(SIGH) MORE WINGNUT AGIT-PROP

TBogg catches an op-ed piece by Clifford May in USA Today. If you don't want to read it, you can get the gist of it from the LTE I sent:

I am astonished that USA Today would publish Clifford Mays' latest piece of agit-prop, "Inaction failed." It's good to have opinions but they should be backed up with facts, not daydreams and lies.

In his first two paragraphs, May distorts the history of our efforts against terrorism. It is simply false that we did nothing for 25 years. This false claim can be refuted by the creation of the National Counter-Terrorism Center in 1995 and the attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden in
1998.

May then says that it would've been wrong to continue to do nothing about Saddam. In his mind, getting a unanimous resolution to send weapons inspectors back into Iraq is "doing nothing."

Finally, May repeats the canard that Salman Pak was used to train terrorists despite the fact that we've known for going on 3 years that it was used for counter-terrorism training.

These lies all were put to print in an effort to justify not only the failure in Iraq but also to provide some help for the GOP in the 2006 elections by paving the way for military action against Iran.

I think a complete retraction by May or a full-scale rebuttal by the Editors of USA Today is called for.

May is the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a wingnut stink tank. Here's a little background on FDD from 2004:

FDD is best known through the frequent media interviews and news analysis by FDD's Clifford May, who before joining FDD was director of communications (1997-2001) for the Republican National Committee. May's other institutional affiliations include being vice-chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition. A veteran journalist, May continues to contributes regularly to National Review.

Republican Party insiders dominate FDD's board and staff. FDD's three board members are Steve Forbes, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick. Its two “distinguished advisers” are Newt Gingrich and James Woolsey, while other advisers include Gary Bauer, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Walid Phares, Charles Krauthammer, and Frank Gaffney—all prominent neoconservative figures with multiple links to the Defense Policy Board, Center for Security Policy, American Enterprise Institute, Weekly Standard, and Project for the New American Century.