The Cheshire Story

And after the American media was done, nothing was left but a grin.

By Bryan Zepp Jamieson

09/06/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/cheshire.htm

Back almost a year ago, there was a huge flap in the media over a remark made by the German Minister of Justice, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin. She was addressing a convention of trade unionists (try to imagine the US counterpart, John Ashcroft, talking to a union convention!), and was talking about whether George W. was mounting an offensive against Saddam Hussein in order to distract the public from his domestic problems. Hardly an outrageous conspiracy theory, one so popular with all sides of the political spectrum in America that a movie and a subsequent phrase, "Wag the Dog" has sprung up to describe it.

What created the huge flap is that Daeubler-Gmelin was quoted as saying, "That's a popular method. Even Hitler did that." The American media promptly started howling that she was comparing the sainted President to Adolf Hitler.

Of course, even if she had said that – she denies having done so – the fact it that both sides of the statement are true. It IS a popular method. "Wag the Dog" caught on in popular parlance for that very reason. And Hitler certainly used wag the dog to enhance his popularity and political standing. It doesn’t even really compare Putsch to Hitler; it just merely notes that both used the same political tactic as a commonplace. "EVEN Hitler did it."

That the US media would make such a big fuss about it was bizarre. CNN even had a poll about it, asking Americans what should be done about this German Justice Minister. Editorials demanded she resign. Talk show hosts bloviated for hours. Right wingers swore to humiliate all of Europe for this dastardly insult, a tactic that George is paying for now.

So when a recent member of the cabinet for Tony Blair came out and flat out accused the President of the United States of being complicit in the murders of 3,000 people, and of treason against his country, the American media must have gone right out of its mind with self-righteous rage, right?

Wrong.

Michael Meacher, who had been Britain’s Minister of the Environment until he resigned, in April, in protest over Tony Blair’s Iraq policies, wrote an opinion piece that unequivocally charges Putsch not only of foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, but of deliberately sabotaging efforts to find and punish those responsible in order to follow an agenda laid out a couple of years earlier by the same right wing coterie that make up much of his cabinet and staff.

Meacher is accusing the American President of treason. His charges, if true, could very literally result in Putsch facing a firing squad. He is accusing the President of the United States of being involved in permitting events to unfold that resulted in the deaths of 3,000 people. He is accusing Putsch of betraying the people of the United States, in order to carry out a crazed notion of "Pax Americana" that has, to date, resulted in tens of thousand of deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, and – for America – nothing to show for it except a shattered economy, contempt and hatred from much of the world, a gestapo that supposedly is protecting Americans while in fact doing the opposite. This administration has left millions of people wondering if America has slipped into a fascist dictatorship.

That’s a bit more serious than noting that both Putsch and Hitler liked to play "wag the dog" games with the opinion polls.

Meacher isn’t even saying anything that millions of Americans and tens of millions of other people didn’t already suspect. Michael Ruppert, the "Cop V Cia" conspiracy theorist, had full page ads in most national newspapers over the past few weeks making similar allegations. Around the internet, questions about the slow response of the Air Force on 9/11, Putsch’s bizarre reactions and even more bizarre recollections ("That’s one bad pilot"), and of course, the unseemly way in which the administration has tried to block and stonewall investigations into 9/11, cumulating in the twenty-eight page deletion of the report that detailed Saudi Arabian links. Type in "9/11" on Google, and you’ll find thousands of websites that discuss these very matters in varying amounts of detail and with varying amounts of credibility. They range from the flaky right through to the utterly convincing.

I would have people email me or stop by my office and tell me flatly, "Bush knew something." These were often people who sighed and rolled their eyes when you mentioned "conspiracy." The net is full of conspiracy theorists. But as that Mel Gibson movie showed, just because you are into conspiracy theories doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

I went from "they knew something was coming" to deciding that the only thing the Administration didn’t expect that awful day was for the towers to actually COLLAPSE. I got my warning that the admin knew something was going to happen on 9/11/01 when, just twelve hours before the attack, the Guardian ran a story – one never mentioned afterward in any other place – that the Justice Department had raided and shut down hundreds of Moslem-oriented web sites over the previous 24 hours. I went to bed the night of 9/10 convinced that this would be the main story the next day. Of course, it wasn’t.

But in retrospect, it’s a lot more important than we thought.

How is it that a German minister can allegedly mention Putsch and Hitler in the same paragraph, not even comparing the two, and the American media goes into a feeding frenzy. But when someone of equal standing in England goes much further, accusing the American President of treason, murder, fraud, and conspiracy, that isn’t regarded as newsworthy? Especially when the former Minister is only stating what millions of American already believe, deep in their hearts: that 9/11 was PERMITTED to happen, and used in a cold and disgraceful manner by these bent moral cripples in the White House to further their own agenda of conquest and looting.

It’s now been ten hours since the London Guardian broke the story. It is a firestorm throughout all of Europe and in the Canadian press. Ten hours is an eternity in our era of satellites and microwave relays.

I just looked at CNN. They had nothing about it. Not even a poll asking about it.

The New York Times, that bastion of journalist integrity (sometimes) didn’t think it was newsworthy.

The LA Times, despite the advantage of an eight hour deadline gap, wasn’t quick enough on the draw.

The Washington Post had stories clucking over how freedom of the press was abridged in Russia still, but nothing about on the biggest story of the week in Europe.

Faux News I looked at just for comic relief. They had an article praising a movie that displays Putsch as brave and resolute and decisive on 9/11, but no mention of Meacher.

The Moonie Times exalted that Fearless Leader would be giving a rare address to the nation Sunday night, and implied that this was a deep honor for Putsch to bestow upon the American people. They forgot to mention Meacher, though.

The wire services, which can transmit breaking stories to thousands of papers around the world in mere seconds, had no mention of the story that is being headlined throughout Europe. Not AP, and not Reuters.

The Sacramento Bee had nothing. Nor did the SF Chronicle.

Nor did the Wall Street Urinal.

I didn’t bother checking CNBC. What Davis is wearing today has little bearing on whether Putsch betrayed America or not.

The biggest story of the year in England, and a huge story everywhere else.

And here, dead silence from the very same media that in recent years used to brag that it was what defended us from tyranny and enslavement through the truth. (Funny, you just don’t hear them claiming that any more.)

From all these places, hundreds of stories, many dealing with Europe, and Blair, and the middle east, and 9/11. Tons of information.

Many of them even look like real newspapers.

Still think you live in a country that has a free press?