Punishing the truth

Truth is having an especially hard time in the imperialist world these last few weeks. You can’t get any from the top dogs at BP. Not a word of truth comes out of Tel Aviv. And when anyone actually tells the truth, they get in trouble for it.

German President Horst Köhler had to resign after he told the truth about German troops being in Afghanistan to protect German economic interests. He didn’t add “imperialist,” which would have made it even more truthful, but that was enough to force his resignation.

Now, senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas has to pay for asking truthful questions at the presidential press briefings. Trapped with a bunch of corporate media hacks who kissed the feet of whoever was in power — the more right-wing, the more kisses — Thomas at least asked some hard questions about the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. And she got fed up over the U.S.-Israeli treatment of the people in Gaza.

Considering that rightist Tea-Party types get away with vicious, racist lies and sometimes with threatening to assassinate the president, one can only conclude that the ruling class intended to get rid of Thomas at the first opening. She deserves better, especially from her peers, but they seem to resent her having more courage in one pinky than they possess in their entire coddled bodies.

There’s another purveyor of truth who appears to be in trouble with the authorities. If the report in Wired magazine is accurate, the Army has found the GI who leaked the video of a helicopter crew shooting Iraqis a few months ago. According to their story, Spc. Bradley Manning leaked that and videos of Pentagon crimes in Afghanistan, and even allegedly leaked 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that he described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”

Apparently Manning is being held on a base in Kuwait for telling the truth. While we don’t know the facts about his actions, we do know that whoever exposed Pentagon war crimes in Iraq is a real war hero and deserves the support of the anti-war movement. And we know that two soldiers in the helicopter company have already apologized to the Iraqis for committing those crimes.

We also know that Thomas asked the kinds of questions that are forbidden among her peers in the world of corporate journalism and was forced to resign.

It’s a bad season for truth, but at Workers World, we’ll stick to it.