YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING IN LEBANON OR GAZA. You don’t know that Israel censors all news so that their own population is not even aware of how their military conducts itself. There is NO balanced reporting on the events that has led to the present conflagration in the region. Other than explanations by official Israeli representatives, there is never an open or accurate discussion from ALL sides of the conflict. There is never a voice given to the thousands of organized activists working around the globe for a just and lasting peace in the region. Any criticism of the Israeli government is perceived as a form of Anti-Semitism and Jew baiting.  Any defense of those who have lived under occupation for nearly forty years is perceived as aiding the war on terror.   There is NO public discussion of the Christian zealots in the US who support Israel for their own fanatical religious concerns about a Second Coming.  You do NOT know that the Karl Rove mantra of an imminent WWII is being used by the media to revive the fear factor among Americans. And, you have NOT been told how the call to stop Iran and Syria from aiding ‘terrorists’ is part of the PNAC plan for domination of the region.  You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING IN IRAQ! You don’t know that the war in Iraq is getting less media coverage than any other conflict in American history.  You only know that the invasion of Iraq is supposedly part of a greater War on Terror. The connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda was a lie, but you still believe the claim. The insurgency is made up largely of Iraqis who oppose an invasion of their country, but they are constantly referred to as terrorists. No one tells you where the billions upon billions of your war dollars have gone; the Bush administration certainly has not rebuilt the country they bombed to smithereens. You don’t know what is happening because US reporters are not free to leave the safety of the Green Zone and they rely on official military reports for their information.  You hear what the Pentagon chooses to tell you. You hear that progress is being made, despite the ongoing, daily, non-stop death and mayhem and carnage.  You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW MANY SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN IRAQ! You don’t know the numbers because the totals are ignored until a major milestone is reached. Even then, there is no corroboration of the numbers you hear. None at all. Coalition deaths are never, ever reported by the media. Even though counting civilian casualties in Iraq was forbidden by the US government early on, George Bush guessed that roughly 30,000 Iraqis had died. Actually, the latest estimate by concerned agencies has placed civilian deaths at 175,000.  Deaths of contractors or other private workers are never tallied or reported.  The numbers and the nature of devastating injuries cause by this war are simply ignored by the Bush administrations and the media. Flag draped coffins may not be photographed.  Military funerals are not attended by government officials. You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT THE US CANNOT BE CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES! You don’t know that in May of 2002, the US pulled out of the only treaty that could result in charges being brought against the US government for war crimes: the International Criminal Court of the United Nations This move made it impossible for any American to face charges for crimes such as waging a preventive war, using outlawed weapons such as depleted uranium or torturing detainees.  Months before pulling out of the treaty, the Bush administration had established with the ICC that US soldiers serving overseas would be immune from prosecution in the court, while politicians and US officials, including CIA operatives, could claim diplomatic immunity.  As a result, the US has put itself above the law and can commit war crimes with impunity. You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHO AUTHORIZED THE USE OF TORTURE BY OUR MILITARY! You don’t know that the use of illegal torture methods was authorized at the highest levels of our government, including the President himself. You were told that such acts at Abu Ghraib and other prisons were the work of a few ‘bad apples’ in the military and you believed it. The story served to cover up the wide use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo that has been recorded in photos and video tapes that the Pentagon still refuses to turn over to the US Circuit Court.  The world learned of secret CIA flights that flew detainees to countries that permitted torture during interrogation. Still, George Bush and Condoleezza Rice publicly stated that the US does not tolerate torture. You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED ON 9/11.  No one does.  There has been NO investigation into the events leading to the attacks of that day.  The Kean Commission looked only into the Intelligence failures. No independent agency has ever been appointed to look into the hundreds of unbelievable discrepancies, anomalies and inconsistencies of the official story created by the Bush administration.  There has been absolutely no evidence to support the official version of events; the public is simply expected to accept it without question.  Since 9/11, many highly credible people have come forward to challenge the government’s explanation with mounds of impressive evidence to support their claims.  They all have been ignored by the media and dismissed by you as conspiracy theorists. You

just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT THE IRAQ WAR WAS PLANNED LONG BEFORE 9/11! You probably never even heard of the Project for a New American Century and how many of its members, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld hold high positions in the Bush administration.  You DON’T know about PNAC because the media never exposed the plans they laid out in the late 1990’s for invading Iraq.  You DON’T know that they openly expressed the need for a ‘new Pearl Harbor’ in order to facilitate a war against Iraq.  How convenient for them that 9/11 provided them with just the ‘catastrophic and catalyzing event’ they needed. How convenient as well that they were able to lie to the people and the Congress to launch an illegal and immoral war. You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT YOUR GOVERNMENT SOLD YOU A WAR! You don’t know that Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove and seven other people were part of the White House Iraq Group that was designed to you a war. Their job was to develop talking points and mantras such as ‘mushroom cloud’ that would hype the administration’s planned war against Iraq. You have no clue that the WHIG group set a carefully constructed terror trap to convince you and other Americans that invading a sovereign nation that had never threatened them would keep them safe.  You also don’t know that the Downing Street Minutes revealed beyond any doubt that George Bush and Tony Blair planned the war in Iraq and ‘fixed’ the intelligence information to gain your support. They knew all along that the WMD’s and nuclear programs never existed. You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW THAT THE 2004 ELECTION WAS AS GREAT A FRAUD AS THE ELECTION OF 2000. You never heard about Congressman John Conyers’ official report about What Went Wrong in Ohio. You don’t know about Mark Crispin Millers explosive book about the 2004 election called Fooled Again. You don’t know about the brilliant Rolling Stone article by Robert F Kennedy Jr. entitled, Was the 2004 Election Stolen? You don’t know that hackers can manipulate all of the new touch screen electronic voting machines with little difficulty.  You have no clue that 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S, both of which have strong ties to the GOP. You don’t know that the new electronic machines have no paper trail to verify the tabulations, even though both companies make ATM machines, checkout scanners and ticket machines that easily generate receipts.  You don’t know how many people were intentionally and fraudulently disenfranchised in every election since 2000.  You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHO LEAKED THE SECRET IDENTITY OF VALERIE PLAME! You still don’t know because the cover up has been successful. You don’t know who did what because there is no one to demand that Bush and Cheney come clean about what happened in their White House on their watch. Understand that the recent stories of Richard Armitage as a prime source for outing Valerie Plame never got to the mainstream media, and never will. Remember that for three full months after Plame was outed George Bush refused to investigate this crime. It was only when the CIA demanded an inquiry into the leak of its operative that the President finally turned to case over to John Ashcroft, an insider and friend of the WH and ultimately the case went to Pat Fitzgerald.  You only know that Scooter Libby, National Security Assistant to Dick Cheney, was charged with lying to the FBI and obstructing justice. And you know for damn sure he’ll be pardoned before there is any trial. As for the Plame leak itself, you don’t know that the civil suit brought by the Wilsons against Cheney, Rove and Libby will be delayed until after the 2008 election.  You just don’t know.

YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW MANY AMERICANS HAVE BEEN SPIED ON WITHOUT WARRANTS! You don’t know because the warrantless surveillance was carried on in secret for years.  The NY Times broke the story after keeping it under wraps for a full year – and not reporting it before the 2004 election. You don’t know that the FISA court was specifically created after the Nixon era to facilitate spying that was deemed necessary by the government, and allows for warrants to be issued 72 hours after surveillance, should there be a need to carry it out quickly.  You simply don’t know who was spied upon or what was accomplished as a result of the spying.  What you should know is that Americans are protected from such spying by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. And yet, the President insists he has the authority to spy on Americans without a warrant from any court. And you surely don’t know that this same President insists he has greater power than any American president in history, and that as a result your Constitutional rights are in terrible jeopardy. You just don’t know.