Glenn Greenwald Explains Neoconservative Intellectual Dishonesty
By SilentPatriot Thursday Sep 20, 2007 5:35pmLedeen is perfectly content to urge war with Iran based on the moronic slogan -- now a right-wing article of faith -- that they have been "at war with us since 1979," but he is completely unwilling to account for his own behavior or that of the Reagan administration towards Iran during that time. And he's eager to leave all sorts of dark innuendo about Gen. Abizaid ("suppressing evidence" of Iranian acts of war) but refuses to state what he means or why he thinks Abazaid would engage in such treacherous behavior.
This is how neoconservatives function. Ledeen's intellectually dishonest tactic is found in virtually every one of Bill Kirstol's columns and Fox News television sneers. For instance, Kristol -- attacking Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's invitation to New Adolph Hitler President Ahmadinejad to speak -- says today: "A perfect synecdoche for too much of American higher education: they are friendlier to Ahmadinejad than to the U.S. military." So is Bollinger anti-American? A Traitor? As always, Kristol merely leaves the dirty innuendo against anyone who opposes more wars against Israel's enemies, but always lacks the courage explicitly to make the argument.
(Nicole:) Now contrast Glenn's excellent analysis with the news that Rudy Giuliani has brought on one of the PNAC elders, Norman Podhoretz, as a senior advisor on foreign policy for his campaign. Does that mean that if elected, Rudy will be making plans to bomb Iran (that assumes GWB won't beat him to it)?
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Neo-Frist
If Bushie does bomb bomb bomb Iran it will have the same affect as kicking the board over in the middle of the game.
Only the board will be civilization, and there will be no home to go back to.
Heck of a job...
More proof of lies and corruption?
How many smoking guns does it take?
Ignore IDIOTS, ignore KRISTOL.
Get ready for an attack on Iran sometime in 2008. The drumbeats of war are getting louder and louder. Who's going to stop it?? Not the GOP....they're all for it. Certainly not the Dems.....those worthless pussies would never take a strong stand.
It's going to happen....and if you thought this country was in deep crap before, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Oh Billy boy, yer so eloquent. Wont' you get in the stall next to moi?, My pants allow enough movement.
I am not gay and don't taz me Bro.
bush shit-for-brains is delusional enough to nuke iran. we are in for a very stressful period of our history until bush is out of office or impeached. i am afraid that if impeachment attempts are made towards bush/cheney THEY WILL NUKE IRAN.
[Deleted. Alternate troll name-Sitemonitor]
The real problem in understanding neo-cons is they should be called neo-fascists. They are trying and very close to succeeding in making this country into a fascist state. Please read 14 Common Aspects of Fascist Governments by Lawrence Britt at www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_3.htm He lists fourteen characteristics of a fascist takeover. He's 14 for 14.
My wife proposed a good bill for Congress to enact: If ever a politician gets the chance to vote to support or otherwise continue a war, their children or children of their progeny must be immediately conscripted to fight in said war. Those voting against get a pass if they so choose.
People like Kristol, Prager, Wolfowitz, are more that happy to see Americans fight a proxy war with Arabs for Israel.
Did anyone see Christiane Amanpours "God's Warriors"? In the episode about the Muslims, she talked about the Iran-Iraq war. The Iraqi army was far superior to the Iranians. They should have been able to just steamroller right over them. What the Iraqis didn't count on though was the thousands and thousands of young men who martyred themselves to clear mine fields. They would just walk into enemy fire and across mine fields to save the army from danger. Do you really think that the US army would be any different to these young men. Have the Bush gang totally forgotten about them? Thousands and thousands of young people willing to die to protect their country. Does chimpy really think Iran will be a cake walk? I think he doesn't care. In fact, I bet he hopes that it will be totally horrendous and spiral out of control. The more violence and death he causes, just means that much closer to the rapture. I'm sure that there's a million or so "Christians" out there just praying for a good old blood bath. They're no doubt hoping that Iran will launch an attack on Israel. That would really get the Armageddon going. Do you remember those insane people who were so sure that the rapture was imminent when Israel invaded Lebanon? They're still out there. Kristol and Ledeen and that ilk are cheerleading this in an effort to bring about the rapture. I totally hate how people pervert religion into something that is vile and disgusting. God must really be horror stricken at what is being done in His name.
OK, when is John McCain going to apologize for Ledeen's comments about General Abizaid? Rudy Guiliani? Mit Romney? Didn't the senate just pass a resolution condemning such remarks?
Oh GW will beat him to it... Iraq and now Syria were mere testing grounds for this empire on the march! Rudy won't be president, but whoever is had better understand that the NYTimes advertisement will look like child's play compared to what they will face from the people of the US...And if we don't do something...another country like China or Russia will.
Ron Christie, former special assistant to Pres. Bush, just said on Hardball that President Ahmadinejad called on the "extermination of the Jewish state." Republicans and their strawman arguments are nothing more than pure bullshit.
Ahmadinejad + "extermination of the Jewish state"
vs. Bush + resurrecting the term "Homeland Security"
equals Hitler?
He hides behind words like this "synecdoche" which I have never heard before (have you?), and had to consult two dictionaries. I discovered, he's an ass (again).
Most Americans think the history of Iran started with Ayatolla Khomeini. Since they get most of their information from late night comics and other entertainment, we need a movie or a TV mini-series set in post-WWII Iran. That would give them the insight into the British exploitation, the attempt by Mosaddeq to negotiate a fair petroleum agreement, the Brits manipulation of Eisenhower with the claim that Iran was going Commie, and the brutality of the Shah we installed. Then they would understand why the embassy was occupied and the diplomats held; they were believed to be spies, and probably were.
Richard Peterson @ 17:
Absolutely true. Don't tell Rudy this though, it would ruin his whole idea of "Why they atacked us".
"It was under Abizaid that the copious evidence of Iranian activity was suppressed"
Haven't republicans been claiming that insulting a general's integrity is "disgusting"? GUess that only applies to generals they agree with...
Isn't this the same Michael Ledeen who went to Italy to study fascism (uncritically, BTW) and was allegedly involved in 1) the Iran/Contra affair and 2) forging the 'yellowcake documents' that led to the war in Iraq?
And he established his credibility how exactly?
You want a thorough examination and explanation of noecon intellectual dishonesty on any issue, Google Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarians. This is the guy who did the research over forty years and wrote the book on the subject. Essential reading.
The most dishonest part of conservatism is the idea that it has any intellectual basis in the first place.
Conservatism is merely a justification for greed.
Neocon philosophy is based on the Straussian "Noble Lie." Neocon elites such as Kristol give themselves permission to lie to the American people in the interest of serving their elitist agenda.
Absolutely disgusting.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm
- Tom
Nobody writers on Greenwald's level. I'm glad he's on our side. Glenn's a national treasure
How exactly is "American higher education" hostile to US troops?
Rudy would take Bush's lead and after getting the keys to the country (and mostly the power) would ratchet up the aggression and the rhetoric and just do whatever he pleased with the treasure of the US. invading here, bombing there, really anything he wants just to advance his prestige and power (or so he would think). all the while still listening to the war-criminal Podhoretz. rudy must be stopped and now. he cannot be president. at any cost stop him. who cares what it takes.
how can he attack the good general's character( sound like a serious thing to suppress iranian attacks on our country IF THAT REALLLY HAPPENED I WOULD NEED BUSHCO TO CONFIRM IT) and not a peep out of the liberal press or impotent dems. no resolution to protect the the good general
Agree that that is how neocons function which is why we get bad policy out of them consistently. Unfortunately it is not limited to neocons. Jon Chait's book, The Big Con, contains a passage in which he notes that certain arguments were endorsed by "the John Birch Society" - not a very salient observation in a debate on economic policy (since no rational person has ever credited the John Birch Society on economic policy), but the remark was certain to trigger a knowing snort in a good many readers and no doubt that is why it was inserted. When a poster criticized that guilt-by-association approach to policy analysis on tpmcafe, the tactic was rationalized away as "just background." Doubtful, imo.
I totally support intellectual honesty which is why I have been coming to this site most days the past two years. But the left is as susceptible to cheap rhetorical tricks as the neocons (Jesse Jackson's recent playing of the race card vis a vis Obama being another example) and we ought not to pretend otherwise.
Uh haven't we been in a proxy war with Iran since 1953 when we assassinated their president? Blowback is such a B****!
Can someone please remind me which branch of service these chickenshit, chickenhawk, warmongering, bastards served in? I am talking of William Kristol, et al. That lying bastard has done nothing in the past ten years but lie and be wrong.
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html
It's not just Norman Podhoretz who's working as Guiliani's foreign policy advisor.
Guiliani recently added another foreign policy advisor, none other than Daniel Pipes:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90001048
Pipes is the founder and director of the think tank Middle East Forum, which in turn launched Campus Watch in 2002. If you've not heard of Campus Watch, it's the organization that enlists students to spy on university professors and report anti-Israel comments.
Daniel Pipes is also an adjunt scholar at the think tank Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). WINEP's board of advisors includes Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Martin Peretz, Mort Zuckerman, Alexander Haig, George Schulz, Robert McFarlane (of Iran-Contra scandal), and others.
Richard Pipes, son of Daniel Pipes, is a member of the think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
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