Greenwald proves some suckers will believe anything!

[geek tragedy]

As the Obama Administration prepared to bomb Syria without congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the “homeland.” A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.

The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group.” After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat — too radical even for Al Qaeda! — administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/28/u-s-officials-invented-terror-group-justify-bombing-syria/


Predictably, the anti Obama fringe began their histrionics about how Obama had lied us into another war, by using the supposedly fake (were the bombs fake too?) khorasan group as the justification for the launch of air strikes.

Only problem is Greenwald lied.

Several hours after the Pentagon announced the airstrikes against Islamic State targets, U.S. Central Command said American warplanes also launched eight airstrikes "to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests" by a network of al-Qaida veterans — sometimes known as the Khorasan Group — who have established a haven in Syria. It provided no details on the plotting.

But, Khorosan was the justification for the strikes on ISIL, right?

Nope, Greenwald lied about that too.

Dempsey said the decision to launch both operations simultaneously was influenced by a concern that word of strikes in eastern Syria could prompt the al-Qaida veterans to disperse. The Khorasan Group "may have scattered" if the attack missions had been done sequentially rather than simultaneously, he said.

As it turns out, the US cited its attacks on ISIL as the reason it bombed Khorosan.

When will people stop placing their naive trust in this con man?

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. Just call him The Pied Piper.

[TheSarcastinator]

3. we could call you the pied piper of ad hominem

Keep blowin' that war bugle and telling lies. Enough people will believe you -- they always do.

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. Well, you certainly could. Oh, and welcome back.

[TheSarcastinator]

2. your ad hominem attack is neither accurate nor impressive

Try again.

[phleshdef]

26. You need to look up "ad hominem". This was a direct annhilation of Greenwald's credibility by the OP

[Aerows]

32. There are some direct annihilations of credibility going on in this thread

but I don't think they are where you would like to believe them to be.

[merrily]

108. Wasn't the Sarcastinator replying to Reply #1, not the OP?

Besides, calling someone, for example, a con man, as did the OP, is ad hominem, even if you believe that other parts of the OP proved that Greenwald's story was erroneous.

[arcane1]

4. I trust neither Greenwald nor the government on this topic

It sucks to be me

[geek tragedy]

5. Trust your own brain.

One should be skeptical towards any agenda-driven narratives.

[Aerows]

8. Intelligence is assessing facts.

Wisdom is recognizing a history and a pattern.

[VanillaRhapsody]

62. no...wisdom is knowledge and good judgement....

I think he has been proven to possess neither....

[Electric Monk]

71. Knowledge is: Tomatoes are fruits. Wisdom is: Don't put tomatoes in your fruit salad. nt

[Union Scribe]

14. "be skeptical towards any agenda-driven narratives"

Now does that include yours or just Greenwald's?

[geek tragedy]

20. People should read the material I

quoted and cited, and make up their own mind.

[arcane1]

15. The problem comes when every narrative has an agenda behind it :(

[AgingAmerican]

115. Your narrative

...is agenda driven.

[Aerows]

7. When you see the same

theater being enacted over and over again, just with a different cast, it gets difficult to believe that "this time" the plot has changed.

[geek tragedy]

11. Greenwald misrepresented basic facts .

Khorosan was not the reason given for bombing ISIL.

That lie is the only thing that kept his theory that the US bombed an empty patch of desert from falling apart at the seams. Because without that lie he has no motive for the governed supposedly fabricating the story.

He could have been semi-factual and accused the government of exaggeration.

But, being Greenwald, he didn't find the truth satisfactory, so he had to claim that there is no group of Al Qaeda alums in west Syria. And he had to fabricate a bullshit motive to make his nutty theory make sense.

[Aerows]

18. I'm seeing some misrepresentation of facts, lately

but it isn't Greenwald that is doing it. I realize it is easy to hate him because he brings up unpleasant truths, but unpleasant as the truth may often be, it doesn't make it any less factual.

This isn't my first rodeo, GT. Fool me once, I won't get fooled again and all of that.

[geek tragedy]

25. Was Bush lying when he claimed Saddam had used

poison has against the Kurds?

You are failing to allege a motive for the USG to fabricate this story.

[Aerows]

27. So are you. n/t

[geek tragedy]

29. Not sure I understand that claim. nt

[Aerows]

30. I don't understand yours, either, so we are even. n/t

[MohRokTah]

47. So what is Obama's motive for doing what Greenwald claims?

Could you just answer the question?

[VanillaRhapsody]

64. of course not....

thinking about stuff like that spoils a good narrative...

[Major Hogwash]

84. That never stopped him before.

So why should he bother to check facts now?

[randome]

9. "No imminent threat"?

Sure, let's wait until they are. You know, like Bush, Junior did.

And anything to say about Russia, Mr. Greenwald? In scales of illegality, I'd say Putin and Russia are wayyy ahead of America.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Union Scribe]

13. You don't have faith the NSA will keep us safe? nt

[Aerows]

19. Oh my.

That's gonna leave a mark!

[randome]

22. No NSA booster, here.

Also not a sneaky thief stuck in Russia.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Aerows]

28. No dog in this show!

[randome]

34. Oh! That's gonna leave a mark, too!

Not.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Aerows]

35. Nah.

I just did that for my own entertainment and yours

[Luminous Animal]

55. Imminent threat is the legal standard, both domestically and internationally, for

waging a war of aggression.

[merrily]

109. It all depends on what the

definition of "is" is. Or the definition of "imminent."

And, of course, we've also redefined "war." Now, bombing from the air apparently is not war.

Only "boots on the ground" is war now, especially if you don't count about 2000 pair of boots on the ground as "boots on the ground."

Or, as Nancy Pelosi former Speaker of the House herself, recently put it, when asked if a vote were required by, you know, the Constitution of the United States of America, "Oh, well, we use 'war' for a lot of things, War on Drugs, War on Poverty......."

And, thanks to our corporate establishment media, no one asked a follow up question or even looked quizzical or incredulous. Well, no one in camera range, anyway.

[Cayenne]

130. "boots on the ground" can still be twisted into "police action"

[merrily]

134. Police Action, advising, and my personal favorite "Era,"

as in the "Vietnam Era."

We simply living during an era, a period of time, only some of us--mostly younger males--were living abroad during that period of time. War does not get more sanitized than that.

Now, of course, it's "generational," meaning it's never going to end. We are just going to keep passing it tenderly from one generation to another, like great grandma's engagement ring.

[Vattel]

76. seriously, dude. preventive war is what we got in iraq.

you gonna defend that here?

[JI7]

10. it just comes off as kind of sad now

[Union Scribe]

12. The bombs are never fake

And they are always very, very expensive. When will people stop placing their naive trust in killers and warpigs?

[geek tragedy]

24. Certainly describing the President as a "war pig"

should convince everyone of your arguments' merits.

[mimi85]

101. Truth!

[MohRokTah]

16. Some lap up whatever pablum that Libertarian nutbag writes. eom

[Historic NY]

42. +1000

perhaps IS can mail them some heads.....

[VanillaRhapsody]

65. I will double that!

[ret5hd]

89. Or the Saudis.

[FSogol]

49. +1. Exactly. n/t

[MrMickeysMom]

95. Oh…

[gratuitous]

17. I must be missing something

The Khorasan Group, something that nobody had heard of last month, became an existential threat to the United States, on the brink of "imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests" (whatever that means, I don't translate from weasel-speak). As such, U.S. Central Command lobbed eight airstrikes (I don't know how many bombs that translates to, but I'll guess at least eight) into the area. Those bombs weren't meant for ISIL, they were meant for Khorasan, but the U.S. didn't mention the existence of Khorasan before dropping the bombs because Khorasan "may have scattered," presumably because U.S. bombs meant solely for ISIL wouldn't have harmed the people identified posthumously as Khorasan. Which somehow means Greenwald, and only Greenwald, is lying.

Seems legit.

[leftstreet]

21. LOL It's a Centcom Haiku

[geek tragedy]

23. If you want to argue that the media and government

exaggerated and hyped the threat, I will not disagree.

But, Khorosan was not used as the justification for the first round of air strikes inside Syria. So that does raise the question of whether it's plausible that the Obama administration would lie on a criminal level with no apparent motive.

[gratuitous]

31. Or . . .

Would they lie afterwards when it turns out that some of their bombing was (shall we say) indiscriminate?

Nahhhh! Whoever would do a thing like that? I'm going to go with the Roundabout Theory of Fooling Glenn Greenwald Again to Discredit Him Even Though Nobody Lends Him Any Credence Because He's Always Wrong About Everything. It's genius!

[geek tragedy]

36. Your theory is not what Greenwald claimed nor

is there a hint of a shred of a speck of evidence to support it.

[VanillaRhapsody]

66. hahahahaha....Yeah...that is President Obama..."indiscriminate"...

hahahahahaha....

Probably the most deliberative President we have ever had.....and you think he would do THAT indiscriminately????


ahahahahahahahaha..I cannot stop laughing at that thought!

[msanthrope]

44. Um...just because you didn't hear of them doesn't mean I didn't....a decade ago.

Search my username and "Khorasan."

FyI....you heard of al-Asiri, right?

[Luminous Animal]

58. The name doesn't even show up on the UN's terror list.

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf/AQList.pdf

[G_j]

112. "weasel-speak"

you got that right! That's always been the MO since I can remember, which would be from the days of the Vietnam war. Truth is not part of the equation.

[gratuitous]

116. I'm being reminded of a cartoon

A poor archer aims at the side of a barn, and many of his arrows go astray. Instead of admitting he's not very good, he goes and draws targets around the wayward arrows sticking out of the wall, making it look like each and every one was a bulls-eye. This is looking to me like we bombed a whole bunch of places we didn't set out to bomb, but now we've drawn in the targets and labeled them "Khorasan Group." America, fuck yeah.

[Enrique]

33. Greenwald is doing reporting

this OP is doing spinning.

[geek tragedy]

38. No, he 's telling you what you want to believe.

Tell us in your own words why Obama committed criminal- level fraud in ordering the intelligence agencies to fabricate the existence of the Khorosan group.

And then explain why you do not think he should be impeached.

And then ask yourself why you do not allow for the possibility that maybe Greenwald's portrait of the President as a bigger warmongering liar than Dick Cheney should be accepted without skepticism.

Hating the president is an opinion that can't be true or false. But it certainly creates bias.

[DonViejo]

39. Disagree. I think it's opinion, not reporting...

not taking sides in the Greenwald vs the opinion expressed in the OP, just disagreeing about reporting vs opinion.

[Historic NY]

45. Reporting from a safe distances....

is not reporting its regurgitating.

[Major Hogwash]

37. Greenwald wants Rand Paul to be the President.

That's why he writes tripe like this.

It's amazing to me that he thinks his supporters will believe any of his bovine excrement.

I thought all of his supporters were only posting over at FireDogLake these days, another truly worthless blog.

[MannyGoldstein]

43. Indeed, you have lived up to your name

Please supply a link to Greenwald endorsing a Libertarian for any position, or please consider removing your post.

[OilemFirchen]

53. Oh my.

This from the quintessential scapegoat? Emmanuel Goldstein was the perfected Khorasan Group.

[Major Hogwash]

83. Hahaha!!! That's a good one.

Like that hasn't been said to me 1000 times before!!!

[MohRokTah]

48. Based upon his DU following, I would estimate between 3 and 5% of DU will be...

voting for Rand Paul in 2016.

Could be more, too. I'm trying to give at least a modicum of a benefit of the doubt.

[Historic NY]

72. My answer is F-CK them both.

[Major Hogwash]

81. No kidding.

They are like two peas in a pod.

[mimi85]

103. Yep, joined at the hip.

[wandy]

40. Well if you wont believe Greenwald You might believe Andrew C. Mcarthy............

Using some of the exact wording and defiantly reading from the same script the Andrew C. Mcarthy {1}piece in the The National Review{2} should convince you.

There is a reason that no one had heard of such a group until a nanosecond ago, when the “Khorosan Group” suddenly went from anonymity to the “imminent threat” that became the rationale for an emergency air war there was supposedly no time to ask Congress to authorize.
You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan — the –Iranian–Afghan border region — had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.

The “Khorosan Group” is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network’s Syrian franchise, “Jabhat al-Nusra.” Its leader, Mushin al-Fadhli (believed to have been killed in this week’s U.S.-led air strikes), was an intimate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda who dispatched him to the jihad in Syria. Except that if you listen to administration officials long enough, you come away thinking that Zawahiri is not really al-Qaeda, either. Instead, he’s something the administration is at pains to call “core al-Qaeda.”
“Core al-Qaeda,” you are to understand, is different from “Jabhat al-Nusra,” which in turn is distinct from “al-Qaeda in Iraq” (formerly “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” now the “Islamic State” al-Qaeda spin-off that is, itself, formerly “al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Sham” or “al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant”). That al-Qaeda, don’t you know, is a different outfit from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula . . . which, of course, should never be mistaken for “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,” “Boko Haram,” “Ansar al-Sharia,” or the latest entry, “al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388990/khorosan-group-does-not-exist-andrew-c-mccarthy

Still not convinced
Rush Limbaugh {3} exposed parts of the new administration lie on his radio show as early as 09/24/2014.
http://www.mrctv.org/audio/limbaugh-sees-through-obama-admin-ruse-khorasan-group-distinct-al-qaeda

{1}National Review (N.R.) is a semimonthly magazine founded by author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review

{2}Andrew C. Mcarthy

During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Andrew McCarthy wrote a number of posts on the National Review's Corner blog stating that he thought that Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, was not serious about protecting US national security against threats from radical Islam and elsewhere, and that Obama had a number of troubling ties and associations with leftist radicals.
In an opinion posted on the blog 'the Corner' on 10/22/08, Mr. McCarthy wrote "I believe that the issue of Obama's personal radicalism, including his collaboration with radical, America-hating Leftists, should have been disqualifying."
In May 2009, Mr. McCarthy provided details of a letter declining an invitation from Attorney General Eric Holder for a round-table meeting with President Barack Obama concerning the status of people detained in the War on Terror. Mr. McCarthy noted his dissension with the administration in their policies regarding the detainees. On December 5, 2009 he came out publicly against prosecuting Islamic terrorists in civil courts rather than military tribunals, saying "A war is a war. A war is not a crime, and you don’t bring your enemies to a courthouse."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_C._McCarthy

{3}Rush Limbaugh Highly acclaimed Right Wing propagandist and GOP Bull Shit artist. Historical references Axis Sally, Tokyo Rose.

So, we have to ask the question.
Is our gubbernment and Obama lying to us again or is this just another Right Wing story of the day?
Hay, its out on them 'dar internets so it has to be true.

For my part, I'll just wait for Josie (the teller of Ferguson, Mo truth) to tell about it on some intertube radio program.
Damn, no one reads a script like Josie.

[OilemFirchen]

56. That was a thing of beauty, wandy. (n/t)

[Bobbie Jo]

70. Excellent post. nt

[840high]

73. Thank you.

[emulatorloo]

87. Well done, thanks. n/t

[jeff47]

91. So...lying makes lying the truth?

There is a reason that no one had heard of such a group until a nanosecond ago, when the “Khorosan Group” suddenly went from anonymity to the “imminent threat” that became the rationale for an emergency air war there was supposedly no time to ask Congress to authorize.

This is a lie.

The Obama administration did not claim Khorosan Group justified the airstrikes. They claimed ISIS justified the airstrikes. They also claimed they were hitting Khorosan at the same time.

Also, no one claimed there was no time to ask Congress. The massively over-broad AUMF passed in the wake of 9/11 makes both groups valid targets. Making there no need to ask, not no time to ask.

[wandy]

92. Well juggling lies is a lot like juggling apples.........

It's hard to keep all those balls in the air and not get confused and reuse a line from time to time.
Then and again its hard to remember if the dictator did not notify congress in the Khorson script or was that line already used in the Bowe Bergdahl script.

The House voted Tuesday to condemn the Obama administration for swapping five Taliban soldiers for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl without giving Congress enough notice, and approved the measure with the help of more than a dozen Democrats.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/09/09/22-dems-join-gop-to-condemn-obamas-prisoner-swap-for-bowe-bergdahl/

Well only two things matter here.
* The writers of the master copy get paid well.
* The rank and file will believe what they are told because they want to believe.

To the teapublican base the lie they wish to here is the truth.
I would just love to read the Master Copy for just one of these story of the day BS articles.

[Major Hogwash]

100. Jesus Christ! It's almost the same script, almost verbatim.

From Glenn Beck to McCarthy to Greenwald.

Almost like Tinkers to Evers to Chance!

[wandy]

105. I have found this to be a common factor over much...........

of the current Right Wing propaganda. It is as If a "master copy" containing critical keywords and objectives is created and then various outlets are asked to 'put it in their own words' retaining the overall message and as many of the hard hitting key words (dog whistles) as possible.

In the script "Diseases of the Twelve Year Old Terrorists", the ailments brought by children across the southern border appears as an ordered list with each ailment having a fixed place in the news item.

No matter who presented and had independent first friend of a friend knowledge, "Josies's Tale" (the account of the attack on Officer Darren Wilson) the keywords "bum-rushes" and "Punches him in the face" were always used.
Now when was the last time you heard the expression "bum-rushes" used in every day speach. It was used by every friend of a friend or person in position of authority who wished to remain anomalous.

I imagine that at first the story of the murder of Michael Brown did not appear as important as proving that Obama lied us into war so stop complaining about how Bush lied us into war.
The "Obama lied us into war" tale is important enough to involve heavy hitters such as Limbaugh, McCarthy and Greenwald.

Using Josie's tale I tried to document the progression of RW propaganda here.......
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025400792

As this story appears to be gaining Benghazi like traction on the RW Bull Shit hit parade, I should probably collect my notes and put them in an OP to be appended as new events unfold. Who knows, this story could be as important as the "Blue Dress" for the repeat of the Clinton game plan.

[stevenleser]

119. I have noticed the exact same thing re:

"It is as If a "master copy" containing critical keywords and objectives is created and then various outlets are asked to 'put it in their own words' retaining the overall message and as many of the hard hitting key words (dog whistles) as possible. "

There is clearly a lot of coordination that goes on in conservative media and political circles. They coordinate and work together very efficiently to promote their agenda.

[Major Hogwash]

122. Sean Hannity used to send out an e-mail every morning regarding GOP talking points

I think Rush was the author of a daily e-mail that he referred to as "today's talking points", and he sent them to Sean, and then Sean passed them on to a lot of the other right-wing pundits.

[wandy]

123. We may not be the only ones who have noticed. Thom Hartman has his view of this.....

If you have not checked out Thorm's " Terror Politics" are Back with a Vengeance" its worth taking a look at.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017218179
Boehner starts expressing his opinion of 'boots on the ground' at around 8:20. It gets really interesting at around the 9 minute mark.
Not exact but,
Is Boehner talking off the top of his head, did he just have his forth gin and tonic? Typically when they roll out a new talking point, they sat down with Frank Luntz, they tested the focus group, somebody rolls it out and over the next 24 hours it comes out on RW talk radio it comes out on Fox news it comes out here there and everywhere.

This is the pattern I see here, the same pattern used for Josie's tale.

[mimi85]

102. I trust Greenwald as much as I trust Ted Cruz.

[OilemFirchen]

41. I LOVE First Look at Me Media!

Every two weeks or so, almost like clockwork, they publish something mostly untrue about a subject generally irrelevant by has or never-been quasi-left-neo-anarcho-authoritaian "journalists" on the payroll of a multi-billionaire oligarch who attempts to influence national and international politics with greenbacks.

There's something Zen-like about it all.

[LawDeeDah]

46. Wasn't he supposed to reveal something extraordinary? Name names, or something.

Bring the U.S. government to its knees?
I haven't been following, I could have missed a great catastrophe he said would happen.

[VanillaRhapsody]

68. Yeah we are still waiting for THOSE shifts in the Tectonic Plates!

[Chan790]

50. "When will people stop placing their naïve trust in this con man?"

Never. They will never stop because to stop would be to be forced to confront that their own anti-war position is untenably naïve and accept that they were wrong.

It's a lot like the Emperor's New Clothes in reverse. Rather than it being the Emperor who is willfully unaware of his nudity, it's the teeming seething mass of fools whose bare asses are on public display.

Glenn Greenwald is the yellow journalist of our age. No lie too grandiose to tell if it sells publications and there are still self-selecting dupes to believe it because it confirms their own biases. If the real media ever decides they're through with his shit, he can always get a job for Star or National Inquirer.

[flamingdem]

93. Right on.

[mimi85]

104. Or the New York Post or Huffpo. nt

[FSogol]

51. K&R. n/t

[VanillaRhapsody]

54. Because like Fox News does for their audience....

he tells them what they WANT to hear....that is all.

[Autumn]

57. Yes he does indeed prove that some suckers will believe anything

That man is awesome.

[Threedifferentones]

59. Where exactly was Greenwald's big lie?

He contends that the claims of an imminent attack on America are just an excuse for a violent foreign policy that benefits only the owners of the MIC, ie Halliburton, the Carlyle Group etc.

How does the fact that ISIS is the excuse to bomb this other group and not vice versa challenge that point of view at all? Nitpicking like this most definitely qualifies as "missing the forest for the trees."

The fact of the matter is that if a Republican were president this policy would not have any defenders on DU. I am one of those who does not believe it is suddenly right because Obama is in charge of it now, and nothing in this OP challenges that view one bit.

[geek tragedy]

98. Actually, when Bush was bombing Al Qaeda instead of Iraq he had wide support

amongst Democrats and yes self-described liberals. You can check out the roll call of the 2001 AUMF against Al Qaeda if you don't believe me.

His theory is essentially that Obama is a bloodthirsty war pig, which is derived from his intense personal hatred of the President.

[Threedifferentones]

111. Actually, when I started reading this forum in 2003 there was widespread criticism of the wars.

Actually, ten years ago no one on DU was supporting the wars at all, but many were very critical of them. Not so much these days. What has changed? Certainly not the necessity nor justness of the wars.

Actually, where was the big lie here? The latest general appointed to war monger says that we bombed Khorasan because we were worried that the other airstrikes in Syria would scare them off. Greenwald meanwhile believes that mentioning Khorasan and their "imminent terror plot" was just another way to sell these airstrikes to the American people. We'll never be certain, but Greenwald is probably still correct about even this minor detail.

The MIC has a VERY long history of telling lies to justify wars, dating long before the term was even first coined by Eisenhower. The USS Maine? The Gulf of Tonkin? Of course 9/11 actually happened, but the connection to Iraq? Is it really so outlandish to suspect these latest excuses are also lies? I'll never understand people who suddenly started to trust the military and the industries that profit from it because a D took office. Wake up!

[geek tragedy]

117. Greenwald is claiming Khorasan was fabricated to provide

justification of air strikes against ISIL.

[Marr]

60. Must suck to have your brain regularly spanked by people like Greenwald.

I don't even mind the yelps of cognitive dissonance anymore. They're just funny.

[VanillaRhapsody]

69. The only brains Greenwald is spanking.....are of the people that pay attention to his nonsense....

[karynnj]

61. Thank you

Greenwald was completely dishonest in his article. The fact is that if Khorasan were the fake reason for the attack, that argument would have been made BEFORE the attacks. Not to mention, the name EVERYONE would be tired of hearing would be Khorasan. In fact, I had to scroll back to look at what you wrote to be able to spell it.

The reason given was ISIL. The Congressional hearings were on ISIL. Though some have said that ISIL is less a threat HERE than many thought, it is real and a threat to the region.

[Vattel]

63. You seem to imply that you agree with Greenwald that Obama's attacks on ISIS are illegal.

Since the attacks, according to you, are not intended to address an imminent threat by the Khorasan Group, and ISIS poses no imminent threat to the US, the attacks against ISIS cannot be justified on grounds of self-defense. And they do not have UN authorization. So it looks like they are illegal.

[geek tragedy]

97. They US justification is that they are defending Iraq.

There is a sick irony about that of course, given how we got here.

Whether it is a viable international legal argument, like most discussions of international law, is a matter of academic debate. No state actor really has a problem with the US helping purge the region of ISIL. So the matter of legality becomes moot as there is no adverse legal party.

Greenwald certainly rejects Obama's reasoning. But satisfying Glenn Greenwald's legal theories has never been a motive for this White House.

[Vattel]

110. The point about the absence of an adverse legal party is well-taken.

However, I don't see why you think that the question of legality is debatable.

[stevenleser]

120. It's not debatable. It's a legal war. States are allowed to petition other states to...

... assist with the apprehension or elimination of criminal elements within their states. That is not considered a war crime under international law.

The first step for it to be an illegal war would be for one of the states where the conflict is taking place to claim that the US is engaging in an unprovoked war of aggression within their borders. That is not happening.

[Vattel]

124. I think it is more complicated than that.

Syria has not granted the US permission to wage war within its borders. Thus, as you suggest, the best legal justification for the US going into Syria is to appeal to Iraq's asking the US to help it defend itself against ISIS. But that limits the scope of what the US can do to attacks that protect Iraq from ISIS. Our strikes are not going to be limited in that way.

[stevenleser]

127. Syria has been notified and they have not complained to the UN or any international agency.

If that happened, it would be very interesting to see the determination of the particular agency. Syria and Iraq both want the US to take out ISIS therefore we have no potential war crime here.

[Vattel]

128. I see your point and you might be right. Still, not saying no doesn't mean yes.

And if Syria does decide to complain, we might not have a legal leg to stand on.

[n2doc]

67. If you wish to believe the Pentagon and the CIA, given their histories, go ahead

You must already own the Brooklyn Bridge, right? Got it for a song!

[geek tragedy]

99. Greenwald is blatantly lying about the admin's justifications. What he says their justification for

bombing ISIL is absolutely not what the actual justification being used is. It's in black and white.

[Capt. Obvious]

74. Without reading the body of the OP

I'm posting an O/U of 31.5 Rec's abased on the keyword of Greenwald.

Taking bets.

[Andy823]

85. If it were an Obama bashing thread

There would already be over a 100 recs. Guess there are more Obama bashers than there are those who see through Greenwalds BS.

[riderinthestorm]

113. Lol. I didn't even read the OP. Just checked the recs -yup, the usual tribe.

Was curious only to see if there were any newbies...

[Capt. Obvious]

114. I was initially going to set the number at 26.5

but figured there would be homer bias in the rec count.

[Rex]

121. Hmmm...missing a few names.

But not many.

[Capt. Obvious]

125. I need to start putting in a time limit on my O/U lines

without one everyone will just bet the over.

[FlatStanley]

75. I trust my President (TM)

[Chathamization]

77. What Greenwald said matches the quotes you provided...not seeing the "lie" here...

Greenwald:

Once the bombing campaign was underway, ISIS — the original theme of the attack — largely faded, as Obama officials and media allies aggressively touted attacks on Khorasan leaders and the disruption of its American-targeting plots.

You:

Only problem is Greenwald lied.

Several hours after the Pentagon announced the airstrikes against Islamic State targets, U.S. Central Command said American warplanes also launched eight airstrikes "to disrupt the imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests" by a network of al-Qaida veterans — sometimes known as the Khorasan Group — who have established a haven in Syria. It provided no details on the plotting.

That's, like, the same thing man. Are you just checking to see if we're awake?

[DisgustipatedinCA]

78. I absolutely detest lying pieces of shit. Let's get to the bottom of this.

Point out Greenwald's lie in a way that's understandable to readers of the English language (in other words, nothing like the word salad you've already posted). I've read the entire Intercept article. I haven't read other material you posted with no attribution or links, for obvious reasons.

You've accused Greenwald's of lying. That's a serious charge to level against a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Let's find out more about lies and the lying liars who tell them. If you can show me that Greenwald's is lying, I'm done with him.

The onus is on you.

[geek tragedy]

96. Right here.

As the Obama Administration prepared to bomb Syria without congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the “homeland.” A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.

The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group.”

So, this is Greenwald's central claim--the administration wanted/needed a 'legal justification' for bombing ISIL inside Syria. And that it fabricated the Khorasan group in an act of massive, depraved fraud exceeding yellow cake and Gulf of Tonkin in their sheer mendacity and warmongering bloodthirstiness!

There is a very easy way to test Greenwald's claim: did the United States government rely upon the Khorasan group as its justification for bombing ISIL?

The answer is an easy one: no.

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/23/6836195/read-us-letter-to-un-security-council-claiming-self-defense-justifies

The admin is relying upon Article 51 (collective self defense on behalf of Iraq's government) to justify the attacks on ISIL. It is citing Khorasan as justification for attacking Khorasan.

So, Greenwald's claim that Obama was relying on Khorasan to justify bombing ISIL is a big fat lie.

So, Greenwald's argument now is reduced to arguing that Obama fabricated Khorasan so he could bomb them. Which is another way of saying Greenwald has gone Infowars.

[stupidicus]

79. too funny

an intelligent and honest deconstruction of what GG wrote would be -- "in an effort to inject "imminence" into the bombing equation, and to at least attempt to satisfy the "legality" requirements under domestic law via the WPA and 2001 AUMF grounded in it, a "group" was disclosed..." He's not saying that bombing that group was the sole reason for all the bombing, nor that it's the reason why ISIL was attacked, he's saying that they've both been wrapped up into an appealing enchalada warmonger apologists are likely to swallow whole because the attack on the AQ-related group provides the tasty seasoning known as "imminence" that makes the entire effort palatable.

I'm sure GG is as bewildered -- as any intelligent and honest person would be -- as to how that made bombing inside another country "legal" under international law, when neither the bombing of the Taliban nor the SH forces in Iraq were on the same grounds -- a lack of a UNSC resolution authorizing it. Syria's gov has no more of a role in the efforts of those bombed than the Taliban did with the actions of AQ here.

But I suppose that attacking GG is more important than taking license with the law in this instance, since it's a dem pres, no?

GG didn't "Lie", he just apparently uses rhetoric some have difficulty properly deconstructing, or in the alternative, lack sufficient objectivity to even try due to GGDS.

[Rex]

80. Nah, suckers believing just about anything is a time honored tradition.

[WillyT]

82. Is That Your Completely Unbiased Opinion ???

Because... calling other DUers "suckers", would seem some sort of violation.

[Andy823]

86. Funny thing is

It seems like the Obama haters are pretty much the sam ones who idolize Greenwald.

[Turbineguy]

90. Can you say that on here?

Is that allowed?

[flamingdem]

94. Let's not forget that they did a decent feigned maneuver by saying they're going after Isis

while letting the Korosan AQ guys think it wasn't about them.

Thus, managing on the first strike to wipe out the head of the group.

GG jealous again?


(Reuters) - A jihadist Twitter account said the leader of the al Qaeda-linked Khorasan group was killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, SITE monitoring service said on Sunday after several days of uncertainty over whether he survived the raid.

A U.S. official said on Sept. 24 the United States believed Mohsin al-Fadhli, a senior al Qaeda operative, had been killed in a strike a day earlier, but the Pentagon said several hours later it was still investigating what had happened to him.

In a tweet posted on Sept. 27, a jihadist offered condolences for the death of Kuwaiti-born Fadhli, otherwise known as Abu Asmaa al-Kuwati or Abu Asmaa al-Jazrawi, said SITE, a U.S.-based organization that monitors militant groups online.

[gwheezie]

106. Khorason is not a new mystery group

I wish the news would stop reporting this. When I 1st read this in connection to bombing Syria I clearly remembered the connection to the boston bombers where it was widely reported the bros had visited the website and also the connection to groups in the caucuses. The media reported on this and now act like no one ever heard of them.

[merrily]

107. No denials about the NSA, though.

[Andy823]

118. K&R nt

[Maedhros]

126. The one problem is that nothing that you write in your post shows that Greenwald and Hussein

lied about anything. Did you even read it? They very clearly illustrated how the Khorasan Group was snatched from obscurity, inflated with propaganda, then allowed to lapse back into obscurity after providing a useful subject for the national Two-Minute-Hate.

Give up while you're behind. Only an abject fool would buy any of your nonsense.

[geek tragedy]

133. Greenwald blatantly lied about Obama needing Khorosan to justify bombing ISIL.

Also, the mere fact that the Greenwald crowd--who are usually upfront in talking about how little they worry about terrorism--haven't heard of a group means nothing.

Greenwald thinks Al Awlaki was nothing but an Internet shock jock. He is not a credible source on the threat level posed by actual terrorists.

[geek tragedy]

132. Nice wingnut garbage lies from two years ago.

Now, the Intelligence Agency deep throat wannabe sources swear that they told the White House, but that the President skipped more than half his intelligence briefings. In other words, the lack of Intelligence Types are not going to be blamed for this one. Thou Shall Not blame the machine.

Here's the truth.

The bogus claim that Obama ‘skips’ his intelligence briefings
Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:02 AM ET, 09/24/2012

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-bogus-claim-that-obama-skips-his-intelligence-briefings/2012/09/23/100cb63e-04fc-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_blog.html


Also, ISIL did not "come out of nowhere." You were just not paying attention and remained ignorant of them for years.

[stevenleser]

138. Totally unsurprising that right wing lies are used to prop up Greenwald. nt

[MFrohike]

131. I don't get the outrage

If I take this article at face value, EVERYBODY looks bad.

1. Greenwald, as he tends to do, overhyped the mention of Khorasan by the administration. From his own quotations, there's no direct statement by the administration nor is there an indication that it led the charge on the Khorasan hysteria. Using his own timeline in the article, the administration was late to the party on the Khorasan bandwagon.

It might pass muster if he said they offered it as a supplementary reason or an after-the-fact justification, but his own citations don't support it as a primary reasoning prior to the bombing.

2. The administration comes off looking pretty sleazy in this narrative. No, they don't seem to have manufactured a threat or the hysteria surrounding it, but they clearly jumped on the bandwagon when it running hot. I call it sleazy because it's opportunism in the effort to kill people. I can understand the political calculation that led to it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a sleazy move.

3. The press, generally, showed themselves to be full of shit, yet again. I really don't get why people attack others based on sources most of the time because the mainstream US press is almost entirely worthless, if not intentionally dishonest (McClatchy is generally the exception to this rule). Assuming the "secret" sources exist, which is quite doubtful from the context*, the press played on their line like they worked for Hearst. They might come off the worst of all because they're clearly trying to profit from death and destruction without having the balls to at least build bombs for the Air Force, much less drop them.

*I've seen at least one poll of reporters done in the last few years that shows an increasing reluctance to rely on confidential sources, recorded conversations, or stolen documents. While I do think Woodward and Bernstein's relevance is vastly overblown, I do recognize they helped keep a big story alive. I have to wonder if their occupationally related descendants would even return Mark Felt's phone call, much less meet him.

[Electric Monk]

135. I think #2 is why some BOG members have been so ultra-defensive on this issue.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025606869

[Capt. Obvious]

137. Heh

[NCTraveler]

136. I don't trust Greenwald in any way.

His information should not be taken as if it has been vetted in any way. That being said, Greenwalds has nothing at all to do with the case for dropping bombs. Greenwald would love for it to be him against Obama, which is often the way it is portrayed here. That dynamic lines Greenwalds pockets with green. He is doing well at that. It truly has nothing to do with how right or wrong we are to be bombing multiple countries. Dismissing Greenwald makes no case for the White House.