For almost two decades, books* have been being written about the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, and how they – with the CIA – created the Taliban. It’s a well known narrative.
Television is discovering the story (as a result of the big wikileak document dump reported in yesterday’s NY Times and everywhere else). To television, it is a brand new story. They didn’t know about this. Some sound like they weren’t even familiar with the ISI.
These are the people who inform a nation.
* Best of the lot is Steve Coll’s 2004 book GHOST WARS: Afghanistan, the CIA and Osama Bin Laden. (approximation of the title) The paperback has an update from the 9-11 Commission. Pakistan and ISI figures heavily in his account. (warning: it’s a long book but reads like a thriller)
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
I don’t know about that. But I do know that Hitler burned down a building as an excuse to start a war… Muslims “must” be destroyed to defend little Israel, you know. What better way to obtain support for something than to convince Americans that a group of boogeymen exist and want their head on a platter, hmm?
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And Johnson faked an attack in The Gulf of Tonkin to escalate Vietnam.
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I didn’t know that. But is doesn’t surprise me. My hope is that as we continue ever onward into the information age, it will be harder for world leaders to pull rabbits out of hats. Thank goodness we have the internet. And the BBC.
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Moe, I just remembered something funny. In a South Park episode the other day, the kids are trying to solve the 9/11 conspiracy. Anyway, they stumble along a rumor that the whole thing was planned and executed by Bush! Anyway, to make a long story short, Bush didn’t perpetrate 9/11, he perpetrated the rumor that he perpetrated 9/11. He wanted people to think he was smart! In reality, that’s probably close to the truth. If there was a conspiracy, it was probably Cheney!
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Great story – thanks. God I love South Park.
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Another good post.
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