A censored war, censored veterans, media black
out of Pentagon propaganda "experts" on their payroll and the upcoming
war with Iran. What is the facts? will we ever know?

We start
our story with Joe Everybody, Kristofer Goldsmith,who starts his on
Sept. 11 2001,  with rage in his heart, he signed up to protect America

Goldsmith
saw the World Trade Center towers collapse on September 11, 2001. He
enlisted in the Army and went to Iraq in 2005. In Sadr City, he
witnessed abuse of Iraqi civilians. He was assigned to take pictures of
Iraqis found in a shallow grave, ostensibly for intelligence purposes,
but they were only used as trophies by those who received them. After
repeated commendations, he was expecting to return to civilian life and
college when President Bush announced the “surge,” and the military
adopted its stop-loss policy, essentially making Goldsmith a prisoner
of war. He tried to kill himself rather than return to Iraq, but
survived. He was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, but then
was discharged for misconduct as a malingerer. He now delivers pizzas
and struggles to overcome his persisting symptoms with treatment
through the VA.

This video was played at the "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan conference (3/13/08-3/16/08)", where dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland and offered harrowing testimony about atrocities they had witnessed or participated in directly.

The BBC predicted that the event, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, "could be dominating the headlines around the world this week(*March---Joe)", and while it was truly broadcast internationally, here in the States it was almost completely blacked out.

Even
with the bullshit media blitzing of supporting our troops, when it came
down to actually listening to the over 1000 member group of veterans
and getting their message out, The New York Times claimed that they had
"not been aware of the group or its meeting,"

According to FAIR - Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (4/8/08) :

The Times’ D.C. bureau editor’s claim to have not heard of the hearings is remarkable, given that the AP
newswire carried a story on the hearings, and IVAW has confirmed to
FAIR that the D.C. bureau had been sent three separate rounds of
different IVAW press releases. In addition, at least 150 Times staffers were sent press releases about Winter Soldier by the Institute for Public Accuracy,
a group that encourages inclusion of overlooked facts and progressive
perspectives in media coverage. Given that media organizations
operating on a small fraction of the Times' budget were aware of and able to find the resources to cover these hearings, the Times’ D.C. bureau’s plea to ignorance about the hearings is all the more disappointing.

Blackouts
are only the beginning, and the New York Times actually came forward to
explain that the Pentagon had strategically placed "war experts into
the media" to say all is going well in Iraq. They seem to have been
placed there in an effort to sell the American public the Iraq war.
From Source Watch:

"Internal
Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as
'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' who could be counted on to
deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of Americans
'in the form of their own opinions.' ... Don Meyer,
an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to
make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to
construct a case for war." Clarke and her senior aide, Brent T. Krueger,
eventually signed up more than 75 retired military officers, who
appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts,
and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The Pentagon held weekly
meetings with the military analysts, which continued as of April 2008,
when David Barstow reported on the program in the New York Times.

So,
if you don't read the Times, you know nothing of what I'm speaking
about, do you? It has also been blacked out by the national media
outlets, an illegal media propaganda campaign completely blacked out.
Isn't this the type of thing we fought Hitler for?

From PR Watch.org (5/6/08) :

Here is the official Pentagon website
with the 8,000 pages of documents, the most interesting and revealing
of them previously secret and only available to the Pentagon and the New York Times:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/

More than two weeks after the New York Times reported on the Penatgon's military analyst program
to sell controversial policies such as the invasion of Iraq, the
broadcast television news outlets implicated in the program are hoping
to tough out the scandal by refusing to report it. Recently Media Matters of America (MMA) reported that, according to a search of the Nexis database, "the three major broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have still not mentioned the report at all."

The Pew Excellence in Journalism project has a chart showing that " there was virtually no mainstream media follow up to The Times’ expose" with the only national TV coverage being the introduction segment and live debate featuring CMD's John Stauber on the PBS NewsHour.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro and three dozen colleagues have sent a letter
to the Department of Defense Inspector General calling for an
investigation of this "propaganda campaign aimed at deliberately
misleading the American public."

Last month. one of the propaganda team came forward and saw a vision, in April one of the Pentagon’s propaganda team of military analysts exposed by David Barstow in the NYT, a Ret. Gen. Thomas McInerney, speaking on FOX News, openly called for the US to begin committing “tit-for-tat” terrorist attacks by proxy inside Iran.

Craziness
you may say, apparently Iran seems to believe it to be a fact,
according to the Tahran Times, Iran's leading international daily, in
an article entitled "Iran busts CIA terror network" (5/18/08) :

n
a coordinated operation on May 7, Iranian intelligence agents arrested
the terrorist network’s members, who were identified in Fars,
Khuzestan, Gilan, West Azerbaijan, and Tehran provinces, the
Intelligence Ministry announcement said.

The group’s plans were
devised in the U.S., according to the announcement, which added that
they had planned to carry out a number of acts such as bombing
scientific, educational, and religious centers, shooting people, and
making public places in various cities insecure.

One of the
terrorists was killed in the operation, but the rest are in detention,
the Intelligence Ministry said, adding that the group’s main objective
was to create fear among the people.

The United States Central
Intelligence Agency comprehensively supported the terrorist group by
arming it, training its members, and sponsoring its inhumane activities
in Iran, the Intelligence Ministry stated.

The terrorists had
maps, films, pictures, and sketches of important and sensitive sites in
various cities in their possession when they were arrested.

The Los Angeles Times says there is no proof to Iraq's claims in its article "IRAN: Tehran accuses West of waging war on its turf" (5/16/08), while Bush and Israel have agreed that there needs to be "tangible action in Iran." (Yahoo News 5/16)

What's really going on in Iraq, Iran and in the United Stated media? I don't know if this generation will ever know.

Censorship
is the bane of our society, to get some Journalistic integrity and/or
some type of opposing view, check the links below and familiarize
yourself with the sites.

• U.S. Sergeant Refuses to Go to Iraq: "This Occupation is Unconstitutional and Illegal" - AlterNet (5/16/08)
• Why Are Winter Soldiers Not News? - FAIR (3/19/08)
• Pentagon Propagandist General Calls for US to Sponsor Terrorism Against Iran - Crooks and Liars (5/15/08)
• The Common Man News
• Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatch
• Iraq Vets Will Detail U.S. Atrocities in Winter Soldier Hearings - AlterNet (3/11/08)
• Iraq Veterans Against War
• UTNE Reader
• Mother Jones

And if you really want to support our troops, check out

• IAVA - The Iraq an Afghanistan Veterans of America
• The Wounded Warriors Project

While we are on the political take, may I place this great cartoon for all of my readers to enjoy

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