On November 22nd 1963: The Excessive & Unwarranted Concealment Of Pertinent Facts...

"We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. There is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation, if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger, that an announced need for increased security, will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment..."

"We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversions instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military diplomatic intelligence economic scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. It mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed..."

"I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."

-President John F. Kennedy( Excerpt: "The President and the Press:" Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, 4.27.1961. Image: -Stan Way, "New Yorker's Expression of Shock At News of John F. Kennedy's Assassination in Dallas, Texas," New York City, Life Magazine, 11.22.1963).

On Iraq: Big Disguise, Bigger Disinformation, Biggest Denial...

"The US and Britain have triggered an episode more deadly than the Rwandan genocide. On both sides of the Atlantic, a process of spinning science is preventing a serious discussion about the state of affairs in Iraq. For longer than the US has been a nation, Britain has pushed us at our worst of moments to do the right thing. That time has come again with regard to Iraq. It is wrong to be the junior partner in an endeavour rigged to deny the next death induced, and to have spokespeople effectively respond to that death with disinterest and denial." - Dr. Les Roberts (IndependentUK, 2.14.07).

"Dr. Les Roberts risked his life a few years ago to get some numbers that some people fiercely attack as inaccurate, misleading and that many others pay little or no attention to. Dr. Roberts, a physician and prominent public health scientist at Columbia University believes there is solid evidence that close to half a million people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Iraq war. His statistics are about 10 times higher than the estimates put forth by the Bush administration and the Pentagon.

"But a much bigger problem than the numerical disparity is the simple fact that so few even ask. I think it's important that every American understand the true magnitude of this tragedy," says Roberts.

Unfortunately, few in the media or in government appear to want to draw attention to the deaths that have so severely altered the lives of so many.

In 2004, Roberts and colleagues sneaked into Iraq with dyed beards and dressed in robes to conduct a series of mortality "cluster point" surveys in various communities. His team initially estimated the civilian death toll as at least 100,000 (two to three times the official estimate) but later analysis prompted him to raise the estimate. The findings were reported in the British medical journal, the Lancet in 2006.

"To help people understand this, given the population of Iraq, it would be like New York City having two 9/11 attacks every week over a period of three years," Roberts said.

Another report, issued in January, estimated that 151,000 Iraqis died from violence between March 2003 and June 2006. The estimate was based on projections by the Iraqi government and the World Health Organization.

"General David Petraeus testified earlier this year about the fewer deaths we're seeing in Iraq, but his numbers suggested that life in Baltimore was more violent than in Iraq." Before a Congressional Hearing, Dr. Roberts wrote Senators asking them to challenge the statistics, but nobody uttered a word. News reporters stayed silent as well.

"Everybody wants to believe things are getting better because Republicans want to declare victory and Democrats want an excuse to get out. Meanwhile, the media continue to ignore the issue. My professional life and purpose is based on the belief that most of the time, valid data leads towards truth and that truth... can lead toward justice,"

-Tom Paulson (Excerpt: "Doctor Laments Brush-Off of Iraqi War Dead," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10.24.08. Image: -American Colony, "Iraqis In The Streets," Library of Congress, Iraq, 1932 ).

On Wall Street: Let Them Hit Bottom, Let Them Go Bankrupt...

Legendary investor Jim Rogers warned during a CNBC interview this morning that global central banks are creating the environment for an inflationary holocaust by their ceaseless overprinting of currency, a measure that isn’t even successful in stabilizing the stock market.

Rogers said that the only solution to the market crisis was to let failing banks and speculators go bankrupt and stop pumping endless amounts of liquidity into the system, labeling it outrageous that responsible investors and taxpayers are being made to bail out crooks on Wall Street. “The way to solve this problem is to let people go bankrupt,” Rogers stressed, “All of this pumping money into the system is not going to save it - see what the market is saying, it’s saying we don’t buy that, let people go bankrupt...then you hit bottom and then you start over. The people who are sound will take over the assets from the people who aren’t sound and we'll start over. This is the way the world has worked for a few thousand years,” said Rogers.

Rogers warned that the reliance on governments printing money would not aid a recovery and would only lead to the problem becoming worse in the future. “We’re setting the stage for when we come out of this of a massive inflation holocaust,” he said.

Rogers said that excesses of credit and people becoming over-leveraged meant that they would now have to take some pain: “Never before in world history were people able to buy houses with no money down, many people bought four or five houses with no money down and no job and then they did it with cars and student loans and credit card loans, you just think we say well that’s too bad we’re gonna start over nobody loses his job….be realistic."

Rogers said that the G7 leaders, who are meeting this weekend, should “go down to the bar, have a beer and leave the rest of us alone, let the people who are sound succeed and let the other people fail. What I’m afraid of is they’re gonna keep doing what they’ve been doing - which the market hates, you can see the market hates it - because this is going to unleash rampant inflation around the world, rampant confusion in the currency markets and you’re gonna have currencies gyrating all over the world,” said Rogers, repeating that the central bankers were unleashing an “inflationary holocaust”.

A CNBC expert then expressed his confusion at Rogers’ argument that overprinting of currency caused hyper inflation, seemingly displaying less grasp of basic economic cause and effect principles than a 5-year-old would. Rogers again made the point: “When you print gigantic amounts of money and you flood the world with money, throughout history that has led to inflation.”

-Paul Joseph Watson, ("Rogers: Global Bankers Have Unleashed Inflationary Holocaust," PrisonPlanet.com, 10.10.08. Image: "Worthless," BillStClair.com, 2008).