NO ONE LEFT TO BELIEVE

So, two nights ago, I had planned on blogging about that scary-ass-looking terrorist guy who had apparently confessed to 911, the 1993 WTC bombing, and a handful of other fairly-known terrorist attacks on American interests. Not just to cover the fact that he had confessed, but to make another point. I even went so far as to grab the first image below from News.Google.Com:

My point would have been that it's absurd to think that We The People can trust anything this guy says. First: Everyone knows that we torture. All right, so Bush doesn't call it torture, but everyone knows we use waterboarding and other torturesque techniques to convince people in US custody to spill the beans. Since everyone also knows that torture usually doesn't work, it's likely Mr. Terrorist Man spilled only the recipe for beans that he knew we wanted to hear and not the true beans. Since the error rate at Guantanamo is something like 50 percent, I think it's safe to assume, at best, this guy maybe did a couple of bad things and not the tourist guide he's given us. Second: Why should we believe he's actually confessed at all? I mean, this "news" comes from the same government that told us Iraq had WMD, that we'd be greeted as liberators and that oil revenues would pay for the Iraq invasion. This "news" comes from the same people that told us the Taleban had been "vanquished" and that Afghanistan was a success story. Before I actually found a moment to blog, I saw this on News.Google.Com:

WHOOPS! Seems the mouthpiece for government mainstream media has presented a third reason to not believe Terroristy VonMcBloweyuppy. Seems he might just be exaggerating his own resume. Check out this cutting from [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terrorist_plots_4|a March 15, 2007 article] at News.Yahoo.com originally from AP.org:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's claims that he was responsible for dozens of successful, foiled and imagined attacks in the past 15 years relies on a loose definition of the word "responsible." Officials say the 9/11 mastermind was key to some plots but a bit player in others. The 31 on his list range from the stunningly vicious suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, to others that current and former government officials say were more talk than concrete plans, such as a plot to kill Jimmy Carter and other former U.S. presidents. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, noting Mohammed's activities are likely to be the subject of an upcoming military tribunal. His confession, his first public statement since his March 2003 capture in Pakistan, came in a closed-door hearing in the newly established U.S. tribunal process. A 26-page transcript of the Saturday session at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was made public Wednesday night. While there apparently is truth in much of the statement, several officials said, there's also an element of self-promotion. They view the claims as at least in part a rallying cry to bolster his image and that of al-Qaida in the only venue Mohammed has left: a military courtroom from which the public is barred.

So, even before us skeptics (with dayjobs) had a chance to point out how dubious this "confession" was, anonymous sources in the USG come forward and give the mainstream media a chance to do their jobs and vaguely look like they're actually being skeptical by telling us this dude is probably padding his resume a bit. The point in the end is simply this: we can't trust anyone, period. What is presented as the truth one day is then presented as completely or partially untrustworthy. I can't think of a single person or source I would trust completely with anything. Our society has ultimately let us down, I think. The government and the media are supposed to protect us, serve us and keep us informed, but they have not been. The way I see it, capitalism has influenced both government (in their march to war for oil) and the media (in their march for ratings and newspapers sold). You insert your own explanation as I don't expect anyone to believe me, either. I'm a blogger. What the hell do I know?

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Orignal From: NO ONE LEFT TO BELIEVE