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Whistleblower on the Iraq War.....and the "missing" media

"When the prosecution of Katharine Gun finally concluded its journey through the British court system, the authors note, a surge of American news reports on the closing case "had people wondering why they hadn't heard about the NSA spy operation at the beginning." This book includes an account of journalistic evasion that is a grim counterpoint to the story of conscience and courage that just might inspire us to activate more of our own."

So concludes a most interesting piece on CommonDreams dealing with a new book "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion" dealing with British whistleblower Katherine Gun who was working at British intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

"To understand in personal, political and historic terms -- what Katharine Gun did, how the British and American governments responded, and what the U.S. news media did and did not report -- is to gain a clear-eyed picture of a military-industrial-media complex that plunged ahead with the invasion of Iraq shortly after her brave action of conscience. That complex continues to promote what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the madness of militarism."

In a time when political players and widely esteemed journalists are pleased to posture with affects of great sophistication, Katharine Gun's response was disarmingly simple. She activated her conscience when clear evidence came into her hands that war -- not diplomacy seeking to prevent it -- headed the priorities list of top leaders at both 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 10 Downing Street. "At the time," she has recalled, "all I could think about was that I knew they were trying really hard to legitimize an invasion, and they were willing to use this new intelligence to twist arms, perhaps blackmail delegates, so they could tell the world they had achieved a consensus for war."

Read the complete piece here.

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