| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:54 am Post subject: AIPAC: STILL SPYING, STILL TAX-EXEMPT AND ACLU TO THE RESCUE |
| AIPAC: STILL SPYING, STILL TAX-EXEMPT
AND ACLU TO THE RESCUE
By: Ted Lang
Perhaps you will recall that the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, also known as the "Jewish lobby," was exposed once again in yet another revelation concerning an ongoing FBI investigation, which should have been tantamount to a blockbuster headline news event. It was virtually suppressed by our friends in the big media. The event was almost completely crushed by the Zionist-owned and operated corporate mainstream establishment "press." The initial and timely reports documenting this second incident relating to AIPAC spying were conspicuously posted in the real press: the Internet.
It is once again necessary to examine the extensive power and control AIPAC demonstrates in order to put matters in their proper perspective. Fortune magazine once listed AIPAC as the second most powerful lobby, right behind that of the millions and millions of Americans who belong to the American Association of Retired Persons and the National Rifle Association. These two huge lobbies are virtually ineffectual when compared to the unbelievable and massive power of AIPAC. It is therefore the position of this writer that AIPAC is, and has been for a very long time, the most powerful lobby on Earth!
What AIPAC lacks in strength as regards their paltry membership of only 60,000, not even enough members to fill an average NFL professional football stadium, it more than magnifies in unbelievable power due to its knack of applying the right political pressure at both the right time and the right place to astonishingly control all of American government. They follow this proven uncanny capability with lots and lots of cash for "our" representatives in Washington.
The recent Israeli spy activities involving Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin and AIPAC is a case in point. Generalizations are usually dangerous, so writing off the entire FBI, or for that matter, the CIA, is inviting, yet wrong. Not that either are necessary, or even constitutionally sanctioned; the intent here is to accept them only because they exist, not because they are in any way or form justified.
These alphabet agencies represent the most frightening aspect of Big Brother government, and are seen as such even the more due to their control by the politically appointed perfumed princes at the top who run them. Merit is not the basis for such appointments – it hardly ever is. It is political cronyism and patronage that establishes the leadership in such bureaucracies. Certain elements, usually at the lower "grunt" level desk analyst and agent echelon, operate at times in somewhat of a vacuum and are almost immune to the enforced deliberate incompetence from the top.
This lower level dedication on the part of some of the rank-and-file in these agencies explains why there are at times glitches and anomalies that buck the normal trend of political malfeasance. The Larry Franklin spy scandal is being covered up by the Bush administration in precisely the same fashion as that of the Johnson administration when it covered up Israel’s attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. The attack was initiated by the Israeli Air Force and Navy, which attempted to sink the vessel because our Navy spy ship’s crew caught and recorded the Israeli military murdering captive Egyptian POWs. The U.S.S. Liberty lost 34 crew members.
It may be recalled that the Franklin investigation was blown open by our Zionist mainstream press much to the chagrin of the FBI investigators who would have preferred continuing secrecy to complete a more in-depth investigation upon which to develop and present a much stronger case for federal prosecutors. It appears as though the press obtained information about the story from a sole source without corroboration from the FBI. Perhaps it is this that angered the FBI because the press releases effectively compromised the investigation. And if our Zionist press blew the lid off the investigation at the first hint of wrongdoing, then why are they avoiding and virtually spiking the story now?
To be sure, the best sources of information as to the latest development in the investigation are the Israeli newspapers Ha’aretz and The Jerusalem Post. The Associated Press also carried a watered-down account, which was briefly and inconspicuously carried on MSNBC.com. Ha’aretz’s Nathan Guttman in his article, "FBI raids AIPAC offices once again," offers: "For the second time in 13 weeks, FBI agents raided the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) offices yesterday [December 1st] searching for information against Larry Franklin, an analyst at the Middle East desk of the Pentagon."
Guttman continues: "Franklin is suspected of obtaining classified material from internal Bush administration discussions of policy on Iran and Iraq, and transmitting it to AIPAC staffers." The article points out, "The investigation into Franklin’s activities has been going on secretly for a year. [Steven] Rosen and another AIPAC employee, Keith Weissman, an Iran expert, have been the focus of U.S. media attention as Franklin’s alleged contacts. According to media reports, the FBI is investigating the possibility that AIPAC employees passed on the information to the Israeli Embassy. Classified information on Iran transmitted at this point could ostensibly have given Israel an opportunity to influence the administration’s decision-making process, because Israel would allegedly have been aware of the considerations guiding policy- makers."
Contrasting this observation, commentary originating at CounterPunch and carried on Prison Planet, entitled "The EU, US, Israel and Iran: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the ‘Mullahs,’" dated December 4th, begins with the comments made by Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2004: "The international community now realizes that Iran – with missiles that can reach London, Paris, Berlin and southern Russia – does not only pose a threat to the security of Israel, but to the security and stability of the whole world. Indeed, Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the world’s number one exporter of terror, hate and instability." This is the same propaganda hyped by Israel and Bush to involve US in the totally unnecessary war in Iraq. That war is costing US dearly, and was undertaken only because of pressure from Israel and AIPAC, and the resultant obedience of Bush.
Reporter Janine Zacharia, writing for The Jerusalem Post, has written a series of articles concerning the ongoing events involving Franklin, the FBI and AIPAC. In her December 2nd article, "Four AIPAC directors subpoenaed," she names the AIPAC officials targeted by the FBI: "The four subpoenaed officials are Executive Director Howard Kohr, Managing Director Richard Fishman, Communications Director Renee Rothstein, and Research Director Rafi Danziger, a source familiar with the investigation told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday night."
Zacharia continues: "The four AIPAC officials are slated to appear before the grand jury in late December in the Eastern District of Virginia, the source [said]. What precisely the FBI is investigating has been muddled since initial reports in late August and early September that investigators were investigating whether a mid-level Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, passed information from a secret administration planning document on Iran to the lobby. Since September, FBI officials have continued to quietly monitor AIPAC officials and have questioned Pentagon officials besides Franklin as part of its investigation."
In a December 5th follow-up article by Zacharia in the Post entitled, "‘Post’ exclusive: How the FBI set up AIPAC," Zacharia reports: "AIPAC, the powerhouse pro-Israel lobby currently embroiled in allegations of spying for Israel, was set up by the FBI, The Jerusalem Post has learned." Offering that when Pentagon analyst Franklin realized the FBI had determined that he had passed top secret Bush administration documents to AIPAC lobbyists who transferred documents and information to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Franklin decided to cooperate with the FBI and helped to set up the AIPAC go-betweens. The article goes on: "Franklin, an Iran expert, was already under investigation by the FBI for allegedly passing classified information to AIPAC when, the Post's sources say, FBI counterintelligence agents approached him to play a central role in the setup operation this past summer."
This second revelation concerning the AIPAC affair was first exposed on December 1st. On December 2nd, the Jewish-Communist American Civil Liberties Union announced in a "press release," their "findings" in a coincidental "investigation," aggressively posted throughout the Internet and the mainstream media as well. And of course, it was to have been construed as totally "independent and coincidental" to the news concerning the latest development in the AIPAC spy scandal.
It seems the ACLU, the premier Jewish-Communist organization that has abolished Christmas from America and replaced it with "Happy Holidays!" has determined that the FBI has been targeting "religious groups." Of course, the ACLU targeting the overwhelming majority of Christians in America is viewed by them as totally acceptable!
The Reuters news release carried on Yahoo.com reports: "The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday accused the FBI and local police of spying on political and faith-based groups and formally asked the government for information about such FBI surveillance. In Freedom of Information Act requests filed in 10 states and Washington, D.C., the ACLU sought information about the FBI’s use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces and local police for what it called political surveillance. It pointed to some documented examples of task forces’ involvement in the investigation of environmental activists and anti-war protesters."
Clearly, this was one group of organized Jews [a rabbi’s description to me] protecting yet another. This announcement coming on the heels of the FBI’s continuing investigation of AIPAC motivated the ACLU to smear the FBI to take the heat off the AIPAC investigation. Now combine that well-coordinated orchestration of news events with the fact that the entire American mainstream media is controlled by Zionists and Jews sympathetic to Israel, and suddenly it becomes crystal clear how AIPAC magnifies its power to control virtually all levels of American government. And this is how the ACLU easily abolishes the religion of the majority, and teams with the anti-Defamation League [ADL] to smear opponents with the epitaph "anti-Semitism."
Back in September, about a week or so after the first revelations involving AIPAC spying in order to provide intelligence to Israel to enable Mossad or another Israeli agency to manipulate the United States into a new war involving Iran, Zogby International conducted an opinion poll asking the question: "Should AIPAC Register as the Agent of a Foreign Government?" Can there be any modicum of remaining doubt that AIPAC represents the interests of Israel, and only those of Israel? What have we gained by launching our illegal, unjust, unnecessary war against Saddam and Iraq? How have we benefited? And now Israel is dictating to Bush and the Congress that we must illegally and without provocation also attack Iran? Oh, the results of the poll? Canvassing 1,004 voting Americans, 61 percent of Americans agree that AIPAC is the agent of a foreign government, and 12 percent disagree. Is Congress listening?
At the very least, the tax-exempt free ride of this lobbying organization representing a foreign state, one that has always proved extremely harmful to our own interests, should be made to pay taxes just like the NRA! | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:26 pm Post subject: Justin Raimondo: Israel's Fifth Column in Washington |
| http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4178
December 17, 2004
Israel's Fifth Column in Washington
The AIPAC spy scandal points to a massive undercover operation
by Justin Raimondo
In the 1950s, when the cold war was at its height, a series of spectacular espionage scandals – involving top-level spies for the Soviet Union, our former WWII ally – roiled American politics and defined the political culture for decades to come, giving us such additions to the American political lexicon as "McCarthyism" and "fellow traveler." In the new millennium, a similar drama is being reenacted, with another U.S. ally, Israel, in the role of friend-turned-adversary. The story of how and why Lawrence A. Franklin, who works as an Iran specialist under Pentagon policy director Douglas Feith, betrayed his country, and funneled American secrets to Israel, parallels the tragic saga of pro-Soviet American moles, who played a similar role in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt and into the Truman era. Larry Franklin is an Alger Hiss for our times. Law enforcement clearly believe him to be a key witness to crimes that could lead them to a spy nest in the top echelons of the U.S. government – one that surpasses anything the KGB ever dreamed of.
In late August, when CBS News broke the story of an Israeli spy in the Pentagon who was observed by U.S. law enforcement handing over sensitive documents to an Israeli official, Israel's American amen corner passed it off as a minor kerfluffle. Oh, they said, it was nothing, really: just a draft presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran, and, besides, didn't the U.S.-Israeli "special relationship" merit this casual exchange of not-so-secret "secrets"? That this attempted hand-off of sensitive documents occurred in the presence of two officials of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, was neither here nor there, as far as the Amen-ers were concerned: it was just a little lunch between friends, happens all the time, the whole thing was "a massive exaggeration" that was going to blow over soon enough, so move along, nothing to see here …
On December 1, however, the FBI struck again, raiding AIPAC headquarters in Washington, D.C., in an early morning sweep, and staying until 4 p.m., serving subpoenas on four top AIPAC officials and hauling away boxes full of evidence.
This really got the Amen Corner riled up, and they darkly muttered that it was all part of a Vast Anti-Semitic Conspiracy in the FBI: the chief investigator was "known" to hold a grudge against persons of the Jewish faith, and the whole thing was a "pogrom" aimed at Jews in government. While next to nothing about the second FBI raid was reported in the American media, except for a few perfunctory articles describing what happened in general terms, the Israeli media was in quite a lather. Maariv reported on "a growing suspicion" that an anti-Jewish conspiracy was operating at full throttle inside the Justice Department, and the Jerusalem Post weighed in with an "exclusive" report on how Franklin had been "set up" by the FBI. According to the Post:
"FBI agents used a courier, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, to draw two senior AIPAC officials who already knew him into accepting what he described to them as "classified" information, reliable government and other sources intimately familiar with the investigation have told the Post. One of the AIPAC pair then told diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington about the "classified" information, which claimed Iranians were monitoring and planning to kidnap and kill Israelis operating in the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, the Post has been told. It is unclear whether the "classified" information was real or bogus."
Lured into "a ticking-bomb situation," avers the Post, AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, were entrapped by the FBI, which was recording their espionage in very the act of enabling it. FBI agents supposedly used the officials' concern for Jewish lives to trick them into committing treason.
This "trick or treason" defense is interesting on a number of levels, not the least of which is the confirmation that Israeli agents are indeed active in northern Iraq, i.e. Kurdistan, as reported by Seymour Hersh. What are they doing there – and is their presence sanctioned by "Prime Minister" Iyad Allawi, who is now running for office in Iraq's first semi-free election on a nationalist ticket that decries "foreign influence"? He says a victory for the Shi'ite list will open the door to invasion and de facto annexation by Iran, but hasn't Israel already been allowed to slip in by the back door in Kurdistan – with his apparent compliance? In view of the Jersusalem Post's tacit admission, I believe Mr. Allawi has some 'splaining to do….
On another level, the Post's lashing out at U.S. law enforcement agencies as vicious monsters, probably motivated by anti-Semitism, luring innocent Israelis and their American cohorts into compromising positions, is in itself interesting. After all, is this how one talks about the authorities of "a cherished ally," as one Israeli government statement referred to America in the wake of the scandal? In the same piece in which UPI's Richard Sale cites the Israeli statement, he reveals a number of interesting facts that add greatly to our knowledge of Israel's secret war against America.
We already know that the investigation into AIPAC and Israeli espionage against the U.S. had been going on for at least two years prior to the FBI stumbling on Franklin's treachery. This larger investigation seemed to come out of mid-air: no previous reporting had been done on it, except for the "Israeli art students" story, broken by Carl Cameron, pursued by Christopher Ketcham in Salon, and a few others, as well as myself {See my short book, The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection], and then dropped into the journalistic ether.
The Franklin affair, however, has revived the suspicion that Israel regards us as something other than a "deeply cherished ally," and Sale's reporting underscores the adversarial reality behind the "special relationship." He cites "a former federal law enforcement official" who told him
"During the Cold War, Israeli penetration of U.S. operations was second 'only to the Soviet Union. Few people realize that the Israeli Counterintelligence Desk at the Bureau was second in size only to the CI Soviet desk."
And as the Cold War began to wind down, the pace of Israeli covert actions directed at the United States began to escalate:
"One current FBI consultant said Rosen's name had first been given to the FBI in 1986, along with 70 possible incidents of Israeli espionage against the United States. No action was taken against him, this source said."
The rot had set in, and the moles burrowed deeper:
"A former very senior CIA counterintelligence official told UPI that in 1998-99, the CIA discovered an Israeli couple, who were subcontracted to a U.S. phone company, were working for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. 'They did incredible damage – they got incredibly sensitive data, including key words identifying individuals or projects,' this source said, adding he himself gave the case to the FBI."
To understand what this "very senior" spook is talking about, you have to follow this link and watch the Fox News report detailing Israel's hi-tech infiltration of U.S. communications, including wiretapping and top-secret internal security systems.
We report, you decide.
The Sale piece also buttresses a case I have long made in this space, which is that Israel's secret army in the U.S. had established beachheads in New York and New Jersey:
"In 2001, the FBI discovered new, 'massive' Israeli spying operations in the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey, said one former senior U.S. government official. The FBI began intensive surveillance on certain Israeli diplomats and other suspects and was videotaping Naor Gilon, chief of political affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, who was having lunch at a Washington hotel with two lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby group. Federal law enforcement officials said they were floored when Franklin came up to their table and sat down."
The New Jersey connection recalls the infamous incident involving the "dancing Israelis," arrested on 9/11 when seen leaping and dancing for joy in a park overlooking the Hudson River as the World Trade Center burned. The five detainees were Israeli citizens who worked for a New Jersey moving company, Urban Moving Systems, and were held for months while being repeatedly interrogated as to their knowledge of the events surrounding 9/11. The owner, Dominick Suter, fled to Israel after the feds raided his business, and The Forward speculated that the company was a thinly-disguised Mossad front.
From the Israeli "art students," who made such a nuisance of themselves at U.S. government buildings in the months prior to 9/11, to the counter-intelligence operation launched by the U.S. that eventually caught Franklin and the AIPAC crowd red-handed, is a straight-line narrative, one long continuous story of unremitting struggle between the U.S. and Israel – on American soil.
In his Fox News four-part series exposing Israel's secret underground in the U.S., Carl Cameron reported that FBI and other officials claimed any attempt to investigate and expose undue Israeli access to highly sensitive information amounted to "career suicide," implying that highly-placed moles in policymaking positions effectively covered up the covert activities of their cohorts – much as Alger Hiss and other KGB agents protected their associates and stole nuclear and other secrets from the U.S. and shipped them off to Moscow. In both cases, the motives are the same: ideology, not money, motivates the most effective fifth columnists and spies.
With the threat of Communist spies somewhat abated by the death of Communism as a viable ideology, a fresh (if not equally dangerous) threat has arisen to take its place, one that employs the same Leninist technique of boring from within – and mobilizes the ample talents and resources of an indigenous fifth column ideologically committed to the Cause.
The Venona transcripts and the Kremlin archives have revealed that Joe McCarthy certainly underestimated the degree to which the Commies had penetrated the top echelons of the U.S. government. Harry Hopkins, FDR's closest advisor, a KGB agent? Not even the red-baiters of old would have dared suggest it.
The same success at embedding highly-placed agents may have been achieved by the Israelis, or else how have they been able to keep their operation intact and running, for all these years? Without cooperation from high-ups, and in view of the suspicions raised by other officials in law enforcement, Israel's spy nest would have been broken up long ago. That the feds are aiming high is rendered obvious by this tidbit from Sale
"The FBI was also interested in finding out if Franklin was involved or could name any Pentagon colleagues who were involved in passing to Israel certain data about National Security Agency intercepts, these sources said."
He can only be referring to the FBI's recent interest in the matter of how Ahmed Chalabi got access to the intelligence that the U.S. had cracked the Iranian code, and was reading Iranian internal communications – a betrayal that led to the Bush administration breaking with Chalabi, and ordering a series of raids on the offices of his Iraqi National Congress. Because those are the only NSA intercepts that seem to have been mislaid recently.
It wasn't Larry Franklin who had access to those highly sensitive NSA intercepts: that is way beyond his pay grade. It had to be someone much higher up in the chain of command – and the question now becomes how far up the ladder of power have the traitors in our midst managed to climb? Do the tentacles of this treasonous cabal reach into the White House?
For a while, it looked as if Franklin might be leading law enforcement to the source of the cancer eating away at the inner councils of this administration, but Franklin did a turnabout, secured the services of a noted defense attorney who specializes in these sorts of cases, Plato Cacheris, and stopped talking. Now his former friends in the Amen Corner are turning on him, saying he "entrapped" his former buddies, and allowed himself to be used in what is portrayed in most of the Israeli press as an anti-Semitic witch-hunt.
It is, for sure, nothing of the sort. Instead, it is a matter of life and death, involving the national security of the United States and its people, an entirely legitimate and necessary investigation into how a foreign country has manipulated us, covertly and overtly, on the policymaking level, all the while stealing us blind.
Isn't it funny how the same people who jump at the chance to tar antiwar public figures as "anti-American" traitors and a "fifth column," as Andrew Sullivan infamously put it, have nothing to say about the AIPAC spy scandal. Those few neocons who have deigned to notice two raids in as many months on AIPAC headquarters have done nothing but apologize for and otherwise excuse and cover-up what is apparently a massive spy operation launched by Israel against the United States. The best our super- "patriotic" neocons can do is echo the complaints in the Israeli media that the whole thing is a "set-up" engineered by those notorious anti-Semites in the U.S. Justice Department.
Who's "anti-American" now?
Fox News, which basically broke the story, has dropped it, never following up or even mentioning it again. Rush Limbaugh, the great American patriot, has never breathed a word about it. National Review and the Weekly Standard have nothing to say on the subject, and Charles Krauthammer must have had another stuttering attack.
The axis of treason, as I called it in a previous column, is not limited to Israeli spies in high places: these spies also had friends in even higher places, key policymakers whose influence was decisive in taking us to war in Iraq. When they weren't bending American policy in the Middle East to Israel's benefit, they were leaking U.S. secrets to AIPAC "cutouts," who then passed on sensitive data to Israel. (I would note that Sale reports the FBI's interest is in finding out if Israel gained access to those intercepts, who then passed them off to Chalabi – not that the neocons in the Pentagon passed them straight to the INC.)
Most shameful is the spectacle of the apologists, such as, the mealy-mouthed Joel Mowbray, whose apologia for Israeli spying appeared on the website "Frontpagemag.com" run by ex-Commie-turned-neocon David Horowitz. These guys are covering up for traitors and spies: you can't get much more un-American and actively anti-American than that. Yet these are the very same nutballs who brand me, and the entire antiwar movement, as a "fifth column."
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
Speaking of Horowitz and his frothy-mouthed legions, the latest jeremiad launched in my direction from that crowd features the absolute worst and obviously doctored photo of me on the internet, where they bizarrely seem to have erased my teeth: it's bad Photoshop and even worse writing by none other than Lawrence Auster, the racialist theoretician and prolific writer who has carved a niche out for himself as a critic of The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan, and myself from the racialist "right." His big beef with us, it seems, is that we defended Wen Ho Lee, a man who has been cleared of all charges, and opined that there just might be a racial aspect to his long ordeal: that is "bending to multiculturalism," says this advocate of the view that blacks are incapable of "objective" thought, except under the close tutelage of their white masters.
Is it fair to cite Auster's views on this matter, which has nothing to do with what he takes me and Antiwar.com to task for? Yes, because his latest screed is every bit as anecdotal as his "proof" that whites are mentally superior to blacks: if you read this essay posted on Frontpage you can see the same total subjectivity at work, busily thinking up completely irrelevant connections and constructing a rather awkward and disconnected narrative from them. Yes, he once liked us – when he agreed with us about the Kosovo war – and he even gave us money (Gee, thanks!). And then we supposedly went off the deep end by questioning the cold war. Hey, but by that time the cold war was well over, anyway, not that this matters to Auster. In any case, by some process of long-distance psychoanalysis and palm-reading, he somehow discerns that our lack of enthusiasm for the neocons' "benevolent world hegemony" is based on "anger."
Anger, you see, is a bad thing. We must all be calm, and even serene, as our old republic slips away, and a corrupt empire – riven by foreign influences, and other termites – takes its place. No thanks, Mr. Auster. I'll take anger over resignation every time.
It is interesting – in the same way that the study of icky-looking insects can be interesting to academics and other professionals – how the evil Horowitz has used the racialist Right as a kind of battering ram against myself, Pat Buchanan, and TAC. Last time around, it was that James P. Lubsinkas character, a former editor of American Renaissance, a white supremacist journal, who first pronounced the "death" of the Buchanan movement and paleoconservatism in Frontpage a few years ago: the Lubskinas piece, "The End of Paleoconservatism," has been taken off Horowitz's site, but on the internet your crimes live forever. Now Horowitz hauls out this Auster nutjob, whose sheets are cut from the same cloth, to author a two-part indictment of the crimes of the antiwar Right.
Oh boy, I can hardly wait for Part II, but is it asking too much to insist on a more accurate picture of me – god, I haven't worn those glasses in years! Nor do I have red teeth (yuck!). Hey, guys, you can say what you want about me, but that blurry photo was real slander. I'm way waaaaaay cuter than that.
– Justin Raimondo
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000). He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).
He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 7:55 pm Post subject: FBI steps up AIPAC espionage probe |
| FBI steps up AIPAC espionage probe
Officials to appear in front of grand jury, but pro-Israel lobby group says it has done nothing wrong.
by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
The FBI has stepped up its investigation into alleged Israeli espionage against the US, United Press International reported last week, and in particular the operations of the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also know as AIPAC.
The FBI raided AIPAC's offices in early December. Time magazine reported that the raid, the second in four months, was "seeking evidence to determine whether two AIPAC officials received classified information from a former Pentagon analyst and passed the data to Israeli government officials." The FBI had a search warrant for "the files of officials Steven Rosen, AIPAC director of foreign policy issues, and AIPAC Iran expert Keith Weissman." The FBI also served grand jury subpoenas on four senior AIPAC officials.
The Forward reported that staffers at other pro-Israel organizations believe that the subpoenas "severely undermined [AIPAC]'s claim [see below] that it was the victim of a few rogue investigators." (Registration required.)
'It's okay to say once that the FBI is ticked at AIPAC, but a grand jury with subpoenas – that's not someone running a grudge campaign,' said an official with a major Jewish organization. 'Clearly, somebody has thought this through. And they are looking for something.' Steve Pomerantz, a former FBI investigator who consults for Jewish organizations sounded a similar note. He said the nature of the subpoenas suggests that FBI investigators know what they're looking for. 'This is not a fishing expedition,' he said. 'It's clear to me they have some specific information which is leading them in a specific direction.'
Time reported recently that government sources said the investigations into AIPAC had been ongoing for about two years, looking into allegations that the group was "obtaining sensitive data and passing it along to the Israeli government." United Press International reported that the initial investigations began when the FBI discovered "new, 'massive' Israeli spying operations in the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey."
It was during surveillance of certain Israeli diplomats that the FBI became aware of Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin.
Mr. Franklin, an Iranian expert at the Pentagon, appeared at a lunch meeting between Israeli diplomats and AIPAC officials. The New York Times reported in August of 2004 that the FBI had confronted Franklin about allegedly sharing sensitive US documents on Iran policy with AIPAC. As a consequence, he agreed to work with the FBI in their investigation into the activities of AIPAC and others.
The Washington Post reported that the FBI said the Franklin investigation was part of a broader probe into whether officials in the Defense Department had given sensitive documents to AIPAC and Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi who many in the Pentagon had reportedly favored before the invasion of Iraq to run the country after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Franklin, however, suddenly stopped cooperating with the FBI in mid-September after he fired his public defender lawyer and hired well-known defence lawyer Plato Cacheris. The Washington Times reported that the FBI was "hopping mad" at this move, and that was when it decided to pursue a more aggressive course of action, including a second raid and subpoenas.
Meanwhile, a few days after the FBI conducted their second raid on the AIPAC offices earlier this month, The Jerusalem Post reported that AIPAC was allegedly the target of an FBI sting. The Israeli daily Maariv reports on Thursday that "a senior Jewish source" told the paper that the FBI's investigation of AIPAC was "an improper sting operation aimed at targeting the organization."
According to the source, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin had come to the FBI’s attention during an investigation totally unrelated to AIPAC. During the course of this investigation, investigators discovered that he maintained a sporadic acquaintanceship with some senior AIPAC officials in Washington. At some point he was pressured and perhaps even coerced into cooperating with an FBI sting operation against AIPAC, in return for leniency for some minor technical infractions he may have committed, such as careless and improper storage and handling of classified information.
The charges were not entirely new. Time magazine had reported in early September that Franklin had been asked to make a series of "scripted" phone calls to get possible evidence on those being investigated.
But the Washington Post wrote in September, and the American Prospect in November, that more than anything else the "Franklin affair" revealed the "escalating fight over Iran policy" in the Bush administration.
The Post reported that one side of the fight are neocons who want to "bring down" the government of Iran, and on the other side are intelligence officials who "view the neocons as too close to Israel." The Prospect alleged that the classified document - a draft copy of a National Security Presidential Directive - that Franklin wanted to give to AIPAC officials "concerned a controversial proposal by Pentagon hard-liners [neocons] to destabilize Iran." The proposal had been turned down by the White House.
Was it to this end that Franklin was allegedly observed by the FBI passing the draft NSPD on Iran to AIPAC? Was he trying to inform AIPAC, or Israel, about the contents of the draft NSPD? Or rather, and perhaps more plausibly, was he trying to enlist the powerful Washington lobbying organization in advocating for a Iran-destabilization policy? In other words, is the Franklin case really about espionage, or is it a glimpse into the ugly sausage-making process by which Middle East policy gets decided in Washington and, in particular, in the Bush administration?
Meanwhile, Israel's Army Radio reported this week that the US has accused Israeli defense officials of "industrial espionage." Also, Channel 2 TV in Israel reported that Washington was "demanding the resignation of the top official in Israel's Defense Ministry, Director-General Amos Yaron, for failing to disclose a weapons transaction with China."
'These are not accusations, but rather claims about "aggressive collection," ' Rachel Naidek Ashkenazi, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman, told Israeli radio. 'And this regards information that isn't classified.'
Ms. Ashkenazi acknowledged, however, that some of that information gathered by Israeli officials still is "protected by US officials, creating a gray area that has become the source of friction | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:38 am Post subject: |
| Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 16:13:04 -0800
From: "Jeffrey Blankfort" <jblankfort@earthlink.net>
To:
Subject: Jerusalem Post | Four Congressmen Query Bush on AIPAC Probe
That only four members of Congress signed this, two of whom--Ackerman
and Engle--have spent more time working for Israel than for the US,
were
willing to sign a letter to Bush is a welcome sign that the FBI
investigation is being considered something more than a "vendetta"
without teeth by most of the lobby's usual lackeys in the House who
may
be and should be worried that they will be appropriately besmirched by
the fallout. The FBI had, of course, to create a "sting" operation
using a phony story because all the genuine information would already
have been known by Israel's agents in Washington, not just the spies
but
those in Congress,
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1103356913075&p=1078113566627
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1103356913075&p=1078113566627>
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Dems. query Bush over probe into AIPAC
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Janine Zacharia, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 18, 2004
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Four House Democrats sent a letter to US President George W. Bush on Thursday urging him to provide them "with information that will clarify the circumstances" surrounding the FBI's investigation into AIPAC.
"While we certainly wish to see that justice is served, egregious press leaks and reports of a questionable sting operation by the FBI raise serious concerns about the integrity of the AIPAC probe," the lawmakers wrote.
They cited a report in The Jerusalem Post earlier this month, which said the FBI had planted what was described as "classified" information with AIPAC employees to see if they would pass it on to Israel.
The information outlined a plan by Iranians to kidnap Israelis operating in northern Iraq.
"If true, such tactics raise formidable questions about the motives, direction, and very premise of the AIPAC investigation," the letter said.
The four also expressed concern that the "sensationalized media frenzy surrounding the investigation" could feed mounting anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism throughout Europe and the Middle East.
The letter was signed by Reps. Robert Wexler of Florida, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Eliot Engel and Gary Ackerman of New York.
Several weeks ago, the FBI issued subpoenas to four senior AIPAC officials to testify before a grand jury in Virginia. They were informed that they would be asked to testify in late December but a court date has yet to be set.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1103356913075&p=1078113566627 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:41 am Post subject: Did Saudis Deceptively Finance Ad Campaign? |
| Did Saudis Deceptively Finance Ad Campaign?
The Justice Department is investigating whether a Washington PR firm violated federal law on foreign-sponsored propaganda. The politically sensitive probe could embarrass the Saudi government and the White House
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoffand Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 9:55 a.m. ET Dec. 16, 2004
Dec. 15 - The Justice Department has opened a politically sensitive investigation into allegations that the Saudi government, working through a prominent Washington public-relations firm, deceptively financed an advertising campaign promoting Crown Prince Abdullah’s Middle East peace plan, NEWSWEEK has learned.
Federal prosecutors are seeking to determine whether the Saudi Embassy’s PR firm, Qorvis Communications, made false statements to the Justice Department and violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)—a 1938 law requiring full disclosure of foreign-sponsored propaganda in the United States, according to sources familiar with grand-jury subpoenas issued in the case.
The probe into the 2002 radio ad campaign supposedly paid for by an obscure group called the Alliance for Peace and Justice, explains last week’s startling raid by the FBI on the downtown Washington offices of Qorvis, a well-connected PR group that began representing the Saudis in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.
The FBI raid of Qorvis came just two weeks after another equally sensitive bureau raid on the D.C. offices of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), in what has been described as part of an espionage investigation of a Pentagon official associated with the group. Some Jewish leaders have privately expressed concerns that the raid may also uncover sufficient ties between AIPAC and the Israeli government to force the committee to file under FARA as an agent of Israel. One former AIPAC official, who asked not to be identified, told NEWSWEEK that such a move would be “the death knell” of the group, given that it has always touted itself as an “American organization” representing “American interests.”
One theory circulating widely among Middle East watchers in Washington is that last week’s FBI raid on Qorvis was conducted in part because of the Justice Department’s interest in showing “balance” in the wake of the AIPAC raid. Bryan Sierra, a department spokesman, today called such speculation “absurd.”
The Saudi probe, overseen by veteran prosecutor Laura Ingersoll in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, is being watched closely at the highest levels of the Justice Department because of its potential diplomatic and political consequences. Criminal charges against Qorvis over the ad campaign would be embarrassing for the Saudi Embassy—whose most visible spokesman, Adel al-Jubeir, personally oversees the PR account—as well as the Bush White House, which has vigorously portrayed Crown Prince Abdullah’s government as a stalwart ally in the war on terror.
In last week’s raid, a team of FBI agents, armed with a search warrant and grand-jury subpoenas, hauled away documents and computer hard drives believed to contain records of the PR firm’s role in arranging for the financing and content of the advertising. The campaign was sponsored by the Alliance for Peace and Justice, a hastily arranged and now dormant group consisting of well-established Washington organizations active in Middle East issues.
“We understand that the government is conducting an inquiry into FARA compliance issues,” a Qorvis spokesman said in a statement. “Qorvis has fully complied with this reporting statute and we feel confident that the matter will be resolved favorably.” The Saudi Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
But sources familiar with the probe say prosecutors are focusing on whether the Alliance for Peace and Justice was used by Qorvis president Michael Petruzzello and his chief client, the Saudi Embassy’s al-Jubeir, to run advertisements that were really designed to burnish the Saudi government’s image and influence the domestic debate on U.S. Mideast policy.
The ad campaign “was done in the name of the Alliance, but it was done without the board’s knowledge and approval,” said Chris Johnson, a lawyer for John Duke Anthony, who served as the group’s chairman. Johnson confirmed that Anthony, who is also the president of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, appeared before the grand jury last week and turned over subpoenaed documents relating to the Alliance. Johnson added that Anthony is cooperating with the inquiry, and has been assured he is a “witness, not a target” in the case.
Begun in early 2002, the campaign consisted of radio spots running in 30 American cities. One ad, called “Occupation,” described the Arab League’s “fair plan” (first proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah) “to end the senseless violence in the Mideast” by requiring “Israel’s withdrawal from the Palestinian land it has unjustly occupied for years,” according to a detailed account in the Boston Phoenix newspaper.
Another ad, titled “Peace Plan,” stated: “To stop the cycle of violence, we must first end the military occupation of Palestinian towns and neighborhoods.” Both ads ended with the words: “Start the peace—end the occupation” and “paid for by the Alliance of Peace and Justice.”
One person involved in the campaign insisted the ads were “moderate” in nature and essentially extolled broad principals that have been supported by Israeli peace groups as well as President Bush, who has—in theory at least—endorsed the concept of a Palestinian state. Some Jewish groups, on the other hand, blasted the campaign at the time, saying it failed to make any reference to Palestinian terrorism and suicide bombings against Israelis.
But the Justice Department quickly focused on an entirely different set of issues—the interconnections between the Alliance, Qorvis and the Saudi government. Sources familiar with the campaign say the Alliance was put together in March 2002 and consisted of representatives of a number of Washington-based groups, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the American Task Force for Lebanon and the Middle East Policy Council. The board met a couple of times and endorsed the “concept” of a radio campaign that was proposed by Petruzzello, said one source familiar with the Alliance's activities. It was unclear why the other board members thought that Petruzzello was there, however, other than his role as head of the PR firm representing the Saudi government.
Qorvis then farmed out the job of developing the spots to Sandler-Innocenzi, a political advertising firm that has done extensive work for the Republican National Committee and House Majority Leader Tom Delay. The ads were initially financed by a “bridge loan” of about $640,000 from the Saudi Embassy, the Alliance source said. Within a few weeks, the loan was repaid by funds solicited by al-Jubeir in Saudi Arabia from businesses associated with the Chambers of Commerce in Saudi Arabia and believed to be close to the Saudi government, the source said.
In a FARA filing with the Justice Department, Qorvis disclosed the Saudi government’s bridge loan to help pay for the radio ads some eight months after they ran. But some experts say prosecutors may conclude that Qorvis ran afoul of FARA provisions requiring that political or “informational” messages be clearly labeled with a statement that the message was sponsored by a foreign government (much like political ads in this year’s campaign contained statements such as “I’m President Bush and I approved this message.”) A Qorvis official, on the other hand, said that the firm’s lawyers have assured its principals that they believe “there is nothing to worry about.”
Whatever the outcome, the Qorvis probe appears to underscore an increased level of seriousness within the Justice Department toward FARA—which has been rarely enforced. Justice spokesman Sierra said a growing number of FARA cases are arising out of terrorism-related investigations. The Patriot Act also enhanced criminal penalties (up to 10 years in prison) for FARA violations.
Still, some experts say violations of FARA continue to be rampant throughout Washington, especially by major law firms that represent foreign governments but fail to register as foreign agents under the guise they are providing legal advice rather than doing actual lobbying or PR. "If the Justice Department starts to actively prosecute FARA violations,” said Mark MacDougall, a well-known Washington lawyer who represents many overseas interests, “half the lobbyists and most of the public relations people in Washington will have some sleepless nights."
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6720031/site/newsweek | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 10:46 pm Post subject: Zionist Agents of Influence |
| Agents of Influence
by Robert Dreyfuss
Did Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, run a covert program
with operatives in high-level US government positions to influence
the Bush Administration's decision to go to war in Iraq? The FBI
wants to know.
That's the story behind the latest Washington spy scandal, involving
Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and a
mid-level civilian Pentagon employee allegedly caught red-handed
trying to deliver US secrets to the Israelis.
It's not a routine spy case. According to sources familiar with the
investigation, the FBI is looking at a group of neoconservatives who
have occupied senior posts at the White House, the Pentagon and in
Vice President Cheney's office. It's not that they are supporters of
Israel--no crime there--but that some of them might be conspirators
in a clandestine operation launched by Sharon's Likud Party. They
make up the very network of ideologues--from civilians at the Defense
Department to fellow travelers at right-wing think tanks--who have
been accused of pushing George W. Bush into war. The point of the
probe, sources believe, is not to examine the push to war but rather
to ascertain whether Sharon recruited or helped place in office
people who knowingly, and secretly, worked with him to affect the
direction of US policy in the Middle East. The most likely targets of
the inquiry are Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,
and Harold Rhode of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment.
It's an explosive inquiry and one that raises the most sensitive
hackles, since it involves the possibility that US officials (most,
but not all, Jews) are working on Sharon's behalf. They include Feith
and a handful of other officials, including those in the inner circle
of his policy office who formed the core of the Office of Special
Plans (OSP). The probe faces stiff political resistance. Yet it may
have legs.
The investigation burst into the news in late August when CBS News
reported that the FBI had caught a Feith staffer, later identified as
Larry Franklin, trying to deliver what turned out to be a classified
draft of a presidential memo on Iran to AIPAC and an Israeli Embassy
diplomat. Subsequent attention focused largely on whether Franklin
was a spy for Israel, but in fact he is only a minor figure in a far
more sweeping probe that began two years ago.
What triggered the original investigation isn't known, but it is
known that it began at a critical moment, as Feith and Rhode began
assembling a team, which included Franklin, to form the OSP. It's
been widely reported that the OSP manufactured exaggerated
intelligence reports on the threat from Iraq, but less reported is
the fact that the OSP also carried out unauthorized operations.
Several OSP officials--including Rhode, Franklin and Michael Maloof,
one of the two original staffers of the forerunner to OSP, joined by
Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)--took part
in a rogue Pentagon initiative, beginning in 2001 with unsavory
wheeler-dealers in Rome and Paris, to discuss regime change beyond
Iraq, in Iran and Syria. The CIA found out about the Rome meeting,
and the agency may have asked the FBI to start watching Feith, Rhode,
Ledeen, Franklin et al. Former CIA and Defense intelligence officials
familiar with the case stress that the FBI is looking at an operation
run by the Israeli prime minister, not by the Mossad, Israel's
intelligence agency, and that the investigation is based solely on
concerns about foreign influence. "It's about Sharon," says a former
senior CIA operations officer. "This has nothing to do with
anti-Semitism."
Some familiar with the case suggest that the FBI's investigation is
looking back as far as 1996, when Feith, Richard Perle, Feith's
boss at the Pentagon in the 1980s and until recently chairman of
the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, and David Wurmser, a
co-founder of OSP who is now Cheney's Middle East adviser, wrote a
radical memo, called "A Clean Break," to incoming Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for confrontation with Iraq,
Syria, Lebanon and the PLO.
Since the investigation came to light, Sharon's closest allies have
led an effort to derail it. Screaming the loudest is Marc Zell,
Feith's former law partner, who is now an attorney in Israel tied to
the Likud's right wing and to the settler movement. "It's a cheap
shot by certain people inside the government to embarrass Doug and
the Pentagon leadership," Zell told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"Certain elements inside the military and intelligence communities
are unhappy with the policy decisions of people in the upper echelon
and attempt, sometimes in a very crude way, to embarrass them." News
of the investigation stunned AIPAC, the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs, AEI and others in Likud's Washington circuit. And,
of course, AIPAC's friends in Congress are hopping mad. Ha'aretz, the
Israeli daily, said that news of the inquiry landed like the
"diplomatic equivalent of an unexploded cluster bomb."
Perle is demanding that the White House clamp down on the
investigators, according to the Boston Globe. "It's pretty nasty, and
unfortunately the Administration doesn't seem to have it under
control," the Globe quotes Perle as saying. But according to the
Financial Times, the White House is quietly doing just that: The
London daily reports that the White House is pressuring the FBI and
the Justice Department not to issue indictments in the case.
Other voices are also being heard. Democratic Representative John
Conyers wrote to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
demanding an investigation into "substantial and credible evidence
that Pentagon officials...have engaged in unauthorized covert
activities." Conyers specifically cited Feith. And the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence is now deep into phase two of its own
probe, which includes examining the work of the OSP; its report is
expected after the November election.
The FBI has an ace in the hole that may allow it to resist White
House pressure. "By now," says a retired intelligence official, "the
FBI has gathered up so much material in grand jury records and things
like that that they are in a position to push back against pressure
from the Administration to back away from this. When they get
pressure, they leak to somebody. And the potential of disclosure is a
real threat to the Administration." In addition, the
counterintelligence probe could spin off investigations in several
possibly related scandals, including the Ahmad Chalabi case and the
Valerie Plame leak, not to mention the Franklin matter.
"They have no case," says AEI's Michael Ledeen. We'll see.
This article can be found on the web at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041004&s=dreyfuss | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 11:15 am Post subject: ISRAELI HUBRIS VS. THE U.S. |
| ISRAELI HUBRIS VS. THE U.S.
By Youssef M. Ibrahim, from Dubai, United Arab Emirates -
The Washington Times / UPI -- December 21, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041221-074429-8040r.htm
The latest spy tale in Washington, D.C., involving Larry Franklin, an
intelligence analyst at the Defense Department, and some of Israel's
most important lobbyists in America, is becoming deeper by the week.
Spy stories are always like that, but this one packs an intricate tale
of a trusted ally betraying America, a White House intent on using the
misstep to leverage its influence, and an American intelligence
community that feels it has been made to wear horns.
Clearly Israel has aroused the formidable bull and will be made to pay
a
price. One can speculate from what we already know.
It started in late July this year, when a Catholic Pentagon analyst,
Franklin, telephoned a Jewish acquaintance of his who worked at a
pro-Israel lobbying group, the very influential American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The two men knew each other professionally. They spoke of U.S. policies
on Iran and Iraq periodically. That call was monitored by American
intelligence authorities who did not like what they heard, and it led
to
a chain of events including an investigation of passing secret
intelligence information to Israel via intermediaries.
A report published by The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) last week
asserts that matters have progressed to a point that a grand jury
investigation is underway and may lead to the indictment of several
prominent Jewish lobbyists in the United States on charges of passing
secret information to Israel.
Other reports and leaks published in the U.S. media suggest that
Franklin has been singing like a canary under questioning and has
agreed
to deliver facts and testimony against pro-Israeli lobbyist friends in
return for some leniency.
Still more reports suggest that he was all along a plant, a tool, used
by the American intelligence community to ensnare the Israelis and
their
network of spies among the vast community of 52 American Jewish
organizations totally devoted to control American Middle East policies
for the benefit of Israel.
The JTA report speaks of some serious damage already done. It states:
"With senior officials at America's top pro-Israel organization facing
the specter of federal indictments, staffers at other groups are
beginning to waver in their support and are warning that the mounting
legal scandal could damage the political credibility of the entire
Jewish community."
You see, there is an iron-clad agreement that Israel shall never spy on
its best friend and greatest financial backer in the world, America,
particularly as American intelligence cooperates broadly with Israeli
intelligence for free.
But whenever greed and hubris take over, Israelis have gotten
themselves
and their friends in trouble. With this particular White House of
George
W. Bush, which takes no prisoners, the price Israel may be forced to
pay
is make some concession to the Palestinians.
Immediately after his re-election, Bush said he had "accumulated enough
capital" in his first term that he plans to use it in his second term
to
advance the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.
Among other things, he may indeed have been hinting, friends in the
intelligence community tell me, at the "Franklin" affair.
Bush does not need to have an outcome to this investigation. He just
needs to have a process whereby accusations keep hanging in the air,
while he demands to cash in his capital. Bush is like that. He plays
hard, even with friends. Even with Israel.
As usual, Israel is denying all charges, which is a mistake because in
espionage and affairs of state, it is very important to manage a
catastrophe once it has happened, not go into denial.
At the moment, the U.S. intelligence community -- including the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National
Security Agency and other counter-spying organizations -- are going for
a kill, knowing their president needs to hold cards in hand against
friends and foes.
For these guys this is also payback time, especially as the Israelis
are
once again caught with their hands inside American top-secret files.
The fierceness of their response was demonstrated back in 1985, when
Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish American naval intelligence analyst, was
arrested he was crying like a baby at the gate of the Israeli Embassy
in
Washington, D.C. Pollard had been an Israeli agent, meeting with
Israeli
handlers for years supplying super-secret documents from naval
intelligence. When he was caught, and sought refuge with his wife, the
Israelis would not even open the door for him in his hour of need. He
was dragged away screaming and kicking, with his wife, to jail.
Pollard is now serving a life sentence without parole as a spy. Two
American presidents, Bill Clinton and the current George Bush, have
firmly rejected repeated Israeli and Jewish lobby requests to pardon
him. The U.S. intelligence community has said, "No way." Scores of
petitions and Web sites offering daily support and calls for a pardon
have not made a dent in this seemingly iron will. And intelligence
sources, to make sure Pollard stays in jail, periodically leak
reminders
to their media friends that he has done irreparable harm to the vital
interests of the United States.
The real message to Israel and its supporters is: "Thou shall not spy
against America." It seems to be the same message being delivered now
over the Franklin affair to American Jewish Organizations.
But the episode also appears to have become a bargaining chip that the
White House and the intelligence community will squeeze like a lemon to
get Israeli concessions with the full support from a chastised American
Jewish lobby. If no such support is forthcoming, the administration
seems to signal more investigations, a trial, indictments, etc.
Stay tuned.
-------------------------------
Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the New York
Times and Energy Editor of the Wall Street Journal, is Managing
Director
of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group. He can be
contacted at ymibrahim@gulfnews.com | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:15 pm Post subject: Is AIPAC Mortally Wounded? |
| Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 08:53:36 -0800 (PST)
From: "Council for the National Interest" <count@igc.org>
Subject: Is AIPAC Mortally Wounded?
The FBI investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has long been viewed as the pro-Israel lobby on Capitol Hill, has sparked the thought that the once powerful organization may be headed for history's dustbin. If it is required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), as even mainstream Newsweek hinted at this week, it may spell the ruin of the organization that always professed itself the great supporter of "American" interests.
But some supporters are wondering if Israel's AIPAC is really needed.
Those who have been following the course of foreign aid to Israel realize that the amount of pure economic assistance given each year is gradually shrinking, and very shortly will amount to nothing at all. This year it is a mere $360 million - compared to $1.2 billion eight years ago. At the same time, military aid is being increasingly rechanneled through the Defense Department budgets in the guise of "joint U.S.-Israel Defense" programs. In October the defense budget passed by Congress included $300 million for several joint programs - the Arrow missile defense program, the Counter Terrorism Support Working Group, the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (lasers that hit incoming rockets), and the Bradley Reactive Armor Tiles (panels attached to military vehicles that explode outward on impact, protecting soldiers). In addition some $2.2 billion in further military aid is given as part of the yearly foreign aid package.
In Congress, the Zionist lobby is now comfortably institutionalized. The core bipartisan group of congressional supporters of Israel can be found in the Middle East subcommittee of the House Committee on International Relations, headed by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and including Gary Ackerman (D-NY) (also minority leader of the full IR committee), Howard Berman (D-CA), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Shelley Berkley (D-NV), and Tom Lantos (D-CA). Along with Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Robert Wexler (D-FL), and Dan Burton (R-IN), this core group habitually puts forward congressional resolutions and "dear colleague" letters to the President on any number of Israeli needs and requests. The latest letter from Wexler, Ackerman, Menendez, and Engel to President Bush expressed their "concerns" about and requested information on why the FBI needs to investigate their good friends at AIPAC, and Wexler has suggested that the FBI is targeting Jews. This is the same group that circulated a letter condemning the Presbyterian Church for its Israel divestment policy, and wrote the President of France asking him to add Hezbollah to the European Union list of terrorist organizations.
Meanwhile, Israel's every military and security need is articulated and promoted - sometimes in advance - by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). This so-called non-partisan "think tank" cleverly spots ways in which U.S. defense needs can be meshed with Israel's military-industrial complex. Currently it is busy promoting the applicability of Israel's anti-Palestinian expertise to America's "war on terrorism," mostly notably through exchange programs between Israel and each of the state law enforcement agencies. The primary focus of the program is to bring U.S. law enforcement executives (chiefs, sheriffs, deputies, etc.) to Israel for an intensive two-week program aimed at educating the officials on the possible threats posed by terrorists in America. Law enforcement trainers have been drawn from Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Minneapolis, and New Jersey.
So why is AIPAC needed at all? It clearly is no longer required to push for economic or military aid; all that seems to be left for the organization to do is provide junket trips for congressmen and their staff to visit Israel. But does this require a budget of $33 million a year and a staff of 140, including full-time lobbyists on Capitol Hill?
One might wonder what will happen to an organization with four of its principal officers testifying before a grand jury investigating espionage on behalf of Israel.
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