BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
WAR CRIMINAL dick (the name is so apropos) cheney was able to leave the country and nobody grabbed him and took him to the ICC to be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity? His itinerary must have been to countries like the U.S. that don't recognize the authority of the ICC. Oh well, he will be judged some day for sure. Still, it is pretty hypocritical for him to think he and any of his fellow neo-con, neo-nazi war criminals from the george w bush administration and the military-industrial complex are qualified to judge the Obama administration on foreign and military policy. From +Daily Kos .....
If I was the president, and that will never happen because I am not
insane and neither are you, I'd be pretty pleased with having the
still-proud architect of some of the biggest foreign policy disasters in
the last half-century peeved at me.
“He is a very, very weak president,” Cheney said in an interview with Fox News. “Maybe the weakest — certainly in my lifetime.”
Cheney went on to say that during a recent trip to the Middle East,
allies he had “dealt with all the way back to Desert Storm” expressed
alarm at the president’s handling of foreign policy.
What kind of people do you suppose Cheney meets with, in the Middle
East? Meeting for tea and crumpets with Ahmed Chalabi? A teary reunion
with a fellow dubbed "Curveball?" A collection of depressed arms dealers
pining for the good old days of Bush and Reagan?
“They all are absolutely convinced that the American
capacity to lead and influence in that part of the world has been
dramatically reduced by this president,” Cheney said. “We’ve got a
problem with weakness, and it’s centered right in the White House.”
This is all part of that baffling conservative notion of strength and
weakness where having New York and the Pentagon attacked by terrorists
shows you are strong, and putting a bullet in the head of the
person who masterminded it without having to wander blindly through a
pair of poorly premised and abominably executed wars shows you are weak. A Benghazi would have never happened on his watch, except for the multiple times it most definitely did, and foreign leaders liked
his administration, which is why a grateful world gave the Nobel Peace
Prize to the guy that replaced it in proactive thanks for just showing
the eff up.
All right, Obama: Iraq War architect, serial liar and torture advocate Dick Cheney does not approve
of the way you are handling his incompetently planned wars and imagined
American colonies. So do the right thing and, I don't know, get
T-shirts printed up saying so. There's probably no higher honor in
Washington than having the architects of disaster not like you.
Originally posted to Hunter on Thu May 29, 2014 at 09:31 AM PDT.
העדיף את הביקוש של
ההצטיידות ששולי הרווח שלהם יגדלו עם כספי המסים שלנו ואת דמם של אנשי הצבא
שלנו מתבזבזים על עוד מלחמת מפרץ הפרסי, ונושאים על המסורת של פוליטיקאים
אמריקאים כדי לאפשר למדיניות חוץ וצבא האמריקנית להיות מוכתבת על ידי
ישראל, + פושע מלחמת דיק צ'ייני ממשיך לקדם מלחמה עם איראן. האזנה
לאודיו של דיק (שמגיע לו את שמו) כפי שהוא מבדר את חבריו שוחרי מלחמת
repiglicans ותה baggers ב+ מפגש אביב קואליציה היהודי הרפובליקני בלאס
וגאס, ולשמור את זה בחשבון בעת ההצבעה בבחירות אמצע הקדנציה 2014 וכאשר
מחליטים למי להצביע בשינה 2016
מה סגן הנשיא לשעבר דיק צ'ייני, megadonor המיליארדר שלדון אדלסון, ופעילים
ותורמים רפובליקנים מדברים על-ולהריע, כאשר הם בדלתיים סגורים בבית מלון
בלאס וגאס? הפצצת איראן.
בסוף השבוע האחרון, הקואליציה היהודית הרפובליקנית שנערכה פגישת מנהיגות האביב
בבית מלון הוונציאני של אדלסון, שבו כמה 2016 מתמודדים אפשריים, כולל לשעבר גוב. ג'ב בוש וGovs הנוכחי. כריס כריסטי, סקוט ווקר, וג'ון Kasich, הופיעו לנשק את הטבעת של איל הקזינו, מי שמחפש לממן
מועמד רפובליקני לנשיאות בת קיימא. למרות הנאומים הכבדים על
ישראל של שאפתנים הבית הלבן היו פתוחים לתקשורת, את הנאום המרכזי נשא
צ'ייני במוצאי שבת היה מחוץ לתחום לעיתונאים ולציבור. אבל אמא ג'ונס
השיג הקלטה של השיחה של צ'ייני, שבמהלכו הוא לעג שוב הנשיא ברק אובמה
במדיניות חוץ, פוצץ את הבדלנים בתוך מפלגתו שלו, תקף את מבקריה של הסוכנות
לביטחון הלאומי, ולכאורה אישר את הרעיון של תקיפה ישראלית נגד איראן.
אם כבר מדברים על האפשרות שאיראן תפתח נשק גרעיני, צ'ייני דחה משא ומתן של
אובמה עם טהראן, והוא נזכר בפגישת ארוחת ערב הוא היה ב2007 עם ישראל האלוף
עמוס ידלין. ידלין טס בשליחותו של צבא ההגנה לישראל חיל בשינה
1981 שהרסו את הכור הגרעיני של עיראק, והוא היה ראש המודיעין הצבאי של
המדינה ב2007 כאשר צה"ל השמיד הכור הגרעיני של סוריה באזור הדיר א זור-. נזכרתי בשיחה שלו עם ידלין, צ'ייני אמר, "הוא הביט מעבר לשולחן בארוחת ערב, והוא אמר," שני למטה, אחד צריך ללכת. " ידעתי בדיוק למה הוא מתכוון.
"" אחד ללכת "הייתה התייחסות ברורה להפצצת תכנית הגרעין של איראן. הקהל הגיב באהדה בשחוק ומחיאות כפיים. (באוקטובר האחרון, אדלסון הציע בפומבי כי ארה"ב להטיל פצצה גרעינית במדבר האיראני להראות טהרן מה יקרה לאיראן אם היא מפתחת נשק גרעיני.) דיק צ'ייני על איראן, קואליציה יהודית רפובליקנית
במהלך מאחורי הדלתות סגורות שלו לדבר, צ'ייני לקח באובמה מספר יריות. סגן הנשיא לשעבר, אמר אובמה היה חזה בבית ובחו"ל, מוכיח להיות מפקד ראשי חלש ולא הצליח להקרין כוח ברחבי העולם. "השורה התחתונה היא," צ'ייני רטן, "עמדתה של ארצות הברית ב[ המזרח התיכון] היא גרועה יותר מאשר בכל זמן בחיים שלי." הוא
הוסיף, "זה הגיע לנקודה שבה ישראל למצרים, [הערביות המאוחדות] האמירויות,
סעודיה, ירדן הם קרובים יותר זה לזה, לדמיין את זה!-מכולם הוא לנו ... אף
אחד לא מי שהיה חבר שלנו בעבר כל עוד יש לו כל תחושה של אמון בנצטרך לעמוד
בהתחייבויות שלנו, כי אנחנו נהיה שם בעת משבר, כאשר הם צריכים אותנו. מצד
השני, אף אחד מהיריבים שלנו צריך לפחד מאתנו ". וציין כי
באחריות הראשית של נשיא היא להגן על ארצות הברית מפני "כל האויבים, הזרים
ומקומיים," צ'ייני טען כי היום כי תשלום "אינו נרדף בכל סוג של צורה
קוהרנטית."
מבלי לציין שמות, צ'ייני גם טרק חברים פחות הנציים משלו חיצוני, כגון
הסנטור ראנד פול (R-Ky.), שהאמין כי ארצות הברית "יכולה להרשות לעצמו
להפנות את הגב שלה בחלק זה של העולם", בהתייחסו למזרח התיכון. "אחד
הדברים שמדאיג אותי לראשונה על הקמפיין, שאני מודאג", הוא אמר, "זה מה
שאני מרגיש להיות מתח גובר של בדלנות, אם אני יכול לשים את זה במונחים
האלה, בצד שלנו . זה לא משתלט, בכל אמצעי, אבל יש ללא ספק גוף של מחשבה
עכשיו זה נתמך על ידי רפובליקאים רבים וכמה מועמדים שארצות הברית יכולה
להרשות לעצמו להפנות את הגב שלה בחלק זה של העולם ". צ'ייני
התלונן כי "כמה מועמדים" חושבים שהמזרח התיכון הוא "לא הבעיה שלנו ...
תביאו את הבנים הביתה. אין שום סיבה בעולם בשבילנו להיות מעורב בחלק זה של
העולם". אבל, הוא אמר, "כל מי שחושב שוב על הבעיות של 9/11" יודע "זה לחלוטין לא הגיוני בכלל בשבילנו להרהר כמובן זה של פעולה."
צ'ייני הקדיש חלק ניכר מנאומו להגנה על הסוכנות לביטחון הלאומי ו תוכניות האיסוף מסיבית שלה. יש
אמונה, הוא אמר, "שיצרנו בסוכנות לביטחון הלאומי בירוקרטיה מפלצת הזאת
שקוראה דואר של כולם, האזנה לשיחות הטלפון של כולם, מפרה את החירויות שלנו
האזרחיות וזכויות אזרח. שטויות." הוא טען כי לא חל על מקרה אחד של שימוש לרעה בסמכותה NSA. (צ'ייני כנראה פספס את זה וזה.) והוא טען שאם תוכניות אלה היו במקום, "זה כנראה היה כבר אפשר לנו לעצור 9/11". שלא
במפתיע, הוא האשים את הצרות הנוכחיות של NSA על אובמה: "אין לנו נשיא
שיכול לקום ולהגן על התכנית אף אחד לא מאמין לו, יש לכך סיבה טובה, תראה מה
הוא עשה עם בריאות..."
תקשיב לאודיו נאומו של צ'ייני: נאום דיק צ'ייני ל29MAR14 קואליציה היהודי הרפובליקנית
אנדי קרול היא כתב באמאג'ונס. במשך יותר מסיפוריו, לחץ כאן. שלח באימייל אותו עם טיפים ותובנות בakroll (ב) motherjones (dot) com. אחריו בטוויטר כאן. RSS | טוויטר
HEEDING the military-industrial complex's demand that their profit margins be increased with our tax dollars and the blood of our military personnel being wasted on another Persian Gulf war, and carrying on the tradition of American politicians to allow American foreign and military policy be dictated by Israel, war criminal +dick cheney continues to promote war with Iran. Listen to the audio of dick (he deserves his name) as he regales his fellow warmongering repiglicans and tea-baggers at the +republican jewish coalition Spring meeting in Las Vegas, and keep this in mind when voting in the 2014 midterm elections and when deciding who to vote for in 2016
What
do former Vice President Dick Cheney, billionaire megadonor Sheldon
Adelson, and Republican activists and funders talk about—and
applaud—when they're behind closed doors at a Las Vegas hotel? Bombing
Iran.
This past weekend, the Republican Jewish Coalition held its spring leadership meeting
at Adelson's Venetian hotel, where several possible 2016 contenders,
including ex-Gov. Jeb Bush and current Govs. Chris Christie, Scott
Walker, and John Kasich, showed up to kiss the ring of the casino
magnate, who's looking to bankroll
a viable Republican presidential candidate. Though the heavy-on-Israel
speeches of the White House wannabes were open to the press, the keynote
address delivered by Cheney on Saturday night was off-limits to
reporters and the public. But Mother Jones has obtained a
recording of Cheney's talk, during which he once again derided President
Barack Obama on foreign policy, blasted the isolationists within his
own party, assailed critics of the National Security Agency, and
seemingly endorsed the idea of an Israeli strike against Iran.
Speaking about the possibility of
Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Cheney dismissed Obama's negotiations
with Tehran, and he recalled a dinner meeting he had in 2007 with
Israeli General Amos Yadlin. Yadlin had flown in the Israeli Defense
Force's mission in 1981 that destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor,
and he was the country's military intelligence chief in 2007 when the
Israel Defense Forces obliterated Syria's nuclear reactor in the Deir
ez-Zor region. Recalling his conversation with Yadlin, Cheney said, "He
looked across the table over dinner, and he said, 'Two down, one to go.'
I knew exactly what he meant."
"One to go" was an obvious reference to bombing Iran's nuclear
program. The crowd responded approvingly with laughter and applause.
(Last October, Adelson publicly proposed that the US drop a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert to show Tehran what will happen to Iran if it develops nuclear weapons.) dick cheney on Iran, republican jewish coalition
During his behind-closed-doors talk, Cheney took multiple shots at
Obama. The former vice president said Obama has been a bust at home and
abroad, proving to be a weak commander-in-chief and failing to project
strength around the world. "The bottom line is," Cheney groused, "the
United States' position in [the Middle East] is worse than at any time
in my lifetime." He added, "It's reached the point where Israel and
Egypt, [the United Arab] Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan are closer to
one another—imagine that!—than any of them is to us…Nobody who's been
our friend in the past any longer has any sense of trust in we'll keep
our commitments, that we'll be there in a crisis when they need us. On
the other hand, none of our adversaries need fear us." Noting that the
chief responsibility of a president is to protect the United States
against "all enemies, foreign and domestic," Cheney claimed that today
that charge "is not being pursued in any kind of coherent manner."
Without naming names, Cheney also slammed the less hawkish members of
his own party—such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—for believing that the
United States "can afford to turn its back on that part of the world,"
referring to the Middle East. "One of the things that concerns me first
about the campaign, that I'm worried about," he said, "is what I sense
to be an increasing strain of isolationism, if I can put it in those
terms, in our own party. It's not taking over, by any means, but there
is without question a body of thought now that's supported by many
Republicans and some candidates that the United States can afford to
turn its back on that part of the world." Cheney complained that "some
candidates" think that the Middle East is "not our problem…Bring the
boys home. There's no reason in the world for us to be involved in that
part of the world." But, he remarked, "anybody who thinks back on the
problems of 9/11" knows "it makes absolutely no sense at all for us to
contemplate that course of action."
Cheney devoted much of his speech to defending the National Security
Agency and its massive collection programs. There is the belief, he
said, "that we have created in the National Security Agency this monster
bureaucracy that's reading everybody's mail, listening to everybody's
phone calls, infringing upon our civil liberties and civil rights.
Hogwash." He claimed that there has not been a single case of NSA
abusing its authority. (Cheney must have missed this and this.)
And he asserted that if these programs had been in place, "it probably
would've allowed us to stop 9/11." Not surprisingly, he blamed the NSA's
current woes on Obama: "We don't have a president who can stand up and
defend the program. Nobody believes him—for good reason. Look what he
did with health care."
Listen to the audio of Cheney's speech: dick cheney speech to republican jewish coalition 29MAR14
Andy Kroll is a reporter at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Email him with tips and insights at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. Follow him on Twitter here. RSS | Twitter
YELP used to be cool, a great way to check out ratings on everything from people in your own community. Then they turned to the dark side and joined alec and so are guilty of supporting stand your ground, voter suppression, anti immigration reform, opposition to gun control, opposition to Obamacare, opposition to public school funding, and a whole host of other regressive neo-con policies with the goal of taking our country back to the "good old days" when white men were the only ones who made the rules and the money. Here's an easy way to tell Yelp to turn from the dark side, send them one of the tweets below..... As the Huff Post reported last week, our efforts to hold Yelp accountable for joining ALEC has been a huge success.
Thousands of people have left negative reviews on ALEC’s Yelp page and I
even received a call from Yelp’s corporate lobbyist shortly after our
action. But it’s not all-good news. We have more work to do. Our
actions have been wildly successful, but Yelp has no plans to leave
ALEC - though they are listening to us very closely. Let’s help Yelp
leave ALEC by pushing this even further.. 1)Tweet @YELP and their corporate lobbyist. Tweet bombs are an effective way to get attention and they can’t delete tweets. So send your tweet today. (Click one of the tweets below to auto-populate it so you can send.) Hey
@Yelp: We’ll help you fight #SLAPP if you drop your alliance with ALEC.
@lutherlowe @misswrite #alecexposed #VoterSuppression .@Yelp: I <3 your reviews, but not your ALEC alliance. WT_? @lutherlowe @misswrite #alecexposed #VoterSuppression .@Yelp:
ALEC is associated with #VoterSuppression and #StandYourGround. Is that
what you support, too? @lutherlowe @misswrite #alecexposed 2)Call Yelp today and tell them it’s time to leave ALEC: (415) 908-3801 3)Review Yelp on Yelp. Keep the formal protest going by telling Yelp to leave ALEC by giving them a one-star on their own page. Click here to review Yelp on Yelp. Be passionate, but be respectful. We
will continue to monitor this and follow-up with more actions you can
take, but right now, those actions are the best things you can do to
Help Yelp leave ALEC. Companies need to stop giving the ultra conservative ALEC any credibility. Click here to automatically send a tweet to @yelp and their lobbyist >> Thank you, Diane Russell P.S. Read my DailyKos blog on the subject here.
WARMONGERS continue to push for increased U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war. Their concerns are not for the people of Syria, for the refugees within and outside, estimated at seven million children, women and men out of a total population of 23 million. They are not concerned about the 100,000 + Syrians who have been killed in the civil war and the tens of thousands who will die before this conflict is over. They are focused on maintaining the U.S. as a warstate, maintaining if not increasing the profit margins of the military industrial complex and protecting the bloated, ineffective "intelligence" community's government funding. Some of these neo-cons were the architects of our invasion of Iraq and are responsible for the mismanagement of the Afghan war. They are suggesting supplying Syrian rebels with weapons, including heavy weapons, with no consideration of the likelihood they will be turned against Americans as has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fortunately the prevailing opinion in the Pentagon is we should do no more than provide light weapons and ammunition. The Syrian civil war is a Syrian matter and we need to stay out of it. Since the hypocrisy of the Islamic nations of saudi arabia and most of the Gulf states has been exposed during this conflict by their unwillingness to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Syrian refugees in country and in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon (though they are able to find money for just enough weapons to keep the conflict going) we should provide as well as possible for the nutritional, medical, housing and educational needs of these people until the conflict is over. The Syrians who survive this civil war will remember who provided humanitarian aid when needed, and who provided the weapons that killed their families and friends and destroyed their homes. This video is from the PBS NewsHour on the debate on what our level of involvement in Syria should or shouldn't be....
JUDY WOODRUFF: Syrian rebels continued to
wage a new northern offensive today, warning civilians off a road that
serves as a crucial supply route for regime forces.
Here in the United States, officials reconsidered their options for
how to support the rebels against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
JAY CARNEY, White House press secretary: I have no crystal ball here to predict when Assad will go. JUDY WOODRUFF: At the White House today, press
secretary Jay Carney reaffirmed the administration's position that the
Syrian president is on his way out and that President Obama will
continue to support the opposition. JAY CARNEY: The president's commitment will
continue. And he believes we need to continue to step up our assistance
because of the imperative that Assad not be allowed to essentially
murder an entire nation. JUDY WOODRUFF: Talk of stepped-up assistance came
after the release of a letter written by Gen. Martin Dempsey, America's
highest-ranking military officer, outlining the Pentagon's options for
going beyond humanitarian aid.
Addressed to Senate Armed Services chair Carl Levin, it listed five
options: training, assisting and advising the opposition forces,
conducting limited air and missile strikes against Assad targets,
establishing and enforcing a no-fly zone, using air and ground forces to
set up buffer zones to protect the borders of Turkey and Jordan, and
using a combination of special operations forces and ground forces to
take control of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.
Dempsey wrote that these operations could involve thousands of U.S.
troops, cost billions of dollars and the use of force would constitute
-- quote -- "no less than an act of war." And he warned, "Once we take
action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is
hard to avoid."
The discussion of U.S. options comes as the Syrian conflict enters
its third year, with more than 93,000 people already dead and millions
of refugees displaced in and around Syria. Opposition forces have lost
ground over the past six months and some have wondered whether lethal
support may be too late in coming.
Even so, The Washington Post reported today that the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees last week approved Obama administration plans
to ship weapons to the rebels through the CIA. According to reports,
those arms could begin to flow to Syrian rebels in the next few weeks.
For more on possible U.S. military intervention in Syria, I'm joined
by Jeffrey White, a former senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence
Agency, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and John
Mearsheimer, a West Point graduate and former Air Force officer, now a
professor at the University of Chicago.
And we thank you both, gentlemen, for being with us.
Jeffrey White, to you first. Do you get a sense from reading this
letter sent by Gen. Dempsey of what the Obama administration is likely
to do? JEFFREY WHITE, Washington Institute for Near East
Policy: I think we're going to see a small-scale commitment of military
resources to support the rebels, nothing large, nothing too lethal,
small arms and ammunition, maybe not even anti-tank weapons.
My sense is that is a -- you know, a slow movement towards a
potentially greater commitment, but nothing really dramatic in the way
of arms.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Small arms and ammunition. And, in
fact, this Washington Post story we just referenced, John Mearsheimer,
says that that's already what's been approved. What more do you see the
administration prepared to do? JOHN MEARSHEIMER, University of Chicago: I don't think the administration is prepared to do anything else.
It's very clear from Gen. Dempsey's letter that the Pentagon is
opposed to upping the ante in Syria. And it's very clear from the way
President Obama has been dragging his feet that he has no interest in
intervening in Syria either.
And I think this is the smart policy. We have no strategic interest
in what happens in Syria. It is not a vital national interest that is at
stake here. And, furthermore, when you look at the different strategies
that we might employ to try to fix this problem, it's quite clear that
none of them work. And most of them will just make a bad situation even
worse. JUDY WOODRUFF: Jeffrey White, how do you read these
five recommendations from Gen. Dempsey, I mean, ranging from very light
assistance, just advising and training the rebels, all the way to going
in with ground forces and securing the chemical weapons? JEFFREY WHITE: Well, I think he covered, you know, what is pretty much acknowledged as the spectrum of available options.
There are some nuances to some of the things he talked about that
might be worth exploring. But, basically, he laid out what it is that
people have been talking about for over a year now.
I think he stressed the downside here, the downside risks and the
costs. He definitely put a negative spin on what U.S. intervention could
look like, the risks, the costs, the uncertainties involved in
intervention.
So he definitely gave it a, you know, we would rather not do this kind of a spin on it. JUDY WOODRUFF: So, do you think, based on what you
know, the administration is any closer to making a decision, beyond
these light arms that we have been talking about? JEFFREY WHITE: I don't think so. I think that
they're very reluctant to go with any significant military effort in
Syria. That's been the case for a long time. And I don't think that has
changed dramatically.
What we see is a reluctant willingness in the face of a lot of pressure to make a minimal commitment. JUDY WOODRUFF: John Mearsheimer, you said you think
the administration doesn't want to get involved, based on what you read
here, but do you learn any more from looking at this at what they may be
weighing? JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think that the administration has weighed all the options.
You would expect the administration to weigh all the options. And
when they have looked carefully at each one of them, it's become
manifestly apparent that none of them can fix the problem. I think this
is a situation where, if we had a magic bullet or we had a magic
formula, the administration would probably go in and try to fix the
problem. This is how we ended up going into Iraq.
Most people thought that we could go into Iraq, win a quick and
decisive victory and get out quickly. But that proved to be wrong. And
if you look at our track record over the past 12 years in Iraq and Libya
and in Afghanistan and even in Egypt, it's hard to believe that anybody
would think at this point in time that we could go in and fix the
problem in Syria, which is at least as messy as those four other
countries, if not messier. JUDY WOODRUFF: Jeffrey White, what do you think the administration should be doing? What should the United States be doing? JEFFREY WHITE: Sure.
I think we should be doing more. I have been an advocate of, you
know, serious intervention for over a year. I think we do have strategic
interests at stake in Syria. It's a huge country in the middle of the
Middle East. There's an enormous humanitarian problem under way there.
We see it's become the playground for Hezbollah and Iran and other
forces (INAUDIBLE) to the United States.
So we do have interests there. And we do have capabilities. To fix
the problem in Syria, I think, puts too high a standard on what can be
accomplished. But we can do things to change the trajectory of the war. JUDY WOODRUFF: Like what? I mean, be specific. What could be done? What should be done? JEFFREY WHITE: At the low end is robust indirect
military intervention in support of the rebels. That means arms,
significant arms. That means training, intelligence, cooperation and
help in getting them to articulate and implement a military strategy for
the war, which they have yet to do that.
And if necessary, it means direct U.S. military action, hopefully with our allies and so on. JUDY WOODRUFF: Troops on the ground? JEFFREY WHITE: Not necessarily troops on the ground,
but we have the capability to strike effectively at the major military
assets of the regime, artillery, armor, missiles, aircraft.
We could do a lot to change the regime's capabilities from the
outside of the country with weapons fired from offshore or by flying
over the country itself. JUDY WOODRUFF: John Mearsheimer, is that a plan that makes sense to you? JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No.
And I want to make two points. First of all, there's no question, as
Gen. Dempsey makes clear in his letter, that we have the military
capability to shift the balance of power and topple Assad. There's no
question about that. But we cannot go in with a light footprint.
We would have to go in with a lot of military force, because Assad is
backed by Iran, the Russians and Hezbollah. He has a lot of cards to
play. And he will be tough to take down. So, we would have to go in, in a
big way. That's point number one.
Point number two is toppling him is the easy part. The hard part
comes when we have to put the country together and create a stable
system so that we can get out. This is exactly the problem that we faced
in Iraq. There wasn't much difficulty knocking off Saddam Hussein. The
military part of the story is the easy part.
What comes afterwards, the political problem, that's when the trouble
starts. And when you look at a country like Syria and you see the
centrifugal forces at play in that country, you see how badly fractured
the opposition groups are, it's hard to see how this story has a happy
ending. JUDY WOODRUFF: Jeffrey White, what about this
argument that it's one thing, it's doable to topple Assad militarily,
but after it gets much more complicated? JEFFREY WHITE: Sure. It's messy. Syria is an incredibly complex, difficult problem to analyze, to fix, to do anything about.
I acknowledge all of those things. But here's the other side of that
story is, if we don't do anything, what are we going to get?
If we don't get ourselves involved, we're going to get a situation
where the regime either fights on against the rebels for a long time, as
more people die and more disruption, more Iranian influence, more
Hezbollah influence, or we're going to get a regime victory.
And does anyone in their right mind want a regime victory in this
situation, a regime that's killed upwards of 100,000 people, which is
supported by the enemies of the United States? Is that what we want? If
there isn't effective intervention on the side of the rebels, that's
very likely what we're going to get.
The regime is winning right now. That needs to be changed. And U.S. intervention could do that. JUDY WOODRUFF: All right. We are going to need to leave it there.
Two -- all right, Mr. John Mearsheimer, a very quick response. JOHN MEARSHEIMER: We lived with the Assad regime for
43 years. So there's no reason we couldn't live with the Assad regime
for another 43 years. The idea that it's a strategic threat to the
United States, I do not believe is a serious argument. JUDY WOODRUFF: All right. We will leave it there.
John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey White, we thank you both. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec13/syria_07-23.html
HERE's a question that demands an answer. With the billions spent by
the cia and our ongoing war on terrorism costing billions more, why
didn't the cia operatives in Tripoli and Benghazi know this attack was
coming and have additional security with Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi?
Maybe the cia would prefer a neo-con administration like the
romney-ryan cabal would bring and then their funding and the profits of
the government contractors controlling them would be protected and so
Ambassador Stevens and the the other American's were sacrificed to
contribute to Pres Obama's defeat....I'm just sayin', cause we still
have the whole cia JFK assassination question out there...By the by I have an earlier post on this at GOP's Benghazi Smoking Gun Goes Up in Smoke 25OKT12
http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/gops-benghazi-smoking-gun-goes-up-in.html
The CIA rushed security operatives to an American diplomatic compound
in Libya within 25 minutes after it had come under attack and played a
more central role in the effort to fend off a night-long siege than has
been publicly acknowledged, U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday.
The agency mobilized the evacuation effort, took control of an
unarmed U.S. military drone to map possible escape routes, dispatched an
emergency security team from Tripoli, the capital, and chartered
aircraft that ultimately carried surviving U.S. personnel to safety on
Sept. 12, U.S. officials said.
The account, which was provided to
news organizations Thursday by senior U.S. intelligence officials, is
the most detailed chronology presented so far of an attack that killed
the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, including two
CIA security officers. The attack has become a flash point in the U.S.
presidential campaign.
The decision to provide a comprehensive
account of the attack five days before the election is likely to be
regarded with suspicion, particularly among Republicans who have accused
the Obama administration of misleading the public by initially
describing the assault as a spontaneous eruption that began as a protest
of an anti-Islamic video.
U.S. officials said they decided to
offer a detailed account of the CIA’s role, however, to rebut media
reports that have suggested that agency leaders delayed sending help to
State Department officials seeking to fend off a heavily armed mob.
Instead,
U.S. intelligence officials insisted that CIA operatives in Benghazi
and Tripoli made decisions rapidly throughout the assault with no
interference from Washington, even while acknowledging that CIA security
forces were badly outmatched and largely unable to mobilize Libyan
security teams until it was too late.
Among the new disclosures is
that the CIA station chief in Tripoli sent an emergency security force,
with about a half-dozen agency operatives as well as two U.S. military
personnel, to Benghazi aboard a hastily chartered aircraft while the
attack was underway.
The CIA team attempted to organize an effort
to make its way to a hospital where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher
Stevens had been taken and was thought to be still alive. But the team
was held up by Libyan officials at the airport and scrapped the plan to
reach Stevens after learning that the security situation at the hospital
was uncertain.
U.S. officials also formally acknowledged for the
first time that the annex in Benghazi to which U.S. diplomatic personnel
were evacuated was a CIA base that the agency had established as its
first stronghold in Libya before autocrat Moammar Gaddafi was overthrown
late last year. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-rushed-to-save-diplomats-as-libya-attack-was-underway/2012/11/01/c93a4f96-246d-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_print.html
repiglicans and tea-baggers and the romney-ryan cabal are still trying to make something more than what it is out of the attack on the American consulate and the murder of the U.S. Ambassador with three additional U.S. embassy / consulate staffers in Benghazi, Libya. Showing their deft handling of foreign policy and international intelligence they are basing their accusations and judgements on postings on Facebook.How can anyone dispute them with a source as reliable as Facebook??? From Mother Jones....
When
a set of State Department emails were released Wednesday, one reporting
that a local Islamist militia had claimed responsibility for the attack
on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including
the US ambassador to Libya, conservatives thought they had the smoking
gun that the Obama administration had lied about what had occurred. Reuters reported Wednesday
that on September 11—the day of the attack—a State Department email
with the subject header "Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for
Benghazi Attack" was sent to the White House. The message stated that
"Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook
and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli." Case
closed, conservatives said: The White House had engaged in a cover-up.
"[T]he president and his advisers repeatedly told us the attack was
spontaneous reaction to the anti-Muslim video and that it lacked
information suggesting it was a terrorist assault," wrote Jennifer Rubin, president of the Washington Post's Mitt Romney fan club. "Bottom line? Barack Obama was willfully and knowingly lying to the American people," wrote Danielle Pletka,
vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American
Enterprise Institute. (Of course, the idea that the video played a role
is not inconsistent with the idea that the attack was an "act of
terror," a phrase the president himself used to describe the attack in the days following the incident.)
There's only one problem—well, actually, there are many, but one big
one: The email appears to have been incorrect. Ansar al-Sharia in
Benghazi, the group suspected of attacking the consulate, never claimed
responsibility for the assault. In fact, according to Aaron Zelin, a
fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who monitors
jihadist activity online, Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi didn't post about
the attack on its Facebook or Twitter page until September 12, the day
after the attack. They expressed their approval of the incident, but
they didn't take credit; they did imply members of the group might have
been involved, according to Zelin, stating, "Katibat Ansar al-Sharia [in
Benghazi] as a military did not participate formally/officially and not
by direct orders." The statement also justifies the attack by
implicitly alluding to the anti-Islam video linked to unrest in other
parts of the Middle East, saying, "We commend the Libyan Muslim people
in Benghazi [that were] against the attack on the [Muslim] Prophet
[Muhammad]."
"It is possible staffers were mistaken in the heat of the moment," wrote Zelin in an email to Mother Jones. "Not only was there no statement from ASB until the following morning, but it did not claim responsibility." (Zelin provided Mother Jones with screenshots of AAS's Twitter feed and Facebook page, which he also provided to CNN. It's possible the posts could have been deleted, but there's no way to prove that.)
Even if the State Department email had been accurate, conservatives
pounced on it eagerly without underlying corroboration, thereby
providing a pretty good example of how complicated intelligence analysis
can be and why it's a bad idea to simply jump on a piece of information
that fits your preconceived biases. The email was just one piece of
information gathered in the aftermath of the attack. While the White
House's initial explanation that the attack had begun as a protest
turned out to be wrong, the email itself doesn't bear on two of the
major remaining questions: what role the video played and whether the
attack was planned or spontaneous.
You'd think that this would be obvious, but in the future it's a good
idea to remember that just because someone posts something on Facebook,
that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. Even better: Just because
someone said someone posted something on Facebook doesn't mean it's
true. Even if you really, really want it to be.
Adam Serwer is a reporter at the Washington, DC, bureau of Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. You can also follow him on Twitter. Email tips and insights to aserwer [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS | Twitter
COLIN Powell's endorsement of Pres Obama for President AGAIN speaks volumes about the threat mitt robme romney presents to our national security. From the Washington Post.....
Back when former Secretary of State and retired General Colin Powell
endorsed then candidate Barack Obama for president in the 2008 campaign, we described it as a “symbolic endorsement” — the best sort of endorsement in our Fix Endorsement Hierarchy.
(Not familiar with the Fix Endorsement Hierarchy? For shame! Short
answer: It’s an attempt to rank every sort of endorsement based on its
importance or lack thereof. Long answer: here. And scroll to the bottom of this post for a full list of the categories in the endorsement hierarchy.)
So, when we heard the news this morning that Powell was “sticking” with Obama in 2012, we — and the world — wondered: Is it still a symbolic endorsement?
Answer: No. It’s a national endorsement — still potentially powerful but less meaningful than a symbolic endorsement.
Why?
First and foremost because there’s no element of surprise here. In
2008 when Powell announced his support of Obama, it was the country’s
most beloved general (and a Republican to boot) saying he had confidence
in the foreign policy judgment of this decidedly inexperienced Senator
from Illinois. No one expected it from Powell and when it happened, the
endorsement was widely regarded as of “final piece of the puzzle”
moment.
As we wrote back in 2008:
“With polling — both in the key battleground states and nationally —
showing that voters trust Obama more than John McCain to handle the
current economic morass, one of McCain’s last hopes is that the the
election turns back somehow to a foreign policy focus. If Powell does
endorse Obama, it would shore up the Illinois senator even if that
eventuality occurred; it would be hard for McCain to slam Obama’s
approach on the war if the Democrat had a Powell endorsement sitting in
his back pocket.”
This time around, the element of surprise is gone. And, while the
Obama team is already using the Powell endorsement as proof that there
is only one real commander-in-chief in the race, it’s hard to see the
endorsement having the same sort of lift that it did four years ago.
That said, Powell’s endorsement is not without meaning — particularly
since he took time to not only support Obama but also bash former
Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
“Not only am I not comfortable with what Governor Romney is proposing
for his economic plan, I have concerns about his views on foreign
policy,” Powell said during an appearance on “CBS This Morning” — adding
that the Republican nominee had “some very, very strong
neo-conservative views” and describing Romney’s foreign policy vision as
a “moving target”.
Our guess is that those quotes will find their way into an Obama ad
in the very near future. And, as we noted in 2008, Powell remains among
the most popular and trusted figures operating in American politics,
which should give his words some heft. (A CNN poll in May 2009 showed
that seven in ten people viewed Powell favorably while just 17 percent
saw him in an unfavorable light.)
To be clear: Romney would have loved to win Powell’s
endorsement. (There is nothing so powerful in politics as a turnabout.)
And Powell’s endorsement of Obama could well firm up the incumbent’s
lead over Romney on the commander-in-chief question. But, Powell’s 2012
endorsement simply doesn’t carry the same weight that the 2008 version
did. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/10/25/colin-powell-and-the-fix-endorsement-hierarchy/?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
In an interview with CBS Thursday morning, former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed President Obama for a second term.
“When he took over, the country was in very, very difficult straits,”
Powell said. ”Generally, we’ve come out of the dive and we’re starting
to gain altitude.”
On foreign policy, Powell added, ”the president got us out of one
war, started to get us out of a second war and did not get us into any
new wars.” He added that he thought “the actions he has taken with
respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very very solid.”
As for Romney, Powell said, ”Not only am I not comfortable with what
Governor Romney is proposing for his economic plan, I have concerns
about his views on foreign policy.” He said that while Romney largely
agreed with Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan in Monday’s debate, at other points the Republican candidate has expressed “some very, very strong neo-conservative views.”
Obama’s campaign told reporters that the president had no advance
warning of Colin Powell endorsement. Before taking the stage at an event
in Tampa, Obama called Powell to thank him, though there was no
discussion of any joint appearances. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the
campaign is “very excited” about the endorsement: “We think it sends a
strong signal about why he should be sent back for another four years to
be commander in chief.”
Powell endorsed Obama in 2008 as well,
calling him a “transformational figure.” In the CBS interview Powell
says he is still a Republican, but “of a more moderate mold … That’s
something of a dying breed, I’m sorry to say.”
Former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took a shot at Powell on Fox News
Radio after the endorsement, saying, “General Powell, you disappoint us
and you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what is
clearly the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime.”
Earlier this year Powell criticized Romney on foreign policy, saying some of the Republican’s advisers are “quite far to the right.” At the time, however, he said he was not ready to endorse, saying he was still listening to Romney’s proposals.
Condoleezza Rice, who replaced Powell as Secretary of State under George W. Bush, has endorsed Romney and campaigned for him, saying that the former Massachusetts governor will “put this country back to work.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/25/colin-powell-endorses-barack-obama/
Former Vice President Dick Cheney took a shot at President Barack
Obama late Monday night after it was reported that the president has
attended fewer than half of his daily intelligence briefings.
"If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings
on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so
offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin
Laden," Cheney told The Daily Caller in an email through a spokeswoman.
This came on the same day that Kurt Eichenwald told us what he'd
learned after seeing a series of daily briefings from the months prior
to 9/11. Presumably Dick Cheney saw them all too:
By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the
White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States”
was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily
brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although
intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.
But some in the administration [i.e., Cheney's clique of neocon nitwits -ed.]
considered the warning to be just bluster....In response, the C.I.A.
prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept
that the danger from Bin Laden was real.
“The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,” the daily brief of June 29 read, using the government’s transliteration of Bin Laden’s first name....On July 1, the brief stated that the operation had been delayed, but “will occur soon.”....On July 9,
at a meeting of the counterterrorism group, one official suggested that
the staff put in for a transfer so that somebody else would be
responsible when the attack took place, two people who were there told
me in interviews.
....On July 24, Mr. Bush was notified that the
attack was still being readied, but that it had been postponed, perhaps
by a few months. But the president did not feel the briefings on
potential attacks were sufficient, one intelligence official told me,
and instead asked for a broader analysis on Al Qaeda, its aspirations
and its history. In response, the C.I.A. set to work on the Aug. 6 brief.
August 6, of course, was the infamous daily brief titled "Bin Laden
Determined to Strike in U.S." — the one that prompted George Bush to
tell his briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass."
Honest to God, Dick Cheney really is the world's biggest asshole,
isn't he? And for the record, it turns out that sometimes Obama reads
the daily brief and sometimes he attends briefing sessions. Either way,
though, he certainly seems to pay more attention to them than either
George Bush or Dick Cheney ever did. Via Wonkette.
HERE are two great commentaries from Mother Jones and Salon on the repression and censorship of American media by their neocon right wing owners and the right wing pro-Israel, pro-war media in this country. We no longer have a fair and unbiased media in this country, one that can bring us the Watergate and Pentagon Papers stories that helped move the public and politicians to take the action necessary to make this nation better. I believe the Rolling Stone article that resulted in the firing of McChrystal is a good example of that kind of journalism and I respect the reporter and magazine for it. I want to be challenged by journalist, I want to hear opposing views in a civil dialog (that leaves out the screaming fox "news" reports), I am not looking for reports and stories that just support my point of view, I want the American media to make me think, not spoon feed me what I should think until I become numb and so believe everything they tell me. Thank God Mother Jones, Salon, The Huffington Post, Alternet and a few others are still around......but I have to wonder how long it will be before Olberman and Maddow are silenced?
I didn't get to this yesterday, but better late than never. After 20 years as a CNN producer, Octavia Nasr was let go for sending out this tweet: Andrew Sullivan writes: "Froomkin was fired for opposing torture a little too passionately; Weigel was forced out because his private emails revealed he was not acceptable to the partisan right; Frum is cut off from conservative blogads funding; Moulitsas is barred from MSNBC for criticizing Joe Scarborough; and Octavia Nasr is fired for offending the pro-Israel lobby over a tweet expressing sadness at the death of a Hezbollah leader." Glenn Greenwald reels off a list of his own and asks: "What each of these firing offenses have in common is that they angered and offended the neocon Right....Have there ever been any viewpoint-based firings of establishment journalists by The Liberal Media because of comments which offended liberals? None that I can recall." And David Carr worries: "as a journo who tweets, gotta say this trend toward career-ending posts is a might disturbing."
Nasr herself calls her tweet an "error of judgment" and acknowledges that "It is no secret that Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah hated with a vengeance the United States government and Israel." But then she explains why she said what she did:
I used the words "respect" and "sad" because to me as a Middle Eastern woman, Fadlallah took a contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on woman's rights. He called for the abolition of the tribal system of "honor killing." He called the practice primitive and non-productive. He warned Muslim men that abuse of women was against Islam.
....Through his outspoken Friday sermons and his regularly updated website, Fadlallah had a platform to spread what many considered a more moderate voice of Shia Islam than what was coming out of Iran. Immensely popular in Lebanon among the various religious groups, he also had followers across the region including in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and even as far as Morocco in northern Africa.
Sayyed Fadlallah. Revered across borders yet designated a terrorist. Not the kind of life to be commenting about in a brief tweet. It's something I deeply regret.
It's easy to understand why Nasr was let go, but the end result is a mainstream media ever more curled up in a fetal crouch, afraid of its reporters and producers ever saying an unguarded word that might offend someone. The age of unedited blogs and real-time tweets is going to put an end to that one way or another, though, and the sooner the better. In the meantime, as with any culture in transition, there are going to be some ugly casualties. Nasr is one of them.
Thursday, Jul 8, 2010 06:09 ET
Octavia Nasr's firing and what The Liberal Media allows
(updated below) CNN yesterday ended the 20-year career of Octavia Nasr, its Atlanta-based Senior Middle East News Editor, because of a now-deleted tweet she wrote on Sunday upon learning of the death of one of the Shiite world's most beloved religious figures: "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah . . . . One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot." That message spawned an intense fit of protest from Far Rightoutlets, Thought Crime enforcers, and other neoconprecincts, and CNN quickly (and characteristically) capitulated to that pressure by firing her. The network -- which has employed a former AIPAC official, Wolf Blitzer, as its primary news anchor for the last 15 years -- justified its actions by claiming that Nasr's "credibility" had been "compromised." Within this episode lies several important lessons about media "objectivity" and how the scope of permissible views is enforced.
First, consider which viewpoints cause someone to be fired from The Liberal Media. Last month, Helen Thomas' 60-year career as a journalist ended when she expressed the exact view about Jews which numerous public figureshave expressed (with no consequence or even controversy) about Palestinians. Just weeks ago, The Washington Post accepted the "resignation" of Dave Weigel because of scorn he heaped on right-wing figures such as Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh. CNN's Chief News Executive, Eason Jordan, was previously forced to resign after he provoked a right-wing fit of fury over comments he made about the numerous -- and obviously disturbing -- incidents where the U.S. military had injured or killed journalists in war zones. NBC fired Peter Arnett for criticizing the U.S. war plan on Iraqi television, which prompted accusations of Treason from the Right. MSNBC demoted and then fired its rising star Ashleigh Banfield after she criticized American media war coverage for adhering to the Fox model of glorifying U.S. wars; the same network fired its top-rated host, Phil Donahue, due to its fear of being perceived as anti-war; and its former reporter, Jessica Yellin, confessed that journalists were "under enormous pressure from corporate executives" to present the news in a pro-war and pro-Bush manner.
What each of these firing offenses have in common is that they angered and offended the neocon Right. Isn't that a strange dynamic for the supposedly Liberal Media: the only viewpoint-based firings of journalists are ones where the journalist breaches neoconservative orthodoxy? Have there ever been any viewpoint-based firings of establishment journalists by The Liberal Media because of comments which offended liberals? None that I can recall. I foolishly thought that when George Bush's own Press Secretary mocked the American media for being "too deferential" to the Bush administration, that would at least put a dent in that most fictitious American myth: The Liberal Media. But it didn't; nothing does, not even the endless spate of journalist firings for deviating from right-wing dogma.
Beyond journalism, speech codes concerning the Middle East are painfully biased and one-sided. Chas Freeman was barred from a government position -- despite a long and accomplished record of public service -- due to AIPAC-led anger over comments deemed insufficiently devoted to Israel. Juan Cole was denied a tenured position at Yale after a vicious neocon campaign based on his allegedly anti-Israel remarks, and Norman Finklestein suffered the same fate, despite a unanimous committee recommendation for tenure, after an Alan-Dershowitz-led demonization campaign based on his blasphemous scholarship about Israel. Does anyone ever suffer career-impeding injuries of this type -- the way Nasr and Thomas also just have -- for expressing anti-Muslim or anti-Arab views? No. The speech prohibitions and thought crimes on the Middle East all run in one direction: to enforce "pro-Israel" orthodoxies. Does this long list of examples leave room for doubt about that fact?
* * * * *
Then there's the Nasr case itself. Look at how our discourse is completely distorted and dumbed-down by the same stunted, cartoonish neocon orthodoxies that have also destroyed our foreign policy. In our standard political discussions, the simplistic and false notion -- obviously accepted by CNN -- drives the discussion: Fadlallah is an Evil Hezbollah Terrorist!!, and Nasr probably is as well given the "respect" she expressed for him during his death. Thus: CNN got caught employing an Israel-hating Terrorist-lover, and once she revealed herself, she had to be fired immediately!!!! That really is the primitive level of agitprop churned out by neocon polemicists and then dutifully ingested and embraced by CNN.
The reality, though, is completely different. Fadlallah was a revered figure to a large chunk of the world, and was quite mainstream even in parts of the West. As the AP put it today, Fadlallah was "one of Shiite Islam's highest and most revered religious authorities with a following that stretched beyond Lebanon's borders to Iraq, the Gulf and as far away as central Asia." Ironically, he was the religious guide for Iraq's Dawa Party: the party of our close ally, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who took the very unusual step of leaving Iraq to attend Fadlallah's funeral. As ThinkProgress' Matt Duss put it:
So here's the neocon logic: When a reporter acknowledges the passing of a revered, if controversial figure in a way that doesn't sufficiently convey what a completely evil terrorist neocons think that figure was -- that's unacceptable. But when the United States spends nearly a trillion dollars, loses over 4,000 of its own troops and over 100,000 Iraqis to establish a new government largely dominated by that same "terrorist's" avowed acolytes -- that's victory.
Writing inForeign Policy -- not exactly a radical, Terrorist-loving outlet -- David Kenner described how even moderate, U.S.-friendly officials such as Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri praised Fadlallah as "a voice of moderation and an advocate of unity," and Kenner documents that even Fadlallah's alleged ties to Hezbollah are dubious at best.
Most striking, the British Ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, heaped praise on Fadlallah far more gushing than anything Nasr said. In a piece she entitled "The Passing of Decent Men," Ambassador Guy wrote that he was one of the people whom she enjoyed meeting most and with whom she was most impressed; that he was "a true man of religion, leaving an impact on everyone he meets, no matter what their faith"; that "Lebanon is a lesser place the day after his absence"; and that "the world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths."
And Nasr herself wrote a moving explanation after the controversy over her tweet erupted, explaining that the respect she expressed for Fadlallah had nothing to do with some of his uglier views about the justifiability of civilian attacks on Israel or Holocaust disparagement, but was rather driven by his important and virtuous call for greater rights and respect for Muslim women, his desire for greater religious tolerance in Muslim nations, and the fact that he "spread what many considered a more moderate voice of Shia Islam than what was coming out of Iran." She recounted the respect he showed her when she interviewed him 20 years ago. And she explained that "it was his commitment to Hezbollah's original mission -- resisting Israel's occupation of Lebanon -- that made him popular and respected among many Lebanese, not just people of his own sect." By all accounts, Fadlallah became particularly radicalized in his hostility toward the U.S. when the Reagan administration -- working in concert with Saudi Arabia -- attempted to assassinate him with a car bomb in Beirut, missed, and slaughtered 80 innocent civilians instead.
In other words, like many people involved in protracted and religiously-motivated violent conflicts, Fadlallah was a profoundly complex figure, with some legitimate grievances, some entrenched hatreds and ugly viewpoints, and a substantial capacity for good. Nasr was expressing a very mild and restrained form of sadness and respect for someone who had just died: sentiments shared in much stronger form by hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim and even Western world. The sentiment she expressed, while infuriating neocons, is widespread and completely unnotable for large parts of the world.
What makes Nasr's summary firing even more astonishing is that Nasr herself was an unremarkable journalist who rarely if ever provoked controversy, had no history of anti-Israel or pro-Terrorist sentiments, and blended perfectly into the American corporate media woodwork. Indeed, Middle East expert and neocon critic Nir Rosen ironically noted yesterday that -- as almost happened to Michael Steele -- "Octavia Nasr got fired for the one smart thing she ever said." And behold the July 4 message sent on Twitter by this subversive, America-hating, Terrorist-loving menace from whom CNN had to protect us all:
This was a banal and very cautious establishment journalist who survived and advanced at Time Warner, Inc. for 20 years by adhering to all the prevailing codes.
But no matter: as we've seen repeatedly, in American media and political culture, Middle East orthodoxies are the most sacred and inviolable. Thus, her 2o-year loyal service is brushed to the side because of a 140-character blip of blasphemy. As the Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah put it: she "wasn't particularly groundbreaking. That's the point. EVEN someone usually so cautious cannot survive." He added: "More than ever, [CNN, NPR, The New York Times] are purveyors of official, accepted opinion. Their job is to police what/who we can hear." That's what Nicholas Kristof meant when, writing today from Jerusalem, he observed that Israel "tolerates a far greater range of opinions than America": it's even more acceptable to utter blasphemy about Israel in Israel than it is in the U.S., as Octavia Nasr was but the latest to discover.
* * * * *
With the Nasr firing, here we find yet again exposed the central lie of American establishment journalism: that opinion-free "objectivity" is possible, required, and the governing rule. The exact opposite is true: very strong opinions are not only permitted but required. They just have to be the right opinions: the official, approved ones. Just look at the things that are allowed. The Washington Postlavished editorial praise on the brutal, right-wing tyrant Augusto Pinochet, and that caused no controversy. AP's Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier got caught sending secret, supportive emails to Karl Rove, and nothing happened. Benjamin Netanyahu formally celebrates the Terrorist bombing of the King David Hotel that killed 91 78 civilians and nobody is stigmatized for supporting him. Erick Erickson sent around the most rancid and arguably racist tweets, only to thereafter be hired as a CNN contributor. And as Jonathan Schwarz wrote of the Nasr firing:
Having someone who was part of the slaughter of 80 civilians in Lebanon on your Board is fine. And having a former AIPAC official with an obvious bias toward Israel (just watch Blitzer in this 5-minute clip if you have doubts about that) is perfectly consistent with a news network's "credibility." But expressing sadness over the death of an Islamic cleric beloved by much of the Muslim world is not. Whatever is driving that, it has nothing to do with "objectivity."
All of this would be so much more tolerable if CNN would simply admit that it permits its journalists to hold and express some controversial opinions (ones in accord with official U.S. policy and orthodox viewpoints) but prohibits others (ones which the neocon Right dislikes). Instead, we are subjected to this patently false pretense of opinion-free objectivity.
The reality is that "pro-Israel" is not considered a viewpoint at all; it's considered "objective." That's why there's no expression of it too extreme to result in the sort of punishment which Nasr just suffered (preceded by so many others before her). Conversely, while Hezbollah is seen by much of the world as an important defense against Israeli aggression in Lebanon, the U.S. Government has declared it a Terrorist organization, and therefore "independent" U.S. media outlets such as CNN dutifully follow along by firing anyone who expresses any positive feelings about anyone who, in turn, has any connection to that group. That's how tenuous and distant the thought crime can be and still end someone's career. It's true that much of the world sees some of Hezbollah's actions as Terrorism; much of the world sees Israel's that way as well. CNN requires the former view while prohibiting the latter. As usual, our brave journalistic outlets not only acquiesce to these suffocating and extremely subjective restrictions on what our political discourse allows; they lead the way in enforcing them.
The fallout from the Gaza flotilla incident has occasioned some of the most reprehensible writing that the anti-Israel establishment -- which specializes in such things -- has ever produced. Beyond question, however, one of the most egregious examples of this is the work Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald, whose comically overwrought pseudo-jeremiads on the subject constitute a case study in the kind of intellectual corruption that now appears to be the inevitable result of the bigoted hatred of Israel typical of today’s American progressivism. . . . Greenwald is such a quintessentially anti-American, pseudo-pacifist, pro-terrorist, self-hating Jewish liberal that that he essentially constitutes a living cliche. . . .A concerted fan of genocide apologist and pro-terrorist intellectual Noam Chomsky, Greenwald appears to have adopted several Chomskyite qualities as his own . . . .The implications of this, and of Greenwald's quite selective outrage when it comes to such casualties, are not surprising -- but they are disturbing. They point, moreover, to the darker motivations behind Greenwald’s rhetorical violence. Put simply, he appears to believe that dead Palestinians and their supporters matter, while dead Israelis do not. . . .
He is terrified that if he defends Israel, or even fails to denounce it in the most hysterical terms possible, he will be seen by his fellow progressives not as one of them, but as a Jew. And, as a Jew, he will also be automatically seen as a heretic and a traitor. To give credit where credit is due, he is probably right.
It goes on and on like that. There has been a palpable increase in these sorts of attacks: first after I criticized Israel for its horrific attack on Gaza, then after defending Chas Freeman from the McCarthyite attempts to ruin his career, and now especially after condemning the Israeli killing of 9 people aboard the flotilla. Most of this is self-refuting, and more than that, gratifying. I view the increasingly unhinged attacks by the worst neocon elements to be a vindication of what I'm doing. I see them as pernicious and destructive, and genuinely welcome their contempt.
Really, you almost have to admire the 
