Dual-loyalty slur and conspiracy theory go unchallenged on BBC Radio 4

h/t JG

The August 9th edition of BBC Radio 4’s ‘World at One’ included an item (from 23:05 here) concerning the US elections which focused on the story of a letter from a group of former national security officials stating that they would not vote for Donald Trump. Presenter Martha Kearney interviewed one of the letter’s signatories – former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden – before moving on to speak to another interviewee (from 28:35) who was introduced as follows:World at One 9 8

MK: “Well listening to that was Dr Michael Sheuer who was a CIA officer for 22 years and has endorsed Donald Trump for presidency.”

From around 32:28, listeners heard the following:

Michael Sheuer: “The people that signed that letter, ma’am, if you go down the list they’re the ones who want America to be intervening everywhere around the world. They’re the new world order people. You know; is that what Bush called it? The new world order I guess; yeah. They’re the ones who brought us all of these unnecessary wars. If you go down the list there’s also about 30 people who prize the interests of Israel more than the interests of the United States and that’s the real rub for a lot of them.”

Martha Kearney: “Mmm…”

Michael Sheuer: “That’s a real rub for the Republicans: that America is no longer going to get involved fighting Israel’s wars.”

Without challenging the dual loyalty slur with antisemitic roots or the “fighting Israel’s wars” falsehood, Kearney then wrapped up the item as follows: “Dr Michael Sheuer – many thanks for joining us.”

It takes less than ten minutes on the internet to get the measure of Michael Sheuer’s ideologies. His habit of blaming Israel for terrorism in America, his promotion of the notion of an ‘Israel lobby’ and his unfounded claim that “[t]he Israel-firsters started the Iraq war” are amply advertised online.

We do not of course know whether or not the ‘World at One’ production team bothered to invest any time in researching – even on Wikipedia – the person they chose to ask for an interview. What we do know is that when Sheuer went predictably off-topic and introduced his pet subject of Israel into the conversation, his slurs and conspiracy theories went entirely unchallenged, with the result that Radio 4 listeners were misled.

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