Quote:Jeremy Scahill is a Douche Bag
Posted on May 9, 2010 by willyloman

by Scott Creighton

It’s not so much that Scahill denies there is any reason to believe elements of the previous Bush administration facilitated the attacks of 9/11… I wouldn’t expect anyone who makes a living doing interviews on Democracy NOW! and being published in magazines like The Nation to say anything else. Its how he said it that makes Jeremy Scahill such a douche bag. How he said it and why.

There are so many question one could put to the arrogant prick, such as… how does he account for NIST’s Building 7 report that at one time said it was physically impossible for the building to have fallen at free-fall acceleration, then 3 weeks later, they admitted Building 7 fell at free-fall acceleration?

How does he account for the hundreds of eye-witness reports from the first responders who reported hearing explosions, seeing flashes all around the buildings as they came down?

How does he account for three steel and concrete skyscrapers collapsing at near free-fall acceleration, essentially due to office fires (according to NIST), for the first time in history and never again since?

How does he account for the most secure building in the world, the Pentagon, being hit nearly an hour after the first attack on the North Tower, without so much as an alarm sounding in the building?

How does he account for Rumsfeld announcing the missing 2.3 trillion dollars the day before 9/11, THEN the ONLY office that is hit on 9/11, just HAPPENS to be the office where they were doing the audit?

How does he account for the fact that the invasion plans for Afghanistan were finished and placed on George Bush’s desk on Sept. 9th, 2001?

How does he account for the fact that the UNICAL pipeline deal had effectively stalled prior to 9/11, but then were remarkably back on just after?

How does he account for the fact that it took 400+ days for the Bush administration to ok an investigation into 9/11 and then they tried to put Henry Kissinger in charge of it?

How does he account for the fact that the commission came to the conclusion that KSM planned 9/11 based almost entirely on the interrogation of the man, that they couldn’t watch, they couldn’t talk to him, they couldn’t talk to the interrogators, and they couldn’t even watch the videos of the interrogation? In fact they burned those videos.

How does he account for massive amounts of iron-rich spheres in the Ground Zero that RJ Lee said HAD to have been created by immense heat (over 6,000 degs f.) when jet fuel burns at only 1,700 deg. f and open air office fires burn at around 650?

How does he account for the fact that no agency, not FEMA, not NIST, not the 9/11 Commission Report EVER tested for traces of high explosives in that dust… but each and every one of them suggested SOMEONE ELSE SHOULD?

How does he account for the fact that the single event that set this entire Global Free Market Wars campaign in motion just HAPPENED to be what Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld wrote about in 2000 when they called for a “New Pearl Harbor type event”?

How does he account for the fact that 1200 architects and engineers have signed a petition calling for a new investigation into what happened on 9/11?

He can’t. He can’t account for any of those issues or any number of the hundred other serious problems with the “official conspiracy theory” of 9/11. But he does know this; the moment he comes out and even questions what happened in any way, no matter how timid, ALL of his TV APPEARENCES, go away… his BOOK SALES, go away… his Nation magazine CONTRACT, goes away.

Jeremy Scahill shouldn’t be condemned for making a statement that distances himself from this issue. After all, Jeremy has books to sell. And who am I to tell someone how much wealth they have to sacrifice to help get our country back.

Yes, he takes on Blackwater. But nothing changes when you take on Blackwater, except their name. They are still getting contracts, still cashing the checks. In fact, they are bigger and more powerful since Jeremy wrote his now famous book.

And so is Jeremy Scahill. In a way, you can say… the longer the “War on terror” goes on, the longer Blackwater will be gaming the system, and THEREFORE… the longer Jeremy Scahill remains an employed literary hero.

But he should be condemned for his attitude and making the ridiculous claim that people like myself and Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin are “insulting” the families of the victims of 9/11. This is the kind of straw-man attack that “debunkers” have been using for years now. The fact is, the victims on 9/11 died horribly. Some first responders are STILL dying horribly because the Bush administration LIED about the air quality and now the Obama administration STILL won’t help them get the medical attention they need.

But in the end, I don’t know how it is supposed to hurt someone less if they think an “angry Muslim” terrorist killed their loved one, as opposed to a “greedy fascist” terrorist. It’s still a terrorist act and whether or not it was brought about by Muslims in a cave or neocons who wrote in 2000, “The process of transformation.” The plan said, “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event- like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Perhaps the families of the victims of 9/11 are somehow different from those of the victims of the anthrax attacks. We all know that the story of Dr. Ivins as the “mad doctor” is bullshit. I think even Jeremy Scahill has to admit that.

So what is the difference? The difference is, the Nation magazine won’t tear up your contract if you write about Dr. Ivins being framed. That’s the difference.

So yeah, Jeremy Scahill gets a little mad at the people who ask him about 9/11. He gets mad because he feels like we should be polite enough to recognize that he can’t admit the story is bullshit because if he does it will cost him money. I guess he feels like the questions he gets asked are an imposition… but I guess that is somehow different from when he is trying to get the truth out about Eric Prince and Blackwater. Some how that is all different I suppose but forgive me if I can’t really see it.

Here’s the real difference… going after Blackwater or some congressman and his greed is one thing. It doesn’t end anything.

But you go after 9/11… well that’s different.

The Global war on Terror is over.. the militarization of the nation is over… the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq are both over… the Drone industry dries up… the investigations start… the plea bargains start… the snitching starts… the BIPARTISAN NEOLIBERALIZATION OF AMERICA ENDS… and one more curious thing…

Once the truth comes out, people are going to eventually start asking why all our “serious” investigative journalists like… Jeremy Scahill… missed something so goddamned obvious.

Not only did they miss it, they made up shit to attack people who were actually trying to investigate it; trying to tell people.

So one day, when this does all come out, after all the confessions and the accusations and the trials, one day the attention of the angry population will eventually turn to our “serious” investigative journalists like Goodman, like Taibbi, like … Scahill…

… and they will be asked to account for how they chose their careers and their “respectability” over the Truth. A truth I know they feel in their hearts.

Knowing a day of atonement like that is coming, is bound to piss anyone off. Even Jeremy Scahill.

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:What a surprize.

The usual suspects implying that Scahill is a left gatekeeper. Which is an entirely sterile and destructive argument.

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Researchers disagree. Sometimes because they don't know all the evidence. Sometimes because they disagree on interpretation of the evidence.

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Jeremy Scahill has undertaken and published excellent investigative work into Blackwater.

Quote:Mithras, on May 10, 2010 at 1:20 pm Said:

Here is a bit of first-hand back story from one who was in Iraq with Jeremy Scahill for (?) Democracy Now during the run up to the Iraq War invasion in 2003. (Scahill’s arrogance even then was insufferable and his ignorance of the middle east appalling.)

He entered Iraq with an anti-war group who got him a visa upon his promise to cover the effects of the US bombing on Iraqi people. This NGO group was one of the only orgs remaining in Iraq planning to monitor human rights abuses and record and document deaths and crimes against innocent Iraqis by the US military. Amnesty Intl was not there, nor Red Cross - even the UN agencies had pulled out. We were pretty much the only ones left to do it. But we were all under heavy watch by Iraqi gov (as Americans whose gov was soon to demolish Iraq). We were told unequivocably NOT to take pix, as they could be used by the US to bomb targets, and not to go off sightseeing unescorted as there were real fears by Iraq gov that we could have spies among us gathering intel while posing as peaceniks. We were warned repeatedly by the highest authorities that to do so would mean automatic expulsion.

So what does Scahill do? A few days before the invasion- Scahill and an army photographer Joel Preston Smith go out – in the middle of the night- set up tripods around various sites in Baghdad (on all but deserted Baghdad streets as the nightlife was nil), and they begin photographing buildings, “scenic landmarks” (Ministry of Info is “scenery”??) and other locations around Baghdad.

They were soon arrested by the Iraqi authorities, interrogated extensively and summarily deported. End of alternative coverage of US war crimes. Not only that, but his surveilling (or whatever the hell it was) got most of the group kicked out as well, because it spread a suspicion of spying on all the rest of us. So half the already small group of human rights protesters had their visas revoked and were thrown out because of this egotistical asshole. And Democracy Now had no one on the ground reporting.

Was Scahill’s subsequent Blackwater “success” the reward by the Establishment for his Iraq stunt?

There were British journalists who were on the trail of military contractors’ crimes in Iraq but that all got pushed to the wayside by the Blackwater merc saga. Funny.

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:He is not a "douche bag" That is a puerile and pathetic viewpoint.

Austin Kelley Wrote:Yes, the ongoing efforts to use accusations of being a "left gatekeeper" to drive an ever-expanding wedge between left structuralist and conspiracy-oriented tendencies grows very tiresome indeed.

If the work of Peter Dale Scott means anything at all, it points us directly to the reality that the differences between the two aren't really so inherently difficult to overcome, at all...



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Quote:What is (or do you mean by) a "left structuralist"?

Austin Kelley Wrote:

Quote:What is (or do you mean by) a "left structuralist"?

Noam Chomsky- who I respect but don't always agree with- certainly qualifies for that label. He sees an institutional analysis as far more helpful than a conspiratorial analysis.

In my own view both can exist simultaneously, and complement each other quite well...

Quote:So it's a matter of systems or organizational development?