"In a world in which NO government can really be trusted to tell the truth, and most of the mainstream press resembles propaganda organs, it’s very difficult if not impossible to know what to make of the fact that the German government agreed to release the convicted murderer Vadim Krasikov."
"In a world in which NO government can really be trusted to tell the truth, and most of the mainstream press resembles propaganda organs, it’s very difficult if not impossible to know what to make of the fact that the German government agreed to release the convicted murderer Vadim Krasikov."
There's a sentence that is clearly the truth. My wife subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, and it's been astonishing to see WSJ's coverage of their correspondent's trial and imprisonment in Russia. Instead of the usual adjective, "alleged," every mention of the reporter's name is preceded by words like "falsely accused," etc. Can you imagine them doing that with any other accused, with Trump, for example? And if their reporter had been also working for CIA (Operation Mockingbird), would they know? Even if the WSJ editor or publisher was also working for CIA, would they necessarily have been told their reporter was too?
But the payoff came with the prisoner exchange. Columns and columns about the perfidy of Putin and Russians, accompanied by comparisons to the "rule of law" in the civilized West. No word, of course, about Western crimes. I couldn't help thinking about Trump's 34 felonies, his attempted assassination, and especially about Julian Assange, someone definitely falsely accused and all but murdered for publishing true information of the type that made Daniel Ellsberg a hero. Then in the last day or two, I saw a photograph of an alleged terrorist held without charges for 21 years while being shuttled for torture from CIA "black site" to CIA "black site," the latest said to be in Romania. In the photo, said to be the first ever released from a CIA black site, the prisoner looked for all the world like a starving survivor of Dachau when U.S. troops arrived in 1945. Then I noticed--the photo is thought to be from 2004. What does he look like now?
Trusting government is not supposed to be in our nature. We fought a war about it, and wrote a constitution to limit government power and promote skepticism. Our left- authoritarian government probably should read it sometime.
"In a world in which NO government can really be trusted to tell the truth, and most of the mainstream press resembles propaganda organs, it’s very difficult if not impossible to know what to make of the fact that the German government agreed to release the convicted murderer Vadim Krasikov."
There's a sentence that is clearly the truth. My wife subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, and it's been astonishing to see WSJ's coverage of their correspondent's trial and imprisonment in Russia. Instead of the usual adjective, "alleged," every mention of the reporter's name is preceded by words like "falsely accused," etc. Can you imagine them doing that with any other accused, with Trump, for example? And if their reporter had been also working for CIA (Operation Mockingbird), would they know? Even if the WSJ editor or publisher was also working for CIA, would they necessarily have been told their reporter was too?
But the payoff came with the prisoner exchange. Columns and columns about the perfidy of Putin and Russians, accompanied by comparisons to the "rule of law" in the civilized West. No word, of course, about Western crimes. I couldn't help thinking about Trump's 34 felonies, his attempted assassination, and especially about Julian Assange, someone definitely falsely accused and all but murdered for publishing true information of the type that made Daniel Ellsberg a hero. Then in the last day or two, I saw a photograph of an alleged terrorist held without charges for 21 years while being shuttled for torture from CIA "black site" to CIA "black site," the latest said to be in Romania. In the photo, said to be the first ever released from a CIA black site, the prisoner looked for all the world like a starving survivor of Dachau when U.S. troops arrived in 1945. Then I noticed--the photo is thought to be from 2004. What does he look like now?
Trusting government is not supposed to be in our nature. We fought a war about it, and wrote a constitution to limit government power and promote skepticism. Our left- authoritarian government probably should read it sometime.