The New York Sun has a story on the ITM affair that includes these quotes from Spirit of America head Jim Hake:
"Mr. Hake said yesterday that he thought there was a mutual agreement that it was best for Ali not to come because he is running for election to the Iraqi National Assembly.Yeah, meeting Bush and Wolfowitz in the White House is perfectly safe, spouting pro-US propaganda for years is safe, but being accused of working with the CIA on a blog is deadly, hunh? That is the sort of stupid remark that just makes one even more suspiscious of people like Jim Hake and the Fadhil brothers.
'All of us thought because he's doing that, there could be a perceived conflict and it would be better to not make the trip,' Mr. Hake said. 'He may well see that as a disinvitation.... It certainly wasn't intended as a slap in the face.'
Mr. Hake described as 'absurd' the suggestion that the Iraqis are fronts for the CIA. 'The CIA stuff would be really funny if it doesn't actually put them at risk in their country,' he said."
Worse yet is this sort of manufactured crap:
A screenwriter and blogger who had a dinner party for the visiting brothers in Los Angeles last week, Roger L. Simon, said he was "shocked" by Ali's parting message and the flurry of allegations directed at the brothers.One wonders what has got the right-wingers so heated up about all this, if there is really nothing to it?
Mr. Simon accused the Fadhils' critics of assuming that any Iraqi who supports American forces is a CIA stooge. "There's one word for that kind of view: racist. That's saying an Arab can't think a certain way," Mr. Simon said.
See below for more on this, including background.
2 comments:
Crap. I just wrote a whole long thing, and it got ate!
Anywho, the gist of it was like this.
Imagine you were some right-wing, pro-invasion blogger who was sick and tired of RiverBend and Salam Pax.
Wouldn't you link to ITM, making them a widely-read site?
I also talking about Sawt al-Iraq (sotaliraq.com, arabic only). It's the European mouthpeice (london based) of the Dawa Party. The Dawa Party wants Iran-style government in Iraq. ITM has linked to them three times, always in a positive way. I don't think the CIA would do that.
Ciao for now, brown cow.
Oh, and I posted a bit about the New York Sun. It's Rupert Murdoch's answer to the New York Observer (publishes Joe Conason).
Both are on pink newssheet, and appeal to the ten-cent-word crowd.
The Observer is pretty fun, actually. I don't always agree, but then again, I'm on my own here.
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