Archive for June 2014
Is ‘Tony Cartalucci’ a fictional creation of Eric Draitser and/or Nile Bowie?
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?
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.