The Ministry of Truth

Buzzflash has a new interview with Robert Kane Pappas, director of the mass media-critiquing documentary, "Orwell Rolls in His Grave."

Pappas says,

In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith worked for the Ministry of Truth, in the department that rewrote past news items to make them conform to the present political realities. As his assignments came in, his daily creative endeavors concerned intuiting how the party might want this done. Winston says, "All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory."

"There had been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to 20 grams a week. And only yesterday, he [Winston] reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to 20 grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only 24 hours? Yes, they swallowed it." And Winston asks himself, "Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?"

Does anyone remember that the geographic state of the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq because the dictator had weapons of mass destruction?

You may remember that this dictator was trapped like a rat in a hole.

Here is an interesting development:

Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction
United Press International

A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.

Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.

"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.

"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said.

He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor.
Then they shouted at him in Arabic:

"You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting."

"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.

Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon.


Meanwhile, the Italians want some answers about the loss of their intelligence officer who had just freed the Italian Journalist, Sgrena.

According to Prime Minister Berlasconi,

Calipari put the journalist in the back seat of the car, and with his colleague driving, they headed toward the airport where a plane was waiting to take them back to Italy.

With the inside light on, Calipari sat alongside Sgrena and made phone calls to superiors to report his success. One was to an Italian official who was standing next to an American colonel at the airport, the prime minister said Wednesday, addressing the Italian Senate.

Calipari "therefore warned the American military officials of their immediate arrival in the airport zone," Berlusconi said.

In a statement after the shooting, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division said the Italians' car was "traveling at high speeds" and refused to halt at a checkpoint despite attempts by U.S. soldiers to warn the driver to stop "by hand and arm signals, flashing white lights, and firing warning shots in front of the car."

Citing testimony by the driver, also an intelligence officer, Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said Tuesday that the car was traveling at no more than 25 mph as the driver steered around cement blocks. Fini said the driver was applying the brakes when the car was hit by gunfire that lasted 10 to 15 seconds.

It is said that pictures of the car reveal hundreds of bullet holes.

You can read Sgrena's story here.

Oh yes, before we forget, Sgrena works for Il Manifesto.

They are, well, go on and say it.

Communist.

I just received a news release from Winston Smith

Tomorrow, the chocolate allotment will be increased.




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