Please… the truth, for the historical record
The other night I caught on television the remaining minutes of Studio Two, the Ontario public television network current affairs program.
Speaking of the recent events in Iraq, host Steve Paikin tossed out one last item for discussion to his three guests before wrapping up.
Mr. Paikin had just that morning read a mainstream article that commented that a close aid to Yasser Arafat claimed that Israel had poisoned Arafat. (Quite frankly, independent media had reported on this story over a week before.)
The three guests, of the Globe and Mail, former Canadian Ambassador to Israel and Jordan and Representative to the Palestinian Authority, , and , Executive Director of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, immediately showed derision at the possibility – a cheap conspiracy theory.Chouaib commented that killing Arafat would serve no beneficial purpose for Sharon but when prodded by Paikin, he offered that it perhaps wasn’t inconceivable.
Putting the question to the Globe’s Patrick Martin, Martin nixed the thought saying it wasn’t important. What was relevant was that Arafat was dead and what would be the resulting implications be of his death.Paikin was taken aback that there was no interest in the question of poison.
His follow-up to Martin was of incredulity that someone in the newspaper business had no interest in fact-finding the truth – "for the historical record."As the discussion moved on, all guests begrudgingly relented, offering that just maybe, it could be less conspiracy and perhaps be a possible impossibility. Chouaib eventually acknowledged that Israel has indeed used poison before and pointed to a high profile case in 1995.
Interesting is that no one realized that the implications here are of murder.
This nonchalance to determining the truth for the ‘historical record’ by mainstream media is disappointing but not surprising.The attitude appears to be that simple acceptance of an event is enough of the story. They just move on from there.
As with the attacks of 9/11 on the World Trade Centre, despite hundreds of anomalies in the official line, there was no interest or investigation by the media to answer these questions.
They simply said to themselves, "the attacks occurred on this date and what is the next part of this story – if there is one."Yet, at times, the question of how and why we arrived here is as important and indeed at times more so, than simply that we are here.
Iraq offers another perfect example.
Obviously, the reason for the Iraq invasion and war was not because of WMDs or the non-existent links of Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. The reason now was purportedly to remove a terrible dictator (of which many others worldwide have not been targeted by the US) and instill democracy in an area of the world, which has seen none.
Again, the mainstream media accepts the official lie. If they really wanted to address the question of why the US is in Iraq, they would immediately realize that it isn’t at all about promoting democracy in this region.
This region has had a successful democracy before. Mohammed Mossadegh was the popularly, democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953. Unfortunately for Mossadegh, the US was not pleased with his oil policies, which promoted control of Iran’s oil and created wealth for Iran citizens at the expense of greedy US major oil companies.The US overthrew Mossadegh in a coup co-ordinated by CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Iran’s democratically elected government was brought down and replaced with the dictatorship of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran.The US wants democracy for the region? No. Here we have the most recent reason for the US occupation of Iraq to be another lie.
Then with the question of why the US is in Iraq still unanswered by mainstream media, are they interested determining the truth for the record? Obviously not.
For the record, the military operation is Iraqi amounts to a military base, itself sitting on a goodly amount of oil and in a position to exert control over 65% of the world’s recoverable oil.Easily viewed, the systemic problem with mainstream media is their complete lack of interest in digging underneath what award winning journalist John Pilger comments as "the hidden agenda of the message and the myths that surround it."
Fortunately, independent media will ask the questions, dig underneath the agenda and demand the truth… for the historical record.
The other night I caught on television the remaining minutes of Studio Two, the Ontario public television network current affairs program.
Speaking of the recent events in Iraq, host Steve Paikin tossed out one last item for discussion to his three guests before wrapping up.
Mr. Paikin had just that morning read a mainstream article that commented that a close aid to Yasser Arafat claimed that Israel had poisoned Arafat. (Quite frankly, independent media had reported on this story over a week before.)
The three guests, of the Globe and Mail, former Canadian Ambassador to Israel and Jordan and Representative to the Palestinian Authority, , and , Executive Director of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, immediately showed derision at the possibility – a cheap conspiracy theory.Chouaib commented that killing Arafat would serve no beneficial purpose for Sharon but when prodded by Paikin, he offered that it perhaps wasn’t inconceivable.
Putting the question to the Globe’s Patrick Martin, Martin nixed the thought saying it wasn’t important. What was relevant was that Arafat was dead and what would be the resulting implications be of his death.Paikin was taken aback that there was no interest in the question of poison.
His follow-up to Martin was of incredulity that someone in the newspaper business had no interest in fact-finding the truth – "for the historical record."As the discussion moved on, all guests begrudgingly relented, offering that just maybe, it could be less conspiracy and perhaps be a possible impossibility. Chouaib eventually acknowledged that Israel has indeed used poison before and pointed to a high profile case in 1995.
Interesting is that no one realized that the implications here are of murder.
This nonchalance to determining the truth for the ‘historical record’ by mainstream media is disappointing but not surprising.The attitude appears to be that simple acceptance of an event is enough of the story. They just move on from there.
As with the attacks of 9/11 on the World Trade Centre, despite hundreds of anomalies in the official line, there was no interest or investigation by the media to answer these questions.
They simply said to themselves, "the attacks occurred on this date and what is the next part of this story – if there is one."Yet, at times, the question of how and why we arrived here is as important and indeed at times more so, than simply that we are here.
Iraq offers another perfect example.
Obviously, the reason for the Iraq invasion and war was not because of WMDs or the non-existent links of Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. The reason now was purportedly to remove a terrible dictator (of which many others worldwide have not been targeted by the US) and instill democracy in an area of the world, which has seen none.
Again, the mainstream media accepts the official lie. If they really wanted to address the question of why the US is in Iraq, they would immediately realize that it isn’t at all about promoting democracy in this region.
This region has had a successful democracy before. Mohammed Mossadegh was the popularly, democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953. Unfortunately for Mossadegh, the US was not pleased with his oil policies, which promoted control of Iran’s oil and created wealth for Iran citizens at the expense of greedy US major oil companies.The US overthrew Mossadegh in a coup co-ordinated by CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Iran’s democratically elected government was brought down and replaced with the dictatorship of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran.The US wants democracy for the region? No. Here we have the most recent reason for the US occupation of Iraq to be another lie.
Then with the question of why the US is in Iraq still unanswered by mainstream media, are they interested determining the truth for the record? Obviously not.
For the record, the military operation is Iraqi amounts to a military base, itself sitting on a goodly amount of oil and in a position to exert control over 65% of the world’s recoverable oil.Easily viewed, the systemic problem with mainstream media is their complete lack of interest in digging underneath what award winning journalist John Pilger comments as "the hidden agenda of the message and the myths that surround it."
Fortunately, independent media will ask the questions, dig underneath the agenda and demand the truth… for the historical record.