The image and text below has circulated on the internet for at least a decade and a half.
It is pure Great Replacement Theory nonsense, and it’s completely made up. There is no such text in my book The Pentagon’s New Map and there’s nothing in anything I’ve ever posted or published or spoken live before audiences.
For too many years now, I have answered request after request about owning up to, or dismissing as misinformation, this internet meme, which at one point became so prevalent in Germany that it led a local publisher to translate PNM and Blueprint for Action into German to take advantage of all the online buzz.
And no, I was not happy with the title translations
Even with the books’ publication in Germany, the false meme has persisted, along with the notion of my being Jewish (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) and — in some variations — a retired Mossad general (which is like saying I’m a retired CIA general — not a thing). My personal favorite (now no longer online, as far as I can tell) had me with vampire fangs dripping blood.
Anyway, my kids thought that last bit was cool.
Crude and crazy, and yet this image has driven more people than I can remember to contact me over the years for explanations/congratulations/condemnations/etc.
I was actually going to put this bit in America’s New Map, but I chose not to in the end because I didn’t want to facilitate it just to make this simple point. Here’s the excised text from a deleted/partially repurposed thread in an early manuscript:
The GRT material was later transferred to the MAGA thread instead, where this aside wasn’t worth inserting for reasons of flow.
And yes, I was glossing over things by saying the German edition solved all my problems.
But then, a few days ago, comes along Logically Facts. Who are they?
Logically Facts is an Ireland registered company and an independent subsidiary of the UK-based TheLogically. Our mission is to reduce the individual, institutional, and societal damage caused by misleading and deceptive online discourse through our fact-checking efforts.
Logically Facts helps mitigate the risks posed by mis/disinformation to public health, public safety, election integrity, and national security by enabling platforms to operate in markets safely, responsibly, and compliantly. Logically Facts is part of Meta’s Third Party Fact-Checking Program (3PFC) and works with TikTok in Europe. We have been a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) since 2020 and are a member of the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) in India and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) in Europe.
They say they’re working a report on the image and wanted my comment, which I gladly gave.
The enterprise subsequently came out with the following “report”:
Thomas Barnett’s book 'The Pentagon’s New Map' does not include a plan to bring millions of immigrants to Europe
By: Christian Haag July 11 2024
Context
An image circulating on Twitter and Instagram headlined "Jews explain why they bring millions of Muslims and African immigrants to Europe," followed by a purported quote from military and geopolitical strategist Thomas Barnett,
The image claims Barnett wrote in his 2004 book "The Pentagon's New Map" that:
"The ultimate goal is the forcible-coordination of all countries of the world: That shall be achieved by the mixing of the races with the goal to create a light brown race in Europe. For that reason 1.5 million immigrants from the third world shall migrate to Europe every year. The result would be a population with an average IQ of 90 that is so dumb to grasp anything but intelligent enough to work. The European countries would never again be competitors in the struggle for global domination and a multiple millennia-old culture would be destroyed. Irrational people who will fight against this 'mingling of races', and put up any resistance against the global world order, should be killed - Thomas P.M. Barnett, Jew, director of the Israeli Military consultancy "Wikistrat" in his book 'The Pentagon's New Map', 2004.
However, the claim is false, and this quote does not appear in Barnett's book. The claim endorses talking points of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. The image originated on the controversial meme forum 4chan and has been circulating for several years.
In Fact
The only part of the quote found in both the book and the meme is the yearly 1.5 million immigrants figure, which Barnett believes that Europe needs to support its aging population.
Barnett's ideas for a geopolitical strategy to integrate parts of the world with the U.S. were originally published in Esquire. He labeled this the "Non-integrating gap, "and suggested merging this into "The Functioning Core." Barnett's strategy proposes "shrinking the gap" by integrating these parts of the world into the global economy by exporting security and ensuing peacekeeping missions to provide stability, facilitate trade, and increase foreign aid. The book does not advocate for anything akin to "great replacement" conspiracy theories, or any other population replacement theories.
Logically Facts contacted Barnett for a comment, who stated that the quote was a "complete fabrication."
The map proposed by Thomas P.M. Barnett in his book "The Pentagons new map". (Source: Thomas P.M. Barnett/Screenshot/Edited by Logically Facts)
The claim touches on key components of the Great Replacement and other population replacement theories, such as Jews facilitating high immigration to Europe to create a mixed race and destroy European culture. Such theories are unsubstantiated and have been used to justify several terrorist attacks by far-right and extremist actors, such as Utøya in Norway in 2011, Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, and Buffalo, New York in 2022. In recent years, the conspiracy theory has reached further into the mainstream political sphere in both the U.S. and Europe and gained traction ahead of the general election in the U.K. Logically Facts has debunked the theory and adjacent topics extensively.
The verdict
The quoted text attributed to Thomas P.M. Barnett is not present in his book "The Pentagon's New Map." The claim is false and aims to disseminate the far-right conspiracy theory of The Great Replacement.
Alrighty then!
Now for the caveat:
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I did, for five years (2010-2015), work for an Israeli company called Wikistrat, whose senior execs and board members did indeed hail overwhelmingly from the Israeli national security world — military and intelligence. After personally building their massive online wargaming methodology and helping take the company from zero revenue to some serious money across those five years, I was, with no credible explanation and right after receiving a substantial bonus for work well done, fired from the firm less than a month before Donald Trump announced for the presidency. As for what Wikistrat, along with other firms owned by the same person, have been accused of, in the press, over the subsequent years, it’s all very easy to Google and discover. None of what has been aired in the press (mainstream or otherwise) occurred during my time with Wikistrat or has been linked to me in any manner. As a result, I have also never been interviewed by any investigating entity concerning any of these issues or events. Thus, in retrospect, I was lucky to be fired when I was, or, let’s say, my firing was not a coincidence.]
Will this Logically Facts report finally put this bizarro, anti-semitic meme to bed?
Who knows?
I am nonetheless grateful to those fact checkers from one of my family’s ancient homelands.
My suspicion as well.
these meme guys gotta step their research up.... everyone knows most retired mossad generals are Chicago Bears fans