open Democracy News Analysis - Taxi to the Dark Side: an open letter, Sidney Blumenthal - Comments

bfearn on "Taxi to the Dark Side: an open letter"

bfearn — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:09:23 +0000

The 'good' guys must tread carefully in America. If you step right up and speak as if the truth will be accepted you will be marginalized as quickly as Obama's former pastor. As an actor once said, referring to America in general, "You don't want the truth" and he was surprised how it worked out for him and he wasn't even close to the truth. The anti-truth factions are so powerful in America that real change is impossible and I don't use the word impossible lightly. It's all too bad and very sad but then America never got off to a very good start did it?
Try any one of the 50 chapters in this book for some of the 'truths'.
www.amoralamerica.info

SamEllison on "Taxi to the Dark Side: an open letter"

SamEllison — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:41:48 +0100

Well I guess if Bill Maher has to put up with 9-11 conspiracy hecklers we do too. Please don't blame the 49.9 percent of Americans that never voted for Bush/Cheney. Sidney Blumenthal has been speaking truth to power through-out the Bush43 admin when few people would. His words rang true and carried with them the weight of a former White House official under Clinton42. I would hope there is a position with-in the Executive Branch for him under Clinton44. Another open letter; Madame Ambassador, One of my favorite White House reporters once called you the Ambassador of Propaganda, he now reports from Rome, Italy. Did you have anything to do with Mr Dinmore's reassignment? Do you think weakening the power of the press has made America stronger or weaker? Our government has in the past benefited by having four strong pillars, Congress, Executive, Judicial and a free press. Presently three of the four pillars have been weakened by the admin that you are a member of. Would you please explain how this could make America stronger?

paul.carline on "Taxi to the Dark Side: an open letter"

paul.carline — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:35:08 +0100

A largely admirable letter (though, as gautams has pointed out, one not free of the common self-delusions about the tradition of American integrity and honour) but one which, perhaps predictably, is flawed by its unquestioning acceptance of the official myth of 9/11. That 9/11 was an inside job is now so well evidenced that it is really a "no-brainer". I have recently been challenging people to list one single verifiable fact which supports the official story. I have even offered them £100 if they can do so. No-one has taken up the challenge. I'm happy to repeat the challenge here because I am completely confident that not a single core element of the official story can be shown to be true - leaving it as merely a theory (a conspiracy theory), one which is wholly unsupported by the facts. If Mr. Blumenthal thinks that the Bush administration's endorsement of torture damages America's reputation, just imagine what the acknowledgement that the 9/11 attacks were planned and executed by elements within the US administration (with the likely assistance of agencies of other countries) would do to that reputation - both inside America and globally. Mr. Blumenthal could be accused of being preoccupied more with America's image than with the actual physical and mental pain inflicted on those tortured, who are thankfully relatively few in number. Perhaps he should now address the moral (and image) issue of the reliably estimated 5.2 million deaths directly attributable to US and UK actions in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11 (see www.mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya/ ) - the direct consequence of the public and media acceptance of the myth of Islamic terrorism and al-Qaeda (a database of CIA assets, as Robin Cook pointed out before his untimely death). Media complicity in the bogus 'war on terror' is one of the most disgraceful aspects of this sorry tale. It continues. Did any of these stories make the headlines? - last year the FBI publicly admitted that it had no evidence linking Osama bin Laden to 9/11; - this year NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology - the body charged with producing a report on the collapse of the Twin Towers) conceded that it had no explanation for their collapse; - Scottish engineer Gordon Ross carried out a mathematical analysis of the official 'pancake' collapse theory and demonstrated conclusively that it was impossible; - the US Pilots for 911 Truth organisation decoded the flight data recorder information from the black box which NTSB claims was on Flight 77 (the one which allegedly hit the Pentagon). The data prove conclusively that whichever plane the box was on, it could not have hit the Pentagon. Much of the clear evidence for government complicity attaches to 9/11 and the US government. But it would be a mistake to believe that our own UK government is any less corrupt. We have our own 'home-grown terror myth' in the inconsistent official account of the London bombings of 7/7. 9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid, Mumbai and Istanbul all fit into the pattern of state-sponsored false-flag terrorism which has been the propaganda weapon of choice for corrupt regimes since at least the Reichstag fire of 1933 and the 'Operation Himmler' actions of 1939.

gautams on "Taxi to the Dark Side: an open letter"

gautams — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:35:02 +0100

In an otherwise truthful and compelling letter, Blumenthal says: "Since the revolutionary war, at the order of George Washington, Americans have consistently opposed torture as a policy. Only one president, George W Bush, has adopted torture as a policy. This administration stands outside more than the international treaties we have signed and previous presidents have upheld. This administration stands beyond the American tradition and values." This is not only false within the US (see the Channel 4 video at http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm) but as is well known, outside as well. The School of the Americas didn't write up a torture manual for nothing. Just ask the people of various countries in Central and South America.

Taxi to the Dark Side: an open letter, Sidney Blumenthal

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:52:43 +0100

Karen Hughes
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
U.S. Department of State
2201 C St. NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Karen Hughes:

You may recall that we met briefly in January 2001, during the transition to the Bush administration, when you dropped by my office in the White House. You were filled with enthusiasm and I wished you good luck. Now I am writing you as the executive producer of a documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side (directed by Alex Gibney), to invite you to a private preview in Washington on 18 October 2007. The film has been described by the New York Times as "a meticulous examination of American policy on the interrogation of prisoners. It traces the scandals at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere to official changes of policy originating in the vice president's office and approved by the secretary of defense. We see documents listing approved methods of interrogation, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning."

Read the rest of this post...