| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 10:28 pm Post subject: Neocons Blast Bush's Inaction On 'Spy' Affair |
| http://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=perelman20040909327
Neocons Blast Bush's Inaction On 'Spy' Affair
By MARC PERELMAN
September 10, 2004
In an indication of their growing estrangement with the Bush administration, neoconservatives are slamming the White House for failing to stop what they describe as an antisemitic campaign to marginalize them being conducted by the CIA and the State Department.
This view was outlined in a memo circulating among neoconservative foreign policy analysts in Washington. Obtained by the Forward, the memo criticizes the White House for not refuting press reports on the FBI's investigation of Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin that suggest wrongdoing on the part of Jewish officials at the Defense Department.
"If there is any truth to any of the accusations, why doesn't the White House demand that they bring on the evidence? On the record," the
memo stated. "There's an increasing antisemitic witch hunt."
A source who has seen the memo said it was written by Michael Rubin, a former member of the Pentagon's policy planning staff who dealt with Iran policy. Rubin, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, declined to comment for this story.
"I feel like I'm in Paris, not Washington," the author of the memo wrote. He added: "I'm disappointed at the lack of leadership that let things get where they are, and which is allowing these bureaucratics (sic) to spin out of control."
The memo comes as the FBI is investigating the possibility that Franklin passed classified information on Iran policy to officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who in turn provided the documents to Israel. Israel and Aipac have denied any wrongdoing. Media reports suggest that several other Pentagon officials have been questioned in connection to the probe.
Some Washington insiders claim that the White House silence over the Franklin affair reflects a growing view within the administration that the neoconservatives — widely seen as leading proponents of the Iraq war — represent a mounting political burden, given the continuing chaos in Iraq.
While President Bush and his closest advisers openly shared the neoconservatives' belief that American military action was needed to remove Saddam Hussein, the two sides seem to have parted ways over Iran. Neoconservative analysts in and out of government are calling on the United States to attempt to secure regime change in Tehran. The administration has increasingly suggested that it has no plans to take such forceful steps against Iran.
The recent controversy surrounding the FBI investigations also can be traced to renewed concerns in some quarters of the intelligence and security communities that Washington's close relationship with Jerusalem ρρ centered, in the critics' view, in the neoconservative group at the Pentagon ρρ is hurting American national interests.
While they generally refuse to speak on the record, some former intelligence and law-enforcement officials have alleged that Israel operates an aggressive spying operation in America. Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Sharon, have vehemently denied such claims, insisting that their country does not conduct espionage operations against the United States.
Some observers point to the harsh treatment of accused spy Jonathan Pollard as evidence of the intelligence community's strong feelings on the issue. Pollard, a former Navy civilian analyst, is serving a life sentence for providing Israel with classified documents about Soviet armament. Members of the security establishment have worked aggressively to block attempts by Jewish organizations to have Pollard's sentence commuted on humanitarian grounds.
This old resentment toward Israel and its supporters in the United States has found new echo with the growing criticism of the neoconservatives for their advocacy of war in Iraq. In recent months, several critics of the neoconservatives' influence on Middle Eastern policy have openly accused Israel of pushing a hawkish agenda.
Retired general Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the U.S. Central Command and presidential Middle East envoy, told CBS in May that "the worst-kept secret in Washington" was that the neoconservatives pushed the war in Iraq for Israel's benefit. Similar criticism of Israel and Jewish groups appeared in the recent book "Imperial Hubris," by Anonymous, who was later identified as Michael Scheuer, a serving senior CIA official.
"Objectively, al Qaeda does not seem off the mark when it describes the U.S.-Israel relationship as a detriment to America," wrote Scheuer, a former head of the CIA analytical team focusing on Al Qaeda. "One can only react to this stunning reality by giving all praise to Israel's diplomats, politicians, intelligence services, U.S.-citizen spies, and the retired senior U.S. officials and wealthy Jewish-American organizations who lobby an always amenable Congress on Israel's behalf."
In recent months, signs of alienation from the neoconservatives have come as well from the Bush administration. American officials, for example, have accused longtime Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, of warning Iranian intelligence officials that the United States had broken Iran's secret communications codes. The FBI's investigation to determine who in government had told Chalabi about the secret code-breaking operation has focused on Defense Department officials, sources said.
American officials, speaking anonimously, have given conflicting comments on whether the Franklin and Chalabi probes are linked.
The barrage of news reports on the allegations of improper conduct on the part of Aipac and Pentagon officials has fueled a suspicion among neo-conservatives that they are the victims of a smear campaign quietly endorsed by the White House. The recent memo being circulated in neoconservative circles points a finger at several State Department officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and at members of the National Security Council, including Robert Blackwill, who took over Iraq policy recently and is said to be behind the Chalabi crackdown.
The memo, in an apparent reference to a June 2003 article in The Washington Post describing administration infighting over U.S. policy toward Tehran, asserted that media leaks from the State Department sank an effort by Pentagon officials to call for more aggressive action against Iran in a key policy document called the national security presidential directive, or NSPD.
"It was bad enough that the White House rewarded the June 15, 2003 leak by canceling consideration of the NSPD," the memo stated. "It showed the State Department that leaks could supplant real debate. But while Armitage or Blackwell (sic) might be seeking to score points inside the beltway, they are feeding conspiracies in the Middle East that will sink the president's policies in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, etc."
To back up claims of antisemitism, the memo points to reports that the FBI has hired Stephen Green, a longtime critic of American-Israeli ties, as a consultant. A former United Nations official, Green has a long record of claiming that Israel uses Jewish Americans, some of them prominent, to spy on the United States. Green has said in interviews that FBI officials interviewed him at length in the past few weeks.
"Green has... been on a one-man mission to expose deep-cover Israeli agents for decades," the memo said.
Green stresssed that the bureau had sought him out "and not the other way around" and that its officials did not ask about Franklin but about leading neoconservative like Wolfowitz and Feith. | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 11:08 pm Post subject: Re: Neocons Blast Bush's Inaction On 'Spy' Affair |
| Treason in High Places (Israeli operatives at the Pentagon plotting war for Israel in Iraq and beyond), AIPAC and Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2004/09/08/treason-in-high-places-pentagon-zionists-aipac-and-israel.php
| Alpha wrote: | http://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=perelman20040909327
Neocons Blast Bush's Inaction On 'Spy' Affair
By MARC PERELMAN
September 10, 2004
In an indication of their growing estrangement with the Bush administration, neoconservatives are slamming the White House for failing to stop what they describe as an antisemitic campaign to marginalize them being conducted by the CIA and the State Department.
This view was outlined in a memo circulating among neoconservative foreign policy analysts in Washington. Obtained by the Forward, the memo criticizes the White House for not refuting press reports on the FBI's investigation of Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin that suggest wrongdoing on the part of Jewish officials at the Defense Department.
"If there is any truth to any of the accusations, why doesn't the White House demand that they bring on the evidence? On the record," the
memo stated. "There's an increasing antisemitic witch hunt."
A source who has seen the memo said it was written by Michael Rubin, a former member of the Pentagon's policy planning staff who dealt with Iran policy. Rubin, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, declined to comment for this story.
"I feel like I'm in Paris, not Washington," the author of the memo wrote. He added: "I'm disappointed at the lack of leadership that let things get where they are, and which is allowing these bureaucratics (sic) to spin out of control."
The memo comes as the FBI is investigating the possibility that Franklin passed classified information on Iran policy to officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, who in turn provided the documents to Israel. Israel and Aipac have denied any wrongdoing. Media reports suggest that several other Pentagon officials have been questioned in connection to the probe.
Some Washington insiders claim that the White House silence over the Franklin affair reflects a growing view within the administration that the neoconservatives — widely seen as leading proponents of the Iraq war — represent a mounting political burden, given the continuing chaos in Iraq.
While President Bush and his closest advisers openly shared the neoconservatives' belief that American military action was needed to remove Saddam Hussein, the two sides seem to have parted ways over Iran. Neoconservative analysts in and out of government are calling on the United States to attempt to secure regime change in Tehran. The administration has increasingly suggested that it has no plans to take such forceful steps against Iran.
The recent controversy surrounding the FBI investigations also can be traced to renewed concerns in some quarters of the intelligence and security communities that Washington's close relationship with Jerusalem ρρ centered, in the critics' view, in the neoconservative group at the Pentagon ρρ is hurting American national interests.
While they generally refuse to speak on the record, some former intelligence and law-enforcement officials have alleged that Israel operates an aggressive spying operation in America. Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Sharon, have vehemently denied such claims, insisting that their country does not conduct espionage operations against the United States.
Some observers point to the harsh treatment of accused spy Jonathan Pollard as evidence of the intelligence community's strong feelings on the issue. Pollard, a former Navy civilian analyst, is serving a life sentence for providing Israel with classified documents about Soviet armament. Members of the security establishment have worked aggressively to block attempts by Jewish organizations to have Pollard's sentence commuted on humanitarian grounds.
This old resentment toward Israel and its supporters in the United States has found new echo with the growing criticism of the neoconservatives for their advocacy of war in Iraq. In recent months, several critics of the neoconservatives' influence on Middle Eastern policy have openly accused Israel of pushing a hawkish agenda.
Retired general Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the U.S. Central Command and presidential Middle East envoy, told CBS in May that "the worst-kept secret in Washington" was that the neoconservatives pushed the war in Iraq for Israel's benefit. Similar criticism of Israel and Jewish groups appeared in the recent book "Imperial Hubris," by Anonymous, who was later identified as Michael Scheuer, a serving senior CIA official.
"Objectively, al Qaeda does not seem off the mark when it describes the U.S.-Israel relationship as a detriment to America," wrote Scheuer, a former head of the CIA analytical team focusing on Al Qaeda. "One can only react to this stunning reality by giving all praise to Israel's diplomats, politicians, intelligence services, U.S.-citizen spies, and the retired senior U.S. officials and wealthy Jewish-American organizations who lobby an always amenable Congress on Israel's behalf."
In recent months, signs of alienation from the neoconservatives have come as well from the Bush administration. American officials, for example, have accused longtime Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, of warning Iranian intelligence officials that the United States had broken Iran's secret communications codes. The FBI's investigation to determine who in government had told Chalabi about the secret code-breaking operation has focused on Defense Department officials, sources said.
American officials, speaking anonimously, have given conflicting comments on whether the Franklin and Chalabi probes are linked.
The barrage of news reports on the allegations of improper conduct on the part of Aipac and Pentagon officials has fueled a suspicion among neo-conservatives that they are the victims of a smear campaign quietly endorsed by the White House. The recent memo being circulated in neoconservative circles points a finger at several State Department officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and at members of the National Security Council, including Robert Blackwill, who took over Iraq policy recently and is said to be behind the Chalabi crackdown.
The memo, in an apparent reference to a June 2003 article in The Washington Post describing administration infighting over U.S. policy toward Tehran, asserted that media leaks from the State Department sank an effort by Pentagon officials to call for more aggressive action against Iran in a key policy document called the national security presidential directive, or NSPD.
"It was bad enough that the White House rewarded the June 15, 2003 leak by canceling consideration of the NSPD," the memo stated. "It showed the State Department that leaks could supplant real debate. But while Armitage or Blackwell (sic) might be seeking to score points inside the beltway, they are feeding conspiracies in the Middle East that will sink the president's policies in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, etc."
To back up claims of antisemitism, the memo points to reports that the FBI has hired Stephen Green, a longtime critic of American-Israeli ties, as a consultant. A former United Nations official, Green has a long record of claiming that Israel uses Jewish Americans, some of them prominent, to spy on the United States. Green has said in interviews that FBI officials interviewed him at length in the past few weeks.
"Green has... been on a one-man mission to expose deep-cover Israeli agents for decades," the memo said.
Green stresssed that the bureau had sought him out "and not the other way around" and that its officials did not ask about Franklin but about leading neoconservative like Wolfowitz and Feith. | | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 11:32 pm Post subject: A Shabby and Sinister Case for War |
| http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts68.html
A Shabby and Sinister Case for War
by Paul Craig Roberts
Anyone following the Larry Franklin Pentagon spy story is keenly aware of the solidarity binding neoconservatives, AIPAC, Israel’s rightwing Likud Party, the US invasion of Iraq, and the war drums neocons are beating against Iran.
By this time, only the willfully ignorant could be unaware that top neocon policymakers in the George W. Bush administration wrote a policy paper for rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 that called for "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." The September 11 terror attacks gave the neocons the opportunity to put their removal strategy in motion.
Among the willfully ignorant is neoconservative godfather Norman Podhoretz. He has just published a 30,000-word delusional screed in the September issue of Commentary, "WW IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win." (In the neocon lexicon, WW III was the Cold War.)
Podhoretz begins by alleging that "the malignant force of radical Islamism" has as its objective "to conquer our land" and to destroy "everything good for which America stands."
If Muslims intend to conquer America, then they are every bit as delusional as Podhoretz, who intends for America to conquer the Middle East.
But, of course, Muslims have no such objective. The objective of Muslim terrorists is to drive America out of Muslim homelands, not to conquer ours. Podhoretz’s intention to conquer the Middle East, however, is real. He has declared it before, as has Douglas Feith, currently Undersecretary of Defense in the Bush administration, who wrote in his "Strategy for Israel" in 1997 that the US and Israel should conquer Iraq, Syria, and Iran and that Israel should reoccupy "the areas under Palestinian Authority control."
Podhoretz wants you to believe that "the road we have taken since 9/11 is the only safe course for us to follow." Safe? This bloody and inhuman road leads on to American invasions of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and, if Podhoretz has his way, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Demurely, Podhoretz has kept Pakistan off his list, perhaps because Pakistan, like Israel, has nuclear weapons.
Podhoretz is worried that mounting US casualties in Iraq and growing public doubt about the wisdom of the failed Iraq invasion will derail the scheme to conquer the Muslim Middle East and to deracinate Islam. Podhoretz gives his assurances that "the obstacles to a benevolent transformation of the Middle East – whether military, political, or religious – are not insuperable." He writes that "there can be no question that we possess the power and the means." The only question is whether we have "the stomach to do what will be required."
To make sure that we have the stomach, Podhoretz blames the 9/11 terrorist attack on American cowardice. He argues that four US presidents (Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton) spent 24 years convincing Muslims that America is a wimp.
Podhoretz lays out his history of White House wimpery. First, Carter wimped out on Iran. Then Reagan let Islamic terrorists blow us out of Lebanon. Bush I followed in Reagan’s wimp footsteps and refused to finish the job in Iraq. Clinton continued the wimp tradition for two more terms.
Podhoretz states Clinton would not even meet with his own CIA director, neocon James Woolsey, because Clinton was too much of a wimp to want to hear from Woolsey that Muslims had declared WW IV on the US.
Podhoretz concludes that the "sheer audacity" of 9/11 "was unquestionably a product of his [bin Laden’s] contempt for American power." American wimpery caused 9/11, because "bin Laden wrote off the Americans as cowards."
We will suffer more devastating attacks, Podhoretz says, unless we find the stomach to fight WW IV.
Podhoretz overlooks the fact that al-Qaeda is a nongovernmental organization, not a state with a standing army. Podhoretz doesn’t examine the morality of devastating five or six Muslim countries in retribution for the actions of a few terrorists. He evades the issue of whether attacking hundreds of millions of Muslims in an effort to chase down a small number of terrorists is likely to increase the ranks of terrorists.
Podhoretz writes that any American restraint is foolish because it signals weakness. America was saved from weakness by President George W. Bush (Bush II), who like Harry Truman unexpectedly turned up with a vision. Bush II’s vision is – you guessed it – the same as that of the Likud Party and the neocons who mold Bush’s mind and write Bush’s speeches.
The "vision" is to knock off Iraq, Iran and Syria, the countries that could get in the way of Israel expelling the Palestinians to Jordan and grabbing Lebanon as well. This is what World War IV is all about.
Unlike Undersecretary Feith, David Wurmser (VP Cheney’s staff) and Richard Perle (Defense Review Board), Podhoretz doesn’t describe the overthrow of countries which might be obstacles to Israeli ambition as "an important Israeli strategic objective." Podhoretz dresses up his policy of naked aggression as America’s duty to bring truth, light, democracy and American virtue to the Middle East.
Trouble is, there are distinguished thinkers who cannot be smeared as anti-semites for disagreeing with Podhoretz, such as Professor Samuel Huntington and Brent Scowcroft who was National Security Adviser to Bush I.
Podhoretz deals with Scowcroft by accusing him of giving aid and comfort to anti-semites by mentioning "the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," asserting that only anti-semites think that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has anything to do with 9/11. Podhoretz assures us that bin Laden himself couldn’t care less about the Palestinians and attacked America simply because wimpy US presidents convinced him that we are cowards.
Really, I am not making this up.
Next Podhoretz goes after "realists." Realists are almost as bad as anti-semites. But, then, so is anyone who doesn’t buy the neocon’s ideology of imposing America’s virtue on the world – especially the Muslim part – by force of arms.
Did you know that the American leftwing is also anti-semitic? Podhoretz is outraged that Susan Sontag actually said that 9/11 was an attack "undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions." Podhoretz tries to tar Micky Kaus for agreeing with Pat Buchanan that mistreatment of the Palestinians is part of the problem. He is aghast that Michael Kinsley agrees with Buchanan that it is an affront to the Constitution to fight undeclared wars.
The weakness of Podhoretz’s case for turning the Middle East into an American-Israeli colony, causes him to resort to the anti-semite smear. However, the publication last year of The Politics of Anti-Semitism, a powerful collection of essays, many written by Jews, has taken the sting from the charge by showing that it is a tactic used to prevent debate. Many "anti-semites" are Israel’s friends who are concerned that Israel’s colonization of Palestine will unify Muslims in war against Israel.
Perhaps sensing that "anti-semite" is a worn out ploy, Podhoretz invents another name – "blame-America-firsters" – for anyone who questions Bush’s policy of "bringing democracy to the Middle East."
We should be scared more by Podhoretz than by terrorists. In Podhoretz’s "vision," America is totally good. Muslims are totally evil, because they use terrorism to resist the high-minded intentions of America’s virtuous aggression.
Podhoretz’s vision has no room for diplomacy, compromise, and agreements. These are the tools of wimps and will cause "a relapse into appeasement and diplomatic evasion." There is only room for war.
To pursue the insane agenda of conquering and occupying the Middle East not only requires the stomach for inhumane acts, but also demands millions of Americans taking up arms. Here come the draft and a generation of casualties.
Podhoretz does not understand the difference between defeating standing armies and successfully occupying hostile populations that conduct fourth generation warfare against us.
Instead, he sees an America armed with a "new patriotic mood," which is "a sign of greater intellectual sanity and moral health." Only skeptics can prevent our triumph in the Middle East by undermining our confidence like they did in Vietnam. Thus, winning WW IV requires silencing those who disagree with Podhoretz’s case for war.
Podhoretz required 30,000 words, but he has made it crystal clear that the case for American aggression in the Middle East is shabby and sinister.
September 8, 2004
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
