Sorry, Israel doesn’t comment on such matters.

Posted by: Pat Bateman | Aug 26 2014 14:49 utc | 3

In the same piece, Rhodes said, “If you come after Americans, we’re going to come after you, wherever you are” except if you’re Rachel Corrie or Furkan Dogan…
A couple sources have implicated McCain in the rise of ISIS. It was known that McCain met with Syrian terrorists a year ago. A photo of the meeting purports to show al-Baghdadi talking to McCain.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article185085.html
Since 1993 McCain has been chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), which receives the majority of funds allocated by USAID to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Robert Parry describes NED as “a $100 million U.S. government-financed slush fund that generally supports a neocon agenda often at cross-purposes with the Obama administration’s foreign policy.”
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/27/a-shadow-us-foreign-policy/
Essentially McCain can run his own covert foreign policy using IRI funds. Is this what he is doing with ISIS in cooperation with Gulf Arabs?
As such, the whole ISIS phenomenon would be part of a McCain strategy to balkanize Iraq and Syria into Shi’a, Kurd, and Sunni Arab mini-states with eastern Syria and its oil going to the Sunnis. Such a balkanization harkens back to the old Biden plan for Iraq, which but didn’t overtly include eastern Syria at the time.
US bombing allegedly only takes place when the ISIS oversteps the previously agreed upon territorial boundaries.
Such an explanation would resolve the apparent conflict between the US arming the Sunnis on the one hand and bombing them on the other. It would also explain why the US has shown little concern about Erdogan’s coddling of ISIS.

Posted by: JohnH | Aug 26 2014 14:53 utc | 5

Cold A-hole does it again, showing his true troll colors, vete al Diablo.

Posted by: Fernando | Aug 26 2014 15:07 utc | 7

How come the troll cold n holefield isnt banned yet?

Posted by: Anoynmous | Aug 26 2014 15:50 utc | 9

“Not going to be restricted by borders” appears to be no longer just the hegemonic prerogative of the U.S. Good story about how United Arab Emirates jets bombed the Islamist militias in a failed attempt to keep them from controlling the airport in Tripoli, Libya. With Afghanistan headed for anarchy, expect similar bombing runs in Kabul in the not too distant future.

Posted by: Mike Maloney | Aug 26 2014 16:00 utc | 11

Black Sabbath – War Pigs Lyrics
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death’s construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh lord yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out and fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’till their judgment day comes
Yeah!
Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgment, God is calling
On their knees the war pig’s crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh lord yeah!
Songwriters: F. IOMMI, W. WARD, T. BUTLER, J. OSBOURNE
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/black+sabbath/war+pigs_20019418.html

Posted by: really | Aug 26 2014 16:27 utc | 13

Regarding the voltaire article on McCain:
Then there are MY FAVORITE sentences in the piece:

In May 2013, Senator John McCain made his way illegally to near Idleb in Syria via Turkey to meet with leaders of the “armed opposition”. His trip was not made public until his return to Washington. [6]
This movement was organized by the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which, contrary to its title, is a Zionist Organization led by a Palestinian employee of AIPAC [7]

Gosh, lucky AIPAC was so buddy buddy with the mercenary jihadists in Syria that they could secretly smuggle a US Senator out of the country and into a war zone, huh?
Lone wolf all right.

Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 26 2014 16:37 utc | 15

JFC–yes, that is the question, isn’t it? Is McCain the point man for a covert, subversive foreign policy? Or has Obama fully bought in? And does he support this arrangement so he can appear to want to avoid more foreign wars, only leading from behind when “forced?”
If you recall, when Obama first took office, Zelaya was overthrown in Honduras. Obama was in Colombia at the time and said, “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras.”
McCain had a conniption fit, took Obama to task, and Obama never breathed the word ‘coup’ again. This would suggest that McCain was part of a subversive action that Obama had not been made aware of. With his position at IRI and on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, he is well positioned to run his own independent action, as part of a deep state.

Posted by: JohnH | Aug 26 2014 16:42 utc | 17

I think it’s apropos to remind people of Mr. Rhodes’s meteoric rise to the heights of power. From failed scribbler to co-authoring the official 9/11 narrative, the Iraq Study Group papers, Obama’s speeches earlier in this career in the Muslim world/Israel and the Benghazi talking points.
Don’t be fooled by his boyish good looks and his familial ties to the MSM – his older brother is President of CBS News – this kid is the effing Charles Dickens of the American war criminal elite and deserves his own cell/noose.

Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 26 2014 17:05 utc | 19

@20
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/american-douglas-mcauthur-mccain-dies-fighting-isis-syria-n189081
His Douglas Mcarthur Mccain? The USG propagandists have a sense of humor don’t they….

Posted by: really | Aug 26 2014 17:32 utc | 21

His Douglas Mcarthur Mccain? The USG propagandists have a sense of humor don’t they….
Posted by: really | Aug 26, 2014 1:32:01 PM | 21
Oh My God! That name is too funny…. It can’t be serious, can it? I wonder if he’s a rapper too? Maybe it will finally be the end of Rap music and we can move onto something that requires musical skill and talent.
How about this?
Even the Islamists of ISIS are obsessing over Ferguson

They’re hoping to use black disenchantment as a recruiting tool.
You can understand if President Obama would rather talk about the fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq, where he has scored some victories, than talk about the unholy mess in Ferguson, Mo. Surprisingly, though, ISIS militants are following developments in the St. Louis suburb, and some of them would rather focus on that. According to interviews and social media, members of the group and sympathizers with its jihadist ideology are closely tracking the events in the St. Louis suburb, where protesters and police have clashed. In it, they see opportunity.
Partly, the focus is strategic: Officers in Ferguson have used military transports and weapons similar to those used by U.S. troops in Iraq. But militants are also claiming vindication — that their arguments about American oppression were right all along. “Well this clearly shows that all this talk about democracy and equality of people in the west is just hypocrisy,” said Abu Sameer after a private autopsy sought by the family of Michael Brown showed that the 18-year-old had been shot at least six times. Abu Sameer lives in France and identifies himself as a member of the Islamic State, a group that has conducted a campaign of mass killings and other atrocities in northern Iraq.
The Islamic State and other jihadist movements are using the events outside St. Louis as propaganda against the West. One argument they’ve been making for years is that racism and discrimination are rampant in some parts of the West, and they’re hoping the Ferguson riots could help recruit black Americans. “In Islam there is no racism, and we think black people will wake up and follow the example of Malcolm X and others who understood that this way is the only way to justice,” said Abu Mansour, who lives in Germany and is also a follower of the Islamic State.
All of the jihadists interviewed said Brown’s death confirms their beliefs that blacks are seen as second-class citizens by whites and especially by the police. “I think that blacks in the U.S. will look more towards Islam,” said Anjem Choudary from Great Britain, co-founder of the banned “al-­Muhajiroun” group. (Choudary’s teacher, Omar Bakri Muhammad, was barred from Britain and is currently in a Lebanese jail for his alleged support of jihadist movements in Syria and Iraq.) “The only way of life today that does not look at race is in fact Islam. Islam only distinguished people by whether they are Muslim or not. The color of their skin does not play a role,” Choudary said in a phone interview.
Some self-described supporters of fighters of the Islamic State have also taken the discussion to social media platforms using the hashtag “#FergusonUnderIS” and “ISISHERO.”
According to Site Intelligence Group, an organization that tracks the online activity of terrorists, the accounts have mainly addressed the black community, arguing that blacks are victims of “democracy while promising less discrimination under Shari’ah law.”
Site Intelligence Group also pointed out the now-deleted Twitter account of Mujahid Miski, who claims to be a jihadist fighter from the United States and posted under the #FergusonUnderIS hashtag: “I thought u guys back in Ferguson were supposed to be Free & that u had equal rights. I’d really like to know what changed?” He also said, “Justice and Equality is under the Shari’ah law. You’ll never get it under Democracy.”
Abu Mansour in Germany and Abu Sameer in France asked not to be identified by their real names because they fear arrest for their affiliation with the Islamic State. But both also stated that Ferguson would also teach Muslims in Europe a big lesson about the rise of right-wing and racist movements there, too. “What has happened in Ferguson today, can also happen anytime in France, Germany or Britain,” said Abu Sameer. “The anti-Muslim sentiments are there and became normality and we tell the youth, communism has failed, the Islamic State is your only solution.”

This is why 40 FBI agents were in Ferguson. I wonder how many IS Jihadist recruiters are contributing to the comment sections of blogs critical of America? Quite a few, no doubt. Maybe even a few here, who knows? For those who aren’t, don’t be chumps.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 26 2014 17:51 utc | 23

Wasn’t it the Mexican president Pena Nieto that said that, regarding the amount of guns coming in to Mexico from Yanquistan that fuel the “drug war”.

Posted by: Candy | Aug 26 2014 19:13 utc | 25

JFC–yes, that is the question, isn’t it?
Posted by: JohnH | Aug 26, 2014 12:42:25 PM | 17
And the answer to that question can be found by looking at the reaction of the Obomber Admin to the allegedly rogue shenanigans of MacCain and the NED. What is the reaction? No reaction whatsoever. Ergo your 2nd question is also answered:
Is McCain the point man for a covert, subversive foreign policy?
Clearly he is, since the Obomber Admin has done SFA to curtail these actions of MacC and the NED, The Admin after all control the purse strings for NED-funding and therefore the purse strings to MacC’s little IRI operation
Or has Obama fully bought in?
Clearly he has, see above
And does he support this arrangement so he can appear to want to avoid more foreign wars, only leading from behind when “forced?”
Clearly he does, see above
If you recall, when Obama first took office, Zelaya was overthrown in Honduras. Obama was in Colombia at the time and said, “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras.”
McCain had a conniption fit, took Obama to task, and Obama never breathed the word ‘coup’ again.
You’re confusing words with actions – once again. Who cares what the Admin says – it’s what they DO that counts – and they have done nothing to curtail any of MacC/NED shenanigans, and in fact those shenanigans have been repeated time and time again since Honduras.
So at this stage only a gullible fool would continue to believe that the Admin doesn’t fully approve
This would suggest that McCain was part of a subversive action that Obama had not been made aware of
This is nonsense – see above etc
With his position at IRI and on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, he is well positioned to run his own independent action
more nonsense – hollywood fantasy MegaBlockbuster nonsense, Starring Nick Cage as Ned Ryan with Ed Harris as the “rogue” Mad Dog MacCain
as part of a deep state.
oh ffs. inserting “the deep state” at the end doesn’t make it look any less nonsensical or less of a Hollywood Mega-Blockbuster Ed Harris-as-the-villain fantas

Posted by: JFC | Aug 26 2014 19:36 utc | 27

@ #23
SITE Intel Group ???
Poor Rita Katz, after the death of OBL, there aren’t anymore faked videos to dump on the CIA and now she has found another trail to make money and to spread mayhem.
Posted by: Yul | Aug 26, 2014 3:37:13 PM | 28
It’s the SAME pig – they just slapped some red lipstick on it

Posted by: JFC | Aug 26 2014 19:41 utc | 29

somebody | Aug 26, 2014 3:14:05 PM | 26
Interesting beginning, then the audio went to zero.

Posted by: Ben Franklin | Aug 26 2014 20:06 utc | 31

@23. You are so right! Judging from the way rebellious aspiring rappers keep turning up we should all be careful of what we say and wary of anyone offerring employment opportunities that include foreign travel free drugs and sex. Thanks Tommy!

Posted by: Nana2007 | Aug 26 2014 20:28 utc | 33

It wasnt the rapper that killed foley (even though that rapper is in Syria fighting).

Posted by: Anoynmous | Aug 26 2014 20:36 utc | 35

Maybe if your beloved Amerikkkan police state stopped gunning down African-Americans in the street like dogs, ISIS wouldn’t have such bright recruiting prospects.
Mad rabid dogs usually get shot or put down. You attack a police officer and then charge him again after attacking him once as is alleged, you’ve sealed your fate.
They’re just plain old Americans to me. No need for the African descriptor. That’s racist.
I don’t believe for a second IS has bright recruiting prospects as you do. I know you’re one witnessed by your violent threats against me and my family at this space, but the Americans in Ferguson aren’t a match with IS.
Although, that may not stop the FBI from conjuring a Ferguson Four like they did in Newburgh.
Newburgh Sting

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 26 2014 21:04 utc | 37

@38 No, it’s not comparable. Do you think Judaism is the same as Zionism?

Posted by: Ben Franklin | Aug 26 2014 21:13 utc | 39

itry to avoid the NYT where possible,…
but the answer had to be the worlds most belligerent democracy, while claiming not to be

Posted by: brian | Aug 26 2014 22:15 utc | 41

Maybe even a few here, who knows? For those who aren’t, don’t be chumps.
Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Aug 26, 2014 1:51:13 PM | 23
has Langley put a boot up Colds bleak back side?

Posted by: brian | Aug 26 2014 22:17 utc | 43

Colden is a Zionist.His concerns are theirs.That’s why he’s intimating black recruitment here in America by Isis.I don’t think the black man on the street is on the side of those people,know they are our toys and Israel’s,and I know they don’t like Israel too much,they remind them of Bull Connor.
All three as to the question?
And good ol’ Ozzie has a Jewish wife,and Jewish children,so I’m not sure those lyrics apply to Israel any more.

Posted by: dahoit | Aug 26 2014 22:28 utc | 45

“…”At the start the Americans and some Europeans rather welcomed (Islamic State) on the basis it was fighting agains Bashar al-Assad.
They welcomed it as they welcomed the mujahideen who later created al Qaeda, and then al Qaeda struck like a boomerang on September 11, 2001,” Lavrov said.
“The same thing is happening now,” he said, adding that,” the United States had only started fighting the group after it began rampaging across Iraq and approaching the capital Baghdad.”
The United States has conducted more than 90 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq, and Washington is considering taking its fight against the militants to neighboring Syria. Damascus said on Monday it must be involved in coordinating any air strikes on its territory.
Backing this stance, Lavrov said: “If… there are plans to combat Islamic State on the territory of Syria and other countries, it is indispensable that it is done in cooperation with legitimate authorities (there).”
Having long been denounced by Washington and others for protecting Assad, Lavrov made clear that Russia now feels vindicated.
“At one time we were accused of supporting Bashar al-Assad and preventing his overthrow…. Now no one is talking about that,” he said.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0GP14J20140825?irpc=932

Posted by: really | Aug 26 2014 23:39 utc | 47

@rackstraw #48:
I think most visitors to MoA are used to him by now. It’s not a bad thing to have a “dissident” loony pro-USG voice at MoA. That prevents the impression that MoA is a monoculture.

Posted by: Demian | Aug 27 2014 0:08 utc | 49

http://www.ibtimes.com/russia-sold-advanced-s-300-ship-killing-missiles-syrian-president-bashar-assad-say-us-officials
Hmmm…if this is true this is no bueno for US air force over syria.

Posted by: really | Aug 27 2014 1:08 utc | 51

Come on Demian. Cold Hole is hardly the only pro-USG voice here on MoA.
He’s just the only one with enough “decency” to use a single screen name, unlike some Jerks, Fiends, and Creeps around here who change theirs daily.

Posted by: guest77 | Aug 27 2014 1:22 utc | 53

@52
Yeah I notice that slip in the article but it was one I could find claiming the s300 missle sales to syria. The s300 is an anti aircraft missle system. It seems to be a multi purpose platform.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22688894

Posted by: really | Aug 27 2014 1:29 utc | 55

@49, that’s right, Demian, Troll-in-the-Hole is our hedge against accusations of bias.

Posted by: ruralito | Aug 27 2014 1:43 utc | 57

@58
Look, FL, you effete ineffectual passive/aggressive little toss, it’s not enough now that everyone here now knows you actually defend and converse with the very war criminals in the US Establishment – working within the system is great fun!! – you have to repeatedly show everyone how utterly unaware you are of your own miserable/pitiable existence.
Let’s talk about intellectualism/intellectuals, shall we?
Yes, in former fascist regimes, the intellectuals were often some of the very first ones to be rounded up and jailed/killed.
HOWEVER, there was a SECOND set of “intellectuals” – notice the quotes now, FL – who somehow survived these purges, co-existed with said fascist war criminals of yesteryear, were amply rewarded and were employed to write the fascist-dictated histories for posterity.
Hmmm, I wonder why that second set of “intellectuals” was able to survive?
Any guesses, FL?
Gee, could it possibly be that the “intellectual” nonsense that they consistently spewed WAS OF ABSOLUTELY ZERO THREAT to said fascist leaders and their power? That even though those fake “intellectuals” THOUGHT they were making a difference – such as yourself – they had their pointy-heads SO FAR up their asses that they couldn’t see that they were actually supporting if not outright COLLABORATING with the people they mistakenly believed they were taking a stand against? Sad isn’t it. I mean really.
So, FL, bearing in mind all of the dialogues you have and have had with Establishment members, all the letters you write to them and all of the fake left and very much Establishment “intellectuals” you so admire – Chomsky, Parry, etc etc – please tell us which camp of minds do you fit into: the one that THREATENS the murderous status quo of the current war criminal elite or the one that is allowed to play the part of the delusional handmaiden to power?
No, really take some time to think about it.
Seriously, you’re a joke and the worst part is that you don’t even know it.

Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 27 2014 2:12 utc | 59

“…Earlier this year, Eric Harroun, a former U.S. soldier, made headlines when he posted videos of himself online in which he purported to be fighting with rebel groups, holding weapons, and driving with fighters through contested parts of Syria. He was arrested by the FBI when he returned to the United States from Syria in March and accused of fighting with the al Qaeda–linked rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra. In an earlier interview with FBI agents in Istanbul, Harroun had said that he was opposed to al Qaeda and had been fighting only to help topple Assad…”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/31/american-woman-killed-in-syria.html
So this guy was arrested by the FBI and released. What gives…did they release him because he was retired army? I mean this guy was fighting with the terrorist group jabhat al-Nusra. This stinks…maybe the FBI released him because he was probably training al-Nusra for the USG.

Posted by: really | Aug 27 2014 2:22 utc | 61

@61 continued…
…”The government’s terrorism case against Harroun fell apart when it became plain they had confused two different resistance groups in Syria’s complicated menagerie of guerrilla forces. Harroun had fought with one that was not waging jihad for al Qaeda…”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/eric-harroun-us-army-vet-fought-syria-died/story?id=23273218
So al Nusra is not waging jihad for al qaeda. But al Nusra is al qaeda. Oh…that makes total orwellian doublespeak sense. In other words harroun was working for the USG sponsored anti assad al qaeda terrorist group.

Posted by: really | Aug 27 2014 2:40 utc | 63

Obama Wants $500 Million to Train and Equip Syrian Opposition The sum comes out of the president’s new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund
http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/obama-wants-500-million-to-train-and-equip-syrian-opposition-20140626

Posted by: really | Aug 27 2014 3:19 utc | 65

@ myself at #66–
Oops: Looks like its both anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles.
The no-fly zone is no more feasible this year than last year. If the US strikes Daash in Syria (a big if, 24 hours goes by and the talk switches to arming them instead of fighting them) the Syrians will complain formally but do nothing, but if the US goes after Syrian targets than the Syrians will use their missiles.
I gather the Russians are still ready to help with reconnaissance and targeting.
–Gaianne

Posted by: Gaianne | Aug 27 2014 4:05 utc | 67

@66 Don’t underestimate cognitive dissonance. Many U.S. elites really believe the CNN footage of targeted bombing and the number of terrorist and Vietcong killed by our bombs with minimal civilian casualties.
Sam Grant was unemployed drunk who couldn’t get a commission in April 1861 despite 30% of the officer corp leaving and his own combat experience. He didn’t accept Lee’s surrender (technically it was Chamberlain) because he was so gifted. He advanced because half the officers are fighting their grandfather’s war. The other half are fighting their father’s war.
The idea that U.S. air power isn’t invincible or ready at a moment’s notice (example everyone asking why Obama isn’t just bombing ISIS isn’t smithereens right now; moving assets takes time especially after our pivot to Asia began) is unthinkable.

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Aug 27 2014 4:54 utc | 69

@Jsore:
Oh boy, we’re playing slow pitch today!

how you were a young man in Tanzania sipping rum coolers on a dock one evening discussing Edward Said with your university friends and contemplating how you could feel the nebulosity of the resistance forming within your very soul even then. How those evenings haunt you as you come to terms how the narratives of mankind have rolled out before your very eyes.

I was not “a young man in Tanzania,” I was a fucking redneck oil refinery worker, and union shop steward and activist, on an all-black island in the West Indies. I researched our injury record and calculated statistically that operators in my refinery had a 1 in 12 chance of being killed or maimed in a twenty year career in the field. Obviously, that information did not endear me to management. (I was almost killed 6 times in a five year field career.) When I discovered that the water table of the island was being permanently polluted by leaks, and that the EPA was bought off, I began a campaign. My pet was brutally murdered, my life was threatened multiple times, I was put in the most difficult and dangerous jobs 24/7 at work in order to break me; and everyone — including all of my friends — on the Island turned against me because I was threatening “the job market.” To make a long story short, I didn’t have the guts or support system needed to be a Karen Silkwood and backed down, my life and career destroyed. Ironically, the game of global capitalism closed the refinery down several years later anyway: all the jobs lost, water table was polluted, and there was now no hope of recompence.
I hope that doesn’t destroy your cinematic treatment of me, because I’d love to see the film. “I had a farm in Africa…,” and all that rot. Anyway, that is what real life is like, you fool!
Since you are so interested, here’s some more detail: Never went to University (although I was recruited by Princeton), college dropout with one years worth of credits after two years in college — half of which I already had under my belt from AP in high school. I have no University friends, and it doesn’t bother me. Taught for five years at two of the largest Universities in the Boston area. (BU, Clark — Yes, without a degree!) Owned and ran several multi-million dollar businesses. Trainer in second largest oil refinery in the Western hemisphere. Other skillsets/experiencess: Co-op management, organic Foods, museum designer, floristry, woodworker, master carpenter, sailor, Buddhist monk, herbalist, forager, gardener, hunter, animal trainer, animal tracker, animal rescue, folklorist, published poet, started renowned poetry journal in NYC, many years in community radio, activist. Loving caregiver to a mentally disabled family member for many years. Hitchhiked across Canada, and jumped freight trains from Portland to SF. And yes, I’ve spent a good deal of time around Chomsky and Zinn from my work in radio. Nationally aired, helped produce, and syndicated the first (award-winning) radio program about Palestine from a Palestinian point of view, now running over ten years and counting. Currently: unemployed, stone-broke, living in the slums of a small city of 100,000. My neighbors are mostly unemployed too. Lucky ones are on disability. No one’s planning revolution. We live day-to-day around here. Collect cans and scrap metal when the going gets tough. In the last year, I have been through the death of a life companion and a best friend.
Perhaps that is why I am more of a humanist, and less of an strident, self-absorbed absolutist than you. I’ve live a real life, imperfect as it may be, and remain vulnerable to all human frailties and vices. There is nothing theoretical about my life.
What thinkers do I like? First of all, I think for myself. I understand that all historical personages are human, and therefore flawed, like myself. Anyone brave enough to commit his thoughts to paper (as b well knows) is bound to make a few mistakes. Each time period and locale has its own particular historical challenges. I try to take something from every one, if possible. I do not believe that there exists any single system of thinking without contradictions. In that sense, perhaps, I am a Hegalian.
I consider myself a radical leftist, in the sense that radical means going to the roots of things/causes, and leftism is more concerned about providing for the neediest of us rather than providing for the most talented of us.
My motto is, “We all have to find a way to live together here.”
Of course, anything I say in a single sentence short treatment like this is, by necessity, a glittering generality.
I confess that I found Arendt difficult: There were many quotes and references in many languages that I do not possess reading ability in. I was a little disappointed in the level of her insight, but I was equally concerned that perhaps I did not understand her. At the time, she was somewhat beyond me; she is back on the list to re-visit someday.
Thinker who is perhaps closest to me: Michael Parenti, for his realism, his understanding of history, his innate sense of justice, and his refusal to get caught up in suicidal leftist internecine squabbles. (Hi, Louie!)
Yes, Chomsky was a “gateway drug” for me, in helping me break through mainstream propaganda and see the imperial system in all its naked horror, but his refusal to countenance false flag strategies, and his (admittedly) soft Zionism, are fatal flaws.
Person closest to where I am at in growing up Jewish: Paul Eisen, despite our many differences in background and lives, and smaller difference in beliefs. I consider religion to be a series of evolving group cultures. For me, religion is (as are all human conditions, like sexual identity) a continually changing, ever evolving struggle as I grow and change. I do not support the existence of the State of Israel.
I have tried to read every philosopher, political scientist, anthropologist, sociologist, etc. I can get my hands on. The list runs easily into the several hundreds. Being involved in radio, I’ve listened to tens of thousands of hours of audio. These days, I do more reading on the right than the left.
I consider Putin to be the greatest politician of my lifetime (followed by Castro, Mao, and Chavez). Yet, if we lived in a multi-polar world, I would oppose him relentlessly from the left. Such are the contradictions of realpolitik.
Perhaps, that is why I see things so differently from you. I am not an absolutist. I see things with more humanity and understanding of others in their journey, wherever they may be.
Now to you: I sense a smell of (is it Bob Avakian?) the righteous radical, about you — a sense of holy-roller, revolutionary vanguardism. Let me elaborate on what I sense in you from your written record:
Everything is corrupt. (I agree with you here.) Reform is evil; Revolution is good. Everything must be overthrown — all human order and hierarchy. The human costs of overthrowing corruption must not be taken into account. Human lives are irrelevant in achieving true and perfect justice.
Humans are either good or bad. There is no middle ground. The bad must be brought to justice — preferably by death. Individual human growth is irrelevant to the process. There is no room for humans to make mistakes, and to repent and learn from them. “Understanding” is a liberal trait, to be extinguished as inherently evil. Restorative justice, a farce.
Humans, being immutable, having once proposed a plan, are incapable of recanting, changing, amending, or even rejecting that plan.
Bad humans cannot be taught — after all they are evil — therefore, they should be ridiculed and ostracized from society. The quicker and more thorough, the better. Bullying and gatekeeping on blogs is one way of quickly and efficiently separating the vital germ from the chaff. Make no mistake — this is no idyll — but an essential moral mission.
Society’s elan — its pure, vital fluid — must be preserved at all costs, and the best way to do this is to ruthlessly crush anything threatening to adulterate it.
Anyone having any position of power or privilege within society, especially intellectuals — understanding that society is ultimately corrupt — is corrupt. They cannot be trusted, must not be trusted, have nothing to add to any discussion, and must be dismissed and firmly dispensed with.
What others call “ambiguity” or “complexity,” is merely the fig-leaf society accords to moral degeneration, to be wiped out before its infection spreads.
Knowledge equals intellectualism, which equals moral relativism, i.e., making deals with the devil. Anyone with knowledge has a vested interest, and therefore cannot work for the greater good of society, as I can.
Only the true revolutionary can save society. The true revolutionary is pure. Because he has no attachments to society, he has no prejudices; and therefore, only he can be trusted to administer society impartially.
Revolutionary purity cleanses and washes away the dirty life-and-death trials and tribulations of the masses.
Justice is not a gradual and continual process of adjustment, but a one-time upsetting and resetting of the scales.
The revolution is the true end of history, for once the scales of justice are upset and a just order is instituted, change becomes obsolete and anti-revolutionary.
*****
In short, we have a conflict between moral absolutism and moral relativism, the peacock, and the pig.
*****
Oh, before I go, here is a true story for your film treatment of me — I hope you include it:
After a night on the town in St. Barts, my sweetie and I retired to a small bar on the quay overlooking the harbor. Being that we were officially in France, even if really in the Carribean, I suggested we order French drinks. She agreed, and ordered a snifter of the famous orange liquor — Grand Marinier; I ordered a shot of Calvados — the fiery apple brandy of Normandy. Looking at the gaily lit sailboats bobbing up and down in the harbor, we slowly sipped our drinks in silent reverie. She interrupted my thoughts, “Let’s switch drinks. I’ve never tried Calvados.”
We switched, sipped, and continued our reverie.
After a time, she spoke up, “Which do you like best?”
I thought for a while, and then replied judiciously, “It’s kind of like comparing apples to oranges.”
Yes, and every story has its moral.
By the way, your much promised and awaited geo-political “Mein Kampf” never appeared. No worry, I believe that I can guess what it would have said. A nasty man cannot have a humane epistemology.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 27 2014 6:29 utc | 71

@Gaianne 66;
Never thought of that. Nice!
PS-
about Robert Parry-
I do consider him sort of a democratic apologist, and limited hang-out gatekeeper — but, like Sy Hersh, he does perform useful purposes, as he did with mh17: he is not allied with the true (Curtis Lemay) crazies.
I wrote him once with some concerns about an article he had written, a long time ago, soon after he had begun the “blogging thing” — and to his credit, he replied promptly, and answered every concern I had to my complete satisfaction. That doesn’t mean I will agree with him, but it does mean I have a certain respect for him. Heck, I’ve written bloggers who were begging for money (Arthur Silber, for one) about where to send it, and they never got back to me!

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 27 2014 6:45 utc | 73

@Malooga #74:
Yes, I find it very heartening that Parry keeps on pointing out the duplicity of the corporate media when it comes to the former Ukraine.

Posted by: Demian | Aug 27 2014 7:21 utc | 75

The true liberal (as opposed to the Soros/Power liberal veneer r2p social engineering ghouls) segment of the US intelligensia, represented by Hersh, Parry, Stephen Cohen, etc. (along with many on the realist right: Kissinger, Mearsheimer, etc) are truly scared of the very real possibility of world ending nuclear war instigated by the crazy neo-cons. (See: Stanislav Petrov, 1983) Thus, they want an accommodation with RF ASAP, while the US still has the standing to negotiate the best terms. They recognize that the longer they wait, the more US power wanes, the worse the ultimate terms of accommodation will be.
It is complicated to understand for those who insist on seeing Jews as a single united block.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 27 2014 7:50 utc | 77

IS is there to stay, if intended or not.

As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June. The frontiers of the new Caliphate declared by Isis on 29 June are expanding by the day and now cover an area larger than Great Britain and inhabited by at least six million people, a population larger than that of Denmark, Finland or Ireland. In a few weeks of fighting in Syria Isis has established itself as the dominant force in the Syrian opposition, routing the official al-Qaida affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor and executing its local commander as he tried to flee. In northern Syria some five thousand Isis fighters are using tanks and artillery captured from the Iraqi army in Mosul to besiege half a million Kurds in their enclave at Kobani on the Turkish border. In central Syria, near Palmyra, Isis fought the Syrian army as it overran the al-Shaer gasfield, one of the largest in the country, in a surprise assault that left an estimated three hundred soldiers and civilians dead. Repeated government counter-attacks finally retook the gasfield but Isis still controls most of Syria’s oil and gas production. The Caliphate may be poor and isolated but its oil wells and control of crucial roads provide a steady income in addition to the plunder of war.

Basically, it is the summer holidays. Wars are always timed for the summer holidays.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 27 2014 8:42 utc | 79

foff J***** Fried Chicken:
If I’m the “fake left” (whatever that means), and you are presumably THE REAL LEFT, then what are you so upset about? It’s a free blog, and no one is preventing you from making your case here about anything you want.
No one forces you to read what I wrote — so why are you wasting your time? To throw off a snide one-liner? Is that what you consider a critique? Well, so be it.
Take away all the posters that you and your twin brother Jsore don’t like, and all you have is Jsore rantings and a bunch of not-so-funny 4th grade put-downs. Which, I guess, is what you want this blog to be.
By the way, do you guys consider our host, to be a member of THE REAL LEFT? I’m certain he does not see himself that way, at all.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 27 2014 10:05 utc | 81

Vijay Prashad on Islamic Baathism

The second thing they did, because of that, as a consequence of that, was that they basically removed the officer corps from the military, because they were Baath Party members. So you’ve cleansed the military of their most sophisticated people. Well, these are the people, we know, that then formed the insurgency. Many of them will run into Syria, where they will basically regroup and come back and attack the Americans in Fallujah, Ramadi, Tal Afar, these cities in Anbar province. Now, what happens is that at the same time, the most important deputy of Saddam Hussein, who was not captured, Mr. Ibrahim al-Douri, who was the leader of the Naqshbandi sect in northern Iraq—Mr. al-Douri, who’s an interesting, also mercurial character, makes an alliance in about 2006 with the Islamic State. Now, this guy is a career Baathist. And Baathists are fundamentally opposed to Islamism. He reconfigures a very weird kind of Islamic Baathism, makes a link with the Islamic State, and provides the Islamic State, therefore, with the sophisticated battlefield experience of the Baath Party officers. And that ups the game.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 27 2014 10:57 utc | 83

:-))
More from Patrick Cockburn

A fourth reason why conspiracy theories have such currency is that a proportion of them are true. This is particularly the case in Iraq and Syria with their long traditions of Baathist governments which came to power through military conspiracies and were always seeking to detect similar plots against their own rule.
I was speaking last week to a Syrian Kurd asking him about the current Isis offensive which is taking over eastern Syria, capturing oil-rich Deir Ezzor province and assaulting the Kurdish enclaves in the north. We agreed that, given the international furore in the three weeks after Isis captured Mosul on 10 June, there was astonishingly little reaction to or publicity about Isis’s successful new offensive in Syria. The reason for this is that this time international attention is focused on the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
“Do you think it possible,” asked my Syrian friend tentatively, “that Isis might have arranged to have the three Israeli teenagers killed – it certainly has militant cells on the West Bank – knowing that this would provoke an Israeli assault on Gaza and divert attention from its own operations?” I pooh-poohed the idea at the time as one more conspiracy theory based on no real evidence, but thinking it over I am not so sure.
I remember how in June 1982 the Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov was critically wounded in London by three assassins working for the Abu Nidal movement directed by Iraqi intelligence. The aim, successfully accomplished, was to provoke the Israelis to invade Lebanon and become engaged in a war with Syria which was allied with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war and a hated enemy of Saddam Hussein. Israel knew Iraq was behind the assassination attempt but even so used it as an excuse to invade Lebanon to crush the PLO.
Could somebody in Isis, reputedly filled with former cadres of Saddam’s regime, have hatched a somewhat similar plot? For all those ludicrous theories, there are real conspiracies out there.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 27 2014 11:57 utc | 85

LOL
Good ol Patrick
As reliable a bullshit-artist/gatekeeper as any I spose
I remember how in June 1982 the Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov was critically wounded in London by three assassins working for the Abu Nidal movement directed by Iraqi intelligence
Google “Abu Nidal Mossad”
About 27,800 results (0.33 seconds)
Search Results:

• Abu Nidal, notorious Palestinian mercenary, ‘was a US spy …
  http://www.independent.co.uk › News › World › Middle East
  The Independent
  Oct 25, 2008 – His biographer Patrick Seale, who suggests that for some time Abu Nidal even worked for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, has written of …
• Abu Nidal – Mossad terrorist
  http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=7042
  Aug 1, 2007 – Abu Nidal began his long and bloody career in the PLO, only to become a bitter rival of Yasser Arafat. It was a situation that the Israeli Mossad, …
  Northerntruthseeker: The Munich 1972 Olympic Games …
  northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/…/the-munich-1972-massacre-was-psy…
  Jul 23, 2012 – A former senior Jordanian intelligence officer said: “Scratch around inside Abu Nidal’s organization and you will find Mossad.” (The Truth …
• Abu Nidal reportedly worked for the CIA and MOSSAD
  aangirfan.blogspot.com/…/abu-nidal-reportedly-worked-for-cia-and.htm…
  Oct 25, 2008 – A former senior Jordanian intelligence officer said: “Scratch around inside Abu Nidal’s organization and you will find Mossad.” (The Truth …
• The Two Deaths of Abu Nidal » CounterPunch: Tells the …
  http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/…/the-two-deaths-of-abu-ni...
  CounterPunch
  Aug 20, 2002 – … worked for Mossad, Israel’s equally incompetent intelligence service. Abu Nidal was the beast before the beast before Osama bin Laden.
• Abu Nidal, A Gun for Hire, by Patrick Seale – American Buddha
  http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.abunidalpatsealetoc.htm
  He had been sparring with the Mossad for a quarter of a century, and since the early 1980s, he had begun to suspect that the Israelis had infiltrated Abu Nidal’s …
• Operation Wrath of God – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wrath_of_God
  Wikipedia
  This was accomplished with the aid of PLO operatives working for Mossad, and with ….. This attack was either the work of Mossad or the Abu Nidal Organization.

What is it you always smarmingly tell us?
Oh yeah – “google is your friend” 😉

Posted by: JFC | Aug 27 2014 12:22 utc | 87

Posted by: JFC | Aug 27, 2014 8:22:00 AM | 88
Yes that is an interesting story. You also have to read not just google you know.

Iraqi secret police believed that the notorious Palestinian assassin Abu Nidal was working for the Americans as well as Egypt and Kuwait when they interrogated him in Baghdad only months before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Hitherto secret documents which are now in the hands of The Independent – written by Saddam Hussein’s brutal security services for Saddam’s eyes only – state that he had been “colluding” with the Americans and, with the help of the Egyptians and Kuwaitis, was trying to find evidence linking Saddam and al-Qa’ida.
…
Abu Nidal was no stranger to Iraq. He had operated from Baghdad, Damascus and the Libyan capital of Tripoli when the regimes wanted to use him as a “gun for hire”. It was Iraq which paid him to organise the attack on the Israeli ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov, in 1982, an attempted assassination which prompted Israel to accuse Yasser Arafat of responsibility and to begin its disastrous invasion of Lebanon …

Above is by Robert Fisk. So if not true it is a generally shared urban myth.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 27 2014 12:35 utc | 89

@72 FL
Sorry, I don’t have the time to respond to ALL of your tome-post – y’know, working in a coal mine takes up most of my time (does that burnish my blue collar credentials in your eyes enough? nice touch, huh!) – but I will address some points for even though the post in general once again vindicated everything I have said about you, you have provided us some with valuable insights.
1) You’ve provided us all with more data in helping answer the eternal question: are fake left gatekeeping Establishment whores REALLY such clueless nimrods or are they consciously bought-off. Thanks to your response I think we can all safely now lean more towards they are clueless nimrods who have so drunk the pseudo-intellectual nector of their Establishment betters that they have no idea that they are now living and breathing relics, out-moded and obsolete automata that mouth pretty things with the intention of keeping the “debate/discussion” is still alive in the US and one not to be missed.
2) So you aren’t EVEN a credentialed pseudo-intellectual but of the armchair variety. Gee, if I had the perverse desire to pick apart your older posts I’m sure I could piece together a nice profile but – meh – why bother the end’s the same. Birds of a feather.
3) I guess you could call “moral absolutism” what I and others would more likely label NOT TALKING TO FUCKING MASS MURDERING WAR CRIMINALS AND THEIR WILLING ACCOMPLICES YOU THICK-HEADED DOOFUS but if that’s what keeps you plugging along more power to you.
4) Seriously, just go to WordPress, set up a effing blog, write out in their entirety – don’t worry we won’t miss you – each of your tome-posts – or is it really just one long epic-post? – and then – now listen up – LINK to said new FL BLOG when you want to cite some of your pearls – or string after string as the case may be – of wisdom with which you are attempting to enlighten us all with here and then if we so desire – yow – to read your musings in all of their glory we can go there instead of having the simple back-and-forth exchanges you have with people here at MOA serving – somehow – as the thinly-veiled launching pads for the USS Fake Left every time you feel the spirit filling your veins with its sweet sweet ichor. What do you think you’re passing your fake left orals here or something?
Sorry, gotta get back to the dude ranch, oops, I meant coal mine. I did like the Mein Kampf reference that sure was a hoot. Pathetic.

Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 27 2014 13:03 utc | 91

Adding:
Should be “pretty things with the intention of keeping the “debate/discussion” still alive in the US and one not to be missed.”

Posted by: JSorrentine | Aug 27 2014 13:04 utc | 93

Malooga @ 72
i’ll ignore for now the psychosomatic implications of your interminably boring, self-indulgent, show-and-tell bromide (er, i guess that would be just “tell”), but…
“master carpenter?”
now i’m not saying it couldn’t have been doable, in amongst your litany of other triumphs, travails, and travels that is, but perhaps you’re parlaying terms somewhat? i mean, we wouldn’t want to make lite of the MANY years of practice, devotion, and perseverance which typically define the work of the truly accomplished (master) artisan, would we?

Posted by: john | Aug 27 2014 14:04 utc | 95

@97 It’s quite amazing the time and energy that goes into anonymous internet feuding. Must be some kind of cyber satisfaction in it I guess.

Posted by: dh | Aug 27 2014 14:44 utc | 97

@72 malooga to @92 jsore… i will take the honesty @72 rather then all the ‘you’ statements @92 any day of the week.. one is open, the other afraid and hiding behind the ‘you’ statements..

Posted by: james | Aug 27 2014 15:35 utc | 99