It’s a staple of Leftist and Islamic supremacist smears of freedom fighters that we are like the Nazis, when in reality neo-Nazis are allied with the jihadis, and with their shared Jew-hatred and taste for authoritarianism, it is easy to see why. Paleocons also tend to move in these circles. Some anti-interventionist paleocons I have known keep their antisemitism well hidden, only revealing it in its full ugliness after a few drinks; but Raimondo is right up front with his, even appropriating Nazi terminology, and calling those of us whom he thinks form a pro-Israel network behind the Muhammad movie “vermin.”
In this piece, Raimondo sees the Muhammad movie, with which I actually had nothing to do, as part of a nefarious plan by us pro-Israel vermin to get the Muslim world to act out, thus requiring more U.S. intervention — because what we really want is for our troops to bleed and die on foreign shores while we cackle and count our shekels, doncha know. This Jew-hating clown doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, that I opposed U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan — that wouldn’t fit his nasty little antisemitic scenario.
“The “˜Pro-Israel” Network Behind the Innocence Video,” by Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com, September 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):
If someone had planned to upend US foreign policy “” to utterly destroy the very basis [.pdf] of all our diplomats (and military personnel) have been working to achieve in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world “” they couldn’t have done a better job of it than whoever put together Innocence of Muslims.
Yes, because US foreign policy was going so very well up until the film appeared.
As violent protests spread, the consequences continue to roll in: the suspension of joint US-Afghan military operations, the suspension of US aid talks with Egypt, the rapid decline of US prestige in the region, and the growing influence of the radical Islamist movement US support for the “Arab Spring” was designed to counter. The Obama administration’s effort to split the Islamist upsurge and lend its support to “moderates” has been stopped cold….
Recall who the Obama administration had defined as “moderate”: remember the talk of the “moderate Taliban,” and the “largely secular” Muslim Brotherhood — yes, clearly we pro-Israeli vermin have upset a carefully thought-out and delicately complex pathway to certain peace!
Anyway, Raimondo then indulges in a few paragraphs of empty speculation and baseless insinuation about why the film was made and by whom, and then tries his best to link the filmmakers to Pamela Geller (who had nothing to do with the film either) and me. He confuses “Innocence of Muslims” with the movie project of Ali Sina of Faith Freedom, even though Sina is working on a completely different project, so as to suggest that Pamela Geller called for funding of the movie that everyone is upset about. And then:
The idea that these vermin, who deliberately set out to make a “movie” that would inflame the Muslim world, are “free speech” heroes is worse than nonsense: it is valorizing villains. We don’t yet know where the money, or the impetus to make the film, came from, but what we do know is this: the driving force behind Innocence was a desire to create an international incident that would bring discredit on the United States, and empower radical Islamists who hate America and everything it stands for. And the promoters of this garbage pose as “patriots”!
Free speech has nothing to do with this issue: the President requested of YouTube that they reconsider the video’s place on YouTube in light of their terms of service. YouTube refused, and that’s the end of it. Unfortunately, however, that’s not the end of this imbroglio, the consequences of which we”ll be living with for a long time to come….
Raimondo’s “reasoning” here is so contorted that it is hard to follow, but it does seem as if he is saying that we vermin made the movie in order to incite the Muslims to riot, so as to justify more American intervention. I doubt if Justin Raimondo knows or cares that I have consistently opposed these misguided Wilsonian hearts-and-minds adventures since before we entered Iraq in 2003, and have called for a complete reevaluation of U.S. foreign policy in light of the reality of the jihad — a reevaluation that would coincide in many ways with his thirst for non-intervention, but would not involve what he clearly wants most: the U.S. abandonment of Israel. For as he goes on, he makes it clear that this is all really about…the Jews:
Defense of the Jewish state is a major theme of the Islamophobe network: they use it as a shield to deflect criticism. A key leader of this network is former New Leftist and Black Panther groupie David Horowitz: his “David Horowitz Freedom Center” (formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture), sponsors Spencer’s “Jihad Watch.” Horowitz’s “Frontpage” site “” ablaze with stories decrying the “betrayal” of Israel by the American government and the perfidy of all things Islamic “” recently speculated Innocence was created by the very Salafists now leading the protests. Since the video sprang from the same bigoted milieu of which Frontpage is the online Jerusalem, this “theory” isn’t merely ironic “” it’s a moral obscenity.
It isn’t hard to imagine where the money to create this deadly provocation came from. Of the many millions in neocon money sloshing around this country, it’s hardly inconceivable a hundred thousand or so would find its way into the hands of a twice-convicted felon and all around dubious character like Nakoula, who is, I suspect, just a con man rather than an ultra-Zionist ideologue like the promoters of his “work.”
Why, those lousy vermin! Call the exterminator, eh, Justin?