Special Reports
Call the US State Department �countermisinformation� office what it actually is: official misinformation
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor


Oct 20, 2006, 01:27

The US State Dept.'s �countermisinformation� office headed by Todd Leventhal is the subject of a nationally syndicated article originally published in the Hartford Courant, and reprinted in major papers, including the San Francisco Chronicle.

Leventhal, and the Bush administration�s �truth ministry� (the US State Department "Identifying Misinformation" Web Site) was previously exposed by Wayne Madsen as a shameless attack and cover-up apparatus. Madsen himself is the target of many of Leventhal�s attacks.

Since Madsen�s 1995 expose, Leventhal�s ministry has obviously remained busy.

Among Leventhal's current targets, all of which he concludes (as an official asset of the US government) are myths:

• 9/11 "conspiracy theories"
  
  
• US plans to invade Venezuela
  
  
• US creation of Osama bin Laden

Historians, investigators, journalists, researchers and academics know full well that a great number of Leventhal�s targeted items, notably the above, are not myths, "urban legends" or "conspiracy theories," but fact, proven by official US government documents and credible mainstream news reports.

The site identifies what issues this administration considers threatening enough to "debunk"--- i.e. cover up, deny, and discredit. It identifies groups and individuals that the government wishes to undermine.

It is also no surprise that Leventhal�s office has resorted to a familiar trick: lump genuine facts and real history into one cesspool along with bad, genuinely "crackpot" material, so that the important facts and real history are flushed down the pipe. Anything deemed to be damaging to the image of the US government is fair game. This includes documented facts.

The site goes out of its way, for instance, to label John Perkins' book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, a work of fiction. The book details how Perkins sabotaged the economies of various nations while in the employ of the National Security Agency (NSA).

Perkins responded to the State Department�s web site: "Their mission statement is a lie. So when they use their mission statement to say my book is a lie, I think it speaks for itself".

The very existence of this �truth ministry� speaks volumes about what this country has become, and how low this administration has stooped. Again, see the original expose by Wayne Madsen.