Old spook stuff

A few readers have asked me to drop the other shoe. An earlier post mentioned the late former CIA Director Richard Helms, and I hinted that I knew a cute story about him. Time to tell it.

In 1993, PBS broadcast a rather infamous Frontline special on Lee Harvey Oswald. I say "infamous" not just because the show favored the lone nut scenario -- no surprise there -- but because, during production, certain spooked-up pseudo-journalists associated with the show (I'm thinking particularly of a guy named Gus) privately told JFK researchers that the program would establish, once and for all, that LHO had worked for the CIA. This lie bought a lot of cooperation which otherwise might not have been forthcoming.

The program featured an interview with Helms, perhaps the cagiest and shiftiest of the CIA chieftains. Oliver Stone's Nixon originally contained a deleted scene in which the whites of Helms' eyes suddenly go black. The scene should have stayed in the movie, because its poetic truth is undeniable.

Former Army Intelligence officer John Newman, author of a supremely important work called Oswald and the CIA, also appeared on that Frontline special. After his scenes were shot, he remained on the set while Richard Helms took his turn in front of the cameras.

Before we proceed with this story, you must understand one thing: Over the years, the CIA has always maintained that no-one from the Agency -- indeed, no-one from the entire government -- had debriefed Lee Harvey Oswald after the supposed defector returned to the United States. During the interview, Helms repeated this story.

When the cameras stopped, Newman stepped forward and asked: ""Mr. Director, what would be so bad about the CIA interviewing Oswald on his return from Russia? I mean, isn't that what they were supposed to do? Doesn't it therefore look bad if you say you didn't?"

Helms thought it over, and somewhere beneath those all-ebony eyes, a lightbulb went on. He said: "You're right."

And then he told the director that he wanted to re-film part of the interview. This time, he would say that the CIA did debrief Oswald!

The director decided not to roll the cameras again. Too bad. I would have loved to see the two versions of that statement spliced together. Such a comparison not only would have proved the CIA's willingness to lie in the JFK case, it would have told Americans how to react whenever the spook leadership (I'm thinking particularly of a guy named Keith) says: "Hey, you can trust us...!"

The question arises: Why wouldn't the CIA debrief Oswald?

Turns out, they did. We know this from a guy named Don Deneselya, who had worked as a translator for CIA in 1962. Deneselya told Professor Joan Mellen that, to his certain knowledge, Oswald was indeed a fake defector, working for the CIA all along. Upon his return, LHO was interviewed by one Andy Anderson, who reported directly to Robert Crowley, who was very close to...

...wait for it...

...Jim Angleton. The ultra-paranoid Angleton, ostensibly the head of counterintelligence, ran a CIA-within-the-CIA. He was (as that guy in Inception might have put it) a man of some radical notions. For one thing, Angleton denied the reality of the split between China and the USSR. For another thing, he concluded that British PM Harold Wilson and Swedish PM Olaf Palme were Soviet agents.

Some of you may be familiar with what happened to those two guys. Wilson was the victim of an epic smear campaign; Palme was murdered. 

Angleton drank a lot (and by "a lot," I mean a lot) and he had private motives for his many resentments. A dangerous man to hold such power.

I believe that Angelton masterminded the hit against JFK. This review of Newman's book gives some of my reasons. Basically, we have much evidence indicating that Angleton ran LHO all along. The whole "Oswald in Mexico" excursion has Angleton's fingerprints all over it.

I don't think that Oswald ever actually went to Mexico. His wife denied it. J. Edgar Hoover privately said LHO had been impersonated. Oswald was seen in Texas at a time when he was supposedly traveling south. The "Oswald" photographed and recorded by CIA operatives in Mexico looked and sounded nothing like the real guy.

The CIA station chief in Mexico, Win Scott, had tapes of the psuedo-Oswald stashed in his safe. When Scott died in 1971, a high-ranking CIA officer -- in such a rush that he forgot his passport -- flew down to Mexico to grab the contents of that safe. The name of that officer was...

...wait for it...

...James Jesus Angleton.

He had a history of such burglaries. There was the time when his "mole" in French intelligence, Philippe di Vosjoli, helped him break into the French embassy. (Alfred Hitchock's worst movie, Topaz, gives a ludicrously false accounting of the Angleton/di Vosjoli relationship.) Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post, reported that Angleton broke into Mary Pinchot Meyer's pad after she had been murdered. (Meyer, the estranged wife of CIA man Cord Meyer, reportedly had an affair with Kennedy.)

But my favorite tale of Angletonian burglary involves J. Edgar Hoover's blackmail files.

Cool story, that. I'll tell you all about it on some other Sunday.

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Has Uncle Sam partnered up with Al Qaeda?

According to the NYT, a message from Al Qaeda is the reason why so many embassies went on alert:

The United States intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operatives of Al Qaeda, in which the terrorists discussed attacks against American interests in the Middle East and North Africa, American officials said Friday.

As I suspected would happen, we're seeing stories designed to emphasize the wonderful, heroic efforts of our noble NSA eavesdroppers, thereby justifying the great anti-Snowden campaign.

Remember the heightened terrorist "threat level" alerts throughout the 2004 campaign? Remember how those orange alerts completely disappeared after the election? Same shit.

Back to the current story:

It is unusual for the United States to come across discussions among senior Qaeda operatives about operational planning — through informants, intercepted e-mails or eavesdropping on cellphone calls. So when the high-level intercepts were collected and analyzed this week, senior officials at the C.I.A., State Department and White House immediately seized on their significance. Members of Congress have been provided classified briefings on the matter, officials said Friday.

“This was a lot more than the usual chatter,” said one senior American official who had been briefed on the information but would not provide details.

Odd. Very odd. Any number of previous stories have established that the jihadis know full well that their communications are not secure. Even before 9/11, as you will recall, Al Qaeda referred to the great event as a "big wedding." Are we to believe that now -- after the Snowden revelations have everyone on the whole freakin' planet talking about the NSA -- the jihadis have suddenly turned as chatty as a bunch of teenaged girls on the phone? No caution, no euphemisms, no nothin'?

Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.

Looks like I'm not alone in my cynicism.

Y'know why I'm so cynical? Because there is increasing evidence that -- at least in certain parts of the world, on certain occasions -- the US has partnered up with Al Qaeda, or at least with whatever is left of Al Qaeda.

Take Syria, for example. Despite all of the planted bullshit stories that have attempted to divert us from the truth, the world knows that the actual muscle behind the U.S.-backed Syrian rebellion is an Al Qaeda-related group called the Al-Nusrah Front. You may recall this piece from the London Telegraph:

The group is well funded – probably through established global jihadist networks – in comparison to moderates. Meanwhile pro-democracy rebel group commanders say money from foreign governments has all but dried up because of fears over radical Islamists.

The funding did not come from "established jihadist networks," unless you want to interpret that phrase in a very ironic way. The Obama administration has been backing the Syrian rebellion, in which Al Nusah has been both the most effective force and something of a public-relations nightmare.

And now we learn that the same pattern has re-asserted itself in Afghanistan. The following comes from Bloomberg:

Supporters of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan have been getting U.S. military contracts, and American officials are citing “due process rights” as a reason not to cancel the agreements, according to an independent agency monitoring spending.

The U.S. Army Suspension and Debarment Office has declined to act in 43 such cases, John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, said today in a letter accompanying a quarterly report to Congress.

“I am deeply troubled that the U.S. military can pursue, attack, and even kill terrorists and their supporters, but that some in the U.S. government believe we cannot prevent these same people from receiving a government contract,” Sopko said.

Regarding the 43 cases of contractors with militant connections, Sopko said the Army should “enforce the rule of common sense” in its suspension and debarment program. “They may be enemies of the United States but that is not enough to keep them from getting government contracts,” according to the agency’s report.

George Wright, another Army spokesman, said by e-mail that cutting off the contracts based only on information from Sopko’s office “would fail to meet due-process requirements and would likely be deemed arbitrary if challenged in court.”

Sopko said the Army “appears to believe that suspension or debarment of these individuals and companies would be a violation of their due-process rights if based on classified information” or on Commerce Department reports.

Well, at least the government is willing to protect someone's rights.

Maybe the granting of those contracts was linked to a request for a little favor...

"If you want the money, Mustapha, fine -- but you have to do something for us in return. Next time you're on the phone with your buddies, say something about a plan to blow up an American embassy. An embassy in -- oh, I dunno. Cairo. Jordan. Something like that. Speak very clearly. Not too fast. Our transcription software is still a little buggy..."

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Spooky times

Too bad I have to dash off and do some errands today, because much is happening. Quickly:

1. A terror threat linked to Al Qaeda has shut down embassies around the Middle East.

A terror threat prompted the State Department on Thursday to direct its embassies in key Middle East nations, including Egypt and Israel, to close on Sunday with the possibility they could remain idle longer.

A U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly on the matter called the threat "credible and serious."

It was "directed at American targets overseas," but may not be confined to main diplomatic facilities, the official said.

I'm not sure how much a threat Al Qaeda actually poses these days. There are those who will tell you that Al Qaeda is no longer, like, a thing, or at least not a large thing, not as large as it once was. At any rate, this Wag-the-Doggish business certainly seems awfully well-timed, coming as it does on the heels of the Snowden affair.

Speaking of which...

2. Michael Hayden, former DCI, has expressed a "hang 'em high" attitude toward Snowden.

Mr. Hayden said he does not endorse some forms of exemplary punishment, “what the French call ‘for the encouragement of others.’”

But if hackers “have this attachment to transparency, perhaps the intelligence community is not where they should be,” he said, adding that the government needs to use the Snowden case to show that it is “serious.”

The former director of both the NSA and CIA said it is “very appropriate” for the U.S. government to pursue Mr. Snowden relentlessly and make his fate an issue in its bilateral relations with any nation that harbors him.

In other words, Hayden DOES endorse exemplary punishment. He reminds me of the 1920s Klan member who said "I don't endorse lynching, but..."

By the way, the above link takes you to a Moonie Times piece. Guess I should have warned you about that. The article opens with a truly delicious bit:

When retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden headed the CIA, one question vexed him so much that he set up a special working group of his private-sector advisory board to help him answer it: “Will America be able to conduct espionage in the future, inside a political culture that every day demands more and more transparency in every facet of national life?”

Mr. Hayden said the working group, headed by former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, “came back with the answer, more or less: ‘We’re not sure.’”

Yeah. As if that's the problem with today's U.S.: Too much transparency.

Good old Mikey. He always did know how to make me laugh. In the real world, of course, our spook infrastructure is about as transparent as concrete.

By the way -- wasn't Mikey the one who called in Booz-Hamilton to do work for the NSA...?

So let's put item one and item two together into one cohesive narrative. The Spookland chieftains are attending a hackers' conference in Vegas, where they hope to do some recruiting. Of course, the hackers are asking those chieftains to justify Spookland's Orwellian ways, because anyone who has looked deeply into the matter (as have most of those hackers in Vegas) can tell you that the NSA's cyber-totalitarianism hasn't even foiled any actual terror plots.

And so now, today, on cue, we have some really scary news headlines about...

I don't really need to finish that thought, do I?

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Snowden's out! Plus: XKeyscore

He has been granted a year in Russia.

I'd like to think that my letter to the Minister of Justice had something to do with this turn of events, but it didn't.

What does it say about what this country has come to, if we have reached the point where an American spy agency employee goes the Russia for asylum -- and he claims potential political persecution if he goes back to the U.S. -- and most Americans approve of his actions?

What does it say about America that the man's father, a gung-ho pro-America type, tells reporters that he's glad his son isn't coming home?

“If he comes back to the United States, he is going to be treated horribly,” Lon Snowden said. “He is going to be thrown into a hole. He is not going to be allowed to speak.”

Meanwhile, the latest Glenn Greenwald piece on the NSA talks about something called XKeyscore, which scoops up everything you do on the internet, including emails.

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Remember when so many people scoffed at Snowden's claim that he could wiretap anyone, even as he sat at his desk?

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.

Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.

Things get particularly hair-raising when we look at the legal justification. FISA? We don't need no stinkin' FISA!

Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets.

Does this mean that if you chat with someone overseas, or your chat is routed through a foreign server, or you visit a foreign website, the NSA gets to log everything? I can't see how anyone's internet activity can stay 100 percent domestic for very long.

But it gets worse...

But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.

Even if the NSA claims that they will not use XKeyscore technology on American citizens without a warrant, we have to take them at their word. Yet the head of the NSA, Keith Alexander, has been caught lying to Congress (although he explained away his lies via the usual slippery rationalizations). So how we can we trust the NSA?

There is no oversight. Congress is obviously clueless -- and the congressfolk themselves are open to blackmail.

Think about it: The NSA would not build a system capable of real time interception of your internet activity unless it was going to do just that.

Incidentally, Keith -- we might as well be on a first-name basis with him, since he knows all of us so well -- spoke to the big hackers conference in Vegas, and braved a great deal of heckling. The following exchange seems straight out of Stephen Colbert...

"Our nation takes stopping terrorism as one of the most important things," he said, standing in short sleeves with a slide on the screen behind him showing a timeline and the number of foiled plots.

"Freedom!" one man shouted from the middle of the standing-room crowd.
View gallery."

"Exactly. And with that, when you think about it, how do we do that? Because we stand for freedom," Alexander said.

"Bulls--t," the heckler said.

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Manning found guilty on most charges, but not of "aiding the enemy"

From CNN:

Wikileaks on Tuesday said the conviction of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning sets "a dangerous precedent and (is) an example of national security extremism."

"It is a short sighted judgment that can not be tolerated and must be reversed," the group said in a statement. "It can never be that conveying true information to the public is 'espionage'."

I like that phrase -- "national security extremism." Even so, I can see how publicizing secret information might count as espionage in certain instances. For example: If a German sympathizer had found out the date for D-Day and transmitted that information to the general public ahead of time, thereby spoiling Allied plans, that might be construed as espionage, and as aiding the enemy

But I don't think that what Manning did belongs in that category.

A military judge has found Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history, not guilty of aiding the enemy -- a charge that would have carried a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Manning was also found not guilty of unauthorized possession of information relating to national defense.

He was found guilty of most of the remaining charges against him, with the judge, Col. Denise Lind, accepting only two of the guilty pleas he had made previously to lesser charges. Those two were possession of a video that was marked classified and that he exceeded authority by obtaining a State Department cable.

Though those two counts carry a maximum sentence of two years, the rest of the charges that Manning was found guilty of could lead to a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison.

Norman Solomon's response deserves note:

Days ago, in closing argument, the prosecutor at Fort Meade thundered: "He was not a whistleblower; he was a traitor."

But a "traitor" to what? To the United States... only if the United States is to be a warfare state, where we "cannot make informed decisions as a public." Only if we obey orders to separate ourselves from the humanity of others. Only if authoritative, numbing myths are to trump empathy and hide painful truth.

Just so. It is obvious that Manning released the video not out of hatred or jealousy but empathy, and that any attempt to ascribe baser motive is strained. Just as obviously, the United States government came down hard on the guy not because releasing that video harmed our security, but because that video embarrassed the military. One might even draw a parallel to the Dreyfuss case.

As Amnesty International said:

“The government’s priorities are upside down. The US government has refused to investigate credible allegations of torture and other crimes under international law despite overwhelming evidence.

“Yet they decided to prosecute Manning who it seems was trying to do the right thing – reveal credible evidence of unlawful behaviour by the government. You investigate and prosecute those who destroy the credibility of the government by engaging in acts such as torture which are prohibited under the US Constitution and in international law.

“The government’s pursuit of the ‘aiding the enemy’ charge was a serious overreach of the law, not least because there was no credible evidence of Manning’s intent to harm the USA by releasing classified information to WikiLeaks.

“Since the attacks of September 11, we have seen the US government use the issue of national security to defend a whole range of actions that are unlawful under international and domestic law.

“It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that Manning’s trial was about sending a message: the US government will come after you, no holds barred, if you’re thinking of revealing evidence of its unlawful behaviour.”

Brad Friedman has published some interesting "tweets of reaction":

Ali Abunimah @AliAbunimah

Undeniable fact is that if #BradleyManning had illegally tortured people for the CIA, Obama would’ve protected him from trial. End of story.

Cenk Uygur ✔ @cenkuygur

Does anyone really believe that if Bradley Manning had committed war crimes instead of exposing them that he would be in bigger trouble?

Cenk Uygur ✔ @cenkuygur

What punishment did the commander in charge of Abu Ghraib torture get? $8,000 fine.

It's hard to believe that in 2008, the Barack Obama campaign issued these words:

We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government.

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A new low in religious hypocrisy

Slate has published a story about the brouhaha surrounding a book I've not yet read: Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

I caught Aslan on The Daily Show and disagreed with his take on Jesus. Aslan obviously thinks that Jesus sympathized with the anti-Roman revolutionary movement; I think otherwise.

As noted in an earlier post, my interpretation of the "Jerusalem is doomed" passages in the Gospels differs from the views held by most academics. I think that those passages constitute nothing more -- and nothing less -- than a wise reading of the political situation: Jesus could smell rebellion in the air, and he could guess how that rebellion would end. His "foreknowledge" had nothing to do with ESP and everything to do with common sense. (Josephus seems to have had the same "foreknowledge," although he briefly joined the rebellion anyways.) If Alsan's theory is right, why would Jesus sympathize with a revolution that he knew could only end badly for Israel?

Aslan probably considers the "Jerusalem is doomed" passages to be material added by later writers. And that's the problem with most modern New Testament scholarship: It's possible to create any Jesus you want. The trick is simple: You read the Gospels, you pick out a few bits that you like, you say "These parts are true" -- and then you dismiss everything else as spurious.

This approach has some validity, or at least inevitability, since the Gospels do, in fact, present true (or true-ish) material encrusted with barnacles of fiction. Most modern scholars would, for example, agree with my presumption that the crucifixion accounts have a strong historical basis, while the nativity stories are far more questionable.

But how do you distinguish the rock from the barnacles? Alas, too many scholars pick and choose their "truths" based on their pet theories -- and that's where the problems set in. Thus, James Tabor, in The Jesus Dynasty, takes very seriously the (conflicting) "ancestry of Jesus" lists in Luke and Matthew -- even though Luke's list goes all the way back to Adam! Most other scholars consider those lists dubious; personally, I think they're downright ridiculous. Yet they fit Tabor's pet theory, so he treats the silly things as...well, as Gospel.

As noted above, I haven't read Aslan's book yet, but I fully expect him to play a game similar to Tabor's. That said, such books can be very interesting. You don't have to agree with a work to get something out of it.

Although guys like Ehrman, Crossan and Tabor tend to annoy the religious right, the reaction against Aslan has been very different. Aslan is despised in a way those three are not. Why? Because he is a Muslim. At least, he comes from a Muslim background; I don't know if he is devout.

Right now, the Islamophobes are doubling down on their bigotry. And they are using Aslan as their whipping boy.

Here's how Slate tells the story:

It’s got plenty of competition but this may just be the single most cringe-worthy, embarrassing interview broadcast on Fox News. At least in recent memory. Fox News anchor Lauren Green had religious scholar Reza Aslan on her show Friday to talk about Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, his book that has been stirring up some online controversy recently. And right off the bat, Green gets to what is important: “You’re a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?” Aslan seemed a little flabbergasted: “Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament, and fluency in biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also just happens to be a Muslim.”

But Green just wouldn’t let it go: “It still begs the question though, why would you be interested in the founder of Christianity?” Aslan then starts talking to Green slowly, as if she were a child: “Because it’s my job as an academic. I am a professor of religion, including the New Testament. That’s what I do for a living, actually.” But Green insisted, accusing him of failing to “disclose” that he’s a Muslim and at one point asking him about a stupefying claim on whether a Muslim writing a book on Jesus isn’t sort of like a Democrat writing a book on former president Ronald Reagan.

Aslan has become the target of anti-muslim rhetoric this past week as he’s made numerous media appearances to publicize his book. Author and pastor John Dickerson harshly criticized media outlets on FoxNews.com, saying reporters “have failed to mention [Aslan] is a devout Muslim.” In a piece for WorldNetDaily, Pamela Geller writes that “jihadist operatives like the vicious Reza Aslan are carried on the shoulders of the media and intelligentsia like a football hero at the end of an impossibly fought game.” Many who share these views have taken to Amazon to give the book one-star reviews. Aslan “is a Muslim and not a historian,” reads one of the one-star reviews.

As if Muslims cannot be historians...!

Tellingly, these bigots never dare to address the question of whether Jews may write about Jesus. Many Jews have done so, and they have often had some important and interesting things to say. Maimonides wrote about Jesus in the 12th century. Some of you may know the famous story of Nahmanides and the great dispute in Barcelona. Here's a modern Jew who writes about Jesus -- and in the process, he praises Aslan's book.

Moreover, if the risible Pamela Geller really thinks that no Muslim scholar should write about Jesus, then shouldn't the restrictions also work the other way? Do scholars who hail from a Jewish or Christian heritage have the right to write about Muhammed?

Of course they do. Anyone from any background may write on any topic that he or she considers intriguing. Granted, what you write won't be of much value to others if you refuse to do your homework, or if you lack the talent for original thought.

A year ago, I read a book called Did Muhammed Exist? by Robert Spencer. At the time, I didn't know who Spencer is. I later discovered that he's a Greek Melkite Christian and an anti-jihadist firebrand who often works with Pamela Geller. As you know, I don't like Geller, and thus I'm not likely to admire anyone who pals around with her.

Nevertheless, his book is a fascinating read. Perhaps perversely, I came away from it convinced of Muhammed's historicity -- even though, as with Jesus, barnacles of fiction formed around the facts. Spencer deserves credit for arguing fairly: He gives the reader enough evidence to walk away with a conclusion differing from the one he intends.

For a while now, I've toyed with the notion of writing a Sunday post comparing Spencer's work with that of popular dimwits like "Archaya X" who argue for the nonexistence of Jesus. We've discussed the "mythicist" issue in a previous post. As Bart Ehrman notes in his excellent recent book on the topic, virtually all New Testament scholars (most of whom are agnostics or atheists or not-conventionally-religious) concede the existence of Jesus. Yet "evangelical atheists" of the Richard Dawkins school seem to be under the impression that the "myth" theory represents the scholarly consensus, even though the opposite is true.

Most of the people who think this way are young, arrogant ninnies who would rather poke out their own eyes than read a book with footnotes.

So why do these young, arrogant ninnies want to believe that Jesus was a completely mythical personage? Because -- to put it bluntly -- they've got a bug up their asses about Christianity, and because these smirky twerps like to think that they're smarter than other people. For most of these kids, fundamentalist Protestant Christianity is the only variant they know, and I can certainly understand why they've learned to dislike it. For them, the "myth" theory fulfills a psychological need. It's their way of exacting revenge.

Spencer, I think, has similar motives. He hates Islam passionately, so he has a psychological need to strike it at the core. But unlike the smirky young twerps who dote on Archaya X and the Zeitgeist pseudodocumentary, Spencer is willing to do actual research. Thus, his work is far easier to recommend.

As noted above, I wasn't persuaded by his argument, well-mounted as it is. We know from the history of recently-born religions -- and by "recently," I mean the past two centuries, for which we have good records -- that religions do not make themselves. Religions have founders. Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard were demonstrably real people. Even though their followers have tried to affix "barnacles of fiction" to their histories, those barnacles cannot erase the fact that a new faith always has a father. (Can you name an exception? Even the cargo cults trace back to an historical figure named Tuka.) Such has been the pattern during the past two centuries; such, I believe, was the pattern in antiquity.

Now, I told you all of the above mainly to introduce you to Spencer and his book. My purpose is to ask an obvious question: If Spencer can write about Muhammed, why can't Aslan write about Jesus? Fair is fair.

Believe it or not, instead of avoiding the comparison to Spencer, Geller -- who positively luxuriates in hypocrisy -- is very quick to mention the guy, even as she trashes Aslan:

Robert Spencer is a writer without peer and a nonpareil scholar, the author of 12 books on Islam, jihad and related topics, including two New York Times bestsellers. Yet “Did Muhammad Exist?” was ignored and dismissed by the intelligentsia, the media elite and subversive academia.

Juxtapose that to the recent adulation heaped upon the Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan for his new book. Aslan is an advisory board member of the National Iranian American Council, which has been recently exposed in court as a lobbying group for the Iranian regime. He has smeared and lied about Spencer and me on national television, and responded to Spencer’s reasoned rebuttals with homophobic abuse worthy of a seventh-grader...

Of course, nothing Aslan said resembles homophobia.

You should ask yourself, how did we get here? How can a reasonable, educated and pre-eminent scholar like Robert Spencer be relegated to the very fringe (if that) of the literary world, while jihadist operatives like the vicious Reza Aslan are carried on the shoulders of the media and intelligentsia like a football hero at the end of an impossibly fought game.

See if you can catch the big problem in this next bit:

Clearly, Robert could have entitled his book “Pedophile,” because we know that Muhammad’s favorite wife was taken at the age of 6 and that their “marriage” was consummated when the Muslim prophet was 54 and she was 9. Spencer could also have called his book “Annihilator,” because we know that Muhammad slaughtered an entire Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayza, by beheading. Surely Spencer exercised restraint in not entitling his book “Bloody Warmonger.” Any of these would have been the equivalent of Aslan’s title “Zealot.”

In other words, Pam Geller is stipulating the existence of Muhammed -- thereby contradicting Spencer's thesis. A nonexistent person cannot also be a real-world annihilator. Geller is so caught up in the throes of rage-gasm that she cannot see her contradiction!

By the way: In the first century, the word zealot meant "rebel," not "fanatic." The title of Aslan's book is not an insult; it refers to a theory of Jesus' political motive. Even though I consider that theory wrongheaded, we should note that the same idea has been voiced by many others; it may be considered one of the standard "theories of Jesus." 

If you have seen Aslan's teevee appearances, you're probably asking the same question I'm asking: Geller wants us to think that guy is a jihadi? She must be kidding!

Aslan is a scholar, not an Islamic polemicist. The view of Jesus he has presented (at least on television) conflicts with the view of Jesus one finds in the Koran.

Islam's holy book does not present Jesus as a zealot. Muslims have traditionally regarded Jesus as a great religious prophet, not as a political figure. If Aslan sees Jesus as an insurrectionist, he contradicts the standard Islamic view.

I very strongly doubt that Aslan accepts the beloved (by Muslims) tale of the Virgin Mary and the palm tree. The Koran also says that Jesus started talking shortly after birth; I suspect that Aslan would say that this tale contains, at best, only a poetic truth.

Most importantly: The Daily Show interview gave me the clear impression that Aslan thinks Jesus was, in fact, crucified. The reality of the crucifixion seems to be the crux of this scholar's argument. He thus contradicts the Koran's strange teaching that Jesus was not crucified (a view probably inspired by certain Gnostic sects). 

One should study one's enemies. How can Geller hate Islam so deeply if she doesn't even know the Islamic view of Jesus? How can she argue that Aslan is a Muslim propagandist -- or even a "jihadi" -- when he presents a "theory of Jesus" which (as far as I can tell) has no relation to anything in the Koran? Either Geller is ignorant of these matters, or she is captiously exploiting the ignorance of her readers.

Remember also: Spencer’s book was accurately and forthrightly entitled, “Did Muhammad Exist?” It’s a legitimate question, even though on the BBC recently an interviewer tried to badger Spencer into admitting that there was something wrong, and offensive to Muslims, with even investigating this historical question.

I haven't seen the interview (and would appreciate a link to it, if it's on the net), but I doubt that any BBC interviewer would argue for limiting scholarship. I understand that the BBC itself has, at least glancingly, addressed the historicity question in a documentary about Mohammed.

By the way: One cannot fairly argue that Spencer's book was ignored if the BBC interviewed him.

Geller's outrageous double standard should be obvious: If Spencer has every right to argue that Muhammed is mythical -- and indeed he does -- then Aslan has every right to argue that Jesus was an anti-Roman rebel. Although I don't agree with either proposition, I think that there's a bit more evidence for Aslan's view than for Spencer's.

Some people mainline heroin. Some people mainline hate. Pam Geller has injected a lot of the latter into her veins -- but lately, her drug of choice seems to be hypocrisy.

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That's one dangerous piece of geography

This comes a piece (one of those "list" articles) on allegedly haunted movie shoots. Concerning The Omen:

An animal handler was eaten alive by lions and a set location bombed the IRA.

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