Friday, January 09, 2015

The CIA infects and soils the left (thanks, Robert Scheer)

A lot of what happens on the 'professional' side of the left is hard to believe.

Take the trashy magazine that no one really reads and only stays afloat due to CIA money.  No, we're not talking about The Nation or any magazine we call out.  We try to avoid mentioning the CIA front here.  We keep waiting for the 'assets' to keel over but, let's be honest, if every venereal disease in the world couldn't kill the whore as she spread her legs across the globe 'for country,' she's probably going to be with us for a little while longer.

It was a British MP who outed her to Elaine and I decades ago and she's come close to outing herself since.  We called her out about six years ago and she realized that she needed to shut her damn mouth and stop trying to grab the glory or she'd be outing others as well -- including a dead woman who was also CIA and in the news at the time.

For the most part, most 'professional' left outlets ignore the whore and her rag.  It's really only Amy Goodman who repeatedly finds time for both which may say more about Amy Goodman than anything else.

Which is a good way to transition to another CIA friend that Amy Goodman promotes.  From John Walsh's "Meet Professor Juan Cole, Consultant to the CIA"  (CounterPunch):

Cole claims to be a man of the left and he appears with painful frequency on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now as the reigning “expert” on the war on Libya.  This is deeply troubling – on at least two counts. First, can one be a member of the “left” and also an advocate for the brutal intervention by the Great Western Powers in the affairs of a small, relatively poor country?  Apparently so, at least in Democracy Now’s version of the “left.”  Second, it appears that Cole’s essential function these days is to convince wavering progressives that the war on Libya has been  fine and dandy.  But how can such damaged goods as Cole credibly perform this marketing mission so vital to Obama’s war?
Miraculously, Cole got just the rehabilitation he needed to continue with this vital propaganda function when it was disclosed by the New York Times on June 15 that he was the object of a White House inquiry way back in 2005 in Bush time.   The source and reason for this leak and the publication of it by the NYT at this time, so many years later, should be of great interest, but they are unknown.   Within a week of the Times piece Cole was accorded a hero’s welcome on Democracy Now, as he appeared with retired CIA agent Glenn Carle who had served 23 years in the clandestine services of the CIA in part as an “interrogator.”   Carl had just retired from the CIA at the time of the White House request and was at the time employed at the National Intelligence Council, which authors the National Intelligence Estimate.
It hit this listener like a ton of bricks when it was disclosed in Goodman’s interview that Cole was a long time “consultant” for the CIA, the National Intelligence Council and other agencies.  Here is what nearly caused me to keel over when I heard it (From the Democracy Now transcript.):
AMY GOODMAN: So, did you know Professor Cole or know of him at the time you were asked? And can you go on from there? What happened when you said you wouldn’t do this? And who was it who demanded this information from you, said that you should get information?
GLENN CARLE: Well, I did know Professor Cole. He was one of a large number of experts of diverse views that the National Intelligence Council and my office and the CIA respectively consult with to challenge our assumptions and understand the trends and issues on our various portfolios. So I knew him that way. And it was sensible, in that sense, that the White House turned to my office to inquire about him, because we were the ones, at least one of the ones—I don’t know all of Mr. Cole’s work—who had consulted with him. (Emphases mine.)

That seems like strange toil for a man of the “left.”  But were the consultations long drawn out and the association with the CIA a deep one?   It would appear so. 



Why would anyone promote Juan Cole?

Why does Truthdig feature him as he and they pretend that he's a voice worth listening to?

Juan supported the Iraq War.

He likes to lie today about it.

The only one who's ever held him accountable for his support of the Iraq War was Steve Rendall (FAIR) and Juan got all pissy.

Robert Scheer's decided to post Juan Cole's latest crap -- crap that is xenophobic, ahistorical and -- at the very root -- argues against an informed society.  It's entitled "Paris Terrorist Was Radicalized by Bush's Iraq War and Abu Ghraib Torture."

On the torture, this is the argument Rumsfeld and others -- including Barack Obama today -- use to prevent releasing photos: It will radicalize people!

So good for Robert Scheer -- an old fool who should found retirement home long ago -- for helping to make that argument 'from the left' by posting Cole's garbage.

Abu Ghraib didn't radicalize anyone.  People were unhappy and unbalanced and would have latched onto anything.  (Taxi Driver did not cause John Hinkley's problems, to use another example.)

We don't have to go through all that is wrong with the article but repeatedly Juan notes "Bush" and his war and blah blah blah.

I guess if you're a cheap little con artist who supported the illegal war, years later you might invoke Bully Boy Bush repeatedly.



But that's not reality.

Not only is there the issue that the illegal war is the Congress' war as well as Bully Boy Bush's war (and Juan Cole's war), there's also the fact that the US is not the center of the world.

So if you're in Paris, as two terrorists were, you'd probably look a little closer and include someone else: Tony Blair.

Juan Cole oversimplifies everything and does to so to rewrite history and provide a target for rage (War Criminal Bully Boy Bush) which rewrites history and makes it appear that the Congress didn't go along with the illegal war and that other countries weren't involved as well.

When he writes "Bush's troops," Juan may have crossed the final line.

We may grab that aspect in the snapshot.  We may not.

But Robert Scheer needs to explain why he keeps publishing CIA contractor Juan Cole.

The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com -- updated and Elaine's post is "Where's the Iraq report?:"








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