09/13/10 – Jason Ditz – The Scott Horton Show

My man, Jason Ditz, is on the phone.
Hey, Jason.
Hi, Scott.
How are you doing, man?
I'm doing good.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Hey, man.
Jason, of course, is the news editor at Antiwar.com, and you'll be smart.
Even if you're dumb and you have a really low IQ, if you just go to news.antiwar.com and just study, you will know what the hell is going on, for real.
This kid is unbelievable.
I'm sorry to even call you a kid.
You're not a kid at all, and you're great.
I think this is the funniest thing I've ever read that you've written, and your news summaries are often very funny, Jason, but this one's the best.
I'm looking right now at Antiwar.com slash blog, your official response to the CIA's accusations against you.
Jason, go ahead.
Tell us what's going on here, man.
Well, it's not really the CIA's accusations.
It's Radio Free Europe's accusations, and Radio Free Europe- Yeah, the CIA.
Well, they used to be, but officially, now they're separate.
Oh, okay.
Oh, officially.
You mean like the state legislature in California and Texas, officially is separate from the CIA, quote, quote.
Right.
I'm sorry, so go ahead.
Whoever these goons are, what did they accuse you of?
Well, they accused me of having articles on an Iranian website that was, it's called barackobama.ir, which that's Iran's domain name, and this website, which I'd never heard of, took some copies of some of my news summaries and just reprinted them on their site, which, I mean, that happens all the time.
A lot of those articles appear a hundred different places, on blogs, on forums, on foreign websites.
I mean, they end up all over the place, and there's really not much you can do about it.
The fact that some of these articles were picked up by this website, Radio Free Europe makes this accusation in an article that appears on Google News and appears all over the place that I might be working with them or have reached some sort of understanding with them to help the Ahmadinejad government get out its message.
So, you know, that's a funny thing, because I actually got a call yesterday from the people that run the studio where they film the Press TV thing.
When I did Press TV a couple of weeks ago, which I don't get nearly the exposure you get in terms of all that copy-pasting and what have you, but they were offering me a check of like $130 or something like that for doing the show, and I was like, nah, man, I'm sorry.
I'll defend the truth from liars, but I never had as a purpose doing any favor for the Iranian government, and nor will I accept any money from them for anything.
And of course, you know, when they interviewed me, it was not about Iran.
The Russian state TV interviewed me about Iran, Iranian state TV interviewed me about Obama and Gates and the wars and stuff, the ones that are already going on.
But anyway, I never take a dollar from a foreign government for crying out loud.
Yeah, I'll tell the truth to them or whatever, they can record it, but I just think that's so hilarious, the kind of guilt by association there, as though anyone should believe that a website full of copy and pasted material from all over the world somehow is, you know, employing Antiwar.com's news editor as some secret agent against the truth, you know, like Radio Free Europe is where the truth is found, and you're here trying to confuse the issue or something instead of the other way around.
Well, and the thing that really got me was, their whole English language version of that website is all, I mean, it appears to all be copy pasted from Western journalists, and I guess I haven't read every single piece, so maybe there's a couple of Iranian pieces on there, but I mean, Tom Englehart gets copied several times, John Pilger gets copied at least once.
I mean, there's a lot of people a lot more famous than me getting copied, which makes me wonder why I of all people was the one that got singled out in the Radio Free Europe piece.
Well, maybe it's because, you know, for whatever, from their point of view, John Pilger is already John Pilger or something, you're an unknown quantity, and all you ever do is disprove everything they ever say.
And so, you know, they're probably scared to death of you, man, news.antiwar.com is no joke.
No, but the very idea that I would be somehow in league with the Iranian government is something of a joke.
Right, yeah, or yeah, that anyone would take their accusation against you seriously, unless, you know, David Horowitz wants to say, see, everybody, we told you.
I mean, if it was anybody else, if it was some random website making that accusation, I would have probably not even noticed.
It's just the fact that it's Radio Free Europe, and they get somewhere in the realm of $90 million a year in taxpayer funding, it sort of makes it an issue.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, make sure that when you're writing up your bio, newseditor at antiwar.com, you know, and you should quote, like, probably agent of the Iranian government or whatever, and then quote Radio Free Europe, you know, like Jim Bovard likes to quote all, I think every executive agency condemning him.
That's gonna be a good one for you.
This is a real feather in your cap, I think, Jason, congratulations.
And by the way, what's the exact quote?
What was it that they said?
Do you have it in front of you?
I don't have it in front of me.
Here's the quote that, Jason, you were either recruited to write exclusively for barackobama.ir or agreed to share your content.
And then I guess you say, later on in the article, they go, or maybe not either.
But in parentheses and lower down, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of an afterthought.
Ridiculous.
You know, they probably did a focus group and was like, is this working on you?
Yeah, sure.
I'll buy that.
I'll buy anything.
I'll hate Muslims.
If David Horowitz tells me to hate Muslims, you know, whatever.
I hate whatever you tell me to hate.
But anyway, I think, you know, for the people who that does, that kind of thing doesn't work on.
I think this is good for you.
Really?
I mean, honestly, what other motive could they have, Jason, other than they fear you because you understand and you keep telling people?
No, no, no.
See, they say this, but here's what the real truth is.
It's rather sloppy reporting, too, because not only had I not heard of this BarackObama.ir website, literally my first indication of this Radio Free Europe piece that mentioned me is the fact that I saw it on Google News.
So they never appeared to make any effort to contact me, and it's not like my contact information is hard to find to ask me, is this true?
They just went right to making the accusations.
Yeah, of course.
Well, that's the thing.
We're talking about the American government here.
And you know what?
I think that's funny, too.
And I think you say in here, you know, you point out, like, wasn't this whole thing to, you know, be psychological warfare against the Soviet Union?
Why do we even have this?
Why would America have, you know, a government foreign propaganda agency like this?
And you know, it seems very un-American to me, Jason.
Seems like the kind of thing that the Europeans or the Russians would do.
Not America.
Not what America's supposed to be.
And now it's sort of morphed into this, it's supposed to provide credible media for nations without a free press, but a lot of the countries that it provides to are American-occupied countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
And interestingly enough, they only started broadcasting Radio Free Europe in Afghanistan in 2002, so they decided to start broadcasting after the American occupation began.
That's funny.
I wonder if they think that that really works.
Like, okay, I got 19-year-olds with machine guns all over my neighborhood killing people in Apache helicopters strafing our graveyards and whatever, but, oh, I heard on the radio that they really love us, and to never read news.antiwar.com, so I guess I'll stay away from there.
They're in league with the Iranians.
All right, Jason, you're great, man.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you.