Aletho News

Lies, Damned Lies, and Wikipedia

By Martin Iqbal | Empire Strikes Black | May 30, 2012

How many times have you used Wikipedia when trying to find out the basic facts surrounding an unfamiliar event or topic? How many times has Wikipedia been your first port of call? When one seeks information online relating to a divisive, confusing, or hotly debated topic, nine times out of ten the first port of call will be a search engine, most likely Google. As a result (as we will see), the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, now a household name, has become the chief first source of information for a huge majority of people.

Though Google and other search engines are very useful and powerful tools for finding information, one must employ extreme care. Due to the nature of search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, Internet users must be very wary of censorship by way of result ordering and filtering. Furthermore, the popularity of a website can result in it being listed higher than other sources even when they are more relevant and reliable.

The search engine specialist comScore’s January 2012 report spells out the search engine ‘market’ in the United States. In terms of the US online search market, the leaders are Google (with 66.2% share of search queries performed), Bing (with 15.2%), and Yahoo (with 14.1%). Ask and AOL are in distant fourth and fifth places with 3% and 1.6% respectively.

To illustrate a problem inherent with the way these search engines serve us information, let’s consider the example of the 2011 war on Libya, using the top three search engines – which cumulatively monopolise 95.5% of all search queries performed in the United States.

Visit Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and search for the term “2011 Libya war”, or “Libyan civil war.” Go on – try it now. What do you notice? At the time of writing, in all cases the first result is the Wikipedia article for the ‘Libyan civil war’ (read: the decimation of Libya by belligerent foreign powers). All of these search engines serve Wikipedia to us as the first source of information – thrust in our faces at the top of the results page.

Since Wikipedia can be edited by anybody (and anonymously at that), it is fundamentally flawed as a source of reliable information. Making matters worse, organised groups have mobilised in order to systematically manipulate the information published on Wikipedia. […]

The deception begins with the article’s title, which characterises the war as the ‘Libyan civil war (also referred to as the Libyan revolution.’ Readers are immediately misled as the war on Libya is framed as an indigenous ‘civil war’ between Libyan groups. In the opening paragraph, NATO powers are deceptively referred to as “those seeking to oust [Muammar Gaddafi’s] government.” This is pure fantasy meant to uphold the mythical ‘humanitarian intervention’ narrative. The supposedly indigenous ‘uprising’ was a foreign import in every respect. Libyan opposition groups wholly controlled by and headquartered in London and Washington, planned the February 17 ‘Day of Rage’ from their comfortable positions in exile long before the war on Libya. Though it can be argued that Muammar Gaddafi was somewhat unpopular in parts of the east of Libya, there was no broad popular movement to overthrow the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya – instead only small armed groups with arms coming from the Gulf dictatorships, with the support of NATO powers.

An armed insurrection began as these armed groups attacked policemen and soldiers, stormed arms caches, and sowed terror across Libya. This operation was mounted by NATO-aligned al-Qaeda mercenaries and NATO special forces contingents. The entire global mainstream media circulated unfounded atrocity propaganda and stories about the Feb17 ‘protests’ being attacked by the Libyan army, and global public indignation was channeled into justifying the war. In reality what was referred to as ‘protests‘ was actually this armed insurrection carried out by ‘rebel forces.’ And ‘Rebel forces’ here is Orwellian code language which euphemistically refers to a number of parties: al Qaeda affiliated elements, extremist terrorists, mercenaries bankrolled by NATO and using NATO weaponry, as well as NATO special forces themselves. Wikipedia puts forth a romantic narrative of the ‘rebels’ being the driving force behind the war:

The Gaddafi government then announced a ceasefire, but failed to uphold it,[47] though it then accused rebels of violating the ceasefire when they continued to fight as well.[48] Throughout the conflict, rebels rejected government offers of a ceasefire.

In August, rebel forces began a coastal offensive, taking back territory lost weeks before and ultimately capturing the capital city of Tripoli,[50] while Gaddafi evaded capture and loyalists engaged in a rearguard campaign.

Though popular wisdom indeed says that the ‘rebels’ were the chief actor in the so-called ‘revolution’, and that they single-handedly achieved all of their strategic and military objectives, truth holds that the ‘revolution’, the war, was a NATO operation at its very core. Months of relentless and deadly bombing (with over 26,500 air sorties flown) by NATO warplanes and gunships eliminated any ground opposition to the ‘rebels’, while special forces from the British SAS, the CIA, and even Qatari regulars fought the ground war, coordinating airstrikes from the ground. Even the taking of Tripoli in August – which Wikipedia touts as a ‘rebel’ gain – was a NATO operation at its very genesis – largely carried out by Qatari troops supported by NATO aircraft.

The ground aspect of the war was led by foreign troops present on the ground in Libya from the war’s very advent. SAS forces, CIA spies, and thousands of Qatari troops led the charge and coordinated the so-called rebels’ every move. The ‘rebels’ were nothing more than a media show, and the Wikipedia article seeks to paint a romantic picture:

The rebels are composed primarily of civilians, such as teachers, students, lawyers, and oil workers, and a contingent of professional soldiers that defected from the Libyan Army and joined the rebels.

This emotive hogwash constitutes one of the many myths of the Libya War. It will come as no surprise then, to learn that Wikipedia’s sole source for this information is an Israel-based journalist who started her career with the BBC World Service and Voice of America – the official propaganda arm of the U.S. Government. Her article referenced by Wikipedia constitutes an emotive plea for war, and was published mere days before NATO bombs began to fall. These are the types of pro-empire, pro-war, pro-Zionist sources that uphold the narrative published on Wikipedia, and it is surely no surprise whatsoever.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article for the Libya War admits that the Libyan government was facing an armed insurrection:

Protests took place in Benghazi, Ajdabiya, Derna, Zintan, and Bayda. Libyan security forces fired live ammunition into the armed protests

The article uses deception and Orwellian language to refer to the insurrection, however, using the term, ‘armed protests.’ Identical language has characterised mainstream reporting on the Syria War – which operationally is a carbon copy of the Libya War: an example of fourth generation warfare carried out by belligerent foreign interests, coupled with a deceptive media war intended to paint the events as an indigenous, popular revolution.

Fantastical casualty figures were invented by the likes of the BBC who provided zero evidence, and only nameless ‘eyewitness accounts’ in sensational and dramatic language. Reminiscent of the utterly invented ‘incubator babies’ propaganda from the Iraq war, the Wikipedia article claims that Gaddafi’s troops ‘stormed hospitals,’ executed patients, and removed other patients from their drips and monitoring equipment. The sources for these grand claims? One is the BBC article which offers no evidence whatsoever, other than an account from an anonymous hospital worker, and the other is a News 24 article which cites Sliman Bouchuiguir, head of the Libyan branch of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) – based in Switzerland. Staying true to Wikipedia’s aversion to the facts, these sources are of the most spurious nature possible.

Sliman Bouchuiguir was exposed as a habitual liar by Julien Teil’s stellar documentary Humanitarian War. The must-see video reveals how NATO-appointed NTC officials and the FIDH invented dramatic stories of atrocities being committed by Gaddafi, and concocted casualty figures from thin air. When challenged to provide verification of the claims of massacres by Gaddafi’s forces, Bouchuiguir could not provide any proof. Another crucial point that is revealed in the documentary is the baseless nature of the ICC case against Gaddafi; the vast majority of the alleged evidence was redacted from the public report, and mainstream media reports constituted a great deal of the sources for the alleged atrocities.

Even more significantly, the FIDH is known to be tied to the Israel lobby in France, and is closely linked to the Zionist ‘democracy promotion’ group the National Endowment for Democracy. Furthermore, the FIDH is closely linked to UN Watch – the Zionist lobby group that played a central role in pushing for the war on Libya – whereby they wrote letters to the US, EU, and UN, repeating the massacre fantasies that they themselves had concocted. Needless to say, Sliman Bouchuiguir was the second signatory to these letters, amongst 90 other NGO/individual co-signers.

Wikipedia’s chronicle of events in Libya repeats these verified lies as fact, and unashamedly references the aforementioned liars as its sources.

Once the fraudulent humanitarian narrative had been established, the ensuing war and genocidal decimation of Libya began. It was carried out entirely by foreign powers who fought a deadly ground and air war using, as I have discussed, foreign special forces and soldiers, jet fighters, helicopter gunships, and naval craft. Tomahawk missiles, cluster bombs, and Brimstone missiles rained down on Libyan targets as depleted uranium was scattered all over the country, contaminating the environment and water supply. British SAS forces coordinated ‘rebel’ movements and called in airstrikes from the ground as the whole world bought the idea that the rag-tag ‘rebels’ were calling the shots, and the ‘revolution’ was a popular movement spearheaded by Libyans. The notoriously incompetent ‘rebels,’ being nothing more than a media spectacle for Western eyes and ears, were also commanded and supported on the ground by the CIA, as well as thousands of Qatari troops. On the 26th October 2011, Qatari chief of staff Major General Hamad bin Ali Al-Atiya arrogantly admitted the presence of his troops in Libya: “We were among them and the numbers of Qataris on the ground were hundreds in every region.”

The ‘Mercenaries’ Myth: a Catalyst for the Division of Arabs and Africans

Revolutionary Leader of the Great Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Muammar Gaddafi, was a champion of pan-African unity. Merely two months before his people were brutally attacked by international criminals masquerading as the “international community”, he had pledged $90 billion to the unification of Africa and its resistance to colonial infiltration and aggression (note: this information will not be found on Wikipedia).

The cruel, criminal, and genocidal attack on Libya is a not only an attempt to abort Arab-African unity (a central tenet of Israel’s ‘Yinon plan’), but it is a microcosm of what is designed for Africa and the Middle East as a whole. We are seeing this wider strategy play out all over Africa, from Libya to Sudan, and from Nigeria to Egypt. This strategy aims to force Christians and Muslims, black Africans and Arabs, to live in their own sectarian enclaves out of fear for their own lives. This strategy has cleansed Christians from Iraq – achieved by a sustained and devilish campaign of Mossad black ops and false flag bombings.

During the war on Libya, a seed was planted with the intention of furthering this nefarious agenda in Libya. As a result, innocent blacks were lynched, beaten, imprisoned, murdered and decapitated in hate-fuelled attacks all over the country. A principle cause of this venomous hatred towards Libya’s black African population (who before the war constituted a third of Libya’s total population) was the myth that Gaddafi had hired African mercenaries to put down ‘protests.’

The Wikipedia article devotes eight paragraphs to these spurious allegations, supported by reports from pro-war, pro-Zionist, state-organ media outlets such as CNN, Al Jazeera, ABC, Time magazine, and the Washington Post. The sources used here, which form the backbone of Wikipedia’s ‘mercenaries’ claim, are of such laughably spurious nature that they deserve closer inspection.

One of these sources is a series of anonymous text messages purportedly sent by an unnamed ‘Libyan economist’! Another of Wikipedia’s sources herein is a report from ‘Save the Children,’ based on nothing but pure hearsay, claiming that Gaddafi’s forces had raped children as young as eight. Another source mentions admittedly “not yet confirmed” reports, and claims that mercenaries were offered $12,000 to $30,000 each. Amongst the sources used for this article are tweets from a US NGO named Democratic Underground. This source touts information from a spokesman of the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) – a propaganda mill established and run by the aforementioned compulsive liar Sliman Bouchuiguir. The LLHR is affiliated to the FIDH, which is intimately linked to the Zionist National Endowment for Democracy.

Upon the most cursory inspection Wikipedia’s sources, and therefore its narrative, disintegrates like a house of cards in a hurricane.

At this stage it is important to note that even Amnesty International – responsible for spreading much of the atrocity propaganda in the first place – has gone on record to say that there is no evidence for these allegations, nor is there any evidence for the claims that Gaddafi’s forces were using rape as a weapon of war. The Wikipedia article fleetingly acknowledges the fact that there is no evidence for the mercenaries claim, albeit after its eight-paragraph sales pitch:

In June 2011, Amnesty International said it found no evidence of foreign mercenaries being used, saying the black Africans claimed to be “mercenaries” were in fact “sub-Saharan migrants working in Libya,” and described the use of mercenaries as a “myth” that “inflamed public opinion” and led to lynchings and executions of black Africans by rebel forces.

Needless to say, the damage has already been done as Libyans of black African descent are fleeing their homeland in droves. This strategy of division is termed by Mahdi Nazemroaya as “an attempt to separate the merging point of an Arab and African identity“, and it is a strategy which is planned for the entire Arab and Muslim world. It is a strategy which Nicolas Sarkozy – key mover behind the Libya war – even offered his support to; it was reported in October 2011 that Patriarch Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi – head of the Maronite Catholic Syriac Church of Antioch (the largest of the autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches) – met with Sarkozy in Paris. During this meeting Sarkozy told Sheikh Al-Rahi that the Syrian regime will collapse, and that the Christian communities of the Levant and Middle East can resettle in the European Union.

As imperialist powers supported by a network of so-called human rights groups deliberately create the conditions of danger, instability and fear for specific ethnic, religious, and racial groups in the Middle East and North Africa, they also are providing the means to move them out of their native homelands, effecting the segregation and division of such groups permanently. The vicious attack on Libya is merely a beginning to this renewed strategy to divide, pulverise and weaken Africa. The Israeli-prescribed division of Sudan is a case in point.

Instead of shedding light on this destructive and deadly strategy, Wikipedia, marching in lockstep with the controlled media, merely perpetuates the myths that enable it. More than ever, this underscores the desperate need for us to seek out information from other, more independent sources.

Conclusion: Wikipedia is Written by the Victor

Not only is Wikipedia merely a representation of the ‘official’ narrative for important events such as the War on Libya, but it is served to us as the first result by all major search engines (cumulatively having a 95.5% market share of search queries in the United States).

Even more worryingly, you will see the exact same behaviour if you enter other search terms such as “the Holocaust,” “9/11,” or “Syrian uprising.” Give it a try right now.

Being presented as the first search result for these important topics (and a myriad more – simply visit these search engines and try as many different topics as you like), Wikipedia demonstrably has a monopoly on information exposure, and has the chance to set its narrative in information-hungry minds. Millions of Internet users are literally being fed a pack of lies as soon as they initiate their search for information.

Deaths and casualties constitute without a doubt, the most important human aspect of any and all wars. With this in mind, let us type “libya war deaths,” or “estimates of libya war casualties” into any of the aforementioned search engines. Go ahead – do it now. Surprise, surprise, we are presented – in all cases – with the Wikipedia article for ‘Casualties of the Libyan civil war.’ What we see are gross underestimations of the deaths caused by a protracted, deadly, and sustained bombing campaign carried out by the world’s most powerful militaries. In addition to this, every single source used here – without exception – is globalist and pro-war in nature:

• The NED-linked International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR);
• The World Health Organisation;
• The UN Human Rights Council;
• Al Jazeera English (Qatari-owned and run cheerleader of the Libya war, co-created by Libyan NTC Quisling Mahmoud Jibril);
• The National Transitional Council (NATO’s council of stooges);

How can we expect the masses to gain even a basic geopolitical understanding of anything when Wikipedia is thrust in our faces during practically every Internet search we do? Wikipedia verily is nothing more than a black and white representation of the ‘official narrative’ of the war on Libya, and the same can be said for other highly-propagandised events such as the so-called Syrian uprising, the false flag terror attacks of 9/11, and the ‘Holocaust.’

Wikipedia is the very manifestation of the old African adage ‘until the lion can write his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.’ The disinformation presented on Wikipedia is nothing short of criminal. We must always check the sources for the information we consume, and for all matters political, we must look upon Wikipedia with the same utter contempt that we do with all controlled media.

Related articles

• Libya, Africa and Africom (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Gaddafi Libya and the NWO – darkgrape. (libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.com)
• They found no fault in Qaddafi so the media invented some for us (libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.com)
• Google’s Love Affair with Wikipedia Far More Serious Than Bing’s [Study] (conductor.com)
• Wikipedia down? Try these alternatives (ghacks.net)

May 31, 2012 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Google, Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, NATO, Wikipedia | Leave a comment