Submission to the Australian Media Inquiry

October 31st 2011

NOW WITH ADDED POSTSCRIPT!!!

1/ When several NATO nations began their unprovoked military attack on Libya earlier this year, commencing an 8-month assault that reduced what was formerly Africa’s most prosperous nation (according to UNDP Human Development Index statistics) to chaos, rubble and rotting bodies, they focused on one small part of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to justify their ‘intervention’: “..to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack”.

In similar fashion, most of my submission is directed to one small part of the terms of reference of this inquiry, namely that part of item (d) which says: “Any related issues…in the public interest.”

2/ I do not pretend to have detailed knowledge of the workings of media regulation in Australia and my submission is about broad principles, not legal detail.

3/ I do have a lifelong interest in the media, I’ve been an avid ‘consumer’ of news and information via the media since the 1960s. I was an early adopter in using the internet to source news information. I currently use the internet as well as mass media to absorb, query, debate and output ideas on many issues I regard as important – environmental, political, historical, cultural, ethical etc.

4/ For many decades, going back to the time when newspapers, magazines, TV and radio were the major elements of the mass media, I’ve had concerns about deep in-built bias in the western mass media.

The Potential for Media Diversification

5/ In Britain of the 1830s, sharp reductions in Newspaper Stamp and Paper Duties, along with rising literacy, helped trigger a boom in newspaper production combined with an increase in diversity. Many small independent publications began serving local communities, towns and cities. Opinions and perspectives were diverse.

Yet within a century or so, the economic centrality of advertising revenue to newspaper viability led to substantial consolidation in the number of publications and the rise of a few dominant national papers.

6/ During the 20th centuries new media electronic technologies were introduced – first radio, then TV and finally the internet. Each of these media, like newspapers before them, had the potential to provide for greater diversity of viewpoint. But there have always been countervailing tendencies at play favouring consolidation as opposed to diversification.

7/ In Australia as elsewhere, successive Governments have effectively favoured some media interests over others, sometimes with the benign intent of fostering media talent, creativity and high quality output – and occasionally with less laudable motives.

The most obvious ‘favouritism’ has been in the government’s establishment and funding of the ABC – Australia’s publicly-funded broadcaster, modelled to a significant extent on Britain’s BBC.

There have been powerful reasons for funding major public broadcasters such as the ABC and SBS in this country. Throughout most of the last few decades, I’ve been a strong supporter of this, seeing the output of these organisations as an important counter-balance to the partisan agendas of privately-owned corporate media. But my support has waned in recent years. I’m now deeply concerned about what I regard as quite egregious bias within this nation’s public broadcasters – so appalling they court a major loss of public support.

8/ Government has also played a significant role, over the years, in favouring and nurturing certain private media corporations – especially Newscorp and the three main TV networks. The decision to allocate digital bandwidth to these TV companies without offering this bandwidth out to public tender is a stark example of this favouritism.

9/ The case of Newscorp, which has some 70% share of the Australian daily newspaper market as well as extensive online, cable & satellite TV interests in Australia, is in a class of its own.

It was a grotesque mistake and failure, on the part of those earlier governments responsible, to allow one media corporation so much dominance in the newspaper market. I know of no other major western democracy where a single company exercises such disproportionate influence. It is questionable whether real democracy is possible in a nation where one media owner can, at will, cause such havoc for any politician who stands against them or the policies they favour most crucially. Any democracy that took itself seriously would break-up such a media Empire so no single private corproate interest had anything resembling Newscorp’s current dominance.

10/ I live in Far North Queensland. In this region, Newscorp dominance of the print media is almost absolute. Newscorp produces almost my entire range of local, regional, adjacent and state newspapers.. a picture completed by The Australian, Newscorp’s national paper. This is akin to the centralisation of editorial control in the former USSR.

11/ Some years ago, during a Queensland State election, I tried to get the local ABC in Cairns to take interest in a major regional planning issue which the Premier had raised personally in a speech while visiting. As a rep of a local environment group, we had a response to the Premier’s announcement. I was told it was a good story, but the ABC would run it after the election. Pointing out it was an election story, I was then told that it wasn’t in the newspapers. “Up here”, I was informed “news needs to be in the newspapers…”

12/ The public myth is of a fiercely competitive media environment, in which journalists vie to rush out the truth to the public. This process doubtless operates to some extent.

Of equal if not greater importance, I think, is the tendency of journalists – across institutions and companies and even including paid free-lancers – to form consensus about news value, both positive and negative. Competition drives the news process – but collegiate conformity sets its boundaries. The example I cited above was one small case from my own region. There are far more important examples where the mass media, en bloc, has utterly failed to provide fair and honest coverage of credible, evidence-based perspectives on very important issues – to an extent that merits the term censorship.

13/ Even if the NBN is not completed as per the current government’s intentions, in coming years high-speed broadband will become ubiquitous. If NBN standards are met soon, new media players will soon have the potential to bring a renaissance of genuine diversity and creativity to the Australian media. This is very much in the public interest.

14/ Production of quality video material – once the preserve of ad agencies and film & TV studios – is being democratized. Combined with NBN-type telecommunications infrastructure, this makes it possible for small groups of collaborators – or individuals – to run their own ‘shows’, which can accessed online directly and may also be aggregated within websites or featured on ‘channels’. In a media landscape like this, the old TV networks become obsolete. There will be the opportunity for many ‘channels’ of pre-arranged programming. It will also be possible to use no ‘channels’ at all , drawing on personally specified feeds of news, topic-specific information and entertainment.

15/ It may help to give a hypothetical example. Imagine a day in the life of a Mr Gummidge, c 2030. Let’s imagine Mr Gummidge (Wurzel to his friends) is a fruit farmer. He’s studying jam-making in his spare time. He’s interested in local politics and he likes soccer.

Wurzel gets up and flicks on the screen. It brings up a simple, personalised menu. He says “soccer”: a summary of the latest results appears, supplied via his favourite sports info-service. He spends a few minutes watching the highlights of a couple of games. Mr Gummidge sips his herbal tea and moves onto business. He visits the channel maintained by fellow fruit farmers in Queensland. There are three such channels in operation at present, reflecting different interests and personal networks. He likes the channel that focuses on exotic tropical fruit. Moving seamlessly between viewing the highlights of the channel and messaging fellow participants, he learns, queries and communicates with a dozen or so industry colleagues in 40 minutes. He’s now abreast of the latest discussions in his industry. He decides to talk directly to one colleague who shows up as available. The two friends video link for a few minutes. Then Gummidge goes out to check on his lychees. He comes in for lunch. Feeling out of touch with local politics, he scans the headlines of a couple of local channels compiled by volunteer enthusiasts. He sends off a vid-comment about the Mayor. He manages to keep it polite. Next he settles down to the online jam tutorial. He bought this one from Hungary. They really know about jam there! In the evening, he decides to veg out and watch a movie. Will he see what the commercials channels are pushing right now? Nah! He’d rather watch the movie a friend told him about. Mr Gummidge checks the world news headlines on his favourite global service, flicks off the screen and heads to bed.

16/ The point about this hypothetical illustration is that in the media world of Mr Gummidge, an average kind of Ozzie 20 years in the future, major national media companies (including the ‘public broadcasters’) have little role to play. He gets news from people he most trusts, specific to each field he’s interested in. He chooses his own entertainment directly (unless he really wants to veg out!). He likes soccer – so he uses a soccer info service run by soccer enthusiasts like him. Likewise for his specific work-related interests. Channel 9? The ABC? The Australian newspaper? Who needs them?

17/ Major media interests are naturally not keen on this development. They are probably not the only vested interests to view this new opportunity with trepidation, can be expected to fight against the shift to democratisation and diversification of media – and will probably cloak their real agenda in disguise.

18/ To those in the public such as myself, deeply dissatisfied with our current mass media, democratisation and diversification of media is a very exciting prospect. The potential convergence of ‘websites’ with ‘channels’ means information power being shared more equitably. The old model of journalist and reader is utterly one-sided. In the new media era, every individual is (potentially) a sharer of information. Every small group can (potentially) run a media channel.

19/ In addition to affordable and ubiquitous hardware/technology, what are other pre-requisites for such a change? Answering this question may also reveal how vested interests are most likely to try to disrupt, slow and divert this trend.

20/ One prerequisite is net neutrality. This is essential and should be enshrined in law. All media providers should face a level playing field. In effect, they should be able to narrow cast via the internet at zero cost to themselves (as at present). There must be no preferential speeds or access.

21/ The second prerequisite is an appropriately hands-off censorship regime. The internet must be regarded more like the post or email and less like TV or radio. No-one is forced to watch anything on the internet. People choose to visit sites. They are not stuck with a choice of five channels – or even 50. They have – in effect – millions of channels. That choice will grow. Censorship along the lines of TV or radio is impossible and the effort should be abandoned. Ideally, Australia should legislate an equivalent of the US First Amendment. We need a basic guarantee of free speech, especially (but not only) on the internet.

22/ The third prerequisite is a level playing field for public funding and support. There is no need or basis for preferentially assisting existing major broadcasters. If that means the major national TV networks disappear, so be it. The market in the commercial media industry should not be distorted. If the old networks can adjust to genuine open competition and retain viewers, good for them. There should receive no public assistance.

23/ Ongoing support for public broadcasting – notably the ABC – is a separate issue. Broadly speaking, I believe some public subsidy of media and journalism is justifiable and necessary – just as we subsidise the arts, sport and other cultural activity.

However, current arrangements are very unsatisfactory; reform is needed

The Need for Truthfulness in Media

24/ The politics of this century, now more than a decade old, has been dominated by one event: the shocking attacks in America on September 11th 2001. This was quickly cited as the basis for the so-called ‘War on Terror’ and the invasion of Afghanistan.

Even in far-way Australia, the impact of the 9/11 attacks have been dramatic. Our intelligence agencies have grown like mushrooms; ASIO alone has a budget in 2011 that roughly an order of magnitude higher than a decade before. Some 30 pieces of legislation were, at various times, rushed through Parliament in the years following 9/11 – all supposedly to meet the ‘terrorist threat’. Since then, all talk of a post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’ has vanished as the Australian military has also grown rapidly. Then there’s the continuing presence of Australian troops in Afghanistan…

25/ Under these circumstances, with the stakes so enormously high, the public reasonably expects professional journalists to wade through the detail, then disseminate and debate the truth as they see it, in an attempt to best establish what the truth is. We do not expect every journalist to cover every topic; we certainly don’t expect all journalists to agree. We DO expect robust debate that covers EVERY reason-based perspective. In short, we expect that just as medics take the Hippocratic Oath, journalists promote the Socratic principles of fair, rational and open debate in which TRUTH is the goal.

26/ A substantial international body of scholars have, over the years, developed peer-reviewed ‘demolitions’ of the official 9/11 narrative. Scholars such as David Ray Griffin and Graeme MacQueen has written damning material showing the complete impossibility and absurdity of the official narrative. The implication of their work is clearly that 9/11 was a false flag operation, carried out by insiders, not a gang of Arab hijackers. If that’s correct, the entire ‘War on Terror’ (including the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan) has been carried out on a false pretext.

27/ I do not expect the ABC to agree with these scholars. I don’t expect these scholars be given free airtime to expound their views unquestioned on the public airwaves in Australia.
I DO expect that the ABC interviews them and covers their perspective, in news and current affairs, with seriousness and intellectual rigor.

28/ The reality has been the complete opposite. As far as I’m aware, the ABC has given no coverage at all the Engineers & Architects for 9/11 Truth or other highly credible parts of the 9/11 Truth phenomenon. This amounts to censorship. With a handful of exceptions there has been no fair coverage of the 9/11 Truth movement via the ABC (there was, for instance, one article in the Drum c. 2008 (comments closed quickly and that was it – although there were a LOT of comments)

29/ It may be the view of the Australian Prime Minister that 9/11 has been fully explained and any suggestions the official story is untrue are “stupid and wrong ”. The ABC Board may hold a similar view; So may ABC staff.

Nonetheless, the ABC has no right to exclude this topic from that very substantial part of the national discourse which it controls. To do so is censorship. It is especially obnoxious when, from time to time, ABC staff abuse their position by denigrate the 9/11 truth movement – whose most prominent spokespeople they will neither interview nor debate.

30/ 9/11 is by no means the only topic subject to heavy censorship by the ABC.
Here are just a few more examples where the ABC either provides no coverage at all or entirely one-sided coverage:

• World War Two and what is commonly labelled ‘The Holocaust’ (UTTERLY ONE-SIDED)
• Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty (NOT MENTIONED AT ALL)
• the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre (UTTERLY ONE-SIDED)
• the London bombings of July 7th 2005 (UTTERLY ONE-SIDED)

This is by no means an exhaustive list. In each case, many ‘inconvenient facts’ contradict the official narratives. In each case, ABC coverage is entirely one-sided (in the case of the USS Liberty attack, there’s no mention at all of the topic on the ABC website – except in comments from the public to articles that don’t mention it!)

31/ Each of these topics is of considerable political relevance to Australians. The Port Arthur massacre took place inside Australia. The London bombings were the trigger for a raft of additional ‘anti-Terrorist legislation’ rushed through the Australian parliament in late 2005. The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty – a likely example of a false flag operation gone wrong – provides essential historical context for understanding contemporary events. ‘The Holocaust’ is such a central cultural icon of our time it has even been subjected to attempts to enforce heterodoxy via the courts, using the mechanism of Human Rights legislation (in true Orwellian fashion!)

32/ The relevance of these topics is clear. The one-sidedness of the ABC’s coverage (the same applies to SBS) is stark. The question arises: is this acceptable behaviour on the part of the ABC? In my view it’s not. Our publicly funded broadcasters behave as though they have taken sides on these subjects – and actually wish to exclude critics and heterodox opinions, however credible and factually supported, from public discourse. That’s not acceptable.

33/ The ABC’s Charter at present, provides no requirement that the organisation tells the truth or reports in a balanced manner (at least in aggregate, over time). Consideration should be given to remedying this.

However, change is clearly needed in the personnel and culture of our public broadcasters. A number of people in the ABC – from Board level down – seem to have a strong commitment to keeping credible critical perspectives on several important topics (such as those listed above) under wraps. There are two obvious probable motivations (1) they are within, or allied with, the Zionist movement (2) they are within, or allied to, ‘intelligence agencies’, whether Australian (eg ASIO) or overseas (eg Mossad, CIA, MI6). These possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

Without personnel change to open up the ABC to a wider range of perspectives – and without cultural change so awkward question are routinely asked, not set aside – tinkering with the Charter will be of little value. BOTH are needed.

34/ In the longer-term – looking decades ahead and taking into account trends towards convergence and diversification already discussed – substantial funding for one or two public media organisations may well become an anomaly. Signs of this are emerging already.

Why, for instance, should ‘The Drum’ website receive public subsidy, when other major Australian news websites do not? If the goal is to provide for a wider diversity of views that don’t get covered on commercial or private websites, there might be a case for it. But as I’ve argued, that’s simply not the case. In relation to some of the most crucial issues of our time, the ABC censors opinion just as rigorously (if not more) than Australia’s privately owned mainstream media.

35/ A likely response to criticism of this type – and a response I’ve received when making this type of argument in the past – is that organisations such as the ABC cannot possibly cover every side of every argument and must necessarily make editorial choices, including the effective exclusion of some ideas that simply don’t merit a wide audience.

It’s a reasonable point. What’s unreasonable is its misapplication to justify the exclusion of perspectives that clearly have credibility. If, for instance, one university professor – and one alone – was to suggest the three WTC towers that collapsed on 9/11 were probably brought down by controlled demolition, a major media group like the ABC might reasonably not report the heterodox claim. When more than 1,600 qualified engineers and architects say this, it is clearly not a perspective that should be sidelined and ignored on the grounds that it’s marginal. Such a large body of informed opinion merits coverage. The ABC has no right to deny fair coverage.

36/ The bias of the Australian mass media – including our public broadcasters – has been egregious in relation to the succession of wars promoted by the USA in recent years.
Sceptical views about the real origins of the Afghanistan War go unreported, as previously mentioned. In the run up to the 2003 Iraq Invasion, some scepticism was voiced via the ABC, but in most of the private mass media the stampede to support invasion was thunderous. Newscorp often argues its editors have independent editorial control, but I’m unaware of a single editor of any of the hundreds of Murdoch-owned newspapers in Australia who took a different view on the Iraq War and failed to support the invasion. This is group-think on a mammoth scale.

37/ The attack on Libya this year provides an instance of media group-think within the Australian mass media more absolute even than the 2003 Iraq War. In this case not only has the Newscorp-dominated private mass media covered only one side of the debate. The ABC has done so too. An analysis of coverage on any of the ABC’s major news and current affairs channels would show that anti-war voices – and/or voices supporting the previous Libyan Government – have been excluded from the Australian mass media coverage and generally ridiculed. A similar comment applies to the attempts currently underway to launch a ‘regime change’ process against Syria.

38/ In recent years, on numerous occasion, I have complained to the ABC – usually via direct contact with journalists or programs – about matters discussed above. It has been a tiresome experience. Not once has anyone in the organisation shown any sign of wanting to grapple with the issues. In private conversations with journalists I know personally, the message has been clear: these issues are too hot for them to handle; they’re unwilling to go out on a limb, risking reputation and career.

It’s my strong impression that the media – including publicly funded mass media – has become first and foremost a mechanism for controlling public opinion; its role as an information provider has become subordinated to this primary, unstated goal, the principal beneficiaries of which are the mainstream Jewish/Zionist Lobby, western intelligence agencies and the western military-security complex. Each of these powerful partisan interests has effectively been shielded from proper scrutiny in our mass media. This is completely unacceptable.

39/ One possible defence for the ABC & SBS is to claim that its workings, subtle biases and output is in line with comparable overseas organisations such as the BBC. There is some truth in this. Indeed, one often gets the feeling the ABC largely takes its cues from the BBC. It often runs documentaries from the BBC on controversial topics such as war and terrorism, seemingly happy to shelter under the skirts of its larger and most famous sibling.

Yet nothing in any Australian laws or guidelines, as far as I’m aware, requires Australia to apply the age-old cultural cringe in this way. The BBC is not a model of perfection for Australian public media to follow blindly. The BBC suffers from many of the same problems as the ABC. It has parallel biases and needs similar remedies. It’s Board – like the Board of the ABC – is not properly reflective of the diversity of views in the society as a whole. Both the BBC and ABC Board can reasonably be accused of Zionist bias. The fact that the BBC shows this type of bias is NOT a reason for Australia to follow.

40/ The growth of modern telecommunications – and in particular the internet – is often compared to the development of a species-wide brain.

This is truly a crucial developmental stage for Australia – and for humanity as a whole.

We need to ensure our communications – especially broadcast and mass media – are not subject to domination by special interest groups and unaccountable lobbies that operate largely in secrecy. We need our media to serve the public as a whole – not the other way round.

We need our mass media to foster truthfulness and rational awareness – not to create false notions that some views (however well-founded) are beyond the pale and may be safely disregarded by politicians and the public simply because we never hear them articulated on our TV screens.
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References

Newspaper evolution: an earlier examples of trends to more – and eventually less – media diversity:
http://uclan.academia.edu/AndrewHobbs/Papers/105566/When_the_provincial_press_was_the_national_press_c.1836-1900_

Australia’s Great Parliamentary debate about 9/11 (Not!)
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2010/10/22/australias-afghanistan-debate-9-11-and-kevin-bracken/

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (the major website of the 9/11 Truth Movement)
http://www.ae911truth.org

Hereward Fenton’s May 2008 article in The Drum about 9/11 – the ABC’s (one) exception that proves the rule?
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/31852.html

Port Arthur (grounds for concern excluded from discussion in the Australian mass media)
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2010/12/17/are-the-port-arthur-killers-still-out-there/

The Hoax of the 2oth Century (no Australian mass media interview with Professor Arthur Butz in more than three decades. Why not?)
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres3/HoaxV2.pdf

July 7th 2005 London Bombings (at least there was eventually an inquest in this case – unlike Port Arthur or 9/11!).
http://77inquests.blogspot.com/

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POSTSCRIPT 17th November 2011

Hush! The agenda is showing!

As of today the ‘Independent Media Inquiry Consultation Page‘ doesn’t list the above submission, nor have I received any acknowledgement my submission was even received (although it was sent by email without bounce-back).

The Inquiry is now towards the end of its second (and final?) week of hearings.  These hearings are not televised; apparently Chairman Ray Finkelstein QC banned cameras from the proceedings.

By now, this Inquiry has all the credibility of a Medieval Guild investigating itself. Public input appears welcome – as long as we all agree with the “experts”.

Every now and again a media academic, analyst or “journalist” tweets via the #MediaInquiry hashtag about concerns the media is losing public credibility…

Truly, this would be a brilliant satire on the pomposity of latter-day Pharisees, worthy of Johnathan Swift,  Franz Kafka or Eric Blair.

Such a shame it’s real life…

Several days have passed since the dramatically memorable 20th of October, when news flashed around the world that Muammar Ghadafi had been captured – a story amended within an hour to the news he’d been captured and subsequently killed.

Within the ranks of Ghadafi supporters, there was much confusion. The initial reaction of many was disbelief. To be fair, even today, there’s no absolute certainty that the man seen savaged like a fox among hounds was actually Muammar Ghadafi. Some refuse to believe he was captured at all and insist this is yet one more case of media lies, fakery and psy-ops. For all I know, they could be right. I do hope so. The day a verifiable new video message from Ghadafi is tweeted around the planet would be the day the mainstream media’s credibility goes into free-fall.

My own assessment, for what it’s worth, is less optimistic. I think Ghadafi probably was murdered on October 20th – just as his son Moutassim was murdered around the same time (see Mutassim Gaddafi captured alive – but then shown dead (VIDEO).

In both cases, there appears to be genuine footage of some of their last moments, following their capture. In both cases, the prisoners are clearly alive, yet they died soon afterwards (Moummar was dead by the end of the video in all likihood – so it really is a ‘snuff movie’!)

Murder – whether pre-meditated or in an outburst of rage – is the only feasible explanation in the case of both father and son.

The footage of Muammar  Ghadafi’s last moments appears to cover the drama of his death. On the 20th October, the first item to be released by the mass media was a single frame (a still photo) from the video. It showed Ghadafi’s bloodied corpse.

About an hour later, the video from which that frame had been extracted was shown too. I initially came across it here: Gaddafi dead: Video of leader’s initial capture (EXCLUSIVE).

The hands of Ghadafi's killer? (screenshot at 2.20)

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to download the flash video. Doubtless technology exists to do that, but I don’t have it. What I did do, on Oct 21st, just a few hours after the reported death, was take a few freeze frames (screenshots). I did this because someone on Twitter suggested to me that there appeared to be a few western special ops types in the mob surrounding Ghadafi.

I captured a couple of frames in particular – snapped at 2.20 and 2.22 respectively in the video as it was on October 21st. They show in one case a pair of hands and in the other a face, both of which look more European/Caucasian than Arab/Berber. I tweeted these images and speculated in my tweets whether this individual was the real killer.

Is this pink-faced man Ghadafi's killer?

Prior to that time in the video, Ghadafi was getting beaten and abused – but was still clearly alive and conscious. Seconds afterwards he seemed to be dying. Someone shot him. It’s since been reported there were two bullets. One was to the head. Ghadafi was most likely shot at close range, not ‘in crossfire’ as the NTC implausibly claims to this day.

My suspicion is Moummar Ghadafi was deliberately murdered by a trained killer. His survival was not left to chance.

Martin Iqbal, another commentator who’s been following the horros in Libya closely, wrote an article about the death of Ghadafi on October 22nd: The ‘rebel’ assassination of Muammar Gaddafi: a NATO operation from A to Z. It drew on a report in Debka.com. Iqbal is a first-class analyst and his website is a must for regular visits. Yet I disagree with this particular article. As he acknowledges, Debka.com is an Israeli website known to peddle Zionist disinfo. However, in this instance, Iqbal thinks its report may be accurate as the report doesn’t directly impact on Israeli interests. Personally, I doubt that it is fully accurate. I note that since the 24th Iqbal’s article features an update, referring to a Daily Telegraph article published on the 20th, entitled Col Gaddafi killed: convoy bombed by drone flown by pilot in Las Vegas. The gist of that article is not far from the scenario I believe to be accurate.

Debka’s theory is presented (as always) as fact (never as a hypothesis or possibility). Its theory/fact is that Ghadafi was actually captured by western special ops in Sirte days before, then shot in both legs to prevent his escape and released into the mob of angry NTC warriors to ensure a nice, bloody, pack execution – great propaganda.

One problem with this is there’s no evidence in the video that Ghadafi was crippled at the outset. Nor does Debka’s scenario seem plausible to me.  Had special ops really captured Ghadafi, I think they’d either have  killed him there and then – or set up a tidier photo-op for his staged death.

My own theory (which I emphasise is just a theory – I’ve no claim to divine knowledge), is that Ghadafi was captured more or less as the official narrative suggests. His convoy probably was hit by NATO strikes while attempting to leave Sirte. Amazingly, he escaped that strike and took shelter in a large drain by the road, but was pursued by NTC  ’rebels’.

He was then dragged out of that hiding place, which is when the video began rolling. The footage starts  from a higher vantage pint – presumably up on the road. The cameraman (in reality, this footage was likely taken by a mobile phone) followed the mob down to the side of the road. That’s where the killing took place.

The mob was clearly treating Ghadafi in a way that no military or police captive should ever be treated. He was being slapped around, punched and abused – but there were no signs of lethal assault. It’s likely a single assassin (two at most) delivered the bullets which actually killed him.

The video doesn’t enable me to conclusively identify the killer – although expert analysts may be able to do better. But  there are some rather interesting frames. I showed a couple above, which appear to depict a man of non-Libyan appearance who was in the right place at the right time to kill Ghadafi.

Is this man western special ops? It seems clear special forces operatives were ordered to keep an eye out for Ghadafi in Sirte – and kill him if located. Hillary Clinton’s comments in Tripoli only a day before affirmed that murdering him would be quite acceptable top the US Government. I think that was the public face of an official order to execute.

My theory is that the video was released shortly after the photo to allow time for it to be quickly checked. Presumably, the goal was to scrub any frames that might implicate westerners in the killing. However, the checking was rushed and a few frames slipped through that do suggest the involvement of a trained western killer.

Returning to the same video today (more than 3 days after it was first posted online), I notice possible use of digital white-out in some frames. Is this to obscure the identity of the killer?

Not being able to capture the original video to hard drive, I can’t now go through it frame by frame. However, I did take a couple of screenshots on the 21st. Today, I returned to the same URL to take more. This time I noticed a few more peculiarities, including one frame that  appears to have been subjected to the digital equivalent of white-out (see right). Have frames been changed since the video first went online? Without a downloaded version, I can’t check. Maybe someone else out there grabbed one?

Today GlobalPost is running a follow-up story with more video and the even more lurid title Gaddafi sodomized: Video shows abuse frame by frame. I won’t get into the sordid question of whether Ghadafi really was abused in this manner in his last moments. Even if he was, it didn’t kill him. Bullets killed him. What interests me more is that the video at the base of that page appears to have the same snuff movie shown by GlobalPost on October 20th – but when I try to extract frames from that version around the 2.22 mark, I get slightly different results (shown below). Again, there are frames suggestive of editing. But this time, no part of the face of the man I quipped is “Mr Special Ops’ appears in those frames I could capture as screenshots.

I’m speculating, but… it seems to me some attempt may have been made to ‘lose’ the pink-faced individual who featured rather clearly in the video I originally screen-shot on October 21st. The top-left frame above shows less of him than before. Has the top-right been retouched to present an Arab (as opposed to European) appearance? The two fames on the bottom both appear to have been whited-out. It may be purely an artefact of the camera/light, but it certainly looks like digital white-out. What was there originally?

Are the psy-ops artists gradually correcting the minor mistakes they made on the 20th in order to rush out the video? That’s my suspicion. The Debka story somewhat increases it. In Debka’s narrative, special ops actually let Ghadafi go. My theory is the opposite. Debka would probably run a deceptive story like that as a favour to its CIA/MI6 buddies.

The BBC also ran a story on 23rd September entitled Does new video provide clues as to who killed Gaddafi?, suggesting that a young dark-skinned man, shown on video being feted by his NTC colleagues, was the self-confessed killer. It’s possible that’s true, I suppose, but I can see no sign of his face in the death-sequence video (can you?). Today, there’s another “I killed Gaddafi“ story, this time via The Sun and RT. It names a man who’s allegedly confessed to the murder. His face seems different from the man in the BBC story. All very confusing. My suspicion is these stories are to throw us all off the track…

There's a lot of them around, usually off-camera. This western sniper in Sirte was captured on film a few days before Ghadafi's murder; when he saw the camera, he said "shit!" in an American accent

One way or another, the Libyan leader was killed by NATO. The NATO countries set up the execution, even if a Libyan pulled the trigger. But like so much of this war, I’d guess the murder of Moummar Ghadafi was so important to the imperialists they daren’t leave the outcome to chance. I suspect it was a westerner who pulled the trigger – and that there’s been a rather clumsy cover-up since to obscure this.

Zionists have wanted Ghadafi dead since 1973 if not before. Libya joined Egypt in the 1973 war against Israel and Libyan jets went into battle.

Zionists have long memories. Through their allies and agents in successive US Administrations – and within British and American spookdom – they kept the flame of hate alive, trying again and again to Ghadafi him as the decades rolled by. This year, it appears, they finally achieved their gruesome goal courtesy of western military and special forces.

With Moutassim also murdered, the assault on the Ghadafis is looking more and more like a systematic attempt to exterminate a family that was viewed as potential source of opposition to Empire. Over the decades, the Kennedy family in the USA, the Bhuttos in Pakistan and Ghandis in India have suffered similar ‘culls’. For the Ghadafis, exterminations have been concentrated within the span of a few months,

All surviving members of the family may well be in danger, including those who’ve left Libya such as Aisha Ghadafi. Seif Al-Islam is certainly a prime target and international public opinion should mobilize in his defense. We must DEMAND there are no more another ‘accidental’ killings!

The brutal murder of Muammar Ghadafi was just one of many, many thousands of murders in Libya in this evil, externally-fabricated war. Like the hero the western media said he wasn’t, Ghadafi died alongside his people. Like ALL Libyans whose lives have been snuffed out by murderers, his family and supporters deserve real justice.

It just so happens that in his case, unlike the other nameless thousands, we have real evidence to bring to bear, even though it may already be coated in layers of disinformation.

Murder most never go uninvestigated and should always be subject to justice. This is a basic hallmark of civilized society.

It’s time people everywhere demand that our global civilization is redeemed from further debasement by murderers in power.

UPDATE 26th Oct: A short video Gadaffi Death. NATO WAS THERE. PROOF! was posted on YouTube yesterday. It’s just come to my attention via Twitter. More evidence of western special ops in the mob that killed Ghadafi…

Ghadafi's murderer?

A video posted on the same YouTube account on October 22nd - GADDAFI. DEATH. The Liars - documents rather well the many highly contradictory ‘official’ statements about the deaths of Muammar Ghadafi, his son Mutassim and security chief Abdullah Al-Senussi who also died in captivity on the same day.

I also just came across another screen-shot, taken by someone else, from the video of Ghadafi’s death.

This may be the clearest image yet of the murderer of  Muammar Gaddafi (see right).

POSTSCRIPT (Nov 9th 2011):

Mahmoud Jibril, former chair of the executive board of Libya’s National Transitional Council was interviewed by CNN recently and expressed suspicions about the killing of Ghadafi that are essentially the same as my own.

Perhaps now Jibril has resigned from an NTC leadership role he feels more able to speak truthfully?

Below is the text of a recent message to Libyans from Aisha Ghadafi, daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Ghadafi.

Until the unprovoked attack on Libya earlier this year, Aisha was a young international lawyer who also served as a United Nations Development Program National Goodwill Ambassador (focusing on the issues of HIV/AIDS, poverty and women’s rights).

Aisha Ghadafi

Having lost her husband and one of her children to NATO bombs, Aisha entered Algeria some weeks ago and almost immediately gave birth in a border hospital.

Despite western attempts to vilify her, she shows quite outstanding qualities of courage and decency.

At some point the west will come to its senses and realize Libya is yet another failure for its intevnetionist policies.

The imposed coup d’etat has no popular base and Libya is ungovernable without consent.

Yet again ‘western’ nations have been manipulated into a war by Zionist criminals, who care nothing for the prosperity of west nor east, north nor south – and whose rise to dominance is on a ladder made of the suffering of others.

We will need people of the caliber of Aisha Ghadafi to rebuild hope and help set Libya once again on the path to peaceful progress.

Aisha Gaddafi letter to the Libyan People

23rd September 2011

To the great people of Libya,

I salute you.

I will not tell you that victory is approaching, but that we live victorious every day for the last 8 months and we are lining up a victory which has never been witnessed in history.

40 countries, with their attacks using planes, missiles and technologies by air and sea and utilizing their agents on the ground. And the Libyan people are still resilient and fighting. I commend these heroes and I congratulate all of the Libyan people, along with your Great Leader, whom I bring relief to you and inform you is currently well. He is well Thank God, and is also faithful to God and remains in high spirits. He bears a weapon and is fighting on the battlefield with his sons, side by side with the Libyan fighters. This is Muammar Gaddafi, putting himself forward to become a fighter and a martyr with his sons.

The Emir of Qatar. An ugly Zionist stooge who overthrew his own father in 1995

Compare this sight with that of Qatar with the Prince who presents and puts forward a crown prince who cried like a girl because they were granted the World Cup 12 years from now.

This gives you (the Libyans) the right to be proud of your leader!

Shame and disgrace to the Arab leaders who were swayed and participated in the slaughter of The Libyan People. And it is unfortunate that Arab nations witnessed this slaughter for 8 months and have not flinched nor stood up and risen against it.

But I call on the lions of Tripoli, the lions of Tarhouna, the eagles of Wershifanna, and the lions of Assabia and Mashaseeya and Arshaydat and Ajaylat and Awayell to the Lions of the Ancient city of Sabha to the lions of Sirte, Abusleem and El-Hadhba (All tribes within Libya) and all of the heroes of Tripoli, the resilient. And to all Libyan fighters from the West to the South.

I call on you and I call on you, I call on you, I call on you! (Quoted in a way that a female muslim heroine once was depicted saying it in ancient Islamic battles) Link up! Persevere! Be Patient! Protest! God the holy the merciful said, “If there are 100 persevering and patient, they will defeat 200 and if there are 1000, they will defeat 2000. God is with the persevering and the patient.” – Quote from the Quran.

To the silent, I will say to them. What do you have to say about the humiliation that is the new regime, what sort of regime is this? These are familiar faces, which you know very well:

Starting with ABUSHENNA (Mustafa Abdul Jalil) that gave his loyalty and obedience to my Father and betrayed him. Mahmoud Jibril who gave his loyalty and obedience to my brother Saif El-Islam and betrayed him. Shalgam was loyal for 40 years and Betrayed. Trekki the idiot was loyal and obedient for 40 years and betrayed. Ghogha was the captain of the lawyers and loyal and betrayed. Bilhadj who gave an oath and a guarantee and broke it. Others, among others exist. All of these people betrayed and broke their oaths which they gave before, who says they will not break oaths and promises to you?

And to the NATO rebels, if you have any common sense or logic to use …. NATO, who when they wanted to invade Afghanistan and in Iraq, they landed boots on the ground, because they could not find any traitors who were willing to take up arms against their fellow countrymen. Sadly, they found such people within Libya who would take up arms against the chests of their fellow Libyan brothers. This is why I will say there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God. Believe in God (Allah), Believe in God (Allah). God (Allah) is all I need. He is the best guardian.

Finally, I would like to quote my brother, who when I asked him to be careful and look after himself on the frontline with his brothers …. I will never forget his words:

“I WILL MAKE A TRAIL WITH OUR BODIES SO THAT THE PEOPLE OF LIBYA CAN WALK ON THEM TO VICTORY!”

To the heroes of Libya, do not disappoint our martyrs. Avenge them, avenge them, avenge them!

“Victory cometh, only an hour’s patience.”

Peace be upon you and the Mercy of Allah and His Blessings.

___________________________________________

NOTE: this is an English language translation of Aisha Ghadafi’s 23rd September message, sourced here.

Dr Graeme MacQueen’s eloquent introduction to the International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001 (Toronto Hearings) is a useful starting point for those unfamiliar with this recent event…

On the third day of the hearings, Dr Niels Harrit gave a presentation. If you’re not familiar with Dr Harrit‘s work from previous material on this website – or from other sources – I suggest watching the whole video (see below). Including questions and answers, it takes approximately two hours.

If you don’t have time, the part of the video most directly relevant to this particular article begins at 53 mins 45 secs, when Dr Harrit discusses the human health consequences of breathing dust from the collapsed WTC. His discussion on that subject runs for approximately 15 minutes at the end of his speech.

The key point is that carbon nanotubes have been found in lung tissue from first responders(‘first responders are the heroic folk who pitched in, immediately after the 9/11 debacle, to help with rescue and clean up).

It’s estimated at least 60,000 workers contributed in the early and most dangerous stages.

For the 9/11 mass-murderers, the writing is on the wall

As I pointed out in a previous article, Blind Freddy himself could deduce on the day that the dust was dangerous. Even so, Bush Administration EPA chief Christie Whitman gave some unequivocal guarantees, as early as September 15th:

“I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink…. The concentrations are such that they don’t pose a health hazard…We’re going to make sure everybody is safe“

It was a scandalous deception that probably contributed to very lax protective measures taken by clean-up workers and their supervisors. Many workers had no respirators. Some breathed the foul air directly.

The dust must have included all sorts of extremely unpleasant things, including particles of asbestos. Small wonder there’s been an epidemic of disease among the surviving first responders. Last year, Congress finally granted funds for the health care of first responders. It was late in coming and less than what’s needed, but amazingly it represented the first tangible gesture to compensate tens of thousands of Americans initially lionized as heroes, then discarded like garbage.

However, Dr Harrit’s explosive new information, shared with the conference, is that carbon nanotubes have been found in the lung tissue of first responders. The discovery was made by a group of doctors at Mount Sinai Medical School in Manhatten and published last year in the journal Experimental Health Perspectives. See: Case Report: Lung Disease in World Trade Center Responders Exposed to Dust and Smoke: Carbon Nanotubes Found in the Lungs of World Trade Center Patients and Dust Samples.

These highly unusual tiny threads of carbon are not ‘normally’ found in lung tissue – even in the lung tissue of people who’ve contracted severe lung dieseases. Dr Harrit’s hypothesis is that carbon nanotubes were formed during the microscopic thermitic reactions that took place when the three buildings were brought down in controlled demolitions.

If that hypothesis is correct (the wording is mine, not Dr Harrit’s), first responders carry, within their lungs, the signature trace of the murder weapon.

This must surely provide the basis for the biggest and most important ‘class action’ in US/world history?

If such an action is feasible (why wouldn’t it be?), I believe it should be taken by and on behalf of the first responders against a range of co-defendants: the US Government, the State of Israel, the WTC leaseholders, key elements in the mass media, key security companies and others.

We need the same quality of information, analysis and dialog observed at the Toronto Hearings in a court of law.. a court with subpoena powers and the authority to question witnesses under oath.

The tragedy of the first responders’ poisoned lungs cannot be overlooked. It must be satisfactorily explained.

Those responsible for the poisoning must compensate the victims.

Justice may be blind, but this new information will surely wake up Americans. The villains who try to make fools out of America’s iconic heroes have certainly fooled some of the people, some of the time – but their lucky run has come to an end.