Glenn Greenwald carefully documents how the ramping up of hysteria and warmongering over Iran is following the same script as that which led up to the attack on Iraq, and asks “Aren’t war advocates going to have to find at least a few superficial plot changes to maintain dramatic interest?”
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
Glen’s reporting points up a huge failing in the US media. They seem more than happy to have mental blinders. On a smaller and less scary scale, after the first fraud by James E. O’Keefe III was exposed why did anyone spend a second considering his lies let alone treating them as true?
Apparently, Prof. Singham’s go to guys on Middle East affairs include self hating Jews like Glenn Greenwald. Here is a link to a blog post by Jeffrey Goldberg quoting an article by Spencer Ackerman, not noted as a sycophant of Bibi Netanyahu, in which he takes Mr. Greenwald to task for engaging in the sort of Jew baiting one usually finds on Stormfront or on David Duke’s web site. If Prof. Singham wants to criticize US foreign policy in the Middle East, he really ought to cite more reliable sources then Mr. Greenwald.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/more-on-jewish-mccarthyism-and-neo-nazi-smearing-last-post-i-hope/252125/
@ slc1, what you’re basically saying here is that Glen Greenwald is a bad source on foreign politics because he uses questionable language when talking about other Jews. That’s an ad-hominem fallacy, and you undermine your own criticism of Mano Singham’s article by using it.
You also weaken your own arguments if you have to distort the words of Spencer Ackerman to defend it: Ackerman never said anything about Stormfront or David Duke, or about Greewald being a “self hating Jew”. By the way, you may not be aware of it, but that particular turn of phrase is itself a classic neo-conservative bit of Left-baiting, a smear against any Jews who speak against Israeli policies or the support of Israel by the USA. Try avoiding to fall into the kind of trap you criticise in others!
@slc1,
Some comments:
1. I notice that you still have not pointed to anything specific that Alexander Cockburn or Justin Raimondo said that was wrong with respect to an earlier post.
2. I am aware of Goldberg’s and Ackerman’s pieces and Greenwald has already responded to them.
3. What are the criteria that you use to determine if a source is ‘reliable’?
Many Republican politicians have links to domestic and foreign terrorist groups. Of course it all depends on how you define ‘terrorist’. See how easy it is. If you talk about someone as nutty as Saddam or G. Gordon Liddy, vilifying them is even easier.
As was evident in the link to Mr. Goldberg’s blog, Mr. Greenwald has a habit of questening the loyalty and patriotism of people who support the State of Israel. Although Mr. Ackerman didn’t explicitly mention Stormfront and David Duke, it is clear that he was referring to them by inference. I suggest that Ms. Delse look back on Mr. Goldberg’s blog a couple of posts where he talks about the smear campaign directed against him by Mr. Greenwald and his sycophants. The accusations of dual loyalty bandied about by the Greenwalds of the world are exactly the same smears as one reads from Don Black and Bill White.
Mr criterion for determining a reliable source relative to Middle East activities is very simple. Antisemites, self hating Jews and Israel bashers are not reliable. In addition to Cockburn, Raimondo, and Greenwald, I also consider Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, Juan Cole, and Noam Chomsky to be unreliable.
By the way, I also don’t think that Muslim bashers like Frank Gaffney, Debbie Schlussel, and Pam Geller are reliable sources of information either.
Funny, I don’t count genocidal maniacs such as slc1 as reliable judges of who is and is not a reliable source.
So it seems like:
Jews who criticize the policies of the government of Israel = Self-hating Jews
Non-Jews who criticize the policies of the government of Israel = Anti-Semites
Anyone who criticizes the policies of the government of Israel = unreliable source on the Middle East
Thanks. I am glad we got that cleared up.
Prof. Singham’s snark response is rather disappointing. The fact is that there is a difference between criticizing the actions of any particular government in Israel and denying the legitimacy of the state itself, just as there is a difference between being critical of President Obama and denying the legitimacy of the US. The miscreants who I cited all question the legitimacy of the State of Israel, regardless who is in power there.
Just for the information of Prof. Singham, I, too, am often critical of the current government in Israel. I am in agreement with French President Sarkozy that Bibi is a liar and wonder why it took him 4 years to figure that out. Former Prime Minister Sharon is alleged to have told Bibi to his face that he was born a liar. I have also been critical of former presidents Bush and Carter, the former who lied us into a war with Iraq and the latter who stood by and allowed Islamic fascists to take power in Iran.
Pooooooooor baby.
And there’s a difference between opposing the theocratic scumbags running Iran, and proposing the mass murder of Iranians. But that one somehow escapes you.
An eloquent and well-reasoned response to it being pointed out that you are a genocidal maniac.
You said “The miscreants who I cited all question the legitimacy of the State of Israel, regardless who is in power there.”
What is the evidence for this assertion?