Craig Unger on Michael Ledeen
In the new Vanity Fair. The most comprehensive treatment of this pompous pseudo-intellectual/pseudo-Fascist/pseudo-spy and all his lies and scheming.
In the new Vanity Fair. The most comprehensive treatment of this pompous pseudo-intellectual/pseudo-Fascist/pseudo-spy and all his lies and scheming.
Comments
I wanted to make a post about an impression of Michael Ledeen Ive gotten over the years of reading some of his output in NR and JWR.
Mr. Ledeen usually writes a column detailing how Iran is just bursting at the seams with revolutionary fervor, and just needs the United States help. His scriblings on Iraq pre-war indicated that the society was more-or-less breaking up there and Hussein was Hitler, and a well-placed push would have them dancing in the streets.
Here is my problem, which identified Ledeen as a liar to me. He ended so many of his columns with the words "faster please". Have you ever been talked into a car you didn't need with money you didn't have to impress a girl that deep down you really didn't like? Ever walk off a car lot, or a showroom floor, or an insurance office, or from a mortgage appointment feeling like "I just got mood scammed and robbed half an hour ago?" The "act quick, decide NOW, NOW, NOW" routine is one of the older scams on earth.
Ledeen peppers his colums rushing the reader onwards almost always by creating the aura of impending disaster will happen here or there if we dont "get moving yesterday". Not allowing time for his preminitions and predictions in print to be proven FALSE. Youve already moved on to the next mistake when they do, in which he'll be presenting another set of "act nows" to you for the next bad guy on the horizon. This is blitzkrieg foreign policy. Foreign policy should not be persuaded in this fashion.
I hope the Italian Government looks into this man's shenanigans and prosecutes him if he has broken their laws. I hope they kidnap/detain him before he gets a chance to get Bushdinista has opportunity to forbade them to do it. "Faster please" indeed.
This all boils down to Ledeen's commitment to Israel of course. I emphathize with him. I'd like to see Israel build a huge wall around her whole country, import labor from Asia, and seal the Palestinians who do not want to live in peace in Gaza and the West bank behind 60 feet of Babylon-thickend concrete (not mud brick) walls. But this is not enough for Michael Ledeen, who I imagine dreams of the whole West Bank, Gaza, and is eyeing unpopulated parts of Jordan. I empathize, because I feel Biblically-speaking, he's right to want all of that. I also feel in realpolitik, we'll ingnite a real World War if we try to support neutering the entire Middle East (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and possibly Pakistan) so Israel can boldly do this. Whats really sad though, is how Ledeen would happily wreck this country to get what he wants for another. This is more than friendship. Real conservatives need to stop reading NR and the WeeklySLandard. They also need to stop watching Fox. This small cadre of neo-cons has been allowed to hijack the entire conservative base's media with almost no debate, and show their contempt for their voters by supporting importing a new electorate here at home, indebting us up to our eyeballs, and shipping out all means of production away. Could they be giving us the finger any more obviously?