InfoWars?

In my news article on 28 February, 2003 I ended a tirade against the right-wing with a picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein from a meeting they had in 1983. For the week after the news article, clicking on that image would've sent you to the site www.infowars.com. Let me now make it clear that I DO NOT personally endorse the conclusions represented on the infowars site, including the ostentatious claim that the American government planned and assisted in the attacks of 9/11/2001. However, I posted this link with full conscious intent for what I believe to be important reasons. The replacement hyperlink and explanatory page you're reading now were planned in advance. You can write the whole act off as just another stunt if you can't take me seriously. For the record, everything else in that news posting was *entirely* sincere and heartfelt.

This final touch even concerned people who know me well, including my wife. My old friend from college, Bo, put it best (as he always does) in an email he sent after reading:

I'm with you all the way ... until the Infowars link behind the photo of the Rumsfeld/Hussein handshake. That's a site for the loonies who think we've never been to space, that the Freemasons created AIDS to destroy Africa for its real estate, or that Zionists are breeding Jewish stormtrooper clones to destroy the Arab world and then hold Western civilization hostage via control of the oil supply. I understand (hope?) you're doing it for shock effect, and it was an effective non sequitur after your essay.

Bingo. I have only spent about an hour total on the infowars site myself, although I also know of Alex Jones from his rivetting performance in the movie "Waking Life". I got the URL from one of many junk political emails I used to receive from a fellow libertarian (I am now off his list). I would characterize infowars as part tabloid journalism, part performance art. It is an act of peaceful dissent as well as an extreme exercise in free speech; it represents a necessary element of democracy regardless of how irresponsible you may regard it to be. I don't know if the distortions are blatant or not, but the most disturbing thing about the content to me is not all the bizarre contentions but the significant number of actual, publicly know facts upon which they are built, albeit loosely. To illustrate, the infowars site is where I found this picture:

That probably isn't where I should've found this picture.

Back in the 80's the Reagan/Bush administrations were openly and covertly supporting Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, despite certain knowledge of their use of chemical and biological agents. We sold them weapons and equipment, including military helicopters equipped with tank sprayers, chemical pre-cursors to toxins, cluster bombs, and even strains of anthrax. We supplied them with advice, intelligence support, financial aid, and massive loans right up to their invasion of Kuwait. This is all (now) unclassified and on public record, but that doesn't mean there isn't more to the story. Regardless, the bottom line is that the state of affairs in Iraq is in large part our own fault.

If you're going to talk about an axis of evil, you can't forget about one very important player. The United States military industrial complex is the origin of all known forms of WMD. We invented them, we've developed them, we've tested them, we've stockpiled them, and we've proliferated them. By protesting the invasion of Iraq, I'm not trying to paint a smiley face on Saddam Hussein's face: he is a despot with little respect for human rights and a perpetrator of dirty war tactics (guess who he learned it from). I am instead expressing opposition to the hypocrisy of the current administration and their continued support of unilateral warfare, bigotry, and covert methods in the face of so much disgraceful heredity. I find little more despicable than exploiting the shock, fear, remorse, and anger that September 11th caused in the American people to further corrupt and unrelated political agendas. George W. Bush is unfit to be president of this country, and Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and John Ashcroft are all traitors to the American ideals. I contend that I am a true patriot and Christian for saying so.

Untrustworthy behavior in our leadership has led to an extreme in public distrust of American government, and I want you to know the full extent. The fact that I linked to the infowars site may hurt my credibility, but I'll take the hit for a higher cause. Sorry for the confusion, but I won't apologize for the alarm it may have caused anyone who got there from my news page. I personally don't need the mythology of infowars; the facts are bad enough. It just may be that simply because I made my case openly and/or posted that link I am now being monitored by authorities, with my rights as a citizen suspended. That would be a litmus test, wouldn't it? As it happens, I *did* have some people in military intelligence who I didn't previously know ask some questions about my opinions on politics and warfare last week, but I won't sweat it because in the end they expressed agreement.

For the record, Alex Jones tactics are nothing new... his home in Austin is barely an hour from the Air Force Information Warfare Center at Lackland AFB where our tax-engorged military is busy turning computer hacking and misinformation campaigns into a science. Don't think you're going to learn the truth from FOX News; instead accept that you may not see anything resembling the unadulterated truth ever again.

Who lied about WMD?