The Trillion Dollar Conspiracy censored, April 25 2011

by Jim Marrs (in his exact words)

I have had five books cancelled on me under unusual circumstances, but for the first time in my experience as an author, I was overtly censored during the publication of my latest New York Times Best Seller The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy.

The conversation with my senior editor went something like this:

EDITOR: “I did not contract for this and I suggest you take it out of the manuscript.”
JIM: “Well, I think this section is very important and should remain. It is well sourced.”
EDITOR: “Then let me put it this way. Either you take out this section or I won’t publish the book.”

The editor then proceeded to argue that this demand did not constitute censorship, a position to which I strongly disagreed.

Ironically, the section in question concerned how the corporate mass media censors the news.

“You’ve just proved my point, haven’t you?” I responded, knowing full well that for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which was the need to get the information in the book out to the public, I would eventually be forced to remove this section as well as some others.

And what was it that was so disturbing to this editor for a large corporate publisher?

These sections were removed in their entirety:
Media Control - 9/11 and Two Million Man March Linked Media Directorship
Top 25 Censored Stories
A False Picture of al Qaeda
Obama and the CIA

Here are the sections within the portion on media control that someone in the corporate world did not want you to see:

9/11 AND THE TWO-MILLION MAN MARCH

Despite the media’s widespread use, corporate imperatives can dictate both what and how the public is to think about any given topic. One good case in point concerns the attacks of September 11, 2001, colloquially known as 9/11.

Hundreds of books and articles, websites, DVDs, and feature films have been produced about this defining moment in the early 21st century, yet no one is any nearer to learning the real truth of the attacks. Yet, without 9/11 there would have been no hurried passage of the controversial PATRIOT Act, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Military Commissions Act, the erosion of Constitutional liberties or the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. These unprovoked wars (neither country was involved in 9/11) based on erroneous information – weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq and Osama bin Laden hiding in Afghan caves – were continuing in 2010.

Like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the years following 9/11 were filled with official pronouncements later shown to be untrue, and with charges, countercharges, and scientific evidence that were all called into question. The confusion created by the bickering creates a new kind of cover-up— one formed by ambiguity. There was no lack of evidence. Rather, high levels of confusion and obfuscation disallowed the average person to discern the truth. The only truth about 9/11 is that the public has not been told the truth.

Those who are doubtful, should read former New Jersey Attorney General John Farmer’s 2009 book The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11. Farmer served as Senior Counsel to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, better known as the 9/11 Commission. On the second page of his book, Farmer wrote, “In the course of our investigation into the national response to the attacks, the 9/11 Commission staff discovered that the official version of what had occurred [the morning of September 11, 2001] — that is, what government and military officials had told Congress, the Commission, the media, and the public about who knew what when— was almost entirely, and inexplicably, untrue.” Farmer then reveals how “the public had been seriously misled about what occurred during the morning of the attacks,” and that “at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.”

“The perpetuation of the untrue official version remains a betrayal of every citizen who demanded a truthful answer to the simple question: What happened?” Farmer added.

Official version is entirely untrue: John Farmer, The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11 (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), pp. 2-5.

Farmer’s accusations echoed other stories written years before. In 2006, Farmer co-authored a Washington Post story that stated, “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources.”

In the same article, John Farmer stated, “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. . . . This is not spin. This is not true.”

Even the Commission Chairman Thomas Kean voiced the same suspicions of deceit, saying, “We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us. It was just so far from the truth . . .”

Thomas Kean and John Farmer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080101300.html

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts wrote, “Make no mistake, Farmer is not saying that 9/11 was an inside job, however, Farmer’s testimony, along with that of his fellow 9/11 Commission members, conclusively demonstrates that…the official story as told to the public on [9/11] and that which remains the authorities’ version of events today, is a lie….This is a fact that no debunker or government apologist can ever legitimately deny.”

In reviewing Farmer’s book on Amazon.com, Roberts concluded, “Whether the lies were big or little, whether the lies were told to cover-up a false flag operation or to cover the butts of agencies that had failed in their responsibilities, whether Farmer's explanations for the lies are correct or incorrect, the fact remains that the Commission was misled. The conclusion to be drawn is that the Commission's report is unreliable and, therefore, that we do not have the truth about 9/11. That this conclusion comes from the legal counsel to the Commission is compelling evidence that a new investigation is required.”

Paul Craig Roberts on government version of 9/11 a lie: http://www.infowars.com/911-commission-counsel-government-agreed-to-lie-about-911/

The story of 9/11 that was broadcast to the public by the mass media aligned with the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission. But where was the same lavish coverage in 2009 when the prestigious Danish Open Chemical Journal published a paper entitled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” that concluded that separate dust samples from the World Trade Centers showed evidence of a military controlled-demolition explosive? Written by nine noted scientists, the article presented evidence that dust from the Twin Towers and Building Seven of the World Trade Center contained small intact samples of thermite, a highly explosive agent consisting mostly of aluminum and iron oxide used to cut steel in controlled demolitions.

Through the use of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry, the scientists who wrote the paper were able to determine that the thermite in the WTC debris was of a specialized type called Nano-thermite or Superthermite, a substance generally available only through the US military.

Since at least one of the samples in the study was retrieved no more than 10 minutes after the collapse of the North Tower, it could not have been due to later clean-up at Ground Zero. Furthermore, the dust samples were collected from at least four separate sites, yet all were consistent in showing traces of thermite. The use of thermite could go far in explaining streams of molten steel filmed flowing from the upper stories of one of the towers, the near free-fall speed of their collapse, and the fact that steel from the towers remained in a molten state for many weeks after 9/11. Thermite can achieve temperatures in excess of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, while even under the most optimum conditions jet fuel, a modified kerosene, has a normal flash point of only about 125 degrees.

The entire paper regarding Thermite may be downloaded at http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

Another pertinent 9/11 story that seems to have escaped the attention of the corporate mass media concerns the door to the flight deck on American Flight 77 which reportedly crashed into the west wall of the Pentagon. CNN on September 12, 2001, reported that TV commentator Barbara Olson had made a phone call from Flight 11 prior to the Pentagon strike and said “all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters." According to the official story, hijacker Hani Hanjour took control of the aircraft, descended 2,200 feet in a 330-degree spiraling dive, leveled off at near-treetop altitude and struck the Pentagon at maximum speed -- about 550 miles per hour.

Pilots herded to back of plane: http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson/

Researchers at the Pilots For 9/11 Truth website, while studying flight data from Flight 77 released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), discovered a data parameter labeled "FLT DECK DOOR." It showed the Flight Deck Door was never opened during flight. “How were the hijackers able to gain access to the cockpit, remove the pilots, and navigate the aircraft to the Pentagon if the Flight Deck Door remained closed?” observed Pilots for 9/11 Truth.

Pilots question how fight deck door was never opened: http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=18405

Adding to the mystery of Flight 77, was testimony by the FBI in the 2006 trial of accused hijacker accomplice Zacarias Moussaoui. FBI evidence presented at court included a report on phone calls from the four 9/11 airliners. The FBI reported that only one call was made by Barbara Olson and this was an “unconnected call” which reached no one. In other words, Barbara Olson’s husband never received a call from her.

FBI says one Olson call unconnected: http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/flights/P200055.html

So what does all this mean? Vancouver writer and film-maker, John S. Hatch, on World Net Daily’s Information Clearing House website, wrote, “It means that there is proof (which so far no one has attempted to refute) that the WTC buildings (and more than three thousand lives, counting the ongoing deaths of first responders and ordinary NYC citizens caused by the dust) were brought down by controlled demolition in a planned and purposeful manner by elements of the Bush Administration, most likely as a ‘catalyzing event’ , the new Pearl Harbor’ fondly mentioned by neo-con PNAC (Plan for the New American Century) and designed to galvanize American citizens in support of attacking other nations and restricting human rights at home.

John S. Hatch on catalyzing event: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22408.htm

Any experienced news editor would consider the stories above as worthy of headline news, yet none have appeared in the mainstream media. Another clear example of news media malfeasance occurred on September 12, 2009, in Washington, D.C.

A massive crowd of Americans marched in the nation’s capital and filled the National Mall. They were there to protest President Obama’s proposed healthcare plan as well as government spending. The crowd obviously felt both were out of control. Protesters carried signs with messages such as “Obamacare makes me sick” and “I'm not your ATM,” and “Just Say No!”

The New York Times reported surprise at the turnout, stating, “The demonstrators numbered well into the tens of thousands, though the police declined to estimate the size of the crowd. Many came on their own and were not part of an organization or group. But the magnitude of the rally took the authorities by surprise, with throngs of people streaming from the White House to Capitol Hill for more than three hours.” It added that the crowd exhibited “an air of festivity.”

Crowd with air of festivity: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/politics/13protestweb.html?_r=2&th&emc=th

The Washington Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency watched on as protesters filled Pennsylvania Avenue for many blocks leading away from the Capitol Building. Unofficial estimates placed the crowd at closer to two million. Many protesters said they paid their own way to Washington. Among the organizers of the protest were the Tea Party Patriots, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and the Ayn Rand Center for Individuals Rights. The organizers claimed that the protest was a carry-over from the April nationwide “tea parties” protesting the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts.

Millions march on Washington: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/12/thousands-washington-dc-protesters-blast-obama/

About 150 fellow citizens from Maryland’s Eastern Shore were joined by 78-year-old Joan Wright, of Ocean Pines, who spoke for many in the crowd by telling reporters, “I'm not taking this crap anymore. I don't like the health-care. I don't like the czars. And I don't like the elitists telling us what we should do or eat.” Wright was referring to the 32 “czars,” or policy coordinators, appointed by President Obama to oversee activities ranging from health and terrorism to domestic violence and cars. Critics say that by using his own authority to appoint these people to policy jobs, Obama is bypassing the Constitutional authority of the Senate to investigate and confirm important governmental positions.

Joan Wright against czars and “right-wing domestic terrorists”: http://anomalynews.com/tag/obama/

It might be noted that Organizing for America described the multitude exercising their First Amendment rights in Washington as “right-wing domestic terrorists.” This characterization was quickly removed from the pro-Obama website.

Whether or not there were “tens of thousands” or two million Americans demonstrating in the nation’s capital, one would think that there would be more headlines and TV news stories generated across the nation such as when the Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan conducted a Million Man March on Washington in 1995. Instead, this time there was barely a murmur in the mass media.

LINKED MEDIA DIRECTORSHIPS

Each year Project Censored compiles a list of twenty-five news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the national corporate news media. According to studies the project, a non-profit media research group managed through the School of Social Sciences at Sonoma State University, the largest media companies are actually interconnected by common owners and board members.

This claim is supported by a 2005 study by the Project Censored research team of Bridget Thornton, Brit Walters, and Lori Rouse, who revealed that within ten major media corporations, there were 118 individuals who sat on 288 different national and international corporate boards. They said this proves “a close on-going interlock between big media and corporate America…..We found media directors who also were former Senators or Representatives in the House such as Sam Nunn (Disney) and William Cohen (Viacom). Board members served at the FCC such as William Kennard (New York Times) and Dennis FitzSimmons (Tribune Company).” All of this evidence demonstrated the revolving door relationships between big media and U.S. government officials.

Contrasting media statistics: Kevin J. Martin, “The Daily Show,” The New York Times (November 13, 2007)

Considering that these media organizations serve as the main sources of information for most Americans, corporate connections like the ones listed should require close and continuous public scrutiny for evidence of bias.

“Disney owns ABC, so we wonder how the board of Disney reacts to negative news about their board of directors friends such as Halliburton or Boeing. We see board members with connections to Ford, Kraft, and Kimberly-Clark who employ tens of thousands of Americans. Is it possible that the US workforce receives only the corporate news private companies want them to hear?” asked the research team. “If these companies control the media, they control the dissemination of news turning the First Amendment on its head by protecting corporate interests over people.”

Ted Turner five companies that control: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/control_2.html

The national news media is not only linked by directorships to corporate business but also to higher education. The team found media board members associated with USC (the Washington Post), Columbia (Gannett), Georgetown (Disney), NYU (the Washington Post), and Wharton (Knight-Ridder) among others. Thornton, Walters, and Rouse wrote, “With the decreasing state and federal funding to universities, will we see our higher learning institutions tie themselves more to corporations than the government for their funding?... Will the universities eventually focus education around the production of workers or thinkers?”

In their report, Thornton, Walters, and Rouse noted how history was repeating itself with media corporations. “As the Roman Empire declined, feudalism took the place of the government. The feudal lord was one of the few sources of jobs in the fourth and fifth centuries. These lords owned most of the land and resources. Today, we replace feudalism with corporatism. The mass population has few choices for their news, information and education. As corporate media applauds an ownership society, we must realize who gets to own. In corporate-dominated capitalism, wealth concentration is the goal and the corporate media are the cheerleaders.”

Interlocking corporate directors: http://www.projectcensored.org/images/uploads/guide-corporate-media-ownership.pdf

Anyone reading the news today will know that journalism has not been as profitable as it once was. While many point their finger at the internet and the 2008-2009 economic crisis, Professor Robert McChesney with the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said journalism got itself into trouble decades ago. “The crisis began before news advertising revenue was lost to craigslist,” he wrote. “The real problem is the corporate consolidation and monopoly control over journalism, which began in the late 1960s and unfolded throughout the 70s. In highly profitable monopolistic news entities (newspaper firms and network broadcasters), media owners, seeking to make more money, began to cut newsroom staff and commercialize news values. By the 1980s there was already a huge crisis in U.S. news journalism. Journalists became despondent about the commercial pressures shaping their work. The Internet and the world economic crisis have only intensified this deeper crisis in journalism.”

Leo Bogart about pressure on journalists: http://www.freedomforum.org/publications/msj/courage.summer2000/t09.html

As corporate takeovers of news outlets grew, older editors, trained in true journalism, were squeezed out, either by attrition, corporate shuffling, downsizing or early retirement. Quality news suffered, as these mentors were no longer available to bring their experience and wisdom to young incoming reporters. Even journalism publications such as The Quill, a newsletter produced by the Society of Professional Journalists, today seems more concerned about cultural diversity in the newsroom or how to research on the computer than if any truth is being presented in the news columns.

McChesney said professional journalists have always been comfortable with corporate ownership, the dependency on advertising, and the status quo. “The idea of professional journalism has been a very conservative force. It gives working journalists the illusion that they are being fair, balanced, and neutral when reporting. In fact, the code of professionalism they abide by has built into it certain values that push them, almost unconsciously, in certain directions. This was as true in the 1960s as it is today. But the situation has become worse today because newsrooms have been gutted. There are fewer and fewer professional journalists trying to cover more and more new stories.”

Robert McChesney on fewer professional journalists: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/246.php

Robert McChesney on journalist don’t ask questions: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/246.php

And, more often than not, these “new” stories concern celebrities, sports figures or sometimes, the downtrodden. “We used to call these ‘sob stories’. They are human interest pieces that glorify celebrities so that later they can be sniped at,” said Michael H. Price, a Texas print editor with a long history in newspaper work. “And editors today want stories written with attitude. But since almost any personal attitude will result in the charge of advocacy, attitude means no attitude. Reporters today are often sent out on stories and told to be ‘snarky,’ a British term meaning arrogant or sarcastic.

Price said the news media today is little more than a ventriloquist dummy for corporate interests and the ruling class “pandering with shallow and flippant writing to a mass audience who have never read newspaper anyway and, in this process, they are losing the literary, discerning readership. The media has allowed itself to be dumbed down and the reading public won’t follow which is why they are losing subscribers.” Michael H. Price on shallow news reporting: Interview with author, January 28, 2010.

The Obama administration, realizing a frontal attack on the First Amendment would meet stiff resistance, apparently was making an end run around it. On October 2, 2009, American diplomats for the first time attended a Geneva meeting of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council as full council members. In a dramatic departure from past policy, they supported a resolution to limit freedom of expression.

Despite the fact that nations and groups accused of human rights abuse, including the Organization of the Islamic Conference, China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, hold sway within the council, President Obama chose to send American representatives.

According to Anne Bayefsky, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a professor at Touro College in New York City, Islamic states saw Obama’s participation in the council as “meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs.”

After the 2008 publication of images of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, Cuba and various Islamic countries pushed an amendment limiting any speech they claimed was an “abuse . . . [that] constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination.”

Ann Bayefsky on the UN Human Rights Council: http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/043ytrhc.asp?pg=1

America ended up by co-sponsoring a resolution which sustained this idea along with Egypt, a nation not known for its freedom of expression.

Speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Pakistan Ambassador Zamir Akram said the resolution and its protection against religious stereotyping would allow the curtailment of individual free speech by anything that defames or negatively stereotypes religion. “The idea of protecting the human rights ‘of religions’ instead of individuals is a favorite of those countries that do not protect free speech and which use religion--as defined by government--to curtail it,” said Bayefsky. “The Obama administration’s debut at the Human Rights Council laid bare its very different priorities. Threatening freedom of expression is a price for engagement with the Islamic world that it is evidently prepared to pay,”

Many stories never make it through the corporate-controlled mass media to the public, especially if they touch upon efforts to de-centralize government, expand individual rights or effectively end official wrongdoing. Take this story, for instance, which saw scant play in the corporate mass media:

For the first time on October 2, 2009, American diplomats attended a Geneva meeting of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council as full council members. In a dramatic departure from past policy, they supported a resolution to limit freedom of expression.

Despite the fact that nations and groups accused of human rights abuse hold sway within the Human Rights Council, such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, President Obama broke with past precedent and sent American representatives. Anne Bayefsky, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a professor at Touro College, explained that Islamic states saw Obama’s participation in the council as “meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs.”

After the 2008 publication of images of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, Cuba and various Islamic countries pushed an amendment at the conference limiting any speech they claimed was an “abuse . . . [that] constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination.” Speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Pakistan Ambassador Zamir Akram said the resolution and its protection against religious stereotyping would allow the curtailment of individual free speech by anything that defames or negatively stereotypes religion. “The idea of protecting the human rights ‘of religions’ instead of individuals is a favorite of those countries that do not protect free speech and which use religion--as defined by government--to curtail it,” wrote Bayefsky.

“The Obama administration’s debut at the Human Rights Council laid bare its very different priorities. Threatening freedom of expression is a price for engagement with the Islamic world that it is evidently prepared to pay,” Surprisingly, America and Egypt (a nation not known for freedom of expression) ended up co-sponsoring a resolution that stated “the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . .” which might include taking action against anything meeting the description of "negative racial and religious stereotyping."

Beginning at least with Hitler’s regime, the globalists realized that to control a nation’s population, they needed to control the mass media. With such control, they could push their Socialist agenda. Professor Robert McChesney is also an activist for media reform and is outspoken about his desire for leftist politics to gain more access to the corporate mass media. He may not understand that global Socialists are at the top of the media food chain and that the so-called “liberal media” is only as liberal as their conservative corporate masters allow. While the mass media is filled with liberal articles on sexuality (both homosexual and heterosexual), extended families, abortion and gun control, it is not as zealous over stories on corporate malfeasance and corruption. Nevertheless, the mass media drives any agenda acceptable to it.

“The media was not a major political issue for earlier generations of the Left…But this started changing in the first half of the 20th century,” stated McChesney, adding, “The challenge for us is to understand, use and struggle to change the existing media,” In a recent interview for the Socialist Project, McChesney opined, “Instead of waiting for the revolution to happen, we learned that unless you make significant changes in the media, it will be vastly more difficult to have a revolution.”

Robert McChesney on significant changes in the media: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/246.php

The mass media’s ability to shape public thought on any topic was best exemplified in the publicity campaign that occurred before the invasion of Iraq. First the media broadcasted that Saddam Hussein was about to build a nuclear weapon. Then the media reported that Hussein was hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Shortly after, there were claims that we needed to control Iraqi oil. When all these pretexts fell before the facts, the U.S.’s stated rationale for the invasion became simply “to bring freedom and democracy.”

In great irony, the Iraqi Government (the government that the US supports in power through its military presence) tried in September 2007 to exercise its freedom by banning the private contracting force Blackwater from the country after the firm was accused of being responsible for over scores of drive-by shooting incidents. However, US authorities cited law Order No. 17 issued by the American authorities before sovereignty was returned to the Iraqis, that gave Blackwater immunity from Iraqi law and the private contractors remained.

Another example of media pandering to the corporations came in 2009 when it slavishly echoed Big Pharm interests in playing up the swine flu issue. Breathless commentators were daily foretelling of the horror to come and urging the public to take their vaccinations. Yet well into 2010, the story had become a non-issue and was fading from both the media and public consciousness.

TOP 25 CENSORED STORIES

The sins committed by the mass media are more sins of omission than commission. In 2009 and 2010, the majority of news stories underplayed or ignored by mass media news involved corporate and government malfeasance.

Project Censored is a media research program at Sonoma State University that for more than 30 years has worked in cooperation with numerous independent media groups in the US to protect freedom of the press. Here is Project Censored 2009/2010’s top 25 stories of “news that didn’t make the news.”

1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine
12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief
13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War
14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts
15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco
16. US Repression of Haiti Continues
17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan
18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature
19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor
20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion
25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon
Top 25 censored news stories of 200-2010: http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/two-thousand-and-ten-book/

One reason these stories are missed by the public is that, if they are reported at all, they get lost in the bewildering barrage of continuous but extraneous media content. For example, in the January 29, 2010, edition of The Dallas Morning News carried news stories such as “winter weather advisory,” the death of novelist J.D. Salinger, the normal murders and a Department of Commerce announcement that the “worst recession since the 1930s ended last year.” Yet these stories were overshadowed by blogs, a dog story, copious sports coverage, travel and lifestyle articles, and an entertainment guide. One business story in this edition concerned homebuilders who hoped that baby boomers would beat a path to their door again. Perhaps the point to be made here is that, according to the newspaper’s website, the most read story in the entire edition concerned Dallas Cowboys football quarterback Tony Romo.

FALSE PICTURE OF AL QAEDA

To initiate a war, there first must be a perceived enemy. America’s great enemy today is supposedly still Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, but even this is under suspicion. “There are people within the US intelligence community who doubt that the hijacker list from 9/11 has much truth in it,” said one unnamed intelligence source quoted by investigative reporter and publisher Jon Rappoport, who has built up many sources in his more than 20 years experience. “They see it as a more-or-less invented list. They know that if you start with men showing false passports (or no passports) to get on four planes on 9/11, you can’t assemble a correct list of nineteen suspects within a few days—especially since all those men are presumed dead and missing, untraceable. Al Qaeda is being used as a term to convince people that these terrorists are all connected in a vast, very well-organized network that is global in reach, that has a very sophisticated and far-flung communication setup, that issues orders from the top down to cells all over the world,” stated the intelligence source. “There are a number of people inside the US intelligence agencies who know this is a false picture. They know that false intelligence is being assembled in order to paint a picture which is distorted, so that the American people will have a single focus on one grand evil enemy.”

Unnamed intelligence source: Jon Rappoport, “Briefing on Al Qaeda,” StratiaWire (Sept. 5, 2002)

Supporting this claim is the fact that not one of the accused hijackers’ names appeared on the passenger lists made public by American or United airlines. In fact, as many as seven of those named as the culprits in the attacks were soon found alive and well in the Middle East. These included Saudi pilot Waleed al-Shehri, identified by the US Justice Department as one of the men who crashed American Flight 11 into the WTC. But a few days later, Waleed al-Shehri contacted authorities in Casablanca, Morocco, to proclaim that he was very much alive and played no part in the attacks. Another man identified as one of the hijackers of Flight 11, Abdulaziz al-Omari, also turned up alive in the Middle East, telling BBC News that he lost his passport while visiting Denver, Colorado. Actually two turned up, as yet another Abdulaziz al-Omari surfaced in Saudi Arabia very much alive and telling newsmen, “I couldn’t believe the FBI put me on their list. They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this.”

Yet another man identified as one of the hijackers of United Flight 93, Saeed al-Ghamdi, was reported alive and well and working as a pilot in Saudi Arabia. “You cannot imagine what it is like to be described as a terrorist—and a dead man—when you are innocent and alive,” said al-Ghamdi, who was given a holiday by his airline in Saudi Arabia to avoid arrest. At least three other named 9/11 hijackers surfaced to proclaim their innocence in the attacks but none of this was widely reported in the US corporate mass media.

Accused 9/11 hijackers turned up alive: Editors, “Hijack suspects alive and well,” BBC News (Sept. 23, 2001)

In October, 2004, the BBC in England broadcasted a documentary entitled The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, a three-hour documentary that challenged the Bush administration’s stated concept of al Qaeda as a multi-faceted globe-spanning octopus of terrorism. The documentary raised questions such as:

 Why has the Bush administration, after rounding up hundreds of suspected terrorists and using torture during interrogation, failed to produce any hard evidence of al Qaeda activities?

 Of the 664 suspected terrorists detained in Britain, why have only 17 been found guilty of crimes? Why have none of these men been proven to be members of al Qaeda?

 Why has the Bush administration prompted so much frightening speculation over “dirty” radioactive bombs when experts have stated that public panic over such devices will kill more people than any radioactivity caused by one?

 Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on Meet the Press in 2001 that al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when none were later found following the military invasion?

While it is clear that groups of disaffected terrorists do exist, the BBC documentary nevertheless convincingly argued that “the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion. Wherever one looks for this al Qaeda organization, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the ‘sleeper cells’ in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.”

Al Qaeda an illusion: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/11/opinion/oe-scheer11

Los Angeles Times political columnist Robert Scheer said that the documentary makes “a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda.” He pointed out that everything we know about al Qaeda comes from only two sources, both with a vested interest in maintaining the concept of a well-financed and deeply entrenched enemy— the terrorists themselves and military and governmental intelligence agencies. “Such a state of national ignorance about an endless war is, as The Power of Nightmares makes clear, simply unacceptable in a functioning democracy,” Scheer wrote.

In Britain it has been suggested that al Qaeda is not a real organization, but rather a computer list of Arab freedom fighters or terrorists available for hire. British commentator Robin Cook, who served as Foreign Secretary from 1997 – 2001 and as Leader of the House of Commons from 2001 – 2003, has suggested that “Bin Laden …was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, literally ‘the database,’ was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”

Al Qaeda as CIA database: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/08/july7.development

Ironically, supposed enemies are often two sides of the same coin. Author Thom Hartmann pointed out that both Bush’s neocons and Muslim terrorists operate from similar ideologies— though the specifics may differ, both groups believe the end justifies the means and that people must be frightened into accepting religion and nationalism for the greater good of morality and a stable state.

Enemies operate from same ideology: http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/1207-26.htm

OBAMA AND THE CIA

No matter what political party holds power, it seems the CIA is always lurking in our presidents’ pasts. President George Herbert Walker Bush’s father, Connecticut Sen. Prescott Bush, was instrumental in creating the CIA. According to at least one former CIA “black ops” pilot, the former president’s oil company, Zapata Drilling, was used as cover for the shipment of arms and supplies for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1960-61.

Prior to Watergate, the biggest scandal in America was the CIA’s use of student organizations as cover for spying efforts. In a 1996 book entitled Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America, former National Security Council member Dr. Roger Morris wrote that Bill Clinton was recruited by the CIA while at Oxford, which may explain how a bearded, anti-war hippie was allowed to become president.

Bill Clinton as CIA informant: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=60020

Apparently Clinton, along with several other young Americans, was brought into a CIA program known as Operation Chaos. Its purpose was to infiltrate and spy on fellow students involved in protesting the Vietnam War. Morris wrote that an officer with the CIA station in Stockholm confirmed that young Clinton was involved in low-level spying in 1969 in Norway, where he visited the Oslo Peace Institute and submitted reports to the CIA on American peace activists.

Jack Wheeler, editor of To The Point News and an adventurer and one whom the Washington Post called a “right-wing Indiana Jones,” wrote that young Clinton was recruited into CIA work by London station chief Cord Meyer. In a 2008 article, Wheeler stated, “Back in the '90s, years after he retired, if Cord drank a little too much Scotch he would laugh derisively at those conspiracists who accused Bill Clinton of being connected with the KGB. ‘They all darkly point to Bill's participation in anti-war peace conferences in Stockholm and Oslo, and his trip to Leningrad, Moscow and Prague while he was at Oxford. 'Who could have paid for this?' they ask. 'It had to be the KGB!' they claim.’ Cord would shake his head. ‘What rot – we paid for it. We recruited Bill the first week he was at Oxford. Bill's been an asset of The Three Bad Words [Central Intelligence Agency] ever since.’”

Today, inconclusive, yet tantalizing, data may point to a CIA connection with President Obama’s mother. The data may also explain Obama’s previously unexplained travels as a young student.

Note that Obama’s treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, is the son of Peter F. Geithner, who worked for 28 years for The Ford Foundation, an organization that is primarily concerned with Asian affairs. From 1990 until 1996, Geithner served as Director of Asia Programs as well as Program Officer in Charge of Developing Country Programs.

Peter F. Geithner with The Ford Foundation: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/china/PeterG.html

According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the elder Geithner and Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro, President Obama’s mother, worked together at the Ford Foundation’s microfinance programs in Indonesia in the early 1980s.

On the Chronicle’s website is a statement that reads, “Indeed, according to the [Ford] foundation, [Mr. Obama’s mother and Mr. Geithner’s father] met at least once in Jakarta.”

Geithner’s father and Obama’s mother met at least once: http://philanthropy.com/news/government/index.php?id=6453

The meeting between Obama’s mother and the father of Obama’s future treasury secretary may be interpreted as simply a strange coincidence until one looks into the longstanding connections between the Ford Foundation and the CIA.

Many researchers, including former Binghamton University sociology Professor Emeritus James Petras, have identified the Ford Foundation as a front for the CIA. Petras noticed a strange similarity between the agencies in that former Foundation officials Richard Bissell and John J. McCloy were both ranking officers of the CIA.

In her 2003 book Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, Professor Emeritas of political science at Keene State College Joan Roelofs, reported that McCloy, while chairman of the Ford Foundation's board of trustees, “...thought of the Foundation as a quasi-extension of the U.S. government. It was his habit, for instance, to drop by the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington every couple of months and casually ask whether there were any overseas projects the NSC would like to see funded.” Roelofs specifically mentioned that the Ford Foundation was behind the financing of counter-insurgency programs in Indonesia.

Joan Roelofs and Foundation funding counter-insurgency: http://www.answers.com/Ford+Foundation?cat=biz-fin

Is it possible that at one point Barack Obama did work for the CIA? After graduating from Columbia University, Obama took a job as a research associate in the financial services division of Business International Corporation. However, he neglected to identify this company when presenting his work record in his book Dreams from My Father. This oversight may be due to allegations that BIC was used as a cover for the CIA. A co-founder of BIC told the New York Times in 1977 that the firm had provided cover for CIA employees in various countries. If Obama indeed worked for the CIA, it would help explain why his school records were sealed and why he was able to travel the world with no visible means of support or appropriate passports and visas.

BIC as CIA cover: Crewdson and Treaster, “CIA Established Many Links to Journalists in U.S. and Abroad,” New York Times, December, 27, 1977, pp. 1, 40-41.

Since my attempt to raise the question of possible Obama CIA involvement, several websites have addressed this issue and added even further details and information.

Naturally, you cannot expect to learn any of this from the corporate-controlled mass media – which apparently now includes book publishing.