Monday, August 10, 2015

Remembering Investigative Journalist Danny Casolaro, A Martyr For Truth

While writing the previous blogpost this morning (below) about the Obama regime's newly-declared policy of murdering/torturing/imprisoning-without-trial journalists it doesn't like, I was trying to remember the name of the journalist who was murdered by having his wrists slit in a bathtub.

So I did an Internet search (using duckduckgo.com, which claims not to record your searches, unlike Google) for "journalist slit wrists suicide," since the murder was falsely called suicide by "the authorities." Got his name- Danny Casolaro- right on the first page. Then I went to Wikipedia to refresh my memory some more, and- Damn!- Karmic coincidence. He was murdered on this date in 1991. Only a 1-in-365 chance of that.

So I guess that means it's my task to commemorate the man and remind people he lived, what he did, and why he was murdered by the regime of Bush the Elder 24 years ago today.

Danny was a genuine investigative journalist. That is, he actually investigated things that those in power wanted to keep hidden, and he was a journalist in that he thought journalism meant reporting truthfully to the public about matters that properly concerned them. Danny was sufficiently intrepid- or reckless and stupid, his murderers would say- to investigate the so-called "October Surprise." This was the secret deal Reagan's gang made with the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini (aka Evil Demon in U.S. propaganda) of Iran back in 1980 to not free the U.S. embassy "hostages" until James Earl "Jimmy" Carter was no longer president. He was also investigating a number of other secret U.S. Deep State scandals, some of which were CIA criminal operations. (These were Iran-Contra terrorist-financing scheme under Reagan featuring the fascist Colonel Oliver North, an American version of Otto Skorzeny; the BCCI CIA terrorist bank; and the Inslaw theft scandal.)

George H.W. Bush is the prime suspect in the murder conspiracy. He was president at the time, he was Reagan's Vice President for the entirety of Reagan's term (January 1981-January 1989), and he was vice presidential candidate in 1988 when the secret treasonous deal with Iran was arranged. (There's a sinister pattern in U.S. history. The Republicans always accuse the Democrats of treason, the Democrats defensively move to the right to try and prove it ain't so, and the Republicans commit treason, which the Democrats remain silent about. Just as the Republicans undercut the efforts of the Carter regime to free the "hostages," in 1968 Nixon sabotaged the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam War by secretly instructing the "South" Vietnamese fascist regime to boycott those talks. LBJ knew this through FBI surveillance of the "South" Vietnamese embassy, and warrantless wiretaps of Nixon and others, which he was afraid would be revealed. So Nixon got away with it.)

Bush the Elder was Director of the CIA in 1976. He formed close bonds with fascist cutthroats in that agency, some of whom tried to get him elected president in 1980. (That didn't pan out, but he did get to be Reagan's vice president instead.) During his tenure as CIA boss, the CIA helped smuggle the terrorist bombmaker Michael Vernon Townley into the U.S. from Chile. Townley made and planted the bomb that was used to murder Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C. that same year. A week after the murder, the CIA planted an attributed item in Newsweek, on their "Periscope" page, saying the CIA has determined that the Pinochet regime secret police, DINA, didn't do it. How the CIA could "know" that in just a week wasn't explained. Of course, that was a big fat evil lie, as was subsequently proven. So Bush was a conspirator in an act of international terrorism, a double homicide, and aiding and abetting after the fact. Bush has been tight with the CIA ever since.

The Bush family's ties to terrorism, fascist cutthroats, and criminals are numerous and of long standing, and are no secret except in the U.S. establishment media, which prefers to portray the Bushes in glowing terms. (So much for the "liberal" media.) But if you go to, say, foreign media, or "alternative" media, there is voluminous documentation, as well as in books. See for example "The Bush dynasty and the Cuban criminals," the Guardian, (UK), December 1, 2002. 

A classic fake-out dirty trick was run to discredit the "October Surprise" story. A fake story was generated about Bush himself flying in an SR-71 Blackbird supersonic spyplane to a secret meeting in Spain to cut the deal with the Iranians. This absurd tale was then easily refuted, thus "disproving" the October Surprise "rumor."

A similar style operation was later run on Dan Rather, on behalf of Bush the Younger, regarding that spoiled creep's being AWOL from the cushy slot in the Texas Air National Guard that was arranged by Daddy Bush to keep Bush the Younger out of harm's way during the Vietnam War, yet allowing him to pose as a "veteran" who had "served his country." The real documents were removed from the archives, and forgeries were slipped to Rather's team at CBS, who fell for the bait. When the forgeries were duly exposed, CBS threw Rather overboard. (For some odd reason, American reactionaries have always despised Dan Rather. As Rather is no more "liberal" than the other corporate media talking heads, I never got what their beef was. But highly irrational people are often hard to figure out, especially since their "explanations" for things are equal parts falsehoods and incoherencies.)

These types of covert, nasty operations are one of the hallmarks of both the CIA and the GOP. Both are fascistic, vicious, ruthless, and devious. Both also have a history of murdering people who threaten to expose their crimes. (Scores were murdered just to eliminate witnesses after the assassination of JFK.)

Danny Casolaro had to work as a freelancer. Typically, U.S. media had no use for a genuine journalist who was interested in pursuing critical stories that would shine a light on the criminal nature of the U.S. power structure and expose some of its leading personages as the thugs they are. The U.S. media likes to misappropriate the slogan "speaking truth to power," as if they are brave Davids and not oppressive Goliaths. But those who really do try to speak truth to power are subject to severe retaliation. It could be a broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and torn ligaments, as happened to Medea Benjamin for daring to confront Emperor Obama during one of his speechifyings, it could be imprisonment, or it could be death, as happened to Casolaro.

 Casolaro was only 44 when he died. The beneficiaries of his silencing, Reagan and Bush the Elder, got to live to ripe old ages. (Bush of course is still haunting the earth and arranging who knows what evil schemes with his Saudi partners.) If the U.S. had had a genuine news industry at that time, his murder would have raised an uproar, demands for a real investigation, and followups on the leads he was pursuing.

Wikipedia has some information and links that are useful, although it inexplicably avers that " no evidence of murder was ever found." I beg to differ. His DEAD BODY is rather strong evidence of murder, as well as the totality of the circumstances around his death. Give no credence to that irritating falsehood.

It shouldn't fall to me alone to remind people of this crime, its coverup, and what it reveals about the gangster nature of the U.S. system of power. Really, people who consider themselves progressive or left-wing or opponents of the system of U.S. power, should not let such martyrs- and such crimes- be forgotten. Others have far more resources and support than I do. I think it's irresponsible and even feckless to unwittingly (or wittingly in some cases!) aid and abet a gangster government and ruling class in making sure its crimes stay forgotten.

Danny Casolaro, 1947-1991.

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