AFTERMATH
So like airbody else I've been watching CNN and CBC and BBC, and reading mainstream papers and some 'alternate' news sources, and the more I read, the more something's fishy.

No, I'm not talking about W.'s disconnected blatherings about eradicating all evil and ending terrorism as we know it. (If terrorism was really eradicated, U.S. foreign policy as it currently is would become largely irrelevant. They'd have to start doing something more constructive, like feeding the poor or negotiating lasting peace treaties or something. And if George really believes what he's saying, and it sure looks like he does, I'm more scared than ever.)

And I'm not talking about Dick Cheney's disappearance for those crucial first four days (I'd buy that he either was made to disappear so that George would have no competition for the spotlight of absolute control, at least until Giuliani stepped up and started acting all mayorlike, or maybe he was cowered under a desk scared shitless.) Nor am I talking about the jingoistic one-voice treason-baiting whipemup that's passing for news on the networks.

But a rental car with an Arabic-language flight manual at the airport, as if flying a 767 is the kind of thing you can cram for, like a biology test? A passport of one of the suspects 'found' in the rubble? I thought the plane was the bomb, and if that fire was hot enough on those floors to actually melt the entire building, then how did a passport survive without a body? A stewardess' hands tied together, minus the rest of her? How'd they know it was a stewardess? And with all the gruesome photography we've already seen, why not show us this stuff?

I have no proof of these things. But I have been lied to before.

My guess is that the U.S. Government took a bad situation and is trying, clumsily in places, to turn it to their advantage. I believe they have plenty of ready-made 'pieces of evidence' to plant in whatever locations are necessary, either to help sway public opinion or to get convictions out of shaky courts or whatever. I also believe that if there's a couple of things that look fishy, there may be other happenings and items that have escaped scrutiny. (Ten bucks says Bush's 86% approval rating is cooked, and oh yeah, despite the magnitude of the crime committed last week, and despite what Congress and the Post might be yelling, repeat it after me: this is not war. War will begin when we bomb the crap out of Afghanistan and occupy it for a few months starting around Thanksgiving, and then they fight back in their feeble way. Last week was just the biggest crime ever committed, and yes, there is a difference.) I've seen enough, I think, that now I'm questioning everything I see or hear, including the cel phone calls from the planes, the directions airport security is now taking, the fact that the Osama bin Laden has been given a full week's head start (and counting) as if this was some big ole game of hide and seek, there are tons of lines to be read between.

Look, I'm not saying things didn't go down exactly as we've been told. (Okay, maybe I am.) But I am aware of how history is being rewritten right before our eyes, by everyone with an agenda, and I'm trying (along with lots of others, I'm pleased to report) to keep track of everyone's story. And in the coming weeks, the people and companies who get filthy stinking rich off all this war talk are going to have to bear up under ever more scrutiny for their role in this catastrophe.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

The Usual Suspects: CNN / NYT / Reuters / BBC

and then there's (in no order whatsoever, and far from complete, but still)
Red Rock Eater Digest
Ethel
Follow Me Here
Tom Paine
Progressive Review
Unnkown News
and not least Metafilter, which has broken more stories than all the major networks combined this last week.