This from yesterday's exceptionally bad Morning Edition:(Inskeep) "And did you get a sense that things were improving?"When I heard that I didn't know who to be more disgusted with--Fouad Ajami for being such a lying sycophant, NPR for bringing on this Iraq War apologist again, or John Hopkins for giving cover (and money) to such a craven war monger.
(Ajami) "Yes, absolutely. There is a tremendous sense of optimism, some hope invested in this security plan, and some hope invested, to be honest with you, even in the arrival in Iraq of General David Petraeus."
With Ajami we really enter the land of the surreal. "Tremendous sense of optimism." That's a doozy. Ajami goes on to put the blame for the triumph of Shiite extremism in Iraq at the feet of the Sunnis who he charges with putting their faith in the insurgency. Ajami is always looking to put the blame for the Iraq disaster anywhere but on those responsible (no surprise, since as Inskeep tells us in this piece, Ajami is "a writer who sometimes advises the White House.")
As I posted last year, it is very telling to see where blame for the disaster of Iraq will be placed. Instead of seeing the US role in fostering the Shiite extremism in Iraq NPR continues to try and convince us that the main problem is the Iraqis themselves.
(Note: graphic came from this site by way of the now defunct Billimon site, with arrow added for Defendant Ajami.)
6 comments:
Thanks for pointing out the absurdity of Ajami's timeslot-filling nonsense concerning his numerous trips to Iraq. He's sounding as certifiably loony as Thomas Friedman. Of course, there's plenty of money in the loony lecture circuit, and you really don't have to say much of anything. I remember Adjami as the token 'Middle Easterner' on CBS, who was there to supposedly illuminate the issues for the befuddled and scared Heartland. Audiences were so impressed that a bearded Arab (I believe Adjami is of Lebanese background)could sound so 'American', that it didn't matter what he said, and most of it was and is gobbledegook.
A self-correction: Ajami is certainly Arab-speaking but is of Lebanese-Iranian (Shiite) heritage. I mention this only because he is an example of the complexity and subtlety of interrelationships to be found in the Middle East region, which many Americans, as we know, tend to approach with ham-fisted attitudes and actions.
Ajami is also a close friend of none other than Paul Wolfowitz.
Connections=Agenda.
Helpful Ajami bio at Wikipedia.
I remember hearing this stooge on the Warren Olney show over three years ago (six Friedman units), saying how the insurgency was really just a bunch of deadenders and common criminals. Olney, as usual, hadn't done his homework and just "uh-huh'd" his way through the interview. It didn't seem to matter that Ajami hadn't been in Iraq in over twenty years. The Nation had quite a good article on Ajami a long while ago (I'll search for it and get back) tracking his transformation over the years into the kind of "native informant" who stays in the Golden Rolodex by drafting off the bumpers of whoever is in power in Washington.
The Nation article I alluded to is, in fact called "The Native Informant", by Adam Shatz". April 28, 2003 (!). Read it and weep: all of the neocon self-delusion is there already. And here's the link:
www.thenation.com/doc/20030428/shatz
I've got that lovely, photoshopped Billmon masterpiece on my office wall!
Blue Taco,
Thanks of the great link to the Shatz article.
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