Neocons and the Truth: Bitter Enemies to the End by Glenn Greenwald

[Joanne98]

In a July, 2006 article in Rolling Stone — entitled “Iran: The Next War” — the superb journalist James Bamford detailed the shady activities of numerous neoconservatives inside and out of the U.S. Government to plan an attack on Iran. Bamford focused on the role played by Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute and National Review, who created and began implementing an attack scheme in coordination with the Pentagon’s then number-three official, Doug Feith, and Feith’s deputy, Larry Franklin (subsequently convicted of felonies for passing classified information to AIPAC).

A couple weeks after Bamford’s exposè was published, National Review enlisted former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy and talk show host Mark Levin jointly to author a defense of Ledeen and, more importantly, to savage Bamford for writing what they claimed was a pack of lies. The McCarthy/Levin article was entitled “Rolling Smear,” sub-headlined “James Bamford writes a fiction about our Michael Ledeen,” and accused Bamford of being “the latest in a growing crowd of hacks to smear our friend Michael Ledeen.”

McCarthy and Levin specifically attacked Bamford’s disclosure that Ledeen “had arranged a covert meeting in Rome with a group of Iranians to discuss their clandestine help” in attacking Iran. Said McCarthy and Levin:

Bamford, to the contrary, wants to turn the meeting into a nefarious plot by Ledeen and the neocons to push the nation into war with Iran. Yet, anyone even vaguely familiar with Michael’s work knows that he has opposed military action against Iran — notwithstanding that he was years ahead of most experts in accurately portraying Iran’s role as the terror master at the center of the jihadist network.

So Bamford’s claim was “embarrassing” because “anyone even vaguely familiar with Michael’s work knows that he has opposed military action against Iran.” Got that?

Here’s Ledeen yesterday, writing in National Review’s Corner (h/t sysporg):

Time to Attack Iranian Terror Camps?
So says John Bolton, and he’s right. As you know, I have been proposing this for years. I always thought it was only a matter of time before we were compelled to take this action, which is a legitimate form of self-defense. And while we’re at it, we should do the same thing to the Syrian camps as well. It isn’t “sending a message,” it’s acting to protect our guys by fighting back in the proxy war the mullahs have been waging since 1979. Faster, please?

More amazingly, a mere two weeks before McCarthy and Levin wrote that “anyone even vaguely familiar with Michael’s work knows that he has opposed military action against Iran,” Ledeen himself wrote at The Corner that “I would insist that my soldiers have the right of ‘hot pursuit’ into Iran and Syria, and I would order my armed forces to attack the terrorist training camps in those countries.”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/08/8807/

[laststeamtrain]

1. K & R-n/t

[slipslidingaway]

2. K&R thanks n/t

[mtf80123]

3. We have got to DESTROY these filthy neo-con

traitors in November, and finish off their enablers by splitting their party in to so many different factions they will NEVER be able to coagulate into an other equally evil incarnation again!

[Diclotican]

4. Joanne98

Joanne98

The Neo-Cons is just the old nazi party, in other cloths.. Better, and more "Proper" but it is the same goal..World domination,either by force, or by subjection for other nations.. To do this US must have the biggest, meanest military forces in the world. And a whole country, who are willing to do what the neo-cons want them to do..

And the most worrisome about it all, is that the Neo-Cons have just not get it, that the rest of the world would not be DOMINATED by US.. We can be friends, and allied. But not be Dominated by the US just because the Neo-Cons want us to be it... But compared to the Nazis, the Neo-Cons have just humble goal. The Nazis wanted to rule the world for a 1000 year.. The Neo-Cons want just to rule the world for 100 year.... So they say themself..

But then, over to the Iran issue.. Is US was to attack Iran, they must work together some better thing than they was doing with Saddam Hussein, the whole WMD thing was a lie from the get go. And the rest of the world, who had followed the Iraq thing little harder than most american (so it sayes) cold dismiss much of the claim that Iraq have build up their arsenal of WMD. Specially the claim that Iraq was in the making of a nuclear device.. All the time Iraq don't have a working nuclear reactor, it could be almost impossible for Iraq, to build a nuclear weapon.. Iran have a working reactor, but they have also the backing of two big country's The Russian Federation, and the Peoples Republic of China.. Two country who have much interest in Iran, and are not very pleased if US was to define a military offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran.. Specially if chinese and russian expertise was to be maimed, or killed by american bombs.. Specially when The peoples republic of China hold a LOT of US dollar in their wault... If I was mr Bush i would be more carefully to irritate that country any more than he have been doing already.. But then I am not a neo-cons. And I don't believe in military forces alone.. As the Neo cons does..

The Whole issue that the neo-cons, and others on the far right have a thing with, is the fact that Iran since 1979 have not be willing to do US bidding in the Middle East. Before the Islamic Revolution Iran was the "best friend US had in the middle east". In fact it was better than with Israel at that moment in time.. The Iran armed forces was almost given free weapon, that in many cases was denied other friends.. And Iran was also a cornerstone in the cold war, when it come to listing into soviet test in deep Russia.. The whole Russian-Iranian border was filled with american listening post, and in Iran US had also a very interesting listening post, who they was said to get info from deep into the Siberian test sites for the new rockets that Russia in the days was building... Of course United States would deny the whole case. But it could be proved otherwice...

I have no doubt that the Neo-cons, and their enables in Washington DC want war with Iran. They want to strike a blow now that they can do it. In November it could be to late. Maybe the american public want other than more wars. Maybe they even want to se into the inner working of the former Bush jr Administration and also prosecute they who are guilty of crimes.. For the Neo-Cons THIS is the moment, for more wars against "enemies of US".. The whole concept of bombing "terror-camps" in Iran are just a sneak attack against the Iranian forces. And if we ever would find out the truth about this "terror camps" my guess is that this camps was ordinary army camps. Legal under the most concept of the world.. The lie about the Iraq war, was so many, that US have lost all credibility when it come to "prove" anything... And we all know (we who can read and have a little education" that US have a spike in the side for Iran.... The US don't like the Iran of today. They want back the Iran of pre 1978 when every tying was OK, and where US have a farm grip of everything Iran was doing...

Diocletian

Sorry my bad english, not my native language