{"id":72,"date":"2011-01-06T15:18:39","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T20:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2011\/01\/06\/are-giuliani-ridge-mukasey-townsend-terrorists\/"},"modified":"2011-01-06T15:18:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T20:18:39","slug":"are-giuliani-ridge-mukasey-townsend-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2011\/01\/06\/are-giuliani-ridge-mukasey-townsend-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Giuliani, Ridge, Mukasey &amp; Townsend Terrorists?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Glenn Greenwald <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/news\/terrorism\/index.html?story=\/opinion\/greenwald\/2011\/01\/03\/fran_townsend_terrorism\" target=\"_blank\">makes the case<\/a> that they are.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with &#8212; and expressed vocal support for &#8212; supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein&#8217;s brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a &quot;Terrorist organization&quot; by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties, a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation would be deafening.<\/p>\n<p>But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives &#8212; including Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/12\/22\/AR2010122205180.html\">did exactly that<\/a>. In Paris, of all places, they appeared at a forum organized by supporters of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) &#8212; a group declared by the U.S. since 1997 to be &quot;terrorist organization&quot; &#8212; and expressed wholesale support for that group. Worse &#8212; on foreign soil &#8212; they vehemently criticized their own country&#8217;s opposition to these Terrorists and specifically &quot;demanded that Obama instead take the [] group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran.&quot; In other words, they are calling on the U.S. to embrace this Saddam-supported, U.S.-hating Terrorist group and recruit them to help overthrow the government of Iran. To a foreign audience, Mukasey denounced his own country&#8217;s opposition to these Terrorists as &quot;nothing less than an embarrassment.&quot;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Glenn Greenwald makes the case that they are. Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with &#8212; and expressed vocal support for &#8212; supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy&hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2011\/01\/06\/are-giuliani-ridge-mukasey-townsend-terrorists\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,46,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}