Celebrated professor Juan Cole has an excellent post exposing the CIA backing behind of Iraq The Model. It’s time the Bushhitler and his evil propaganda machine were stopped, etc.
OK, enough left-parody. Various hawkish bloggers like Jeff Jarvis have become very upset by Dr Cole’s post. They think that to accuse a foreign writer of being paid by the CIA is a disgraceful, McCarthyite (or Stalinist, depending on the writer’s own personal prejudices) trick.
This is bollocks.
The CIA has an enormous information budget, and has long funded writers, journalists, dissidents and suchlike throughout the world. Given that a great many people have turned to Iraqi blogs to get their info on the situation on the ground, the CIA would be remiss not to offer Iraqis cash to write blandly pro-American propaganda.
ITM consists *entirely* of blandly pro-American, right-wing propaganda – right down to the disingenous, Charles Johnson-esque ‘I used to support the left, right up until they refused to go along with blowing up shit and making piles of naked prisoners, and then I realised this meant they hated freedom’. Sure, some opposing blogs (such as Riverbend) are exceedingly pessimistic and may well be focusing on the negatives and ignoring any positives, but ITM is simply inconsistent with any narrative of occupation by a liberation army ever recorded. Even Allied forces in WWII faced more hostility from the locals (as opposed to the Evil, Democracy-Hating Pro-Terrorists) than ITM suggests is happening in Iraq.
It’s possible that Iraq is actually a historical exception and ordinary citizens do simply lurve the Americans. Perhaps unlikely, but not logically impossible. It’s also possible, and rather more likely, that ITM is a self-deluding Yankophile. But if I had to guess whether or not the CIA was funding Iraqi bloggers, then I’d vote yes. And if I had to pick the Iraqi blogger most likely to be funded by the CIA, then ITM would be right up there.
Juan Cole may be wrong, but he’s saying nothing unreasonable.
It wasn’t just writers that the CIA backed – they were also active in other cultural spheres.
I wonder if we’ll ever truly know just how deeply-rooted some of their machinations are. Certainly it seems unlikely that anything like the impending freedom of info (which, ironically, is causing one of my mates who works in Mayor Ken’s office a right old headache as she has to destroy about four million documents by February) will be implememnted any century soon across the pond. Their recent pretences toward ‘opening things up’ have been farcical to the point of high comedy. Or would be, if they weren’t so pant-wettingly shady.
oops, that was "freedom of info UK drive". Not in a good way to be attempting lengthy constructs at present.
hey. we’re older this week.
"It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters."
Hmmmmmm, http://www.blogger.com. The world’s largest free blog hosting provider…..highly suspicious. But of course, free bandwidth always attracts the most despicable and mercenary of political commentators.
Incidentally, Riverbend also uses Blogger. Of course she’s probably on the take as well, you know you have to front at least one "against" to make the whole scheme look legit. Otherwise some third rate professor-turned-conspiracy-theorist might figure the whole thing out from the comfort of the University of Michigan faculty lounge. SBHP: Standard Black Helicopter Procedure.
You know sometimes you lefties are just too much. I suppose it never occured to you that people might be genuinely happy to be released from shit like this:
http://www.benadorassociates.com/media/r9der1.ram
http://leonsparx.zftp.com/Iraq_Prisoner_Execution.avi
I don’t know what’s harder to stomach, the torture and executions, or the pathetic fucking apologists.
Irrespective of whether you believe the war is a good thing or not, Timbeaux, this is an interesting topic to look into: the targeting of bloggers by the secret services in order to spread a particular point of view. The CIA has infiltrated US media in the past, backed putshist media in Chile in the 1970s, and is suspected even by big media of misinformation in Iraq. The question isn’t whether they are doing this kind of thing, the question is whether their efforts now extend to bloggers (I’m sceptical) and whether this is a legitimate means of achieving their supposed aim (a ‘democratic Iraq’).
Don’t even *think* of asking questions… Lefties are not qualified to ask questions because they are, as a people, hard to stomach, fucking apologist lefties.
…which is exactly the sort of justification Fascists like Saddam use to rubbish their opponents, crush dissent, ultimately to kill and to torture.
But just don’t think about it – Timbeaux says we can’t.
Timbeaux: ITM is wrong to claim that Cole is referring to Californian-based Google subsidiary Blogger, which doesn’t have any presence anywhere near Abeline, TX.
He’s referring to the domain name iraqthemodel.com, which is indeed registered in Abeline, TX via a company called CIATech (no, not *that* CIA – their front companies tend to be rather more subtly named…). This may be because one of their American fans named Jeff Reed registered the domain on their behalf (more on the comments thread here).
"I don’t know what’s harder to stomach, the torture and executions, or the pathetic fucking apologists."
Priceless. I’d suggest probably the torture and executions.
Priceless. I’d suggest probably the torture and executions.
Well, if it falls on the side of ‘pathetic fucking apologists’ being harder to stomach than ‘torture and executions’, it does imply that torturing and executing the ‘pathetic fucking apologists’ would be just about palatable.
"Irrespective of whether you believe the war is a good thing or not, Timbeaux, this is an interesting topic to look into: the targeting of bloggers by the secret services"
Of course it is. Riverbend was the victim of a copycat site RiverSbend, that was an obvious attempt to detract from her opposed point of view. CIA? MI6? Maybe….or maybe just an IT guy in his pajamas with some spare time and a sense of purpose. Speculation is just that, and is precisely what Mr. Cole is doing.
"Don’t even *think* of asking questions… Lefties are not qualified to ask questions because they are, as a people, hard to stomach, fucking apologist lefties."
No, they are hard to stomach because they frequently ask only questions that rather selflishly soothe their own egoes. The possibility that these might be two brothers that genuinely feel saved from oppression and have a desire to help create a democratic nation is dismissed out of hand, and with no evidence stonger than some server in Abilene reffering http://www.-url‘s to blogger so potential visitors don’t get a 404.
"…which is exactly the sort of justification Fascists like Saddam use to rubbish their opponents, crush dissent, ultimately to kill and to torture."
That’s a pathetic excuse for a strawman, and absolutely disconnected from reality. Please grow up.
"Priceless. I’d suggest probably the torture and executions."
Brilliant. Yet it’s A-OK if such exists, as long as it’s not on your tube every day, eh? "Go ahead and rape the next door neighbor, just please close the curtains. I won’t say a word." Like I said, fucking pathetic.
"Well, if it falls on the side of ‘pathetic fucking apologists’ being harder to stomach than ‘torture and executions’, it does imply that torturing and executing the ‘pathetic fucking apologists’ would be just about palatable. "
Damn, you really are clueless. There is just SOOOO many cases and examples of this sort of thing recently. I heard Barbara Streisand was tarred and feathered, Howard Dean was locked in the stocks, Margaret Hassan was kidnapped and executed…..oh wait, that did happen.
Really dude, you should take a year or so off from the conspiracy theories and let your brain dry out. Take a vacation, read some Cicero, think beyond the moment and your immediate surroundings, open the curtains. Ignoring problems does not make them go away.
Straw men, appeals to authority, piss poor grammar – we’re all guilty, but *you’re* the one who said you might prefer to see executions than listen to leftists.
But since you seem like such a nice, open minded guy, I’ll assume from now on that it was a grammatical slip rather than a Freudian one.
Loser is an apt monicer. Since you seem incapable of grasping the point, I’ll spell it out plainly: It is hard to tell which is more disgusting, someone who would willfully murder and oppress, or someone who would could do something about it yet stands idly by, and even claims moral superiority for lack of action! I didn’t say I wanted to see either, but both seem prevalent these days, and deciding which is worse is not an easy dilemma. The murderer is acting out animal passions, the bystander is rationalizing, if you can call it rational.
Perhaps we could contemplate the thought that Iraqis like democracy, and try and separate that from our own prejudices.
I have a lot of time for the health professionals that are standing as candidates in the pro-democracy party that was spawned from Iraq the Model, and fail to understand why there is a willingness to smear these individuals who are only doing what we would hopefully be brave enough to do in similar circumstances.
If their enthusiasm for democracy is to be confused with support for America, then where does that put yourself John?
There needs to be a separation of ideas here, or the people we would ordinarily support will be damaged by our own pet prejudices that we carry with us – which in our democracy are fair enough, but applied to Iraq are meaningless and trivial, or perhaps deadly given the fact that these sorts of allegations might lead to a 55 year old female Pharmacist standing for election being shot or beheaded for being a CIA stooge.
See, it makes more sense in plain English! Try using it more often and people might not think that (heaven forbid) you’re so sick of reading what lefties have to say that you want them dead.
RE my name – this is called ‘self deprecation’ – that is to say, you don’t necessarily have to point it out. In fact doing so could make you seem like a *really* condecending prick.
Finally, may I ask which part of the following sentence you find so offensive (read it a few times if in doubt), just so we know whether it’s the original post you’re raging at, or whether you’re just howling at the moon:
"Juan Cole may be wrong, but he’s saying nothing unreasonable."
I was just recently sorting out old magazines and came across a review of this book here: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, by Frances Stonor Saunders. Art patronage. Now that’s a kind of propaganda we could do more of today.
It’s no conspiracy theory at all that they also sponsored right wing intellectuals and journalists across Europe. In Italy, some people in the media have even come out and admitted plainly to having taken funds directly from the CIA during the cold war. I wouldn’t know how that would translate today in the blog world, it’s not a crazy idea. However, I think there’s no need for money to be involved. Some yankophiles, all over the world, really *are* that fanatical themselves. The more they are outside the mainstream, the more they’ll be excited at seeing themselves as some kind of voice in the wilderness (though pretending they really speak for the "good people" of their country). See those French bloggers hailed by the right wingers. They don’t get paid. They just do it out of sheer love for the new empire.
Anothony seems to think clearly, at least someone in the UK still does.
Loser, anything you may have read into "I don’t which is harder to stomach" is a projection of your own assumptions, and has nothing to do with my grammar. As to the statement on Juan Cole, he most plainly IS stating things which are unreasonable. He does everything but flatly accuse the two brothers of taking money from the CIA to ‘subvert’ Iraqis to democracy (why in the world that would be a sin in the first place is the topic of another discussion), without anything more substantial than blogger referrer links in Texas and an onimous "neocons have deep pockets" line to back up his ideas. Making such statements without a shred of real evidence is the height of irresponsibility, although I’m sure his "Americana Translation Project" tipjar is a bit fuller, and his blogad buyers are happy with the hit-count, ethics be damned.
Making such statements without a shred of real evidence is the height of irresponsibility
Is the blogosphere isn’t that important in the great scheme of things, maybe it just feels that way to the likes of us?
But at least we’re discussing it now. The idea is out in the open, it can live or die as concensus sees fit. But surely a big open market for ideas is *what we want*, isn’t it?