
The Syrian spinner-in-chief is so entrenched in his wishful thinking that even his loyal readers are pointing out his many fallacies and errors, logical or factual (like for example using a piece from a writer’s blog and attributing it to the Wall Street Journal.)

Hello, my name is Mustapha and I blog in The Beirut Spring about Lebanese society and politics. I started in February 2005 after the killing of P.M. Rafik Hariri.


So typographical errors are now also part of the damascene plot to conquer the universe … ?
As to your query, the State Department is one such group that refused to make “a connection.” Does that mean they are being honest or know what they are talking about? Hell, no, but it does mean that they will say whatever to protect their interests (in this case, SC fears of Lebanese strife), just like those guys in Syria.
Seriously, man. This is becoming like a blindness. The Syrian regime is terrible in many respects and it is hard to underestimate the cynical brutality of its occupation of lebanon, but that is not and never will be an excuse to turn your brain off. Please … Today, Lebanon needs cooler heads and clearer minds …
David,
Taking a piece out of a personal blog and attributing to a high standards publication like the WSJ is not an innocent “typographical error”, it is malicious misinformation.
re-read the post. it says clearly one is from pat lang and one is from the wsj and then when it posts the text, it makes a mistake. I hope to God there has never been such a typographical error on this blog, if so, i shall be ready with theories of a vast zionist conspiracy … :)
M-
I’ve known Josh for a long time & my guess (speaking as the person who pointed out his gaffe in the SC comments section) was & remains that he simply made a mistake, a blooper if you will.
It happens.
–MSK*
Watch him go back and clean it up later. He’s notorious for THAT kind of “integrity.”
I wish I knew earlier what a deceitful dishonest coward Landis was… I would have saved his idiotic slips and slides for days like this.
Years ago, during the frenzy of accusations and recriminations following the Hariri assassination, Landis posted a farcical drivel by regime toady Sami Moubayed, arguing essentially that the Lebanese are quite able and accomplished at knocking off their own kind. To illustrate (that the Hariri assassination was a Lebanese inside job of which the Syrians were clearly innocent), Moubayed (whom Landis had described as a “leading Syrian intellectual”) reminded his readers how Geagea loyalists had assassinated Dory Chamoun (sic.) and his family in 1990 (to punish them for having lent support to Aoun etc..)
When I brought it to Landis’ attention that Dory Chamoun was still alive and kicking in 2005 (in spite of having been bumped off 15 years earlier by FL epigones), and that his “leading Syrian intellectual” was in fact a dunce and a phony too lazy to get his facts straight and make a difference between Dany and Dory, true blue Landis removed the discussion thread (my comments included) and the original post altogether.
And this is ostensibly an “academic”. I’m afraid to ask what propagandists and hatchet-men look like.
Come on Mustafa, your becoming the boy who cried wolf 50 times a day.
I understand that your a Harriri supporter, but have you given up on thinking from outside the “blue” circle??
Syria is bad yes!, but this time it’s a lot more complex than that.
Don’t let your emotions get in the way of understanding the concept of “government accountability”.
I’m surprised there are any people remaining that believe that guy is legit. I’ve read his blog only about 5 times when I saw a “headline” on iToot that caught my eye, and in every case there were major problems with the post itself. Let along the illogical arguments he tries to present. I mean, mi-attributed quotes – how is that OK? That makes it look like somebody said something they never actually did say, that a big freaking deal! I would have problems with any blogger who did that. I’ve never done that in my comments, why should I believe those are harmless and innocent mistakes? The guy has an agenda and somehow his “mistakes” always promote that agenda, they never harm it. I’m not buying it. And I don’t like the idea that somebody like this is a prof in a US University.