Wes: "What would make you believe the story - not that you have to ?"

May I attempt to answer that question?

If our elected leaders admitted they'd been lying about oh, this and that up to now, and started ttelling the truth. As someone said back up along this thread (McGrath I think) if you systematically lie to achieve your aims no-one will believe you when you tell the truth. As you know there's an old saying about truth being the first casualty in war.

The Brits lied about German atrocities during WW1 to whip up anti-German fervour - so successfully so that German immigrant shopkeepers in the UK had their premises attacked, and the royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg de Gotha to Windsor (the latter being the name of a castle) in order to downplay their German connections (Kaiser Wilhelm was George V's first cousin!).

These atrocity stories included supposed massacres of Belgian civilians by the invading Huns, the nailing of nuns and children to barn doors, crucifixion style, etc., etc., Lord Ponsonby covered this in detail in his 1928 book "Falsehood in Wartime" and shown such stories to absoultely groundless.

Of course they weren't the only ones doing it. Liz Curtis has written an excellent book (title "Northern Ireland and the media war" or something like that) to show how propaganda and distortions were used in the UK to row in public opinion. The saddest thought there is that their propaganda efforts helped prolong the war by ensuring the British public had no proper understanding of what was going on. Thus Britian's shoot-to-kill policy as exposed by Stalker passed almost without comment among the largely unaware Brit public (Guardian readers aside, probably!). Those who did get to hear about it had probably been raised all their lives on a diet of 'mad Paddy terrorists that deserve whatever they get" until their critical faculties were dulled. That is, until it came home to roost in the form of the shooting dead a few summers ago of the Brazilian guy by London police as he ran from them. People were shocked. "How could this happen? Mistaken identity, panic, ok, but what if I'm next?" Suddenly shoot-to-kill was having local implications. And because no-one had a fuss over it when it was employed in the North, they now find themselves having to deal with it at home. That's what I mean about injustice anywhere being a threat to justice everywhere. Whatever happens around the world is our concern, as is the lies we are told to facilitate it happening.

One personal example, a friend of mine in Belfast, 1970s, a car pulls up on the street. Brit squaddies don't like the look of the car, open fire without trying to stop it or get a better idea of who's in it. They kill the guy inside. Turns out he's just some delivery guy, totally innocent. My friend sees this, sees the angry crowd that quickly gather, see the squaddies fire one or two live rounds into the crowd to disperse them - one person is injured. Later in the day my friend is driving south, turns on the national radio, hears the news. Only this time it's become an IRA hitman pulled up in a car, Brits (naturally) shot him, a crowd quickly gathered and got his gun and spirited it away (which explains why no gun was found) before attacking the squaddies and thus getting fired on in return (teh squaddies only ever fire in self-defense if attacked FIRST, you see).

My friend turned off the radio and thought 'that's it. I doubt I'll ever believe another official word I hear again"

Simon Hoggart, a UK journalist, commented that we should always treat news reports that begin 'senior security sources said.." or "a senior figure in the police stated..." with deep suspicion. Untraceable quotes that come from unaccountable people. 'Senior police sources' usually turns out to mean 'the police PR office' in the end of the day, with whom journalists have to maintain a 'good' relationship if they want to be in on the scoops.