“Please let me in on the secret why this is such a BIG DEAL.

I think it gets to be a big deal when one considers the likelihood that it’s related to the killing of the MEK for Al Qaeda trade with Iran and/or the forged Niger documents.

I can see hesitation at wanting to hand over MEK folks to the mullahs even for some terrorists very much wanted in the US…woulda been nasty.

But the Niger forgeries are of great interest to…oh…millions of people.

One thing I’ve been wondering is, were the forgeries intentionally so sloppy or could it have been such a rush job that proper care was not given in their creation?

If intentional, a whole new set of questions arises.

You insult me like that again, buddy, and there’s gonna be trouble.

Just the fact that you sought to argue the point about his daughter is pretty stupid and shows a propensity of nitpicking…. looking over at needlenose, makes me believe you’ve been making a good attempt at appearing truly moderate and measured here.

Mike

Somehow, though, I doubt Mr. Ledeen will read that and think, “My gosh, he’s right! What has become of me?!”

I mean, how reflective would you be if someone addressed you like that? Wouldn’t you just likely think, “Geez, what a creep” and move on to something else?

For more on Michael Ledeen, above is a nice post on his work for SISMI.

Mr. Ledeen, you are a pathological liar and equivocator. You apparently believe in nothing but an empty void. Your Machiavellian beliefs are an affront to Judaism, Israel, America and any decent concept of home and country. By no means do you have everyone fooled.

You should really get some help. Perhaps your backers can pay for a team of top psychiatrists or maybe a monastary where you can devote your energies to finding meaning in your own life and not destroying it in others.

It’s not too late for you.

Well, maybe 2 posts now, since you spend most of the last one discussing an item about the USS Liberty that I didn’t write.

I recommend that you address your complaints to the person who wrote it. (I can’t guarantee the civility of his replies, though.)

Your research effort is commendable, but it appears to have escaped your eagle eye that I’m not the only person who posts at that site.

Thanks for the patronizing complement. And I realize fully that you’re not the only one.

(A couple of the posts you quote were written by my co-bloggers — in fact, you even copied and pasted the attribution for one.)

Only 1 actually and I figured that it was your site though.

And lest you criticize me for the company I keep (since I see guilt-by-association is a favorite tactic of yours), I’ll note that they’re the ones who set up the site, so it’s not like I can “fire” them.

A ‘favorite tactic of mine’…. you deduced this from 1 posting? Do you use the same standards of evidence for your other theories? or just when you want to fight a strawman?

the kind of accusations I receive regularly from the peanut gallery here.

I haven’t noticed you receiving such commentary but I don’t get involved with this type of juvenile tit for tat.

That being said I liked your testing Ledeen in a respectful way which is why I was surprised to see how much more vituperative and over the top the site was.

And the USS Liberty post was not only virulent and vituperative, but weak.

And I find the post on “slow mo ethnic cleansing” was not only virulent but especially weak.

Further, its notable that the PLO has openly declared that the purpose of this war was to -

“bleed Israel to its knees, ruin its economy, discourage tourists (hurting Israelis & Palestinians), and causing Israelis to emigrate to other countries.”

I think that would qualify directly as “ethnic cleansing” much more so than building a few hundred apartments in an existing city of 30,000? EH?

Further, isn’t it notable that when Israel fights against the goals of terrorists with declared irredentist goals the only way you can by getting “dirty” yourself – fighting against a guerilla war – killing and defeating these ideals and terrorists all the time being checked by free newspapers, free political systema and an active Supreme Court -

Its not the Real Monsters that are the monsters, no, its the Israelis who are really monsters, because the monsters are actually ‘defending’ themselves from the Israelis irredentist goals, and we nor the Israelis realize this due to the “Zionist controlled World Media” which means we don’t really have a free media but the Arabs that actually do….

Thanks for checking out our site. I had hoped that the site name and logo would be enough to advertise to all that gravitas would likely be found elsewhere, but perhaps not.

(Besides, gravitas is overrated, if you ask me — I’ve seen too many people in this world who have cultivated the appearance of gravitas to the exclusion of all else … no wit, no kindness, no competence, merely gravitas. Since some of them appear to occupy high governmental offices, you may have firsthand experience with these types.)

Anyway, to the matter at hand … you wish to defer comment on the Washington Monthly piece, and that’s certainly understandable. But you’ve remarked twice now about Joshua Marshall (and his cowriters) “sliming” or “slandering” your daughter, and that leaves me a little perplexed. Not that anyone can blame a parent for being protective of his children, but here’s the entire text of the article in question, as it pertains to your daughter:

Simone Ledeen is serving her country. She is the daughter of Michael Ledeen, the Iran-Contra luminary, AEI scholar, and all-around capo in the neocon mafia. She’s 29, a freshly-minted M.B.A., with little to no experience in war-torn countries. But as an advisor for northern Iraq at the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad, she is, in essence, helping shape one quarter of that nation’s economy.

The reference to you is not especially objective, but the description of Simone seems rather tame. More generally, there’s also this:

By making partisan loyalty their primary criteria, the administration ruled out most of the people with experience in the field and restricted themselves to politically trustworthy Republicans, many of whom, though often well-meaning and admirably willing to serve their country in a very dangerous place, had little to no experience to prepare them for the challenges they’d encounter in Iraq.

So, for the record, the story does mention her MBA (contrary to your contention), as well as the risk and sacrifice involved in her service. Some ten paragraphs (1,100 words) and nine specifically named CPA employees after your daughter’s name is mentioned, there’s a general discussion of how some anonymous CPA staffers think “the younger Republicans in Iraq” were highly partisan and in over their heads — it’s a bit of a leap, but perhaps this is the basis for your objection.

In comparison, the Washington Post did a similar article a few months later — told largely from the perspective of your daughter, who is quoted extensively. She confirms that she was hired with few visible background checks after posting her resume at a right-wing think tank (the Heritage Foundation), and that she was underqualified for the work she was doing (“The young budget advisers are the first to admit that they weren’t the most qualified to be managing Iraq’s finances. ‘We knew we were overwhelmed. We wanted help,’ Ledeen said.”).

So, although a parent’s overprotectiveness is virtually a divine right, I can see how the Washington Monthly would have a hard time understanding what they should apologize for. What did they say that wasn’t later confirmed by the Post (and even in some cases by your daughter herself)?

Your research effort is commendable, but it appears to have escaped your eagle eye that I’m not the only person who posts at that site. (A couple of the posts you quote were written by my co-bloggers — in fact, you even copied and pasted the attribution for one.)

And lest you criticize me for the company I keep (since I see guilt-by-association is a favorite tactic of yours), I’ll note that they’re the ones who set up the site, so it’s not like I can “fire” them.

I’m amused, by the way, that you find the quotes of mine which you highlighted in bold to constitute “venom.” Just imagine if I’d accused Roger or Michael of loving Saddam, or celebrating people’s deaths — the kind of accusations I receive regularly from the peanut gallery here.

How can you tolerate posting on such a hate-filled site?

He tells his readers –

“For normal people who are reading this and thinking, “Who the #$(@#)! is Michael Ledeen?”, I recommend this excellent, brief article”

http://www.alternet.org/story/15860

Note that its written by –

William O. Beeman who teaches anthropology and directs Middle East Studies at Brown University.

He is author of “Language, Status and Power in Iran,” and two forthcoming books – “Double Demons: Cultural Impediments to U.S.-Iranian Understanding,” and “Iraq – State in Search of a Nation”

Go ye and read how the head of Middle East studies at Brown describes Ledeen, with his crescendo at the end -

Clearly a final decision has not been made on whether the United States will continue military action in Iran, Syria and Lebanon. But Ledeen has a notable track record. He was calling for attacks against Iraq throughout the 1990s, and the U.S. invasion on March 19 was a total fulfillment of his proposals. His attacks against the CIA and the State Department have contributed to the exclusion of these intelligence bodies from any effective decision making on Iraq. His attacks on Iran, even when Iran was assisting the United States, helped keep the Bush administration from seeking any rapprochement with Tehran. Were it in Ledeen’s hands, we would invade Iran today.

Given both his fervor and his influence over the men with the guns, Americans should not be surprised if Ledeen’s pronouncements come true.