A recent article reported that 93% of people killed in American directed drone attacks on terrorists are innocent bystanders and that the Americans often attack shortly after the first attack to kill responders--much like terrorists. Pursuing links and sources for these stories is unrewarding; the origin and accuracy of these stories are difficult to verify.
Ours is an insincere world of motivated people and groups. We are at the mercy of information that might be accurate, might be politically or economically motivated, might be shamelessly mendacious. Joan of Arc told the King of France she was ordered by God to lead a military action against the English; should he believe her? Should he give a farm girl the control of his armies? Information about the earth's temperature is sketchy and recent but appears to show a temperature rise. Is a rise in such a short period significant? Is it accurate? Does it have predictive value? Can we pinpoint a reason for the change? Autism seems to be a recent phenomenon; so are vaccines: Is there a relationship? House ownership seems to be associated with economic success; should the state facilitate the poor's buying houses?
During the Second World War Poland was overrun by both Germany and Russia. A Polish leader, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, escaped and became the unofficial Polish leader-in-exile in London. In April, 1943, he visited with Churchill in Downing Street and raised the question of the alleged massacre by the Russians of 10,000 Polish officers in the forests of Katyn, near Smolensk in the USSR. Churchill urged caution since the alliance between Stalin and the West was fragile. The Germans were using the story to split the British, Poles and Russians. Sikorski, without consulting the British Government, called publicly for the International Red Cross to investigate the massacres. Stalin angrily broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government in exile. Sikorski was killed in a plane crash out of Gibraltar on July 4, 1943.
Years later a play, Soldiers, by Rolf Hochhuth, a German writer, claimed that Sikorski was not killed in an accident, he was murdered by British agents because of his relationship--the reason a bit vague--with the Russian communists. Winston Churchill was directly accused. The play included a number of suspicious sources but had a lively, specific explanation of how the assassination was done, including the murder of Sikorski's daughter and the pilot, Max Prchal. The principles of the play were later interviewed by David Frost on British television and were dumbstruck when Frost produced the pilot, Max Prchal, quite alive, who then savaged the play as a total lie.
Public Records Office papers show that prime minister Harold Wilson was advised that an unnamed KGB defector had alleged that Sikorski had been murdered by the agency's forerunner, the NKVD. This information was regarded as "extremely delicate"; Wilson was warned that "no mention of it should be made publicly".
In the book, "Disinformation" by the former head of the Roumania intelligence agency (wonderfully abbreviated as DIE) Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa writes that the play was part of an elaborate scheme to shift blame for Sikorski's death away from the Russians, that the "play" was simple disinformation.
Artists, the purveyors of the hybrid truth-beauty, hawking impure stuff! Important. Who should be believed?
Ours is an insincere world of motivated people and groups. We are at the mercy of information that might be accurate, might be politically or economically motivated, might be shamelessly mendacious. Joan of Arc told the King of France she was ordered by God to lead a military action against the English; should he believe her? Should he give a farm girl the control of his armies? Information about the earth's temperature is sketchy and recent but appears to show a temperature rise. Is a rise in such a short period significant? Is it accurate? Does it have predictive value? Can we pinpoint a reason for the change? Autism seems to be a recent phenomenon; so are vaccines: Is there a relationship? House ownership seems to be associated with economic success; should the state facilitate the poor's buying houses?
During the Second World War Poland was overrun by both Germany and Russia. A Polish leader, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, escaped and became the unofficial Polish leader-in-exile in London. In April, 1943, he visited with Churchill in Downing Street and raised the question of the alleged massacre by the Russians of 10,000 Polish officers in the forests of Katyn, near Smolensk in the USSR. Churchill urged caution since the alliance between Stalin and the West was fragile. The Germans were using the story to split the British, Poles and Russians. Sikorski, without consulting the British Government, called publicly for the International Red Cross to investigate the massacres. Stalin angrily broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government in exile. Sikorski was killed in a plane crash out of Gibraltar on July 4, 1943.
Years later a play, Soldiers, by Rolf Hochhuth, a German writer, claimed that Sikorski was not killed in an accident, he was murdered by British agents because of his relationship--the reason a bit vague--with the Russian communists. Winston Churchill was directly accused. The play included a number of suspicious sources but had a lively, specific explanation of how the assassination was done, including the murder of Sikorski's daughter and the pilot, Max Prchal. The principles of the play were later interviewed by David Frost on British television and were dumbstruck when Frost produced the pilot, Max Prchal, quite alive, who then savaged the play as a total lie.
Public Records Office papers show that prime minister Harold Wilson was advised that an unnamed KGB defector had alleged that Sikorski had been murdered by the agency's forerunner, the NKVD. This information was regarded as "extremely delicate"; Wilson was warned that "no mention of it should be made publicly".
In the book, "Disinformation" by the former head of the Roumania intelligence agency (wonderfully abbreviated as DIE) Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa writes that the play was part of an elaborate scheme to shift blame for Sikorski's death away from the Russians, that the "play" was simple disinformation.
Artists, the purveyors of the hybrid truth-beauty, hawking impure stuff! Important. Who should be believed?
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