Ben Carson Talks Rape, Incest, Slavery, and the Constitution on Meet the Press

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

27 October 15

What are the gobshites saying these days?

K, so Ben Carson, the current Republican demi-frontrunner, visited the Overlook Hotel this weekend, where my man Chuck Todd always has been the caretaker, and this is something that he said. But before he said it, this is what my man Chuck Todd said,

TODD: My sit down with Ben Carson who isn't holding back.

That's one way to put it. This is one thing that Doctor Ben failed to hold back.

CARSON: No. Think about this. During slavery—and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it. During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave. Anything that they chose to do. And, you know, what if the abolitionist had said, you know, "I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do"? Where would we be?

And this was the question with which my man Chuck Todd followed up.

TODD: Definitively, do you want to see Roe v. Wade overturned?

When dealing with Doctor Ben, who holds nothing back, not even steeply spiraling pure crazy, this is like asking me if I would want to see bacon on my plate. Later, this is another thing that Doctor Ben declined to hold back.

CARSON: Rape and incest, I would not be in favor of killing a baby because the baby came about in that way. And all you have to do is go and look up the many stories of people who have led very useful lives who were the result of rape or incest.

And this was the question with which my man Chuck Todd followed up.

TODD: I want to move to health care.

I will grant you that the question, "I'm sorry, sir, but have you wandered into my studio from the Chronic ward?" might be considered impolite in such circumstances, but, honest to blog, isn't that the only possible follow-up to a guy who is running a heretofore successful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on the basis of not holding back on undistilled political Jesus juice? (By the way, later in the show, the entire panel agreed that nasty old Donald Trump was out of bounds in taking a shot at Carson's Seventh Day Adventist beliefs. Considering that Carson is running almost primarily on the theory that Jesus wrote the Constitution, this seems to me to be a legitimate issue.) And isn't there something to be asked that concerns why this codswallop sells to the voters of one of the only two political parties our system allows itself to have? Doesn't the current mental state of the Republican Party make it a danger to itself and others? Is there any point in even asking these questions anymore?

This is something else that Doctor Ben, who holds nothing back, said.

CARSON: I would say that there are a lot of people who like to believe that whatever they do is the end-all and that nobody could absolutely do things better than they could. It's sort of like the Constitution. People say, "What are you doing talking about the Constitution? You're not a constitutional lawyer." Well, the Constitution was written at an eighth grade level for a reason. They wanted the people to be able to understand how they were being governed.

Actually, if the Constitution were submitted to an eighth-grade English teacher, it would be failed for clarity on the basis of the Second Amendment alone. This is an understanding of the Constitution that belongs either on the back shelves of David Barton's Ye Olde Bullshite Shoppe, or in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. Nobody on the panel – not even famous historian Doris Kearns Goodwin – saw fit to mention it. Confronted with abject falsehood and fantasy, our entire journalism system breaks down utterly. But it wins The Overlook Hotel this week's House Cup.

BBC Protects UK's Close Ally, Saudi Arabia, With Incredibly Dishonest and Biased Editing

By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

27 October 15

he BBC loves to boast about how “objective” and “neutral” it is. But a recent article, which it was forced to change, illustrates the lengths to which the British state-funded media outlet will go to protect one of the U.K. government’s closest allies, Saudi Arabia, which also happens to be one of the country’s largest arms purchasers (just this morning, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. threatened in an op-ed that any further criticism of the Riyadh regime by Jeremy Corbyn could jeopardize the multi-layered U.K./Saudi alliance).

Earlier this month, the BBC published an article describing the increase in weapons and money sent by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes to anti-Assad fighters in Syria. All of that “reporting” was based on the claims of what the BBC called “a Saudi government official,” who — because he works for a government closely allied with the U.K. — was granted anonymity by the BBC and then had his claims mindlessly and uncritically presented as fact (it is the rare exception when the BBC reports adversarially on the Saudis). This anonymous “Saudi official” wasn’t whistleblowing or presenting information contrary to the interests of the regime; to the contrary, he was disseminating official information the regime wanted publicized. This was the key claim of the anonymous Saudi official (emphasis added):

The well-placed official, who asked not to be named, said supplies of modern, high-powered weaponry including guided anti-tank weapons would be increased to the Arab- and western-backed rebel groups fighting the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies.

He said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organizations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to three rebel alliances — Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.

So the Saudis, says the anonymous official, are only arming groups such as the “Army of Conquest,” but not the al Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front. What’s the problem with this claim? It’s obvious, though the BBC would not be so impolite as to point it out: The Army of Conquest includes the Nusra Front as one of its most potent components. This is not even in remote dispute; the New York Times’ elementary explainer on the Army of Conquest from three weeks ago states:

Who are its members?

The alliance consists of a number of mostly Islamist factions, including the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate; Ahrar al-Sham, another large group; and more moderate rebel factions that have received covert arms support from the intelligence services of the United States and its allies.

The Telegraph, in an early October article complaining that Russia was bombing “non-ISIL rebels,” similarly noted that the Army of Conquest (bombed by Russia) “includes a number of Islamist groups, most powerful among them Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra. Jabhat al-Nusra is the local affiliate of al-Qaeda.” Even the Voice of America noted that “Russia’s main target has been the Army of Conquest, an alliance of insurgent groups that includes the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, and the hard-line Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, as well as some less extreme Islamist groups.”

In other words, the claim from the anonymous Saudi official that the BBC uncritically regurgitated — that the Saudis are only arming the Army of Conquest but no groups that “include” the Nusra Front — is self-negating. A BBC reader, Ricardo Vaz, brought this contradiction to the BBC’s attention. As he told The Intercept: “The problem is that the Nusra Front is the most important faction inside the Army of Conquest. So either the Saudi official expected the BBC journalist not to know this, or he expects us to believe they can deliver weapons to factions fighting side by side with an al Qaeda affiliate and that those weapons will not make their way into Nusra’s hands. In any case, this is very close to an official admission that the Saudis (along with Qataris and Turkish) are supplying weapons to an al Qaeda affiliate. This of course is not a secret to anyone who’s paying attention.”

In response to Vaz’s complaint, the BBC did not tell its readers about this vital admission. Instead, it simply edited that Saudi admission out of its article. In doing so, it made the already-misleading article so much worse, as the BBC went even further out of its way to protect the Saudis. This is what that passage now states on the current version of the article on the BBC’s site (emphasis added):

He said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organizations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to the Free Syrian Army and other small rebel groups.

So originally, the BBC stated that the “Saudi official” announced that the regime was arming the Army of Conquest. Once it was brought to the BBC’s attention that the Army of Conquest includes the al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front — a direct contradiction of the Saudi official’s other claim that the Saudis are not arming Nusra — the BBC literally changed the Saudi official’s own statement, whitewashed it, to eliminate his admission that they were arming Army of Conquest. Instead, the BBC now states that the Saudis are arming “the Free Syrian Army and other small rebel groups.” The BBC simply deleted the key admission that the Saudis are arming al Qaeda. As Vaz told The Intercept:

This is an incredible whitewashing effort! Before they were directly quoting the Saudi official, and he explicitly referred to “three rebel alliances,” including “Jaish al-Fatah” [Army of Conquest]. There is no way a journalist was told “other small rebel groups” and understood what was written before. In their reply to my complaint they said the mistake was an “editorial oversight,” which is truly laughable. What we saw was a prestigious western media outlet surrendering the floor to an anonymous official from the most medieval of regimes, the official pretty much saying that they were going to supply (more) weapons to an al Qaeda affiliate, and instead of pointing this out, the BBC chose to blur the picture and cover the terrorist-arming/funding activities of the Saudis/Qataris/Turkish.

I personally don’t view the presence of al Qaeda “affiliated” fighters as a convincing argument against supporting Syrian rebels. It’s understandable that people fighting against an oppressive regime — one backed by powerful foreign factions — will align with anyone willing and capable of fighting with them. Moreover, the long-standing U.S./U.K. template of branding anyone they fight and kill as “terrorists” or “al Qaeda” is no more persuasive or noble when used in Syria by Assad and the Russians, particularly when used to obscure civilian casualties. And regarding the anti-Assad forces as monolithically composed of religious extremists ignores the anti-tyranny sentiment among ordinary Syrians motivating much of the anti-regime protests, with its genesis in the Arab Spring.

But what this does highlight is just how ludicrous — how beyond parody — the 14-year-old war on terror has become, how little it has to do with its original ostensible justification. The regime with the greatest plausible proximity to the 9/11 attack — Saudi Arabia — is the closest U.S. ally in the region next to Israel. The country that had absolutely nothing to do with that attack, and which is at least as threatened as the U.S. by the religious ideology that spurred it — Iran — is the U.S.’s greatest war-on-terror adversary. Now we have a virtual admission from the Saudis that they are arming a group that centrally includes al Qaeda, while the U.S. itself has at least indirectly done the same (just as was true in Libya). And we’re actually at the point where western media outlets are vehemently denouncing Russia for bombing al Qaeda elements, which those outlets are  manipulatively referring to as “non-ISIS groups.”

It’s not a stretch to say that the faction that provides the greatest material support to al Qaeda at this point is the U.S. and its closest allies. That is true even as al Qaeda continues to be paraded around as the prime need for the ongoing war.

But whatever one’s views are on Syria, it’s telling indeed to watch the BBC desperately protect Saudi officials, not only by granting them anonymity to spout official propaganda, but worse, by using blatant editing games to whitewash the Saudis’ own damaging admissions, ones the BBC unwittingly published. There are many adjectives one can apply to the BBC’s behavior here: “Objective” and “neutral” are most assuredly not among them.