McKinney and Karpinsky Silenced for Telling the Truth

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/marshall12092006.html



Last week, in his chatty farewell, Donald Rumsfeld told his staff that the low point of his tenure was when he learned about Abu Ghraib. The press corps zombies didn't blink. Yet back on November 25, Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told a Spanish newspaper that she has evidence that Donald Rumsfeld specifically approved the torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib. My local paper never carried that story and there is no mention of Karpinski's allegations in reference to Rumsfeld's professed shock and horror that such a thing occurred on his watch.

Why is it that the media does not take Karpinski seriously? I suspect that few people in this country doubt that the orders to commit torture at Abu Ghraib came from high up in the Pentagon. Yet when someone who is in a position to know offers proof, the media just ignores it and goes along with the fiction that it was the doing of lower level personnel.

But Karpinsky is not the only woman who has been silenced by my morning newspaper. Call me naïve, but you'd think that when a member of Congress introduces a bill to impeach the President, it would be considered news. Maybe even the top headline in the same papers that screamed, "Monica!". But no, that spot in the following day's issue of my local paper went to the Foley scandal report.

There is no mystery as to why the impeachment story isn't a story. The bill was written by outgoing Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who lost her seat in Congress after being accused of hitting a Capitol Hill policeman, although charges were never filed, and evidence was never produced. McKinney has a long reputation of speaking her mind on unpopular topics, including the investigation of 911 and the disenfranchisement of black voters and has been a strong voice against the Iraq war.

-snip-
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the article ends with this:

But how likely is it that the American public will make such a decision when the media does not see fit to report that the outgoing Sec Def may have authorized the same torture that he claims was his low point or that articles of impeachment have been introduced against the President. Until the media reports the truth that these courageous women are saying, they are complicit in the erosion of our democracy and freedom.


COMPLICIT

(like driving the getaway car)

[Double T]

1. The corporate MSM, including print media, bows to bushco regardless.........

of how heinous, immoral, deceitful, destructive, harmful and damaging their behavior becomes. There is NO INTEGRITY LEFT in politics or business, ONLY BLATANT IN YOUR FACE CORRUPTION and MALFEASANCE.

[me b zola]

2. Truth telling has all too often become a career ender in the US

We really are becoming very much like the Soviet Union, all the way down to bankrupting our nation. :(

[KoKo]

3. So glad to see someone finally stand up for Cynthia and point out the

lack of coverage of both her courageous speech at a time when folks called her crazy and Karpinsky's efforts to expose Rumsfeld.

We will never hear this from the MSCorporate Media cabal...but then most of us have given up on them because like Bush they live in a "bubble."

[Beam Me Up]

4. COMPLICIT? The are OWNED by the fuckers who rule us.

The media is their primary weapon of choice for brainwashing us into accepting their faux version of Democracy. Consumerocracy more like.

"Complicit," hardly covers it. "Complicit," contains within it the unstated position that the media have any real choice, that they can or could do anything different from what they do or are doing. That position presumes a "free" press which we haven't -- except, for the time being, and then only marginally, right here on the internet.

[arikara]

5. You said it

... but more like they are owned by the same ones that own the ones we think rule us.

Gee, I wonder why nothing changes no matter who is in power?

[w4rma]

8. Because the corporatists remain in power no matter the election outcomes.

And those corporatists do everything to keep their power and to keep people out of power that jeopardize their own power.

[doublethink]

6. I will always remember Rumsfield testifying about Abu Garub .....

and complaining about 'all these little cameras in cell phones and such' .... or something rather .... he was more upset about the technology of getting caught than the torture itself. I found part of that testimony in a John Stewart video here if interested, very revealing ..................... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwRvcg-md2I Peace.

[CueST]

7. IMO,

McKinney wasn't "silenced," she was ignored. There was some discussion about this earlier, and I said something to the extent of I feel that she's trivialized an important debate by pushing some last minute, no chance, symbolic piece of paper that makes her feel important after getting booted out of her seat by the constituents she apparently didn't do a very good job of representing. To me, she's not even a firebrand, she's a liability and an annoyance, in an atmosphere where it's time to actually look at getting some stuff done, not just blowing hot air.

The two aren't even in the same league.

[arikara]

10. How much is going to get done

beyond token cosmetic changes? Impeachment off the table indeed. McKinney is the only one who isn't blowing hot air.

[Cleita]

9. This is why I don't read print media, except what I get free on

on the internet, nor do I watch news TV. I feel the only way to end this pandering to right wing propaganda is to starve it out of existence.

[IWantPeace]

11. Has Conyer's been silenced?

From Conyers’ report, The Constitution in Crisis:

Our investigation has found that while the allegations set forth in this Report rise to the level of impeachable misconduct by the President, the Vice President, and other high ranking officials within the Administration, more information and investigatory authority is needed before recommendations can be made concerning specific Articles of Impeachment.

link : scroll down to Chapter 4, page 13

So last year Conyers do-nothing excuse was “more information and investigatory authority is needed”. Now that the democrats will have control of the House, “they aren’t even going to issue subpoenas.”

They aren’t even going to issue subpoenas! They aren’t going to investigate anything!

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2791/BREAKING_Congresswoman_McKinney_Files_Articles_of_Impeachment

[Jim Sagle]

12. "They aren’t even going to issue subpoenas! "

Bull fucking shit they aren't. Just because McKinnery said so doesn't make it so.

[Hippo_Tron]

13. Maybe it would help if McKinney wouldn't make comments about Gore's "negro tolerance level"

That definitely hasn't made her too many friends in the party.

[cassiepriam]

14. He was upset that he got caught.

And mad that soldiers had picture cell phones and were
sending out pics to the whole world. He had not considered
that he would be busted...

[cali]

15. Counterpunch- The counterpart

of Wing Nut Daily. This article isn't as bad as many printed in the rag, but it's still absurd. Cynthia Mckinney doesn't have a lot of credibility, and she's been an ineffective legislator, in the main. She introduced the articles on he last day in the House. It's showboating. She has no support in the House. That's why it's being covered so marginally.

[Freddie Stubbs]

16. Perhaps it would have made news if McKinney would have introduced the bill

before the very end of the session.