A world mourns

Benazir Bhutto
1953-2007
Assassinated December 27 in Pakistan

Her loss to Pakistan and other Middle Eastern nations is akin to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963

She and her family worked tirelessly for Democracy in Pakistan for decades. Her father, also a former Prime Minister, was assassinated, as were two of her brothers. Tyrants and terrorists hated and feared her because of her innate popularity and adoration by the people of Pakistan.

If you are too young or haven't studied the assassination of President Kennedy, I can tell you that only those responsible for killing him did not suffer a broken heart, a broken spirit, on the day he died.

It will shock many people who know me to hear that I worked for President Kennedy because I almost never talk about my experiences when I was in the Air Force and particularly about my experiences surrounding the assassination.





I worked in his public relations office at Otis Air Force Base (Cape Cod, Massachusetts) as a photographer, reporter and PR rep. I was 18 years old and learned my trade by fire; in the military you're expected to do the job, they don't care how old - or young - you are.

Because I was 18, a "girl," and an Airman Third Class (one stripe), I didn't exist in the minds of people around me (sort of like people don't realize that servants, janitors, and food servers are real people with eyes, ears and minds), so I was witness to a number of things over the months I was assigned there that definitely influenced my knowledge and opinions of how government and the military work at the top levels.

The assassination was not only a horrific, traumatic experience for the nation, but those of us who believed he was a leader who could give us a nation of which to be proud, who could make the US live up to its image and promise. We had no idea of his extra marital activities - if we did, our hearts would have broken all over again. We believed he had integrity in every aspect of his life.

Bhutto left an email to be opened in the event she was murdered by CNN News anchor Wolf Blitzer. In it she directly blamed Pakistani "President" Pervez Musharraf She noted that the security she was provided by Musharraf, when she needed more, in fact decreased. She noted that as she requested more - she was given less, listing chapter and verse of how the security ought to have been organized - as she requested - and what had actually been provided.

Musharraf is holding a three day mourning period for Bhutto. While he says elections will go on as planned in a few days, it is doubtful if they can be carried out in light of Pakistanis being in such a state of grief and upheaval.

Here's something to consider: President Bush and Secretary of State Rice ignored direct threats of al qeda befroe 9-11. It's not *all* their fault, but had they heeded the warnings, there's a decent chance it could have been prevented.

The so-called hawks - kill all terrorists, detain all potential terrorists, pro-war US leaders somehow didn't understand one was coming our way.

The most troubling, threatening nation in the world right now is: Pakistan. Musharraf is a dictator, considered a tyrant by any civil thinker. It is a muslim nation with active nuclear weapons which can be fired (thanks to the US).

Pakistan is next to Afghanistan. It's where bin Laden is hiding - has been hiding for 7 years.

When our military was hot on his trail in the mountains bordering Pakistan, Bush and Cheney redeployed the American military from Afghanistan into Iraq - a nation that did not have weapons of mass destruction (just as the UN reported it did not), a nation with a tyrannical, sadistic leader - Saddam Hussein - who kept terrorists and Islamic extremists out of his country because they would try to form a theocratic government. Christians were free to practice their religion in that Iraq - they are not today because Islamic terrorists rushed into Iraq when the US invaded.

Meanwhile, whom did Bush befriend? Musharraf in Pakistan. Supposedly to help us find and erradicate terrorists along the Afghanistan border. Didn't happen. Terrorists have camps set up in Pakistan now. Bush calls Musharraf a friend of the US.

No, Bhutto was the real friend of the US. At least of its principals and desire for democracy and defender of the promise of being a land of laws and a Constitution.

Here's a reasonable statement: The hawks who are so pro-war, who have a kill all the terrorists mentality, are on the job NOW. And have been.

Watch for those who try to tap into your fears and make you feel like we are next - who will try to get you to vote for them next year. Understand that more of the same will. not. work.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

But get this: because they are not only on duty now and have been before 9-11 (which, by the way was the *second* attack on New York's twin towers by al qeda and our national security folks didn't take that as a crucial warning), we must understand their efforts, their tactics and their mentality have failed. Failed.

Unless and until we understand how to interact with people around the world in a way that will inspire people within the nations that house terrorists to stop and flay them where they stand? We're in for more of these international horrific incidents.

Unless and until we find a leader who has this understanding and knowledge of how to deal directly with the people who can make the difference within their own nations?

Again, we're in for more of these international horrific incidents. The only people who benefit from these calamities are the multinational corporations, as eloquently described in Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Unless and until we start listening to people who *predicted* this incident for the very reasons listed here - namely Senator Joe Biden - who actually spoke to Bhutto the night before she was assassinated and in fact asked Musharraf to increase her security - we're in for more of these international horrific incidents, and ultimately the US being a target once again.

I repeat: this will happen while the current shoot 'em up, try to manipulate the rest of the world mentality is allowed to rule the US diplomacy and military.

Meanwhile, in death - as with the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto has found immortality.

A spiritual woman, her last word: "Allah"

Disinformation

The Bush administration has used disinformation masterfully over the past eight years. Karl Rove is normally the creator of the self-serving fabrications spread to party loyalists, conservative groups, media, churches and others who will spread false information without question until the lie is believed to be the truth.

What exactly is "disinformation?"

It's the deliberate pronouncement of fraudulent statements passed off as "facts."

For example, many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein, the executed leader of Iraq, was in some way responsible for the attack on the New York City World Trade Center September 11, 2001.

That false statement was made by Bush administration spokespeople so often, many Americans believed the lie when it was initially released, and astonishingly continue to believe it, even though it has been proved a hundred times over to be outrightly and completely false.

If it's possible, Saddam Hussein and Iraq had less than nothing to do with the attack.

Iraq was terrorist-free under Hussein because he was the ultimate dictator - paranoid about outsiders stirring up his carefully controlled population, which he ruled with a near- sadistic hand. He knew if any of the dozens of warring tribal factions in Iraq were armed or felt free to fight again (tribal wars have been going on for centuries, including the conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites), he would lose control of the people and "his" country.

It was not until the US attacked Iraq that terrorists, including al qaeda, found the opening they sought to not only move into the country, but use the deadly debacle created by the US in Iraq to recruit new members because now they had concrete evidence that the US is an aggressor; that it wants to occupy Middle Eastern nations.

Interestingly, the number of terrorists actually needed in Iraq is very few because now so many Iraqis themselves are furious at the US - whom they blame for devastating their country and being the cause of the violent deaths of some 600,000 innocent Iraqis. Their anti-US feelings have fomented them into taking arms against our soldiers in harms way there.

American intelligence sources report that approximately 4% of fighters in Iraq are associated with al qaeda. If that sounds like it's good news, it's not. It only means all the terrorist cells and individuals not fighting in Iraq are free to ply their trades in other nations.

Al Gore's #1 NYT best selling book The Assault on Reason just arrived here; I'll read it this week and review it next week here. I have a feeling these sorts of issues will be discussed there because often, if we're accurately informed about a subject, we can discern truth from lie by using simple reason.

Like, if you knew about how Saddam ran his country - ruling by making people terrified of him while keeping it terrorist-free, never wanting anyone to challenge his autocratic authoritarianism; that he would never tolerate tribal in-fighting because it would detract from his iron-fisted control - you would understand that anyone claiming that terrorists were allowed in Iraq or that Saddam had anything to do with them is simply and outright unreasonable.

Because the US Senate Intelligence Committee's Report on Prewar Intelligence Assessment about Postwar Iraq outlined these and many other facts, it predicted the horrors we face today if Saddam were not only unseated but the nation itself attacked to allow US-backed individuals to take over.

Unfortunately, many US Senators and Representatives believed this misinformation put out by the Bush administration instead of reading the report gathered by some 81 separate intelligence agencies, and voted to give George Bush the authority to invade Iraq - including US Senator Hilary Clinton.

It all comes back to the need for an educated, informed nation to effectively run a democratic republic like the United States.

But between outright disinformation disseminated freely by people who know the truth because they want to manipulate you, and an unquestioning media - that can be hard to come by through "normal" media outlets. US media tend to reproduce whatever they are told by "authoritative" sources without question or perspective - and those "authoritative sources" tend to be the very people who disseminate disinformation these days.

Think of the glib government disinformation on its response to Katrina - that "Brownie's doing a heck of a job," while we saw the massive destruction with our own eyes. The meteorologist who gave President Bush and the US Federal Government the grave warning of the oncoming disaster himself days before the hurricane struck. The response: "We had no idea this would happen."

Disinformers *love* this; they also love how frightened US media are when they are accused of being "unfair" or "one-sided" about their coverage.

Here's how that works:

Mr. X, an authoritative spokesperson, says "10."

US media pass it on, uncensored, unquestioned, unexamined.

Then Mr. C, an authoritative spokesperson who knows that "10" is an outright lie, says, "10 is not true! In fact, here's evidence it's an outright fabrication and harmful to our nation!" And there's the proof that you can see with your own eyes (Iraq's astonishing devastation, Katrina reconstruction is NOT happening as promised, etc.)

Mr. X responds, "There the 'liberal media' goes again - unfairly showing only ONE SIDE of the story!"

The media, terrified of being called "unfair," steps up the quotes by Mr. X and his cohorts, so we keep hearing "10," over and over again, and seldom see Mr. C and the actual evidence of Mr. X's fraudulent statement.

After awhile, "10" sounds like it *should* be true. Thereby becoming part of Stephen Colbert's genius term, "truthiness;" which means something that feels like it should be true.

By the way, I hope you understand that disinformers believe *you* are not only ignorant, but stupid. Stupid enough to buy whatever they sell. They particularly need their own followers to be ignorant of facts and stupid. Who else would believe such overtly ignorant statements and disinformation but people who want to believe them because they are their leaders and trust them blindly.

That's why "believers" whose information is challenged become so emotionally charged and outraged when others tell them anything that disagrees with what they've been told by their leaders. Because if the truth-tellers make those leaders wrong, then they -- the believers -- have to realize how stupid they were to believe them in the first place.

And no one likes to think of themselves as being duped. It's embarrassing. So they fight harder to "prove" the disinformation given them by their leaders.

This happens all the time in extremist religious circles who disperse disinformation, whether it's extreme fundamentalist Muslims or extreme fundamentalist Christians.

Here are more ways Wikipedia finds disinformation (intentional misinformation, lies, misrepresentation) are used: forged documents, manuscripts, photographs; propagation of malicious rumors and fabricated intelligence.

More, "In the context of espionage or military intelligence, it is the deliberate spreading of false information to mislead an enemy as to one's position or course of action. It also includes the distortion of true information in such a way as to render it useless.

"Disinformation techniques may also be found in commerce and government, used by one group to try to undermine the position of a competitor. It in fact is the act of deception and blatant false statements to convince someone of an untruth."

Tomorrow, I'll discuss how disinformation differs from propaganda, misinformation, The Big Lie, and other ways people with specific agendas not only try, but succeed to control your behavior, votes and money with misleading and outright untruthful statements.