Third Estate Sunday Review: Editorial: The Iraq 'expert' that was a nut case

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Editorial: The Iraq 'expert' that was a nut case

Iraq, the country the press forgot.

Are at least most of the western press. The New York Times has Tim Arango back in New York and The Los Angeles Times has Ned Parker covering it from Beirut. Maybe they'll help improve the coverage collectively?

Individually, they do their part.

But how Iraq has suffered.

The western press has largely ignored it and what coverage that has made it out of Iraq has been awful.

Maybe there's a reason for that? Maybe that reason has a name?

Reidar Visser.

The Disciples of Reidar are many: including CIA contractor Juan Cole, Al Jazeera and Christian Science Monitor's Jane Arraf, AFP's Prashant Rao. They've embraced their leader who knows so very little and has many problems.

It's not like there weren't warnings that Reidar Visser didn't know what he was talking about. From the January 18, 2012 "Iraq snapshot:"

Reidar Visser has an analysis at Gulf Anlaysis. He's wrong that it's "exactly one month" since Iraqiya announced their boycott. They did not announce on the18th of December it was the 16th. More troubling, he insists that a caretaker government cannot take place. Really?

That's cute. Before he attempts to offer legal analysis in the future, somebody tell him it takes more than watching a few episode Judge Judy to know the law. In other words, he needs to stick to what he thinks he's good at and I'll explain to him right now, the law is not what he's good at. And I'll add that I'll be nice once and only once on this issue.

He never grasped the Iraqi Constitution but his followers treated his idiocy as insight. Then came the failed Arab League Summit months later and Disciples of Reidar Jane Arraf and Prashant Rao joined him in praising it as a success. From the March 30, 2012 "Iraq snapshot:"

There are 22 countries in the Arab League. Hamza Hendawi and Lara Jakes (AP) put the number of Arab League leaders who attended at 10 and they pointed out that Qatar, Saudi Arabi, Morocco and Jordan were among those who sent lower-level officials to the summit. Patrick Martin (Globe & Mail) explains that Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani (Prime Minister of Qatar) declared on television that Qatar's "low level of representation" was meant to send "a 'message' to Iraq' majority Shiites to stop what he called the marginalization of its minority Sunnis." Yussef Hamza (The National) offers, "Iraq has looked to the summit, the first it has hosted in a generation, to signal its emergence from years of turmoil, American occupation and isolation. It wanted the summit to herald its return to the Arab fold. But the large number of absentees told a different story." That's reality.

Who's the liar pimping success? Why it's not just Nouri al-Maliki, it's Jane Arraf and Prashant Rao's Twitter buddy, the idiot Reider Visser. A fool not qualified to discuss legalities of the Erbil Agreement as evidenced by his dime store 'legal' 'analysis' that makes Elle Woods look, by comparison, like a legal giant along the lines of Thurgood Marshall. And of course Jane and Prashant and the others weren't trained in the law either so they idiotically retweet Reider's ignorance there by multiplying it as well as endorsing it. Reider's a Nouri al-Maliki groupie so he's hardly an impartial voice. He's also buddies with trash Nir Rosen. Though Nir's more famous right now for turning over the names of Western reporters to the Syrian government (that's what led to the recent charges that he was a spy), he of course became infamous for presenting the 'legal' 'analysis' that Lara Logan 'had it coming.' Nir really wasn't qualified for anything other than blowhard status but the Circle Jerk -- the same one that Jane and Prahsant employ on Reider's behalf -- ensured that a man was elevated and it didn't matter that he pisses on women or anything else. It's really past time that so-called professional journalists started examing their own ethics. At best, Reider is nothing but a whore for Nouri. There's no reason to treat him as impartial. There's no reason to treat his 'legal' renderings as worth passing on.

Reider Vissar is a crackpot.

And he's influenced coverage for far too long as the low hanging fruit of western reporters have repeated his mistaken 'analysis' and applied it to their own coverage.

Saturday came news "A crackpot runs AFP, Al Jazeera and the Christian Science Monitor" -- their trusted 'analyst' who so influenced their coverage for so long is convinced that there's an international conspiracy against him -- countries and a local crimes unit stalk him around the globe, sitting next to him in research libraries to disturb him, and they have prevented him from joining the CIA. Not only that but the FBI has posed as the CIA.

The warning signs were always there. C.I. spotted them, Mike did as well.

But allegedly trained journalists like Jane Arraf and Prashant Rao missed it. Not only that, they popularized his ridiculous 'analysis' and used it as framework in their own reporting.