Glenn Greenwald leaves Jeffrey Goldberg no place to hide. Goldberg points with fondness to Israel's taking out of Iraq's nuclear facility in 1981, which "halted forever" Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. and suggests maybe Israel ought to do the same again with Iran.
Yet, it turns out that, prior to the Iraq War, Goldberg was then asserting that Saddam was rebuilding his nuclear program and was more committed to it than ever. Technically speaking, both could be true. That is, the Israeli strike truly "halted forever" Iraq's nuclear ambition, but, in 2002, Saddam was trying to re-establishment it.
That, however, is not Greenwald's point. He's accusing Goldberg of engaging in propaganda, which is, as he puts it: "assert(ing) any claim as fact in service of a concealed agenda without the slightest concern for whether it's true." In the case of Goldberg:
Will the existence of a vast and menacing Iraqi nuclear program help my cause (getting Americans to attack Iraq)? Fine, then I'll trumpet that. Now, however, it will help my cause (mainstreaming an attack on Iran) to claim that the Israelis permanently ended Iraq's nuclear efforts in 1981, thus showing how well these attacks can work. No problem: I'll go with that.
This is why it is best to beware of all ideologues. Ideologues cannot be trusted. They'll tell you anything at all--socialism! death panels!--in order to assert and further their ideology.
Nor can they really even be trusted on a personal level. You never know when they're going to get a message from God, or the Politburo, that their cause is advanced by selling you out.
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