia, he had consolidated his power, the rebels were on their heels and the United States had just declared that ousting him was not a priority.

So why would Mr. Assad risk it all, outraging the world by attacking civilians with what Turkey now says was the nerve agent sarin, killing scores of people, many of them children? Why would he inflict the deadliest chemical strike since the 2013 attacks outside Damascus?"

I absolutely recommend you this article from NYT because you will see how they completely FAIL to give a reasonable answer.

About Brexit [MUST READ]

"Corrupt elites always try to persuade people to continue to submit to their dominance in exchange for protection from forces that are even worse. That’s their game. But at some point, they themselves, and their prevailing order, become so destructive, so deceitful, so toxic, that their victims are willing to gamble that the alternatives will not be worse, or at least, they decide to embrace the satisfaction of spitting in the faces of those who have displayed nothing but contempt and condescension for them."

"Instead of acknowledging and addressing the fundamental flaws within themselves, they are devoting their energies to demonizing the victims of their corruption, all in order to delegitimize those grievances and thus relieve themselves of responsibility to meaningfully address them. That reaction only serves to bolster, if not vindicate, the animating perceptions that these elite institutions are hopelessly self-interested, toxic, and destructive and thus cannot be reformed but rather must be destroyed."

"But a major factor is that many people recognize that establishment journalists are an integral part of the very institutions and corrupted elite circles that are authors of their plight. Rather than mediating or informing these political conflicts, journalists are agents of the forces that are oppressing people. And when journalists react to their anger and suffering by telling them that it’s invalid and merely the byproduct of their stupidity and primitive resentments, that only reinforces the perception that journalists are their enemy, thus rendering journalistic opinion increasingly irrelevant."

"A sizable portion of the establishment liberal commentariat in the West has completely lost the ability to engage with any sort of dissent from its orthodoxies or even understand those who disagree. They are capable of nothing beyond adopting the smuggest, most self-satisfied posture, then spouting clichés to dismiss their critics as ignorant, benighted bigots."

"...media reaction to the Brexit vote — filled with unreflective rage, condescension, and contempt toward those who voted wrong — perfectly illustrates the dynamics that caused all of this in the first place. Media elites, by virtue of their position, adore the status quo. It rewards them, vests them with prestige and position, welcomes them into exclusive circles, allows them to be close to (if not wield) great power while traveling their country and the world, provides them with a platform, and fills them with esteem and purpose. The same is true of academic elites, financial elites, and political elites. Elites love the status quo that has given them, and then protected, their elite position."

"They are so persuaded of their own natural superiority that any factions who refuse to see it and submit to it prove themselves, by definition, to be regressive, stunted, and amoral."

"West’s establishment credibility is dying, and its influence is precipitously eroding — all deservedly so. The frenetic pace of online media makes even the most recent events feel distant, like ancient history. That, in turn, makes it easy to lose sight of how many catastrophic and devastating failures Western elites have produced in a remarkably short period of time."

"Elites can’t stop, or even affect, any of these movements because they are, at bottom, revolts against their wisdom, authority, and virtue."

“The Los Angeles Times’s Vincent Bevins, in an outstanding and concise analysis, wrote that “both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years”; in particular, “since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.” The British journalist Tom Ewing, in a comprehensive Brexit explanation, said the same dynamic driving the U.K. vote prevails in Europe and North America as well: “the arrogance of neoliberal elites in constructing a politics designed to sideline and work around democracy while leaving democracy formally intact.””


"Because of how generally satisfied they are with their lot, they regard with affection and respect the internationalist institutions that safeguard the west’s prevailing order: the World Bank and IMF, NATO and the west’s military forces, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, the EU. While they express some piecemeal criticisms of each, they literally cannot comprehend how anyone would be fundamentally disillusioned by and angry with these institutions, let alone want to break from them. They are far removed from the suffering that causes those anti-establishment sentiments. So they search and search in vain for some rationale that could explain something like Brexit, or the establishment-condemning movements on the right and left, and can find only one way to process it: these people are not motivated by any legitimate grievances or economic suffering, but instead they are just broken, ungrateful, immoral, hateful, racist and ignorant."


These are some excerpts from the best analysis I have read so far about the revolt against the elites. This article is an absolutely MUST READ.

Brexit is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions.

Political Prosecution in Spain

"Dear friends and colleagues,

It is with great regret that I inform you that my request to be reappointed to a second year as Prince of Asturias Distinguished Visiting Professor of Spanish Studies at Georgetown University, which BMW-CGES director Jeff Anderson conveyed with enthusiastic support to the Spanish Ministry of Education, has been denied.

The decision blocking my appointment comes after several episodes - documented from a variety of sources - in which the Spanish Ambassador in Washington expressed distress about my appearance in the media speaking about Catalonia. The Ministry spells their reasons in administrative terms. However, the fact that the chair will be left vacant next academic year speaks for itself.

That Spanish authorities interfere for political reasons in an academic appointment, with total disregard of freedom of speech and academic freedom, is alarming and can only be qualified as censorship. I am very disappointed at this outcome as I honestly feel that pressures of this sort should not be acceptable in a respected academic institution like Georgetown.

Please do no hesitate to contact me if you have questions or suggestions regarding this regrettable affair.

Sincerely yours,
Clara Ponsatí"

Helmut Kohl on Angela Merkel

"The enormous changes in the world can be no excuse for having no view or idea where you belong and where you are going," he says.

"Germany has not been a predictable factor for several years now - at home or abroad."

"We must take care not to gamble everything away." [BBC]

Wikileaks & the Sword Hanging Over Someone's Head

"WikiLeaks to Publish Data From Ex-Julius Baer Banker" [Bloomberg]:

"WikiLeaks plans to release data on about 2,000 cross-border bank accounts provided by a former Julius Baer Group Ltd. employee, who says they may have been set up to evade taxes."

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is ready to publish details of rich and famous individuals involved in mass tax evasion. They are said to include politicians, business people and multi national conglomerates." [Investment International]

Can you imagine the sweating that some of our "personalities" might be suffering? All these politics that give us lessons about how to overcome the crisis, all these artists that give us lessons on how to be more social?

But it is sure that this "transparency" won't be easy, nor free...

"Rudolf Elmer, who handed over bank client data to WikiLeak’s Julian Assange this week, was detained in Zurich late yesterday as prosecutors investigate possible breaches of Swiss banking secrecy laws." [Business Week]

United States spying at the United Nations

"While several treaties prohibit spying at the United Nations, it is an open secret that countries try nevertheless. In one 2004 episode, a British official revealed that the United States and Britain eavesdropped on Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq in 2003." [The New York Times]

Wikileaks Revelations on U.S. Diplomacy: Greatest Hits

French President Nicolas Sarkozy: ‘has a thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style’ and is an ‘emperor with no clothes’

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: ‘feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader’. He is a ‘physically and politically weak’ leader whose ‘frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest’

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: ‘plays Robin to Putin’s Batman’ and is ‘pale and hesitant’

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: an ‘alpha dog’

Chancellor Angela Merkel: ‘avoids risks and is rarely creative’

Iranian President Mahmoud Amhadinejad: like ‘Hitler’

Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi: is ‘strange’ and ‘accompanied by voluptuous blonde Ukranian “nurse”’

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: governs with ‘a cabal of incompetent advisors’

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il: ‘flabby old chap’ who suffers from ‘physical and psychological trauma’

Afghan president, Hamid Karzai: ‘driven by paranoia’ and ‘an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him’

Zimbabwean tyrant, Robert Mugabe: ‘the crazy old man’

The Polish Temptation. Katyn and Smolensk

This week I have been visiting Poland and having a close touch with the polish reality. And obviously with the reactions after the Smolensk accident.

I remeber the program in the first channel of the TVP called "Solidarni 2010" [Youtube], in which anonymous citizens paying homage to the victims in the center of the main polish cities, gave their impressions about the Smolensk accident, the President and Katyn.

The combination of the Katyn Massacre Anniversary with the Smolensk accident of the Tupolev 154M where the President and other polish authorities died is really a politically unpredictable event.

President Lech Kaczyński's popularity was on a minimum before his dead; a TNS OBOP enquire, made one month before the accident, concluded that only the 27% of the poles gave their approval to Kaczyński's presidency. After the accident, another enquire gave that one 52% of the population had a positive feeling about his figure. This predictable result can be compared with the efect caused by the attack suffered by Silvio Berlusconi.

The magazines and newspapers were full of photos of the life and miracles of Lech Kaczyński (with titles like "A life for Poland"), as well as photos of his daugher and grandaughter in the funeral, clearly inspired by JFK's funeral aesthetics.

But there are still important questions about the accident that haven't been answered, and, obviously, the more important is what was the cause. It seems that the poor weather conditions advised to cancel the landing at Smolensk. And the russian authorities claim that the control tower recommended the plane landing in Minsk or Moscow. Despite of this the plane attempted three times landing before the fourth try proved to be fatal. In the last attempt, he flew far too low and hit treetops, causing the plane to go out of control and crash into a forest.

There could have been too communication problems between the tower and the plane about the heights, but the main question remains: why did the captain insist in landing in Smolensk, against the advise of the tower and, even after three failed attempts?

Both the captain and co-pilot had plenty of flight experience. Arkadiusz Protasiuk († 36) had graduated officer school and had worked in the special service for transport flights since 1997. He had been crew leader since 2009 and had completed 1,939 flying hours. The second pilot, Robert Karol Grzywa († 36), had 3,521 flying hours. And there comes the most consistent hypothesis: direct orders from President Kaczyński, who was, as President, the head of the Polish Army. He had to attend an homage to the victims of Katyn at 10:00, so there was no possibility that he arrived on time if the plane landed in a different airport. And even more important, he had already ordered the landing of a plane against the Captain's opinion in 2008.

In August 12, 2008, Kaczyński was on a flight to Tblisi, Georgia, to give support to to this country in its conflict with Russia. At the arrival, the control tower advised to land in another airport. The Captain did so, against the direct order of Kaczyński to land anyway, and he was later dismissed by the President.

So it seems that there is a high probability that Kaczyński ordered the pilot to land no matter what. In this case he would be responsible not only for his own dead, but also for the dead of 94 other people.

Perhaps to fight this theory, other rumours have appeared about the russian implication in the accident. This rumours claim that Kaczyński could have been murdered.

But the big problem is that Kaczyński was nobody politically speaking. He may have been a problem for Russia in the past, but now, with his presidency facing the end and with a really low popularity he was nothing of interest for Russia. Even in Europe, Kaczyński didn't had any kind of influence. His supporters defend the idea that he was a near-to-the-people president, in contrast to, for instance, Lech Walesa. But the second may have been a disappoiting president for the poles, but, due to his biography, he was a relatively respected politician in Europe; Kaczyński was never an influential voice in the european panorama.

And also there is the other side of manipulation: the "katynification" of Kaczyński; the mixing between the figure of the dead President and the victims of Katyn. The purpose is obvious: to give the dead President the halo of one of those martyred poles killed by the soviets. In this sense is especially interesting to use the idea of the conspiracy in his dead.

And also it has been created the perception that it was Kaczyński who unveiled the massacre of Katyn, something ridiculous if we think that it was Boris Yeltsin who declassified the documents about the massacre [Wikipedia].

The greatest danger now is that his brother becomes the President of Poland, using the memory of his brother to convince the voters.

Pax Americana (in Iraq)

Ayer apareció un video publicado por Wikileaks, organización que se dedica a filtrar documentación oficial o clasificada. Algunos (especialmente las administraciones) cuestionan esta actividad. Parece más que evidente lo adecuado, lo necesario, de la tarea efectuada por organizaciones como Wikileaks cuando visionamos el siguiente video.

En este video se puede ver como unos soldados norteamericanos asesinan indiscriminadamente a un grupo de iraquies, incluyendo a un fotógrafo de Reuters y su chófer, e hiriendo de gravedad a dos niños.

Las autoridades militares han alegado que los soldados confundieron la cámara del fotógrafo con un arma y que su actuación está de acuerdo con la ley en conflictos armados y reglas de combate (Rules of Engagement), la normativa sobre cuándo, dónde y cómo el uso de la fuerza debe ser usada. [La Vanguardia] Juzguen ustedes mismos tras el visionado del vídeo.

Lo más grave, tal vez incluso más que el asesinato de civiles inocentes, es la impunidad con la que fue cometido este crimen, que milagrosamente se ha hecho público y que, a pesar de ello, probablemente quede impune. Y la pregunta evidente es, ¿en cuántas ocasiones habrá sucedido lo mismo y jamás lo sabremos?

Versión completa

September 22nd, 1963

Some key images from one of the most important and frightening events of the XXth century.

I can't condemn Massimo Tartaglia

Any agression is condemnable and unjustifiable. But, when I see the footage of the aggression against Silvio Berlusconi, president of Italy, I really am unable to condemn Massimo Tartaglia, his attacker.

So, could an agression be justified? Or, talking about presidents of countries, can an assassination (magnicidio) be justified? Let's put, for instance, an extreme example, Adolf Hitler. Would anybody condemn someone who tried to kill him? Or, more recently, would anybody condemn someone who tried to kill Milosevic? (Althought probably he was responsible for less than 5% of the crimes he was accused of). I am pretty sure that the 99% of the population who know these two leaders would accept their "execution". So if we accept that one magnicide is justified, where is the limit? What are the crimes that justify it? The death of how many people? One million? No, even if we accept that Milosevic commited the crimes he is accused of, he didn't kill one million people. One thousand? Why not one hundred? Why not ten? In the moment that we accept that one assassination can be justified, there is a really thin and subjective line to establish the limits.

But some can argue that Berlusconi hasn't killed anybody or been responsible for the dead of anybody. Even assuming that, Berlusconi himself is responsible for the moral, ethic, legal degeneration of Italy. He has taken the country to the total lack of morality (both religious or ethical), he is one cancer in the italian society.

Even, how can he condemn his aggressor? He publicly stated that the condemned murderer Vittorio Mangano was a "hero", and also defended Marcello Dell'Utri, who had been condemned for association with the mob.

But even the fact that one President defending criminals and murderers is serious, maybe it is even worse the fact that since he arrived he has been trying to establish laws (or best said, to modify laws) to protect himself, and his "friends". And this, in fact, is the first step of the dead of democracy, to change the laws in the interest of the leader.

Kennedy about Secret Societies and Journalism

"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment."

"...our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.... On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal."

John F. Kennedy, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1961. [Source]