The right to destabilize is singular: A farewell to Max Blumenthal and Hillary’s propagandists

Scott Creighton (archived from June 2012)

Max Blumenthal has said “enough is enough” and taken his little pen and walked away from his staff position at Al Akhbar English over what he claims is their editorial tolerance of “Assad apologists”. According to Max in an article on his website explaining his decision to leave in a huff (The right to resist is universal: A farewell to Al Akhbar and Assad’s apologists)  “the apologia for Assad and his crimes has reached unbearable levels.”

I once had a great deal of respect for Max Blumenthal. His work on the Palestinian issue has been courageous to say the least. But now I have to say farewell to Max and remove his link from my blogroll. His disingenuous and downright dishonest efforts to prop-up the progressive Assad demonetization train turns my stomach and I will never be able to post a single thing he writes without having to question the man’s integrity.

Yeah, it’s that bad. Max Blumenthal is an outright liar. No one, and I mean NO ONE with his resources and experience in the Middle East could miss the boat so badly on this topic without doing so deliberately unless he was a total and complete idiot. And Max is not an idiot. He is however, the son of Sidney Blumenthal who was a long term adviser to Bill Clinton (during the destabilization of Yugoslavia as coincidence would have it) and then a campaign adviser to Hillary Clinton who expected to serve in her State Department before Rahm Emanuel put his foot down for some reason. Max’s daddy is also reportedly a close friend of Tony Blair. Just thought I would throw that in for good measure.

Yes, Max Blumenthal is a liar. And I will now show you how I came to that conclusion. As to the why, well… you be the judge.

1. The Tal al Zataar Guilt by Association Ploy

Max starts off his article condemning Al Akhbar and Bashir Assad with a rather odd quote. He’s attempting to demonize the Assad regime by referencing the Tal al Zataar refugee camp massacre when Syria came in to supposedly defend the camp, but in fact they were quite brutal toward the Palestinian refuges.

First of all, this occurred in 1976 when Bashir al Assad was all of 11 years old. Trying to use that incident to demonize Assad would be tantamount to linking Barack Obama with the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco and riots simply because he is a democrat and from Chicago. Assad had nothing to do with al Zataar so it has no bearing on this issue what-so-ever except to poison the well as it were, a typical troll propaganda tactic that I would have expected Blumenthal to be well above using. But there it is just the same.

The other aspect of the al Zataar massacre that Max seems to have forgotten is that it took place during the Lebanese Civil War and those Palestinians weren’t simply innocent fugees hanging out hoping for CHANGE… they were actively involved in fighting around their camp and they were actively involved in fighting the Lebanese and Christian Phalangist forces.

There is no doubt that the result was a slaughter and that Syrian forces took part in it, but in reality it’s a bit more complicated than the Sesame Street version that Max tries to present in his article. So he’s starting off his article on a rather disingenuous note and he continues in the same vein throughout the rest of it.

2. Max’s Clintonista Daddy

Max Blumenthal is NOT a self-made man. His writing career is a direct result of his being the off-spring of Sidney Blumenthal, a long time adviser to the Clinton White House and then a personal adviser to Hillary Clinton during her run for president back in 2008. Among other globalist rags, Max writes for the Huffington Post and Salon. His daddy wrote for all the same institutions and was even Washington bureau chief for Salon.com.

In fact, Blumenthal’s daddy wrote copy for the Clinton administration and handed it out to the press for them to regurgitate back in the late 90′s. That was his job: Propagandist in Chief for the Clinton administration. Then he just happens to go work for the same institutions that he was feeding bullshit to for years taking his son along with him for the ride.

Also interesting about his father is the fact that he is a HUGE proponent of the so-called “third way” movement across the globe. More on that later.

Odd isn’t it? Here we have Max, prodigal son of a lifelong Clintonista, taking a stand for a destabilization campaign primarily being run by none other than Hillary Clinton. Small world, huh?

One credible critique of Bashir Assad is the fact that he inherited his presidency from his father back in 2000. But honestly, how is that different than George H. W. Bush (his daddy was Prescott. Look it up Max), George W Bush, Rand Paul or even Max Blumenthal himself?

Well, here’s one difference: even the neocon warmongers had to admit that Assad enjoys the support of just over 55% of the population of Syria. The MAJORITY WANTS ASSAD TO BE PRESIDENT.

Blumenthal never mentions that in his “scholarly” article.

But if we are looking at the crimes of the father in order to demonize the son, Max has some penance to serve as well.

3. Max’s Horrible Facts: Worthy of “Activists Say” Journalism

The vast majority of the so-called “evidence” Max uses to demonize the Assad regime has been long since discredited. There is no doubt about this. In fact, he actually tells Paul Jay at the Real News Network that he gets his info from “activists” and associated “journalists” embedded with the CIA backed terrorists. Here are just SOME of Max’s so-called “facts” and his admission of where he gets them. Take a look.

“The Assad regime was running an institution of torture in prisons. Possibly 100,000 people are in prison right now. And this makes Israel look like, you know, a champion of human rights.” Max Blumenthal

“I can not disagree with anyone who claims that the United States and the Saudi royals aim to ratchet up their regional influence on the backs of the shabby Syrian National Council while Israel cheers on the sidelines” Max Blumenthal

“This is a point where, by all accounts, the Assad regime had killed as many as 10,000 people in order to remain in power, possibly 13,000, according to people I know inside Syria who’ve come out.” Max Blumenthal

“But, I mean, it (Houla Massacre) was part of their campaign of suppression inside Syria, to crush what I consider to be a legitimate attempt at removing a dictator.” Max Blumenthal

“I started really paying attention to the coverage closely on the website, and mainly the opinions following the Houla massacre, which was by all accounts (really? read the German study yet Max?) carried out by shabiha affiliated with the Assad regime, to the embarrassment of the Assad regime.” Max Blumenthal

“…a regime that’s ideologically hollow that represents nothing beyond a fascistic security apparatus, married to (and sometimes literally, in some cases) a rich neoliberal business class…” Max Blumenthal

“But I made a personal decision based on my own values and based on the accounts that I was getting from Syrian activists, from Syrian intellectuals, and from journalists I respect who have been inside Syria, who’ve been in Homs, who’ve been with the revolution in Syria. And, I mean, these are people I trust.” Max Blumenthal

To completely dissect the virtual cornucopia of hardcore disinformation that Max spews on the subject of the Syrian “uprising” would take forever and most of the readers here are already well aware of the various studies and facts that have come to light over the last month or so that proves Max completely wrong on all these accounts. I will still delve into them a little since I am sending Max a copy of this article.

• First: Israel isn’t standing on the sidelines cheering the destabilization campaign as Max mistakenly characterizes their involvement. They’re an ACTIVE PARTICIPANT with a GREAT DEAL on the line (Golan Heights? Water rights? oil and Natural Gas exploration two weeks ago?) which is something that you would imagine Max would be well aware of.
• Second: “by all accounts” Syria has not killed 13,000 Syrian civilians. However, if by saying “by all accounts” you are talking about the Syrian “opposition” supported by the CIA (admitted and covered by the New York Times and others) and their Mockingbird Press Corps (like the institutions Max’s daddy works for) then of course, that would be “by all accounts”. Of course, expecting Max to understand this is an assumption and I may be giving him too much credit.
• Third: The Houla Massacre was conducted NOT by the Assad regime but rather by the opposition in an attempt to demonize the Assad regime and ferment support for an all out invasion. Even the National Review knows that.

“As quietly as possible, BBC world news editor Jon Williams has admitted that the coverage of last month’s Houla massacre in Syria by the world’s media and his own employers was a compendium of lies.

Datelined 16:23, June 7, Williams chose a personal blog to make a series of fairly frank statements explaining that there was no evidence whatsoever to identify either the Syrian Army or Alawite militias as the perpetrators of the May 25 massacre of 100 people.” WSWS

Max… come on. How could you have POSSIBLY missed that one? John Pilger gets it. Why can’t you?

“The threats against Syria, coordinated in Washington and London, scale new peaks of hypocrisy. Contrary to the raw propaganda presented as news, the investigative journalism of the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung identifies those responsible for the massacre in Houla as the ”rebels” backed by Obama and Cameron.” John Pilger

The Free Syrian Terrorists have been conducting a terrorist bombing campaign, assassinations, and kidnappings all across Syria for months. Burhan Ghalion, head of the Syrian Transitional National Council recently said they need MORE TERRORISM in Syria, not less.

The latest massacre is already attributed to them and the others involved.Here, take a look at the handiwork of the so-called “activists” that Max Blumenthal supports. What if the Tea Party activists in America piled up the corpses of cops and soldiers and Obama supporters like this on the streets of Maine or Tennessee so they could film them being desecrated like this? What do you think Blumenthal’s take on that would be?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y97bsO3s7VI

In fact, your daddy’s friend Hillary Clinton has also admitted that “al Qaeda” is inside Syria helping them destabilize the country. Now why the hell would they do that?

Well, I guess it’s ok for Max to support the efforts of the Syrian Freedom Fighters. If Lyin Joe Lieberman is on board, how much of a lie could it be?

Forth: Tossing out buzz words like “neoliberal business class” in order to try to sway the in tune progressives to your side is beyond tasteless. There is NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING about the Assad regime that is neoliberal. The vast majority of the industry in Syria is nationalized or run by the state. This is part of what makes the overthrow of Assad so appealing to the neoliberals. They can PRIVATIZE everything and hand it over to their crony buddies in big business. They have NOT opened their doors to hot money speculators NOR have they privatized their central banking system. The education system is based on the FRENCH model not the for-profit Chilean style created by Augusto Pinochet and now being implemented by Barack Obama here in the states. Claiming Assad is a neoliberal is ridiculous and a pathetic (and obvious) attempt to sway a certain segment of the population to your side of the fence without a SHRED of evidence.

And by the way, I also noticed you offered not one single link to support ANY of your claims in your article on your site. I guess that speaks volumes as well.

Lastly: We already know who the so-called “activists” are and who’s paying them. We know that the National Council is nothing more than a group of opportunists and neoliberal puppets looking to cash in like their counterparts down in Libya did. We also know what “embedded journalists” are so your “evidence” is beyond pathetic and you know it as well. Which is probably why you offered no links to prove a single claim you make. Hell, even Stratfor has admitted that the “activists” in Syria are fabricating stories about the situation there. And Max still buys into it?

I wonder if one of Blumenthal’s credible sources happens to be Rami Abdelrahman from the London based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. After all, they were the very first to assign blame for the Houla Massacre on Assad and the shabbiha…

“The shabbiha (Assad’s militiamen) broke into three houses overnight and slaughtered a family of five — the father, wife and their three children, a family of seven in another house and a eight in a third,” dissident in exile Rami Abdelrahman, who heads the British-based Observatory, told the news service. MSNBC

Of course, Rami Abdelrahman doesn’t actually exist. He’s a propaganda construct exposed a long time ago…

Firstly, there is NO individual by the name of Rami Abdul Rahman. This is just an alias that was being used by all SOHR members and mainly by the founders of the SOHR when articles were being originally published. SOHR

Again, maybe that is why Max doesn’t offer links or quotes to support his condemnation of Assad. I wonder if his daddy did while he was handing out propaganda to the press corp back in his Clinton days?

4. Max Plays Both Sides of the Issue

Throughout Max Blumenthal’s article and his interview on the Real News network, he continually tries to play both sides of this issue while always continuing to make the argument that even though this is CLEARLY a destabilization campaign and even though there are terrorists committing atrocities in Syria and trying to blame them on the regime, Assad must be removed from power because he’s a bad man committing the atrocities against the “legitimate” uprising.

Blumenthal does this simply because he DOES understand that the vast majority of evidence is out there showing that what this is is an external aggression being waged against a sovereign state, illegally mind you, and he can’t possibly generate support like they did before the evidence came out.

Like in Libya, this is a small group of individuals in Syria who understand that there is a great deal of money to be made if they play ball with the imperialists and help them overthrow the legitimate government of Syria. It’s that simple.

Of course you could have a small group of people within a nation who want to change it’s ruling party if you factor that in. But what Blumenthal NEVER mentions is the fact that Assad has made SEVERAL concessions to the nation and implemented SEVERAL key changes to how the country is run. He also fails to mention the fact that the majority of the people of Syria support Assad (just like the majority of the people of Libya supported Gadhafi). These FACTS simply never factor into Blumenthal’s equation.

Conclusion

I have to admit, I was quite surprised by Max Blumenthal’s take on all of this. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been. I never took the time to look into his family history and how he got his start writing for institutions like Salon, Al Jazeera English, and the Huffington Post. I took him at face value thanks to his work on the Palestinian rights issue. That oversight is on me and I hope that this… correction… is not too late.

Unfortunately I have to conclude that Max is in bed with his daddy who is in bed with the Clintons on this one. I guess eventually while the Mockingbird Press allows you to build up credibility over the years, a time will come when you have to sit in front of Paul Jay and spew senseless propaganda to pay for your birthright entitlements in the neoliberal class of “third way” centrists.

To his credit though, it does look like Max was a little sickened by what he was doing during the Real News interview. I guess the globalist shill hat doesn’t feel so good sitting upon his head. I hope that when the Obama administration starts the bombing campaign and kills scores of Assad supporting innocent Syrians, our little entitled friend Max has a couple of sleepless nights to pay for his role in helping gin up left wing support for it.

Anyway, for whatever good it does, Max Blumenthal is off my blog-list and I will never post a link to anything he does again. Cus he’s a liar and a fraud who sold out the Syrian people for god knows what.