BP and Halliburton have admitted to failures in the Deepwater Horizon’s cement casing, and “Operation Dark Heart” author Anthony Shaffer blew the lid off of U.S. intelligence’s foreknowledge of Mohammed Atta’s terrorist ambitions pre-9/11. In the age of WikiLeaks, is it becoming more and more difficult to cover-up unflattering truths?
From the very beginning of the BP Oil Spill on the Deepwater Horizon rig, BP has attempted to control the flow of information. First it was the volume of oil spilling out into the Gulf. Then it was the photo-shopped picture of BP’s command center. They lied about the dispersion of oil on and below the surface of the Gulf, and they also lied about their share in the blame, trying to pass it off on all involved parties but itself.
And as the recent government investigation proved, BP and Halliburton both knew of the lack of structural integrity in the Macondo well’s cement casing before the blow-out. In an attempt to save their corporate asses, they didn’t even bother to tell anyone of this fact–which makes it perhaps an even greater lie than all the rest. Naturally, they are now attempting to shift blame (again) to Halliburton, which is firing back that BP demanded a different cement mixture, which precipitated the blow-out.
The volleying of blame here between corporations is almost sublime in its dimensions. It is corporate cannibalism at its finest.
Anthony Shaffer, a former army intelligence officer, uncovered revelations in Afghanistan during Operation Able Danger that several terrorists were identified before 9/11, including 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. Shaffer’s security clearance was revoked, individuals were forbidden to testify in an investigation into the matter, and ultimately Shaffer’s book “Operation Dark Heart” became the victim of significant redaction.
As I wrote in another article, nearly 9,000 copes of “Operation Dark Heart” were bought by the Department of Defense and destroyed in an act reminiscent of the Nazi book burnings and other assorted fascist pleasantries. The fictional world of Ray Bradbury had become manifest with the full permission of the U.S. government.
WikiLeaks, however, came to the rescue. Julian Assange‘s organization announced via Twitter that they had bought a first edition copy of “Operation Dark Heart” and taunted the U.S. government and military with the following tweet, “Burn all the books you want, Nazi punks. We already have a copy.” Ah, beautiful.
And recently, former CIA officer Ishmael Jones was sued by the intelligence agency over the contents of his 2008 book “The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture.” The book claimed the CIA is a place where billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted or lost in an organization whose overriding concern is the maintenance of its power. Not surprisingly, Jones has advocated for a CIA whistleblower program.
Governments and corporations are often experts at controlling perception, through really no other mechanisms other than their access to information and ability to conceal it. Information is hidden at the highest levels and ignorance invoked as plausible deniability, even as the world demands truth, and rightly so.
We ask, in the Age of WikiLeaks, is the world witnessing the triumph, the ascendancy of truth? Are we seeing it dissipate the black stain of corporate and government miasma that seeks to conceal every last unflattering bit of truth?
It is conceivable that, in a sense, this is exactly what is happening–but this is only the beginning.
For every Julian Assange and Private Bradley Manning, men courageous enough to leak the truth to a world so badly in need of it, there are forces that see such actions as a threat to their power and way of life. Truth-tellers have a way of being snuffed out by men of means and power–the message lost in a haze of distortion and compounded lies.
Expect governments and corporations to seek out new methods of silencing the opposition and manipulating perception. It is, after all, their greatest talent.
Here is to hoping more Bradley Manning’s and Julian Assange’s pop up to create a critical mass that cannot be contained.
