1 Boring Old Man

There’s a story brewing. It’s probably a big story too. When I first started looking into what was happening in the country, one of the forst characters I looked into was Judith Miller – the New York Times reporter. She had written a book with Laurie Mylroie, a neoconservative, American Enterprise Institute Scholar [crackpot, Iraq/Iran Hawk]. Both were on the speaking circuit managed by Benador Associates. Others managed by this firm were Richard Perle and Michael Ledeen, also scholars with A.E.I. Now we have a story brewing with a whole new cast of characters [as we often say, you couldn’t make this stuff up]:

Here’s a Press Conference on Iraq. That’s Michael Ledeen on the left speaking. The gray haired lady is Laurie Mylroie. The lady on the right is Eleana Benador, a Peruvian lady who runs Benador Associates. The fat guy on this side of her is Richard Perle. Now, to expand the cast, here’s Eleana Benador with one of her speakers, Amir Taheri [and with Richard Perle]::

Amir Taheri, is an Editor [or something] at the Politique internationale, a journal in Paris. The Politique internationale is the journal that published the fictitious interviews reported by Alexis Debat, a well known expert on the Middle East and Fellow at the Nixon Center:

Who are these people? How are they connected? What are they up to? Read this from the leftcoaster [reproduced in full because I can’t see how to shorten it]:

Alexis Debat – Lone Wolf?

First meet one of the very important organ grinders of the rightwing noise machine: Eleana Banador Asia Times reported on 8/15/03 that after a stint with the Middle Eastern Forum (MEF), Ms. Bandor left in October 2001 (shortly after 9/11) to start Banador Associates. With help from A M Rosenthal and James Woolsey, Ms. Banador amassed a client list of who’s who of Neo-Cons in less than two years. Soon Banador Associates could claim to be brokering 15-20 television interviews and five Op-Eds per week from their client roster. A claim I wouldn’t dispute given the ubiquitous presence of the Woolseys, Perles and Krauthammers on TV and in the newspapers throughout the period after 9/11 and through the build-up and invasion of Iraq. Nobody doubted that these were very serious and important people with pipelines directly to the White House.

It’s not at all surprising to that learn that Banador represented Judy Miller or Khidhir Hamza – associated with the Iraqi National Congress. Or that by 8/03 that:

Benador says that she is now trying to work more with companies that are investing in the Middle East and need up-to-date analysis of the situation there from her clients. She has also launched an effort to present programs on "anti-Americanism" on US university campuses using her clients as featured speakers.

There wasn’t even anything secretive about who they represented and what political positions their clients would espouse. Many of them have long been active in fomenting anti-Iran sentiment in the US, even if they had to “fix the facts” to “catapult the propaganda.” The Nation was onto this by mid-2006. Not that anyone in the MSM would read The Nation.

Insert from The Nation Taheri was unreachable by phone. But Benador, who said her client was "traveling in the Middle East," was impatient with dissections of his work. Terming accuracy with regard to Iran "a luxury," she said, "My major concern is the large picture. Is Taheri writing one or two details that are not accurate? This is a guy who is putting his life at stake." She noted that "the Iranian government has killed its opponents." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "says he wants to destroy Israel. He says the Holocaust never happened…. As much as being accurate is important, in the end it’s important to side with what’s right. What’s wrong is siding with the terrorists."

Where this all gets very interesting is in the person of Amir Taheri, an Iranian exile journalist and highly prized Banador client. He published a completely bogus piece in May 2006 about an Iranian law requiring Jews and others to wear badges identifiying themselves as non-Muslims. The story was retracted in a day. Guess that means the MSM isn’t completely brain-dead, but what does it say about our government that days later, “Taheri was invited to the White House to consult with President Bush on Iraq with other "experts.”

Taheri probably needed no encouragement from the WH to peddle lies about Iran. It was, after all, his profession for decades. Probably not much of a stretch to wonder if his been on the US payroll for many years. Questions that have yet to be answered is what Taheri’s relationship is to “Politique International” that published Debat’s fake interviews with Obama and several other high profile people such as Bill Gates and Kofi Annan. He claims to have been an editor Exactly what is “Politique Internationale”

Over the past 27 years, Politique internationale has become the most influential French-language publication devoted to international politics. It is read by leading decision-makers in the fields of politics, diplomacy, economics, industry and finance on all five continents. Its contributors include heads of state and governments, leaders of political parties and many others who either make the news or decipher it.

Wonder who funds “Politique Internationale?”

So, we have an Iranian version of Chalabi represented by an agency specializing in Neo-Con clients, peddling fake stories and visiting with GWB in 2006 who just happens to have some sort of relationship with a publication that for years has been publishing fake stories under Alexis Debat’s byline and who coincidentally published a story about how the US plans to attack Iran. And Mr. Debat has been employed for years by ABC news as a “terrorism expert” even though he holds no credentials to support his alleged expertise. (Will leave it up to the readers to connect the dots on this.)

In the arena of journalistic integrity, Debat and Taheri makes the Glass, Jayson Blair and Janet Cooke frauds look like chump change. The damage done to this country and the world by Debat and the Neo-Con frauds is serious stuff that makes the Rather/Mapes oops about GWB’s TANG records look like fluff. Yet, in each of those prior instances many heads rolled. Brian Ross deserves the same treatment that Dan Rather got, although his lapses were far more serious and numerous than Rather’s single lapse in rigorous journalistic standards. I’m not holding my breath for Murdoch owned publications to punish anyone for promoting Taheri, and someone on the staff of the WSJ is probably thanking god along about now that Murdoch purchased the paper before this Debat-Taheri story broke.

Finally, we must once again ask our Congress to investigate any and all US government connections to Debat and Taheri. Demand to know if taxpayers were funding these two to disseminate lies like all the other “journalists” and “pundits” the Bush Administration paid.

The problem with conspiracy theories about the Neoconservative Coup in Washington is that the stories are so complex. How all of this fits with their friend Ahmad Chalabi, the Project for the New American Century, the War in Iraq, and the Administration of George Bush all remains a tangled web, but one in need of some serious untangling. Get to know all of these characters. This story "has legs".