Field Notes on Reality: Hard Truths Buried When Most Needed

by Stephen Lendman

Western societies are rife with hypocrisy. Imperial wars are called liberating ones. State-sponsored propaganda glorifies them in the name of peace.

Terrorism is what they do. Not us. Media scoundrels regurgitate official Big Lies ad nauseam. Burying hard truths when most needed.

Willfully deceiving readers and viewers. Supporting powerful monied interests. At the expense of ordinary people struggling to survive.

Growing numbers fighting a losing battle. Crushed by so-called Western civilization. Destroying humanity one country at a time.

Today's world is increasingly hostile. Mindless of vital people needs and welfare. Exploiting them for greater wealth, power and privilege.

How much is too much? Rule of law protections free societies depend on are disappearing in plain sight.

Anyone can be declared an enemy of the state for any reason or none at all. Eliminated by diktat power. Sovereign independent countries targeted for regime change.

America arrogates to itself the right to control world societies. Its rules alone matter. Overriding inviolable international, constitutional and US statute laws.

Washington bears full responsibility for global crisis conditions. Western partners, Israel and other rogue states share it.

Imagine last week's glaring hypocrisy. Media scoundrels mourned for Charlie Hebdo victims. Obsessed over free expression rights.

Who grieves for imperial victims? Millions of Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Palestinians, Yeminis, Somalis, and others?

What intrepid journalists dare critique their own profession? Mainstream misinformation substitutes for telling people what they most need to know.

Who discusses America's war on dissent? Obama targeting press freedom. Prioritizing surveillance powers. Running the most secretive, unaccountable government in US history.

Wanting truth and full disclosure suppressed. Whistleblowers exposing government wrongdoing silenced. Fundamental rights entirely eliminated. Tyranny replacing them.

Who explains no country imprisons more journalists than close US ally Turkey. Anyone criticizing government policy risks arrest, incarceration or death.

Who discusses Israeli military censorship. Its war on Palestinian journalists. Suppressing information about its crimes of war and against humanity.

On the spurious pretext of national security. At a time Israel's only enemies are ones it invests.

Gaging foreign correspondents. Deciding what's fit to report. What's not.

Prohibiting political demonstrations. Demanding patriotism over truth. Even when government policy violates core rule of law principles. Endangers academic freedom.

Who dares criticize Israeli policy? On virtually any issue? Who'll dispel its Big Lies. Its rogue government committing horrendous human and civil rights abuses.

Its controlled media. On issues mattering most. Mondoweiss contributor Ben Norton addressed the issue.

Saying while Western journalists and popular culture obsess over Paris killings, they systematically "ignore August 2014 documents…inculpat(ing) Israel for" far greater crimes.

Ones too horrific to ignore. State terror far outweighing last week's Paris killings. Norton highlighted the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC).

An NGO committed to "strengthening the legal protection and safety of journalists in zones of conflict and civil unrest or in dangerous missions."

Given "special consultative UN status." Conducting investigations on behalf of the world body.

On August 28, saying in its post-Operation Protective Edge report "90 journalists (were) killed so far in 2014…"

New UN authority is required "to combat impunity." Israel's summer war on Gaza killed "15 journalists." Some "purposely targeted."

Others injured because their homes were willfully shelled. Eight media outlets were destroyed.

Other radio and TV operations as well as targeted web sites were "deliberately disturbed." Many journalists were arrested. For reporting hard truths Israel wants suppressed.

Including willfully murdering noncombatant men, women and children in cold blood. Dozens of entire families.

PEC called Israeli violations against Palestinians "most dangerous, life threatening and most frequent…"

"The large number of targets and the way in which media organizations and journalists have been attacked suggest…a strategy…finalized at the highest levels of the State of Israel."

"Targeting non-combatants is…a war crime that, as such, must not enjoy impunity."

Media scoundrels call Israeli aggression self-defense. Legitimate Palestinian self-defense isi called terrorism.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPT) called the 2012-14 period the most dangerous for journalists on record.

Five dozen or more killed. Around half in Middle East countries. By Israel and other rogue regional states. Suppressing free thought, expression and analysis.

Wanting their own message alone heard. Media scoundrels mourn for slain Charlie Hebdo journalists.

Mindless about lost Palestinian and other Arab ones. Nameless. Faceless. Ignored nonpersons.

During Israel's summer war on Gaza, former UN Special Rapporteur for human rights Richard Falk in Palestine joined international law experts.

Endorsed a Joint Declaration. Expressing independent judgment on Israeli behavior in Gaza.

Inflicting horrific collective punishment on 1.8 million people. Saying in part:

"As international and criminal law scholars, human rights defenders, legal experts and individuals who firmly believe in the rule of law and in the necessity for its respect in times of peace and more so in times of war, we feel the intellectual and moral duty to denounce the grave violations, mystification and disrespect of the most basic principles of the laws of armed conflict and of the fundamental human rights of the entire Palestinian population…"

Unarmed " 'protective persons' under international  humanitarian law (IHL) (were) in the eye of the storm."

"Gaza’s civilian population (was) victimized in the name of a falsely construed right to self-defence, in the midst of an escalation of violence provoked in the face of the entire international community."

Israel lied about an operation conducted in self-defense. Its mission constituted naked aggression.

Terrorizing "(t)he people of Gaza as a whole." An entire population - 1.8 million defenseless people.

Electronic Intifada correspondent Nora Barrows-Friedman interviewed Falk days earlier.

Large parts of Gaza remain in ruin. Virtually no rebuilding was begun. Tens of thousands of Gazans have no proper shelter.

During harsh winter weather. Falk warned of a "humanitarian emergency of the highest order."

Israel's summer war constituted "massive state terror…(O)verwhelming" evidence reveals horrific "war crimes."

Subjecting an entire population to "terroristic warfare (constitutes) an atrocity of the first order," Falk stressed.

Israel wants its crimes suppressed. Its internal investigations are shams when conducted. Whitewashing what needs exposure.

Including its most horrific genocidal high crimes against peace. Systematic coverup conceals them.

Open debate is prohibited. Public discussion verboten.

Israeli "land-grabbing facilitated by a diplomatic process…exclude(s) the relevance of international law from" discussion, said Falk.

His new book is titled "Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope." Presenting his thinking as a UN human rights rapporteur.

His assessment of ongoing developments. A shift in Palestinian strategy, he believes. To largely nonviolent resistance.

An "inquiry into why the media has failed to" notice what's happening. Including Palestinian hunger strikers for justice.

Falk hopes "this new phase…in (his) wildest dreams will eventuate into what (he) call(s) a global intifada."

On the order of how apartheid South Africa was transformed.

Deciding a state, in principle at least, representing all its people works better than discriminatory unfairness.

In other words, compromise is better than conflict without end. Falk remains "hopeful enough to stay engaged in the struggle."

Surrender isn't an option. Palestinians haven't sought freedom for decades to quit now.

What intrepid MSM journalists will tell their story accurately? Treat an entire oppressed population the way Charlie Hebdo victims are mourned.

Who'll initiate a worldwide campaign for justice? Who cares enough to do the right thing?

Who'll do it because it matters. Because Palestinians endured harshness long enough.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.