They've really outdone themselves this time. The last time we checked in on Cynthia McKinney, she was floating outlandish conspiracy theories about the Boston bombings [7]. Now, Redress Information & Analysis [8] is among the websites to take note of what she just posted to her Facebook [9] page—that she is in Syria to sing the praises of the Assad regime and cheer on those serving as human shields. That is merely predictable. But a close reading reveals a truly special degree of either cynicism or dupery (we actually aren't sure which):
I am in Syria now with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, where residents enjoy free education and free healthcare. Visited a Damascus hospital, the Grand Mufti, a school that has been turned into residences for Internally Displaced Persons. Ended the Day with Ogarit Dandash who founded "Over Our Dead Bodies," a group of young people who climbed atop Mount Qasioun and dared U.S. bombs to target them. They are still there in defiant resistance to any war against Syria. Mount Qasioun should be the site of a peace party not bombing strikes.
Does "Mount Qasioun" sound familar? It should. A week ago, Human Rights Watch crunched the UN data [10] to determine where the rockets in the Ghouta attack had been fired from. In the words of the New York Times [11]: "the government's elite redoubt in Damascus, Mount Qasioun, which overlooks and protects neighborhoods and Mr. Assad's presidential palace and where his Republican Guard and the army's powerful Fourth Division are entrenched."
Isn't that cute? McKinney is cheering on some folks who have generously volunteered to protect with their bodies the military base that Assad's regime uses to launch poisonous gas attacks on the Syrian people! Also cheering on these hapless cannon fodder are the usual assortment of cranks on the conspiranoid-left (Before It's News [12]) and conspiranoid-right (Lew Rockwell [13], Western Journalism Center [14]). Ramsey Clark [15], of course, is an old hand at this stuff, having similarly shilled for Saddam Hussein [16]. The NY Times' The Lede [17] blog also takes aim at McKinney for praising Assad's Syria [9] for its "free health care." Yes, thank you so much for the free health care, Bashar... 'cuz we're really gonna need it after all the cluster bombs and poison gas...
The Assad-suckers will not relent. In the style of 9-11 conspiracy theorists, they do not acknowledge when their dubious claims get shot down, but just happily move on to another, hoping nobody will notice. For instance, the Mint Press News story they had all pinned their hopes on, alleging that the rebels were behind the Ghouta attack, has now utterly collapsed [18]. So they are all rushing to the new claims of similarly marginal NSNBC [19] that "former intelligence officer" Michael Maloof is in possession of a secret US Army report showing that "al-Qaeda acquired and used chemical weapons" in Syria. No way to check up on this, of course, and Maloof's bona fides seem to prominently include right-wing mouthpiece World Net Daily [20]. NSNBC itself is one of those deceptively named websites (like the hateful AlJazeerah.info [21]) that tries to trade in on confusion with a legitimate news source. One of its leading lights is apparently F. William Engdahl [22], whose dictator-shilling conspiranoia we have called out before [23].
Meanwhile, Consortium News [24], which we really hoped knew better, is parroting the discredited wackiness [25] from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
They just aren't interested in getting better, are they?
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