Noam Chomsky, (who is without peradventure the smartest guy alive) has joined with a veritable “who’s who of conscience” to launch an qppeal for the release of four Christian Peacekeeper Team(ates).
Their charmingly naive appeal, directed to the previously unknown “swords of righteousness brigade” cites the good works undertaken by CPT in general; an outpouring of concurring appeals citing these particular individuals as friends of the Palestinian people is ongoing as we speak.
Unfortunately for the hostages, the good works in question are precisely why they have been snatched in a false flag op which is entirely consistent with recent revelations detailing psy-ops bleedover in Iraq, and George Bush’s petulant push to bomb Al Jazeera.
For Debate:Why should we believe that "The Swords of Righteousness"are genuinely part of “La Resistance”? Considering the behaviour of the CPT, it would take a particularly obtuse freedom fighter to choose their members as hostages.
That is, unless the “freedom fighter” was a CIA plant…
(Secondary issue, for extra credit: Does Chomsky really believe the hostage takers are to be taken at their word when they allege suspicions of spying by the CPT, or is he trying to create an illusion of credulity because a frontal attack on the motivations and bona fides these “agents provacateurs” will merely give them motivation to snuff the unfortunate peacekeepers.)
One (para)military group operating under cover as a group of another affiliation. For instance, if these Sword of Righteousness were actually CIA agents (a supposition I’m not endorsing, merely using as an example) posing as resistance fighters, it would be a false flag op.
I think he’s trying to say that the US actually took these hostages and that The Swords of Righteousness is not a real group but a front for the CIA (or something).
sorry. False Flag is the generic term for the actions of a government undertaken to create adverse opinion vis-a-vis a perceived enemy, through the financing and instigation of atrocities with the claim of responsibility by a group nominally part of the opposition …
Interesting theory . . . If so, why would it make no sense for Chomsky to publish an appeal for their release? Seems to me the CIA, in such a situation, would be neither more nor less open to such an appeal than a genuine Iraqi insurgent group would be.
Also, why does the OP single out Chomsky? The linked statement in The Guardian appears over the names of a couple of dozen public figures, including Chomsky, and there is no indication of who drafted the statement.
Also . . .
Why would it make any more sense for the CIA to take them hostage? The Christian Peacemaker Teams might be an annoyance to the occupation forces, but they are surely no threat.
without endorsing this particular allegation, do you (in general) endorse the proposition that the CIA (or someone) eschews the use of agents provacateurs when deemed convenient and deniable?
No, you don’t understand. The CIA would simply kill them (in the name of ‘The Swords of Righteousness’), and THEY would get all the blame (because no one could prove it was the CIA I suppose). So, appealing to the CIA would be worthless…they would say they didn’t have them…‘The Swords of Righteousness’ does.
Or something.
Because the OP (based on past threads) is wild about Chomsky (and El Horsisito of course)…thinks he’s the smartest guy alive, etc. Since he’s being duped (supposedly) the OP is mad and so came here. Actually this is a pretty coherent OP for alaricthegoth…usually they are nearly unreadable and indecipherable as well.
Because the CIA and Bush are evil…and evil is as evil does.
Perhaps the SOR were as paranoid as you, and thought the CPT was a CIA cover operation, and that therefore they were grabbing CIA operatives disguised as peaceactivists
Seriously, a lot of these kidnappings are simply grabs at easy westerner targets, without a lot of forthought into who is being grabbed. I was watching a CNN interview with a journalist who was kidnapped about a year ago. Once the insurgents had him, and it became clear that he really wasn’t working for the US gov’t, they didn’t really know what to do with him. He was traded from group to group over the period of a couple weeks and finally let go.
To the extent that western intervenors in Iraq (vide, inter alia, Kathy Kelly) have been the subject of intense government attention, and a real thorn in the side of an information management program that by now is an obvious adjunct of “George’s Excellent Iraqi Adventure”, measures which act to dissuade such intervenors are certainly helpful.
I only picked on Noam because I kiss the ground he walks on.
Just so. I am, myself, watching with final opinion reserved, to see how this plays out. If the hostages are released, I will be gratified to be proven wrong.
By eschew, I assume you actually mean its opposite. Yes, I have no problem believing that the CIA does such things. My lack of endorsement of your OP is more because I don’t know enough about this particular situation to offer a firm opinion one way or another. It was a signifier of neutrality in this case, given that I have no informed opinion either way on it, because I only wanted to define the term that BrainGlutton asked about rather than chime in on the question at hand.
Since Noam is no chump, I incline towards some alternate explanation. I think you have put it correctly, by emphasizing his acquiescence to appearances, there being perhaps no viable public relations alternative.
my (perhaps awkwardly constructed) question was premised upon what I took to be an assertion that such behaviour, being contrary to our stated principles, was therefore off the table for government agencies.
Fortunately, you managed to tease out the thrust of the question; I did,
however, mean “eschew” as it is defined.
Well, to be clear, I don’t mean that just because the insurgents grabbed them without knowing what to do with them means they’ll be released. The driver who was kidnapped with the journalist I mentioned above was later found dead. In the case of the peaceactivists, the insurgents may very well decide it’s easier to kill them then let them go.
In view of the virtual avalanche of appeals from Palestine citing these PARTICULAR individuals for manifold acts of conscience, I would be astonished if convenience were permitted to mandate their extinction, absent some motivation foreign to the stated aims of the SOR.
“Eschew” means “to avoid or shun”. By context, I thought you were asking me if the CIA DID use false flag ops and the like when convenient or deniable, in which case the wording should have been something like, “do you…endorse the proposition that the CIA…embraces the use of agents provacateurs when deemed convenient and deniable?”
well it would certainly have been more comprehensible had I done so.
I was, however, trying to highlight what I take to be the improbability that as a matter of policy the agencies of our government refuse to undertake such operations.
