It turns out Glenn Greenwald, who's normally completely rabid over the cheerleading media's enabling of D.C.'s "warmongers," is not so upset today with the New York Times' piece, "McCain, Iraq War and the Threat of 'Al Qaeda'":
I'm hesitant to criticize the article because it at least examines McCain's increasingly reckless and exploitative use of the term "Al Qaeda" when defending the war in Iraq. And it also notes that McCain did the same thing with Iran, previously and repeatedly linking the Iranians to "Al Qaeda" only to retract the claim. So that's progress, at least.His hesitance shows how completely hypocritical he is, which is funny, since he's the author of the new book, Great American Hypocrites.
But all of this ties right in with his anti-American attacks on both neoconservative "chicken hawks" and American troops fighting in Iraq.
As I noted in my post last night, McCain's right to deploy "Al Qaeda" as shorthand in referring to the various terrorist groups arrayed against the U.S. and its Iraqi allies. But note Greenwald's argument, where he takes exception to war-backer Kenneth Pollack's quote that McCain's usage of the generalized "Al Qaeda" terminology is acceptable:
Is it really any wonder that Saban's Ken Pollack thinks it's "perfectly reasonable" to call various sundry Middle East groups -- including Iraqis defending their own country from foreign occupation -- "Al Qaeda" terrorists? To do that is actually called "lying" -- of exactly the type that led us into Iraq in the first place. It's extremely revealing that John McCain does it and Ken Pollack thinks it's a "perfectly reasonable" thing to do.Iraqi "defenders," blowing up both Americans and Iraqi nationals in what has been routinely described as one of the most barbaric recent waves of postmodern terrorism, are essentially freedom fighters to Greenwald.
I think readers can see why I monitor Greenwald's activity. He's rooting for the other side.
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