EDITORIALS

Every once in a while we run across someone who still thinks of Juan Cole as a scholar, as opposed to being just a shallow anti-American Israel-bashing moonbat.   So just to remind everyone that he is NOT a scholar to be taken seriously, Cole is gracious enough to cite on his personal web page this week the neofascist Justin Raimondo.   Cole clearly regards Raimondo as a credible source, and indeed Cole continues to publish his own columns on Raimondo.s ultra-moonbat web site, thus proving that Cole himself is not a credible source and certainly no scholar, Senator.

Dennis "Justin" Raimondo, to remind you, runs the pro-terror anti-American antiwar.com web site along with some pre-adolescent Friends of Osama. When Raimondo is not out doing his impressions of the Fonz for the crowds along the Castro, he spends much of it inventing silly conspiracy theories about Israel and the Jews, "theories" you are most likely to read on neonazi web sites. Not only does Raimondo insist that the Israel was behind the 9-11 attacks on the US, repeated by him not only on antiwar.com but in the columns he writes for Pravda and elsewhere, but he has self-published an entire book devoted to that "theory". This "theory", by the way, is based on "evidence" consisting of the fact that some Israeli moving men were picked up on the day of the 9-11 attacks for visa violations, later cleared and released, but one of them had some cash in a sock. Raimondo is sure that no one would possibly have cash in a sock unless he were involved in the 9-11 attacks. This is typical and representative "fact checking" on the part of the reliable source cited by Professor Juan Cole. In addition, Raimondo has pulled "proof" out from under his bonnet that Israeli agents blew up the WTC because he claims some Israelis were seen cheering alongside a highway after the attack.   And as you know, Israel.s top-trained best agents always stand around highways high-fiving one another after successful missions. Oh, I should point out that citing the dozens of web sites in which Raimondo claims that Israeli Jews were behind the 9-11 attacks or his "book" can lead to Raimondo claiming on his web site that the person citing those many primary sources is "lying". Which has us all a bit confused. Is Raimondo now DENYING that he published that book and those articles, which anyone can see on the web? Has he now renounced his neonazi conspriracist theory about Dem Joos and 9-11? If so, we will be the first to congratulate him for reaching adolescence. Frontpage Magazine.s Stephen Schwartz has "outed" Raimondo as a neofascist who thinks all Americans are barbarians.   The National Director of the Anti-Defamation League has denounced Raimondo as a vicious anti-Semite promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy "theories." Stephen Schwartz called him a "notorious Saddamizer and admirer of Axis seditionists." Ben Johnson has noted Raimondo.s role in the axis of evil that joins antiiwar protesters and neonazis.

In his October 1, 2005 comment on his personal web site, Juan Cole cites at length a posting by our "Conspiracy in an Old Sock" Raimondo.   Cole considers Raimondo.s ravings about Israel supposedly "spying" on the US as largely credible.   Here is Cole citing his favorite "source". Because Raimondo pulls no punches, he forces us to consider the degree to which Congressional foreign policy on the Middle East in particular has become virtually captive to the Zionist lobby (just as US policy toward Cuba is captive to the Cuban-American community and its lobby). He clearly goes too far, but how far should an analyst of this case go? Cole goes on to claim that the "Zionist lobby", which is a regular bogeyman on Cole.s web site by the way, is driving the US to fight "unnecessary wars." He adds: "The most dangerous thing about key elements of the Zionist lobby is that they really do want to gut the US First Amendment when it comes to Israeli interests." In other words, Cole is as loony a conspiracist as is his mentor Raimondo. (For more on the Juan, go to Martin Kramer.s superb web site and see some of Cole.s bon mots at Daniel Pipes. wonderful site as well.) Raimondo appears on scores of neonazi and even Holocaust Denial web sites, so it is amusing watching the neonazis and Juan Cole jointly sing the praises of Raimondo and cooperative cite his postings.   More than one writer has represented Dennis Raimondo (who has written a column for Russia.s Pravda for years) as an enemy agent, seeking to harm the United States, although we figure that is what Cole best likes about him. As for Raimondo.s ravings about Israel supposedly "spying" on the US, he and his groupie Cole have us all confused here. Since when does Raimondo consider spying on the US to be something BAD? Raimondo clearly despises
the US and supports anyone and anything that is anti-American. Would not Raimondo celebrate spying on the US by any of the terrorist groups or anti-American distatorships that he ordinarily endorses and supports? That being the case, why does Raimondo suddenly try to smear Israel and Jews by claiming they are spying on the US? Would not all the readers of his antiwar.com web site, and of Juan Cole.s web site as well, consider that to be a great compliment?