CounterVortex

Valerie Plame, an ex-spook beloved by the left, got in hot water when she tweeted an article by fellow ex-spook beloved by the (far) right Philip Giraldi with the lovely title “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars.” In the subsequent outrage, The American Conservative finally gave Giraldi the sack. But Giraldi’s Judeophobia seems not to bother others. He continues to have Unz Review for a platform, and they love him over at the (conspiranoid-right) Veterans Today. And the Council for the National Interest predictably continues to embrace Giraldi as their executive director. This outfit, fronted by our nemesis Alison Weir, is just what its name sounds like—a beltway body of paleocon right-nationalists paranoid about Jewish subversion.

Weir also ran Giraldi’s offending screed on the blog of her sidekick organization, If Americans Knew—with a different title and an editorial note generously conceding that the piece “in some places paints with too broad a brush.” However, she took the time to put all the names of Jews and Jewish organizations in the piece in bold.

Would that some of our supposed allies on the “left” were as principled as our enemies at The American Conservative! Principled voices in the Palestine struggle have given Weir and her odious organizations the heave-ho. Others remain confused on the matter (or worse).

The always problematic Al-Awda and International ANSWER (both in the orbit of the retro-Stalinist Workers World Party) invited Weir to speak at their anti-AIPAC rally in DC back in March, as If Americans Knew boasts on its blog. The reliably reactionary Counterpunch of course continues to run Weir’s stuff. An open letter in defense of Weir and If Americans Knew entitled “Stop Divisive Attacks” (read: normalize anti-Semitism) is signed by Richard Falk, Cindy Sheehan and (in a slightly incestuous move) Philip Giraldi. And while this year’s Left Forum in New York finally did cancel some panels for blatant Jew-baiting (despite the whining of Counterpunch), Weir’s panel apparently went ahead. In passive-aggressive style, it was entitled “Deep State 2.0: Against Anti-Semitism, but Critical of Zionism.” Isn’t that cute? Lip service to opposing anti-Semitism, while implicitly stating that the Jews (oops, we mean “Zionists”) are behind the “Deep State.”

The ever-problematic MondoWeiss also opts for a passive-aggressive tack, running a defense of Giraldi’s blame-the-Jews rant even while seeming to diss it as a “broadbrush prejudicial attack.” Basically, Mondo’s  Philip Weiss seems to be saying Giraldi used some not-nice wording, but… yup, it’s the Jews. MondoWeiss has plenty of material plugging Giraldi on its website, filled with the usual just-barely-code words like “dual loyalty” and “Deep State.”

Giraldi’s name also appeared regarding a fête where the very problematic Sy Hersh was to be perversely awarded for his latest piece of propaganda on behalf of the genocidal Bashar Assad dictatorship. Al-Bab notes Hersh’s “error-strewn” article denied that sarin gas was used in the April chemical attack at Khan Sheikhoun, contrary to the findings of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). For this, he was to be bestowed the Sam Adams Award by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, another body of ex-spooks and paleocons. Among the presenters at the Sept. 22 weekend soirée in DC was none other than Philip Giraldi. Perhaps wary of blowing his creds with the gullible left, Hersh cancelled his appearance there, as did “special guest”  Chelsea Manning.

What makes this particularly twsited is that the awards ceremony was part of a “”No War 2017” conference at the American University, featuring such supposed progs and peaceniks as Kevin Zeese and Medea Benjamin.  This is what we call Red-Brown Politics. With a whiff of hippie fascism.

As we’ve pointed out before concerning these characters, the moral failure of accommodating Jew-hatred isn’t just bad politics—it’s bad tactics, nicely serving the interests of Zionism.

Image: frgdr.com