Warmongers Jerk Off To Chrenkoff

Australia's ABC Mediawatch program has chastized a Murdoch journalist, Janet Albrechtson, (think Ann Coulter with an Aussie twang) for promoting the "Good News From Iraq" blog of Arthur Chrenkoff.

The segment reveals that Chrenkoff works for John Howard's Liberal Party, on the staff of Senator Brett Mason. As one commenter said:

Given the breadth and sheer volume of links that Arthur includes in each post one can only assume that a great deal of Arthur's posting occurs during public tax-payer funded work hours. Quite a great deal in fact. So do we now conclude that the Australian tax payer funds this blog???

It's good to see someone on Chrenkoff's case. Like Albrechtson, he is an embarrassment to Australia.

Chrenkoff's "Good News" site is part of a tight little network of US propaganda blogs, including Iraq The Model, Little Green Footballs, Roger L Simon, etc (just check the mutual links on each site).

Any intelligent observer quickly comes to suspect that there is far more to these sites than meets the eye.

For example, Chrenkoff celebrated his blog's first anniversary with some intriguing nods of thanks to supporters including "Major Tammes at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, our special correspondent and tireless translator Haider Ajina, and friends at CENTCOM, various embassies and ministerial offices, who have to remain nameless."

Another example. I became suspicious that Omar Fadhil, one of the bloggers at Iraq The Model, was actually running a Berlin-based radio show. According to my Google search, about the only person in the world who posted a link to this German "Election Radio" show was Australian-based blogger Arthur Chrenkoff, who just happens to be a very big fan of the brothers at Iraq The Model (the feeling is mutual). Chrenkoff's link to the German radio show was included in part 20 of his "Good News From Iraq" series. Surprise, surprise, Omar Fadhil at Iraq The Model then just happened to post a link to Chrenkoff's Good News From Iraq Part 20 story! (click here for my previous post on this)

As regular readers know, I have written extensively about Iraq The Model (see here and here).

The USA has acknowledged that it is running PsyOps in Iraq and it requires little imagination to argue that sites like these are all on the US government payroll.

(story thanks to Tim Dunlops excellent Road To Surfdom).

UPDATE: I am now being attacked by Chrenkoff and his mates like Tim Blair as a conspiracy theory / tin foil hat blogger spouting "blatant insanity". So for anyone visiting from those sites who may be interested in the truth, I present:

A short history of recent "Conspiracy Theories"

1. Saddam has no WMDs.

2. Saddam has no connection to Al Quaeda.

3. Our governments lied to us.

4. The invasion of Iraq was illegal, making Bush, Blair and Howard War Criminals.

5. Israel is manipulating US foreign policy.

6. There is not and cannot be any such thing as a "War on Terror".

7. The invasion of Iraq has actually increased the terrorism threat.

et cetera et cetera et cetera...

Of course you won't hear the truth about these "conspiracy theories" at places like Chrenkoff. If you want to know more, read on....

UPDATE 2: Now someone called Judith calls me an asshole for voicing suspicions about the Kesher Talk website's extensive coverage of Omar and Mohammed Fadhil's trip to the USA (where these Iraqi bloggers just happened to meet with George W. Bush and Paul Wolfowitz in the White House). Predictably, Judith also comes very close to calling me anti-Semetic.

Judith argues that Howard Fienberg has not run Kesher Talk since sometime in 2003, even though he still owns the site. So what does that prove?

My point is that there exists an extensive network of blogs and websites with the mutual objective of spreading pro-war propaganda (if not outright lies). And as I said, given all the lies we have been told, it would be naive to think that none of these sites is on the US (or Israeli) government payroll.

Ask yourself what motivates people like Arthur, Judith, Simon, the Fadhil brothers and Howard? Are they really decent, caring right-wingers who sincerely dedicate their free time to such sites in the belief that the Bush agenda - including the Iraq War - is a great leap forward for freedom? If so, why are they not angry at all these lies we have been told? Indeed, why do they themselves help to spread such lies with such voracity? Or could it be that they are pursuing their own selfish agendas by jumping on the pro-war bandwagon?

I mean... Arthur Chrenkoff just happens to work for a Liberal senator? Come on, folks. Use your heads.

UPDATE 3: Heads up! Here's another US$81 billion being poured down the tube! You folks at the bottom just divvy it up among yerselves, as per usual...

Another Kind Of War Profiteer

Arthur Chrenkoff is back. This time he is flogging his new book. This bit from the blurb is interesting:

He has now closed down his blog to work in politics as well as pursue a writing career.

I still get hits on my previous Chrenkoff post from people Googling "jerk off".

The Best Of BushOut

Top ten posts since I started this blog in 2003:

1. How Bush's friends manipulated Global Oil Prices in the lead-up to the 2006 mid-term elections.

The real question is not why they manipulate oil prices for political profit, but how do they do it...

2. Killing Arabs: Bush, Camus and the Politics Of The Absurd:

Camus’ writing is marked by an intellectual rigor that shines like a bright light through all his work. By contrast, Bush cannot even be bothered to analyze complex issues in anything more than a superficial way...

3. Bush Cites Fadhils For Proof Of "Success" In Iraq:

When the President of the United States of America is reduced to quoting propaganda nonsense fabricated by his own neocon supporters, that's pathetic. When he does so specifically in order to justify failed policies which continue to see dozens, if not hundreds, dead every day in Iraq, that's worse than tragic. It's criminal...

4. Iraq The Model: The Full Story

The NYT article only skimmed the surface of my allegations against the Fadhil brothers, gently suggesting they might be working with the CIA but quickly concluding that they probably are not. So here is the full story, from my point of view, for anyone who is interested...

More on Jim Hake here. More on the Fadhil brothers here. One day I might get around to pulling all this shit together.

5. Warmongers Jerk Off To Chrenkoff

If normal companies are using buzz and direct-advertising techniques, there's no reason to think that the most powerful military complex on the planet hasn't caught on...

More on Chrenkoff here.

6. Bush Versus Confucius

Others are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Others are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.

7. Too Incredible To Be True: The Khaled El-Masri Story

Regular readers might remember that it was not so long ago that this humble blog was - quite incredibly - rated the #2 resource on the Web for a Google search on his name...

More on Khaled El-Masri here. Original Bush Out blog post here. Latest Wikipedia info here.

8. A hit from the Executive Office Of The President Of The United States:

The hit came from Washington, D.C., on April 16th at 11:46:42 pm. It was a Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com) for the words "George Tenet" and it led to this post...

9. My very first blog post, from way back in Feb, 2003:

Who are we? Where are we going? What kind of world do we want to create? ...

The industralised behommeth [sic] of 21st Century "Civilisation" races at full steam towards a destination most thinking people no longer wish to attain... Who built this cursed machine? Who controls it? Should we be trying to stop it, destroy it or re-direct it? Or should we just be jumping off?!?

After centuries of disenfranchisement, subjugation and de-humanisation, the Internet promises to re-empower the individual and unite ordinary people around the globe. Personal web sites like Blogger give us a medium to make our voices heard like never before. This Blog is my voice on the Internet.

10. My second blog post, just two months into the war:

We are now witnessing the collapse of the myriad Bush administration myths about why the USA had to invade Iraq... So now it it time to ask: WHY DID THEY DO IT?

The answer, obvious enough once the other myths are exploded, is OIL.

So, what now? Iraq is perhaps the only nation on earth capable of seriously challenging Saudi Arabia as the World #1 oil exporter. The Americans will clearly want to maintain control of this oil for the next hundred years (or at least until it is all gone). The obvious fix would be to "sell" all the Iraqi's oil to the USA at very attractive prices. In return, the USA will give the Iraqis ... what? Hmmn... How about ongoing military and administrative support? Well, that won't be necessary once the Iraqis regain control of their country and set up a stable, model democracy, right?

Hands up anyone who thinks the instability in Iraq will be resolved anytime soon.

And a follow up more than four years later:

If the truth was obvious to me, a relatively uninformed middle-aged nobody, way back then, why couldn't the whole world see it? Why couldn't our politicians admit it? Why was the media silent? Why has it taken us four long years of lies, and over half a million deaths, to reach this point of public outrage? How on earth did Bush, Blair and Howard manage to get re-elected?

The disturbing answers to these questions tell us much about who we are, what we have become, and where we are going.

I have now spent over four years blogging nearly every day against Bush, Howard, Blair and their Big Money backers. It has been a process of learning and self-realisation as much as a politically-oriented campaign for truth and accountability.

The knowledge I have accumulated has been quite shocking, in many respects, and almost always depressing. Much that was dismissed, just a short time ago, as wild Conspiracy Theory, is now accepted as common knowledge. I have learned a good deal about of politics, business, and Western society, but I have learned far, far more about human nature.

See also this 9-11 timeline.