Antiwar.com Blog

Andrew Cockburn, author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, discusses Donald Rumsfeld’s flawed personality, and history of intrigue, naked ambition, torture and war.

MP3 here. (57:29)

Andrew Cockburn is a writer and lecturer on defense and national affairs, and is also the author of five nonfiction books. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic, among other publications. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Antiwar Radio Exclusive: Revealed by Andrew Cockburn April 18, 2007: When Secretary of State Madeline Albright announced, on March 26, 1997, that Iraqi sanctions would stay in place despite the UN inspectors success it was an effort to preempt UN inspection chief Ralf Ekeus’s pending announcement that Iraq was to be certified “free” of “weapons of mass destruction.” (at 22:40)

MP3 here. (40:31)

This, as Cockburn explains, led Saddam to decide there was no further point in allowing the inspectors access to his palaces. (Former UN inspector Scott Ritter has maintained, including to this radio host, that the only purpose for the inspections after 1996 was to allow American spies the opportunity to assassinate Saddam Hussein.) This allowed Bill Clinton to falsely claim that Saddam had kicked them out of the country, launch his “Operation Desert Fox” bombing campaign (on the day the full House of Representatives were to begin debating Articles of Impeachment against him), and for the War Party to claim to this day that there must have been weapons there.

Also: Cockburn and General Anthony Zinni’s belief that the neocons’ plan B after installing Chalabi as dictator fell through was to deliberately destroy Iraq (that is, all this “failure” is on purpose), the suffering of the Iraq people, Rumfeld’s bogus “transformation” of the military and more…

Andrew Cockburn is a writer and lecturer on defense and national affairs, and is also the author of five nonfiction books. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic, among other publications. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Don’t miss this one: A Dutch documentary (in English) on “Portrait of a Great Taboo: The Power of the Israel Lobby in the United States,” featuring John J. Mearsheimer, Tony Judt, Michael Massing, Larry Wilkerson (!), Daniel Levy, and Richard Perle pretending to be a human being for some sinister counterpoint. I particularly liked Wilkerson on the reasons for the Iraq war: no, it wasn’t oil, it wasn’t those elusive “weapons of mass destruction,” nor was it spreading “democracy” (eh, no kidding!): it was all about the neocons. And Judt has a fascinating analysis of the simultaneous rise of the Lobby and identity politics. Plus great production values, and moody, foreboding music that really sets the right tone. Very effective: check it out.

It was only a matter of time before the World War IV crowd started in on the Virginia Tech massacre: one could hear an audible sigh of disappointment coming from the neocon precincts of the blogosphere as the news came across the wire that the killer was South Korean. Not an Arab –not even a Muslim! Damn!

Oh, but wait ….

The news that the Lone Nut had the words “Ismail Ax” written on his arm when he died provoked a paroxysm of hope in the hearts of our haters. And, naturally, Debbie Schlussel beat Ann Coulter and her imitators to the punch.  Debbie is a bleach-blonde triple-D-cup bimbo-pundit who sounds like a New York Post editorial and looks like someone with second billing at a tenderloin strip joint. She’s been peddling her … shtick for years as the neocons’ Madame Defarge, and if there’s anything she hates more than peaceniks it’s Muslims, to whom she attributes a great deal of the world’s ills. Debbie latched onto this “Ismail” meme like a barracuda on a diver’s leg. Having googled the killer’s name, Cho Seung-hui, she came upon some Flickr photos — posted by an Indonesian woman, in an album titled “My Family” — of someone with a very similar name, who also went under the name “Ismail.” She posted all the photos on her blog, and asked: “Is This ‘Ismail’ Cho Seung-Hui?”

Short answer: No. To begin with, the killer and this “Ismail” don’t look anything like each other. You would have to really want to believe they’re the same person in order to defy the visual evidence that they are two different people. Secondly, the woman who posted the photos, and who knows the person involved, has denied it is the same person, asked people to stop harrassing both her and the other “Ismail,” and is clearly (and justifiably) horrified by the unwanted attention.

That isn’t enough for our determined Debbie, who clearly has an Agenda that needs to be appeased. She wants to know how the kiler got to be such a good marksman, and writes: “So who is Ismail? Is he Cho-Seung Hui? Why did Eldarossell suddenly remove his photo? Just asking.”

The answers, in the order asked, are: We don’t know who “Ismail” is — and neither do you, Debbie. What we do know, however, is that he clearly isn’t the same person as the Indonesian woman’s friend — and that the photo was removed because she didn’t want to cause an innocent person grief. Which is more than anyone can say about Ms. Schlussel.

Can is really be true that some people are so fixated on their swinish agendas that they’d be willing to endanger the welfare — and even the life — of someone who is entirely blameless, and totally unconnected from the horrific events of the past 24 or so hours? My opinion of the neocons has always been quite low, as my regular readers will attest: but it was never this low.

Schlussel’s post is an outrage. It is the equivalent of a violent assault on an innocent person and her family, and it needs to stop. Why doesn’t the brainless bimbo take that sh*t down? Is she really that clueless — or is it sheer viciousness?

And to think that this … woman has a fan club!  

Yes, the best humor is unintentional. Gettaloada how she describes herself on her site:

“Attorney, Columnist, and Hip, Conservative Info-Babe Commentator, Debbie Schlussel is the VRWC’s latest and greatest sexy, blonde, and beautiful commentator. With a law degree, MBA, long blonde tresses, and sports acumen to boot, she’s a red-blooded American guy’s dream.”

She’s a blonde on a bum trip. Write her and tell her to get over herself: writedebbie@gmail.com

 

 

 

Below is the text of a response Michael Scheuer recently sent to National Review regarding their (and others’) misuse of his first book to “prove” a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection. (See here, here, and here.)

Sir,

Mr. A. McCarthy’s blog article referring to the Mr. Joscelyn’s recent reiteration in The Weekly Standard of his apparently controlling fixation on the non-existent, pre-Iraq war, Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection is, I regret to say, ill-informed and perhaps even intellectually mediocre.

Continue reading “Scheuer Corrects National Review, Weekly Standard“

Professor Juan Cole explains the splits and similarities inside the Shi’ite political factions in Iraq, the recent Sadr-inspired protests, accusations that Sadr is the tool of Iran, how our government lies when they blame American deaths on Iran-backed militias, tensions between the governments of Kurdistan and Turkey and the ability of local powers to work out their own problems.

MP3 here. (28:28)

Juan R. I. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Sacred Space and Holy War. His blog, Informed Comment, is a widely read source for Middle East news and commentary.