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Harold Pinter, Nobel Acceptance Speech: "The United States
          supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40
          years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this
          regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution. The Sandinistas weren't perfect.
          They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political
          philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were
          intelligent, rational and civilized. They set out to establish a
          stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished.
          Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back
          from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two
          thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign
          reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free
          education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality
          was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated. The United States denounced these
          achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US
          government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was
          allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it
          was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and
          achieve social unity and national self respect, neighboring countries
          would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of
          course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador. I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of
          lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described
          Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. This was taken generally by the
          media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair
          comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the
          Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no
          record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were
          ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the
          government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian
          dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The
          United States had brought down the democratically elected government
          of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had
          been victims of successive military dictatorships. Six of the most distinguished
          Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American
          University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl
          regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave
          man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is
          estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were
          killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be
          achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They
          died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless
          plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had
          been their birthright. The United States finally brought
          down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable
          resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally
          undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted
          and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the
          country. Free health and free education were over. Big business
          returned with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed. But this 'policy' was by no means
          restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world.
          It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened. The United States supported and
          in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the
          world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia,
          Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines,
          Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the
          United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can
          never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took
          place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in
          all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes - they
          did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy.
          But you wouldn't know it." 
          
 
            Analysis  Here's Pinter again: "The crimes of the
              United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless,
              but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to
              hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation
              of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal
              good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of
              hypnosis...It's a scintillating stratagem." Consider how the news was
              shaped to make it look like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
              were carried out for altruistic reasons. Thus, the war in
              Afghanistan became "Operation Enduring Freedom",
              stressing the selfless generosity of bombing a country into
              oblivion and reinstating the thuggish warlords to power. The same
              strategy was used for the invasion of Iraq which was celebrated as
              "liberation from a brutal dictator."  Liberation which cost the
              lives of over 1 million Iraqis and the displacement of 4 million
              more. Still, no one in the UN or so called international
              community has pressed for removing the US from the Security
              Council or prosecuting its leaders for war crimes.  It's a testimony to the
              success of the US media in upholding the "tapestry of
              lies" of which Pinter speaks.   Pinter: "What has happened
              to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these
              words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these
              days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts
              but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is
              all this dead?  Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds
              of people detained without charge for over three years, with no
              legal representation or due process, technically detained forever.
              This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of
              the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought
              about by what's called the 'international community'.  This criminal outrage is
              being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the
              leader of the free world'. Do we think about the
              inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them?
              They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six. They have
              been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never
              return.  At present many are on hunger
              strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties
              in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anesthetic. Just
              a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood.
              This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about
              this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this?
              Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticize
              our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act.
              You're either with us or against us." Obama doesn't need to solve the
              world's problems. He doesn't have to reverse global warming or
              slow peak oil, cure AIDS or end world hunger. All he needs to do
              is meet the minimal requirement of his job as president, which is
              to deliver justice to his people. That's why the prosecution of
              Bush for war crimes is more important than any other issue on the
              docket. Justice precedes everything; it's the thread that keeps
              the social fabric stitched together. Justice for the victims who
              were killed in their homes with their families while they were
              sleeping or eating dinner. Justice for the people who were bombed
              in wedding parties or going to work or at the mosque praying to
              God. That's what people want from Obama. Justice, nothing more.
              The Reverend Martin Luther King said, "The arc of the moral
              universe is long, but it bends towards justice." It's up to
              Obama follow that arc and take at least one step on the path of
              legitimacy, accountability and justice. Pinter: "How many people do
              you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass
              murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than
              enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and
              Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of
              Justice."  
 
          
          how CIA/FBI controlls media 
          regarding ufo-info- 8min interview with 
          Victor Viggiani in sound   | 
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