Ledeen and gallows pole? Ah that sounds so sweet together!

James Bamford has done some great work here for Rolling Stone that will hopefully serve the American public’s general sense of awareness regarding the unfortunate influences on our federal government in this day and age. His recent article, coupled with that of Craig Unger’s for Vanity Fair (”The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed”), shed valuable light on the hazardous actions of people like Michael Ledeen.

Ledeen is an unsavory, duplicitous and wildly liability-prone quasi-governmental hack who carries undue influence over our modern foreign and domestic policy decision making apparatus. It boggles the mind how Ledeen could be granted ANY level of a governmental security clearance. His ultimate loyalties are neither to the American Constitution, nor to the American people. He is, quite simply, a mole, and a very cunning one with plenty of media savvy and an insidious cabal to plug into for sustenance.

Any rudimentary level of research into Ledeen’s past will reveal a decades-long love affair with Italian Fascism, both academically as well as tactically (Google these various words for a wake up call on the guy’s past). Astonishing, then that he claims to oppose the totalitarianism of other nation states, while he duly labors to utilize said ideology’s cruder methods for bringing about his touted “creative destruction” here and abroad. Please. The guy couldn’t hack a junior college teaching post for more than a semester.

Ledeen and his ilk should be discussed widely and dealt with through any and all legal means so as to protect our increasingly fragile democracy from such conspicuous internal threats against it. On a wider scale, we as citizens should demand measures to protect our government — regardless of which party is in power and where — from the dangerous, treasonous influences of the types of cabals that Ledeen so ardently and enthusiastically represents. It’s time for the Commons to take back the means of implementing transparency in the hiring and retention of formal and informal bureaucrats who have the ears of our most influential policymakers, lest we lose our Republic to such appalling malfeasance.

Karen
Virgini a

It is alarming how blind these militarists and war profiteers (Franklin,Ledeen,Ghourbanifar) are to the consequences. Anti-semitism is on the rise globally due primarily to blowback (Chalmers Johnson is invaluable) from their misdeeds.

Mny thanks for this article. PLEASE, PLEASE, put the sidebar chart, “The Iarq-Iran Regime Change Playbook” from the article up on the website. That chart should be shared across the web as widely as possible. It’s a terrific piece of visual information. Please!

Thank you Mr. Bamford for responding to Ledeen’s comments. I hate when people like Ledeen write a critique of a piece which has glaring falsehoods and oblique innuendos and don’t get taken to task about it.

Found Bamsford’s article well written and accurate. Remember the first thing they are trained to do in neocon school is to lie. And keep lying. Denial, such as Ledeen “not going to Rome (sic)”, is just lying. Like WMD’s, enrichment tubes and the like. Red State voters need to realize that Chevy’s and Ford’s are no longer American made. Only wars are.

Of course, any debate on this subject is pointless and inconsequential because the cabal of neo-cons of which Michael Ledeen is a prime player has already cast the die for the doctrine of permanent war that has destroyed our republic and plunged humanity into near global instability and peril—-BUT—-for what it’s worth, Bamford is simply one of many who sees through the duplicitous rhetoric that Ledeen mastered in his long career as Trotskyite, neo-fascist D’Annunzite, and finally neo-con.
Ledeen and his kind are war pigs, driven insane by ideology—and I for one will dance wildly and laugh heartily even as Rome burns.
He who has ears, let him hear.

You see CivilRights! You a fucking warmonger idiot. And! All the shit you wrote is a lie. Go ahead! Prove me wrong with facts, you prick!

Well written Mr. B. “Political language is designed to make lies trurhful and murder respercful…….”. George Orwell

Ledeen pretty much shot himself in the foot with his response, which – in a better world – it would have been enough. But James’s response served to make sure everyone saw the blood, and got to laugh at him as he hobbled off! Well done!

Capitolist Pig,

Israel recieves 3 to 6 billion dollars a year from the US in direct financial aid and also in the form of loan guarantees which are never repaid.

Israel recieves a tremendous amount of Military aid every year from the US as well.

Israel is, at any given time, only one Veto (the US veto) away from being forced by the international community at the UN to comply with the wishes of virtually the rest of the entire world: That they vacate all occuptied territory and quit attacking and occupying their neighbors.

Israel recieved weaponry and diplomatic support from the US for this latest brutal and counter-productive excursion into Lebanon.

So, If Israel does not have enough money to survive in the first place (brutal occupations supporting racist settlements are very expensive, Just ask the South Africans), does not have enough weaponry to fight even a short war without coming to us,
and needs our assistance in the form of a veto at the UN lest the entire world condemn it actions,
it seems reasonable to suggest that Israel does indeed desperately need the support of the US.

It also seems very reasonable to suggest that Israels actions (the settlement Movement and all the occupations that have occured to try to further it) are the root cause of middle eastern terrorism and have cost the US trillions in the form of 9/11, the expense of the war on terror and in our shrinking ability to grow the new markets that make globalization an even remotely feasible.

This current fiasco has also lowered the probability of Israel withdrawing from the West Bank, meaning that this President, Aipac and the Israeli government have helped to ensure the growth of terrorism throughout the ME and the wider world.

As Bill Clinton put it (after he was out of office and was less afraid of Aipac reprisals), a fair and equitable solution to the Israeli Palestinian situation would “remove the philospohical underpinning for terrorist recruitment in the ME.

J

P.S,

If Israel is a sovereign nation that will do what it wants when it wants, why have AIPAC at all? They seem to expend a great deal of money and effort (including spying) on influencing a country that you maintain has no influence on Israel’s actions. Why did AIPAC bother to draft the resoution at all?

J

But all these people are, pardon my anti-semitism, -JEWS! What the hell did you expect from them other than a fanatical allegiance to their tribe. They were always like that and they will always be.
The question (and problem) is : How the hell did the rest of us let them infiltrate so thoroughly our Government that we practically have no say over what is being done in the World, in our name?

Krcun,

There is no room for anti semitism in this or any other debate. The Jewsih people here, in Israel, and everywhere else in the world are as great a people as any other and your attempt to imply that they have qualities which deliniate them from any other people in the world.

If you even care to find out, you will discover that the majority of Jewish people both here and in Israel are against the settlements and the occupation.

As I have take great pains to point out, most of the people puting pressure on our government to maintain the status quo in Israel and pushing WWIII are not jewish. As Walt and Mearsheimer point out in their paper “the Israel Lobby” (Walt is the acedemic dean of the Kennedy school of Government at Harvard and Mearsheimer is from U of Chicago) the group that helps put more pressure on our government than anyone else is the christian right. They are also joined by sectors of the oil and defense industries. Aipac itself does do a great deal of damage in this regard, but they would not have the influence that they do if they were not supported by these other groups.

In the end, racism is evidence of an utter inability to correctly decode the events unfolding around you. as such, I’m not sure why I am wasting my time trying to converse with someone who suffers from it, but I gave it my best shot.

J

At last,a forum where I can address the man I despise almost as much as Cheney!
I would love to know who gives him his ‘inside’ information. I once wrote to him and told him that the Iranian revolution was the sinking ship that sent all the rats scurrying away. He got the rats. Based on that, he thinks that he can impose his will on the Iranian people, that they would roll the carpet out and allow Iran to become a client-state again. There are three reasons why the 1953 coup against Mossadeq was successful. He was democratic. The regime in Iran has learned its lesson. Secondly, Iranians are far more educated now. Does this second reason surprise you? We have learned about our history as well as that of the Western world, ie. US/Britain, and of course, your masters in Israel, and the one and only Bernard Lewis. And you forget that in 1953 when you robbed us of our democracy, there was no IT, true, the Jewish dominated media can lie to the world, especially in America, but thank God for the internet. As they say, you can run, but you can’t hide. You worst nightmare, yours, Israel’s, and the neocons who have occupied the positions of power in America, is an informed citizenry. They are in a coma today, but slowly they are waking up. No Mr. Ledeen, you will never see a regime change in Iran. Not a single traitor is welcomed, not the MEK, not Pahlavi and not anyone who comes from the US. Iran belongs to Iranians.
Stop lying to the American people.

let a sleeping dog lie