The Passionate Attachment

America's entanglement with Israel

Is ‘Tony Cartalucci’ a fictional creation of Eric Draitser and/or Nile Bowie?

with 23 comments

By Maidhc Ó Cathail
The Passionate Attachment
June 12, 2014

Described in his brief bio as “a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer,” has anyone ever met, spoken to, or even seen a of “Tony Cartalucci”?

As readers of The Passionate Attachment are aware, I have long since been suspicious of the elusive Cartalucci for a number of reasons, not least of which is his blatant covering for the Israel Lobby. Although Cartalucci, who used to maintain a popular website called the Land Destroyer Report, regularly cites the influence of certain Brookings Institution policy papers on US Middle East policy, he crucially omits the fact that these papers were invariably published by Brookings’ Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

In 2002, Brookings’ Middle East policy was effectively taken over by Israeli media mogul Haim Saban with the founding of the Saban Center for a donation of almost $13 million. While criticizing the papers’ advocacy of aggressive US policy toward Iran and Syria, Cartalucci typically attributes these policy recommendations to the corporations supporting the Brookings Institution rather than to the Israeli billionaire who has openly admitted that the establishment of think tanks was one of his three ways of influencing American politics in order to “protect” Israel.

Having recently come across a July 5, 2013 blog post by “willyloman,” I learned that Cartalucci has “now hand[ed] over the Land Destroyer Report to two of [his] respected colleagues, Eric Draitser and Nile Bowie.” According to Land Destroyer’s “About Us” section, Eric Draitser is “an American geopolitical analyst based in New York City” while Nile Bowie is “an American geopolitical analyst, photographer, and journalist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.”

In the analyses of Draitser and Bowie, one can’t help noticing a striking similarity to Cartalucci’s attempt to portray Israel as America’s compliant cop on the beat in the Middle East, as if its Lobby had little or nothing to do with shaping US policy.

Perhaps the two young New Yorkers, like many other so-called analysts of US foreign policy, simply share their respectful colleague’s discredited Chomskyan view of US-Israel relations. Or perhaps there is another explanation for their common skewed geopolitical worldview. With Cartalucci having receded deeper into the jungles of Thailand, one wonders if he ever really existed at all. Perhaps he was never anything more than a fictional creation of Draitser and/or Bowie who was given a decidedly Gentile-sounding name to help obscure the blatant covering for Israel’s occupation of Washington and its disastrous influence over its foreign policy.

UPDATE: @TonyCartalucci has just replied to my post in two tweets:

@O_Cathail ur so confused/irrelevant. Iraq’s invaded & you’re obsessing over my insufficient hatred for Israel? Ru cognitive infiltration?

@O_Cathail btw you are blocked. Keep preaching to your 100 followers. I have more important things to do.

Well, that’s one way of avoiding the question!

UPDATE II: “Anthony Cartalucci” has just shown up on my Facebook page to accuse me of “cognitive infiltration.” Pot, kettle, black!

UPDATE III: It seems that I’ve touched a nerve. In response to my question, “Speaking of ‘cognitive infiltration,’ can you explain why the sole partner website of your new site New Eastern Outlook (NEO) is the notorious “anti-Zionist” disinfo site Veterans Today?” Cartalucci made this typically evasive comment:

Maidhc, you know so little of what is going on around you, it is amazing you can find your way to the keyboard. Like I said before, you are irrelevant – there is this thing going on in Iraq and here you are trolling people trying to expose it and stop it. That makes you complicit with the very people you claim are pulling the strings. You are either cognitive infiltration or a useful idiot – what is for sure is no one reads your nonsense so I’m pleased to just ignore you from now on.

Now you are blocked on Facebook.

To which I replied:

“Anthony,” have you ever written how “this thing going on in Iraq” actually originated with the Israel Lobby you continue to divert attention from?

http://maidhcocathail.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/on-tenth-anniversary-israel-partisans-behind-iraq-war-still-remain-at-large/

Maidhc Ó Cathail is an investigative journalist and Middle East analyst. He is also the creator and editor of The Passionate Attachment blog, which focuses primarily on the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Written by Maidhc Ó Cathail

June 11, 2014 at 8:14 pm

Posted in Uncategorized

23 Responses

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  1. Great stuff, Maidhc!

    anguslhall

    June 11, 2014 at 9:24 pm

  2. Thanks, Angus!

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    June 11, 2014 at 10:22 pm

  3. So, now, will “Tony” simply disappear, or will he out himself? Cartalucci, indeed – the name and M.O. both sound so very Goodfellow-esque. Perhaps he has gone into the witness protection program, haha… TROLL!!

    Lorraine

    June 12, 2014 at 2:15 am

  4. It is much more likely that Draitser is Cartalucci. Draister’s hate filled writings on Thailand mirror Cartalucci’s rants much more closely than Bowie’s. I think Bowie advises Draitser on where Thailand is etc.

    June 12, 2014 at 8:11 am

  5. Agree Maidhc!

    jillmirran

    June 12, 2014 at 7:56 pm

  6. Robin, I think you may be right. My original title omitted Bowie, however, Land Destroyer now says:

    Comments, questions, corrections, and article submissions should be sent to , or through the Contact LD page.

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    June 12, 2014 at 9:28 pm

  7. Lorraine, even The Sopranos would be hard pressed to create a character like “Tony Cartalucci”!

    http://forward.com/articles/178944/the-jewish-side-of-james-gandolfini/?p=all

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    June 12, 2014 at 9:37 pm

  8. Thanks for the feedback, Jill!

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    June 12, 2014 at 9:47 pm

  9. Thanks Robin for the play list – we can see how mentally ill you are – a whole channel dedicated to hating Tony Cartalucci – who Maidhc has pointed out doesn’t even exist. And Maidhc, the world would be a much better place if we just killed all Jews wouldn’t it? When are you all going to grow the fuck up? There is a reason this website is ranked 14 million on Alexa… you are all batshit crazy loons howling in the fucking wilderness.

    Mateo

    June 13, 2014 at 11:13 am

  10. Mateo, it’s some libelous leap from your aversion to my noting the self-avowed influence of Israel lobbyists like Haim Saban on US policy, and exposing those like “Tony Cartalucci” who consistently attempt to obscure this influence, to infer that I believe “the world would be a much better place if we just killed all Jews”!

    As for popularity, or lack thereof, of this website, its ranking would no doubt be infinitely higher if I were prepared like “Cartalucci” to publish my work on extremely popular disinfo sites like Infowars.

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    June 13, 2014 at 4:30 pm

  11. Thanks for the playlist, Robin.

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    June 13, 2014 at 5:36 pm

  12. Former intelligence linguist Scott Rickard has told me, “I can definitely tell you that Eric Draitser is the only person I know that “knows” Anthony Cartalucci.”

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    June 14, 2014 at 12:20 am

  13. Thanks very much, Maidhc. I’m very grateful for your hard work in providing these kinds of exposes. This article also took me back to your prior expose in 2012 of Cartalucci, “Tony Cartalucci’s Covering for the Israel Lobby,” which was really informative and received some good comments. But I found myself dismayed to note, as I often have, that otherwise alert people seem to be remarkably unaware of the immense control that the Israeli lobby and their manipulated American Jewish zionist cohorts have on the U.S. Congress and government. Anyone who opposes support for Israel or the money going to Israel will be eliminated (in some form). That same control of Congress puts the machinery in place for the formation the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. policy. I’ve lost count of how many U.N. decisions addressing Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians were all but unanimous, but then vetoed by the U.S. And it’s people like Eric Draitser who feed the manipulation of information and perspective that keeps the Americans, especially the American Jewish zionist cohorts, so severely misinformed and blinded to the zionist propaganda.

    I emphatically thank all of you who are independent researchers and/or journalists for your efforts to correct that misinformation and blindness.

    louise

    louise

    June 14, 2014 at 4:33 am

  14. Lendman and Draitser were among the names I heard put out about the fictional Tony Cartalucci. Cartalucci seems to a character built to develop confidence only to take positions that are anti Palestinian, pro Israeli lobby or just a cover for Zionism and Zionists’ preferred policies.

    It is part of a new model to deal with independent media in the internet age which is obviously getting beyond the normal powers’ mechanisms to control an spin.

    I’m less critical of the idea of a fictional person writing than I am knowing who supports the writing thus what agenda is being pushed and even more, what the actual positions are. I think the original post and link dealt with that well.

    Some story should deal with the whole matter comprehensively beause we are seeing other outlets, Voltaire Network, Global Research.ca – Centre For Research On Globalisation, etc. and even attempts at the newer Anti-War site being in the cross hairs of this new effort aimed at alternative media. There are also sites like Real News and many supposedly pro-Palestinian writers active on the internet who are playing this game of deception from their very origins.

    Adding to this is the whole Iran-Hezbollah issue, i.e., an American and Zionist project that created a frenemy, outwardly hostile but internally a partner. So the perversion is that support for this Zionist project has become the new litmus test for ignorance really: if one buys into it then attention is taken away from the Palestinian issue, an the people who support the well funded not-so-secret ally of the US now are useless as a voice against Zionism, Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism.

    It is also worth remembering that English language government supported Iranian media (deliberately) like its Russian counterpart (unwittingly) have become platforms to this game of manipulation and duplicity by Zionists. The Iranians are part and parcel whereas among the Russians’ government sponsored English language media outlets, Zionist have slithered their way in.

    The Iranians have, in partnership with the US and Israel, developed their own new Hasbara-like program of disinformation, staffed largely by well meaning Westerners and tons of useful idiots who have an intense interest perhaps but superficial understanding of history and politics. It has turned anti-Zionism against itself really.

    JJ

    June 14, 2014 at 8:05 pm

  15. Wasn’t there a Frank Cartalucci who was a big wheel on the board of an American arms manufacturer? Anyway..great work, M.O…

    stevieb

    June 24, 2014 at 4:40 pm

  16. You are right, “Tony Cartalucci” is a fictional figure who exclusively writes on US crimes, but not Israel crimes against humanity.
    Please look at their webside, “land destroyer” to find out that these ‘New York intellectuals’ have not written one article on Israeli genocide in Gaza, but exclusively have written on Ukraine ONLY for the past month. No condemnation of Israeli genocide in Gaza can be found at their weblog.
    They are defending Russia, because Putin, according to Israel Shamir, is friend of Israel and is willing to do anything for apartheid state to live. It was Netanyahu who asked Putin not to send S-300 to Iran where Iran had bought it at the time and paid for it, and not to send it to Syria so Syrian people can defend themselves against the war criminals who have bombed Syria many times. Putin followed Netanyahu’s ORDER and did not honor neither Iran’s agreement to receive S-300 nor Assad’ demand for S-300. We have seen no condemnation of Israeli genocide in Gaza by either Putin or China!

    sara

    July 23, 2014 at 3:42 pm

  17. He said this, after I posted your article: “You cite an article whose title is a question and no evidence at all is presented throughout it? Do you hate Jews? The article you cited is written by a Jew-hater. How low will you go?”

    pork juice

    July 29, 2014 at 8:19 am

  18. Thanks, stevieb. Perhaps you are thinking of Frank Carlucci?

    Maidhc Ó Cathail

    August 1, 2014 at 2:18 pm

  19. AMAZING work!!!

    Lindsey

  20. Tony Cartalucci is a bitter, loney old fascist called Michael Pirsch.

    His boot licking of the Thai dictatorship and its murderous king is sickening.

    geebee1978

    January 9, 2016 at 7:52 am


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