| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 10:13 am Post subject: LEADING AMERICA INTO THE ABYSS! |
| Just saw the following about Feith on one of the Internet newsgroups (Feith is the traitorous JINSA/CSP Jewish supremacist/Israel firster shown at the top of www.nowarforisrael.com ):
Forwarded:
LEADING AMERICA INTO THE ABYSS!
Feith served as the number three civilian in the George W. Bush
administration's Defense Department, under Donald Rumsfeld and Paul
Wolfowitz. Undersecretary for Policy Feith had previously served in the
Reagan administration, starting off as Middle East specialist at the
National Security Council (1981-82) and then transferring to the Defense
Department where he spent two years as staff lawyer for Assistant Defense
Secretary Richard Perle. In 1984 Feith advanced to become Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy. Feith and Perle were among the
leading advocates of a policy to build closer U.S. military and diplomatic
ties with Turkey and to increase the military ties between Turkey and
Israel. (21)
Feith left DOD in mid-1986 to found the Feith & Zell law firm, based
initially in Israel, whose clients included major military contractor
Northrup Grumman. In 1989 Feith established another company, International
Advisors, Inc., which provided lobbying services to foreign clients
including Turkey.
Feith's private business dealings raised eyebrows in Washington. In 1999,
his firm Feith & Zell formed an alliance with the Israel-based Zell,
Goldberg & Co., which resulted in the creation of the Fandz International
Law Group. According to Fandz's web site, the law group "has recently
established a task force dealing with issues and opportunities relating to
the recently ended war with Iraq.and is assisting regional construction and
logistics firms to collaborate with contractors from the United States and
other coalition countries in implementing infrastructure and other
reconstruction projects in Iraq." Remarked Washington Post columnist Al
Kamen, "Interested parties can reach [Fandz] through its Web site, at
www.fandz.com. Fandz.com? Hmmm. Rings a bell. Oh, yes, that was the Web site
of the Washington law firm of Feith & Zell, P.C., as in Douglas Feith [the]
undersecretary of defense for policy and head of-what else?-reconstruction
matters in Iraq. It would be impossible indeed to overestimate how perfect
ZGC would be in 'assisting American companies in their relations with the
United States government in connection with Iraqi reconstruction projects'."
(9) (15)
A vocal advocate of U.S. intervention in the Middle East and for the
hard-line policies of the Likud party in Israel, Feith has been involved in
or overseen the activities of two controversial Pentagon operations-the
Defense Policy Board, whose former head Richard Perle resigned after
concerns arose about conflicts of interest between his board duties and
business dealings, and the Office of Special Plans (OSP), which allegedly
misrepresented intelligence on Iraq to support administration policies.
Feith's office not only housed the Office of Special Plans and other special
intelligence operations associated with the Near East and South Asia (NESA)
office and the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs but also the office of
Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, who directed
military policy on interrogations of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and then
arranged for the transfer of the base's commanding officer, Maj. General
Geoffrey Miller to the Abu Ghraib prison in an effort to extract more
information from Iraqi prisoners.
Feith & Israel
Feith cannot be described by just one label. He is a longtime militarist, a
neoconservative, and a right-wing Zionist. According to Bob Woodward's book,
Plan of Attack, Feith was described by the military commander who led the
Iraq invasion, Gen. Tommy Franks, as "the f---ing stupidest guy on the face
of the earth," referring to the bad intelligence fed to the military about
Iraq and the extent of possible resistance to a U.S. invasion.
Feith also has a reputation as a prolific writer, having published articles
on international law and on foreign and defense policy in The New York
Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Commentary,
and New Republic.
His militarism-and close ties with the military-industrial complex-were
evident in his policy work in the Pentagon working with Richard Perle in the
1980s and then part of the Vulcans along with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and
Cheney in the Bush II administration; his work as a corporate lobbyist in
the 1990s for Northrup Grumman along other military contractors; and his
prominent role in the Center for Security Policy and in the Jewish Institute
for National Security Affairs (JINSA). His political orientation is
distinctly neoconservative, as evident in his affiliations with such groups
as the Middle East Forum, Center for Security Policy, and Institute for
Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS). Feith has also been
associated with the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), a policy
institute that promotes missile defense, space weapons, and nuclear weapons
development. Feith, along with Max Kampelman, were team leaders for NIPP
initiatives, funded by the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation, for
studies advocating the implementation of ambitious missile defense systems.
Feith served as chairman of the board of directors of the Center for
Security Policy, a policy institute that promotes higher military budgets,
missile defense systems, space weapons programs, and hard-line policies in
the Middle East and East Asia. CSP was founded in 1988 by Frank Gaffney, a
fellow neocon and, like Feith, a former DOD official in the Reagan
administration. Feith helped Gaffney organize CSP's large advisory board,
which includes leading neocons, arms lobbyists, and the leading
congressional members linked to the military-industrial complex. Feith has
also served as an adviser to the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, which aims to foster closer working relationships between the
Israeli military, the U.S. military, the Pentagon, and military contractors
in both countries.
Feith has supported lobbying efforts aimed at persuading the United States
to drop out of treaties and arms control agreements. Wrote one journalist in
The Nation, "Largely ignored or derided at the time, a 1995 [Center for
Security Policy (CSP)] memo co-written by Douglas Feith holding that the
United States should withdraw from the ABM [antiballistic missile] treaty
has essentially become policy, as have other CSP reports opposing the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the
International Criminal Court." (8) (14)
Feith is a self-proclaimed Zionist-not a Labor Zionist but a right-wing
Zionist close to the Likud party and the Zionist Organization of America.
In the 1990s, Feith was an outspoken critic of the Middle East policies of
both the Bush and Clinton administrations which he said were based on the
faulty "peace now" and "land for peace" policy frameworks. Instead, he
called for a "peace through strength" agenda for Israel and the United
States-invoking a phrase promoted by the neoconservatives since the
mid-1970s, which became the slogan of the Center for Security Policy.
The Middle East Information Center described Feith as an "ideologue with an
extreme anti-Arab bias," remarking that "during the Clinton years, Feith
continued to oppose any agreement negotiated between the Israelis and
Palestinians: Oslo, Hebron and Wye." Feith "defined Oslo as, "one-sided
Israeli concessions, inflated Palestinian expectations, broken Palestinian
solemn understandings, Palestinian violence.and American rewards for
Palestinian recalcitrance."(5)
In 1991, Feith, together with Frank Gaffney (founder of the Center for
Security Policy), addressed the National Leadership Conference of the State
of Israel Bonds Organization. In Feith's view, it was foolish for the U.S.
government and Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians over issues of land
given that contrasting principles-not differences over occupied lands-fueled
the Israeli-Arab conflict. He notes that, even before Israel was
established, Western political leaders mistakenly thought that "the vast
territories newly made available for the fulfillment of Arab ambitions for
independence would make it easier to win acceptance within the region of a
Jewish state in Palestine." According to Feith, no matter what they say
publicly or at the negotiating table, the Palestinians have always rejected
the principle of legitimacy, namely "the legitimacy of Zionist claims to a
Jewish National Homeland in the Land of Israel." Criticizing the George H.
W. Bush administration's attempt to broker a land for peace deal, Feith
warned, "If Western statesmen openly recognized the problem as a clash of
principles, they would not be able to market hope through the launching of
peace initiatives." (16)
In 1997 the Zionist Organization of America honored Dalck Feith and Douglas
Feith at its annual dinner. It described the Feiths as "noted Jewish
philanthropists and pro-Israel activists." The father was awarded the
group's special Centennial Award "for his lifetime of service to Israel and
the Jewish people," while Douglas received the "prestigious Louis D.
Brandeis Award." (17)
Dalck Feith was a militant in Betar, a Zionist youth movement founded by
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, an admirer of Mussolini. Betar, whose members wore dark
brown uniforms and spouted militaristic slogans modeled after other
fascistic movements, was associated with the Revisionist Movement, which
evolved in Poland to become the Herut Party, which later became the Likud
Party. (18)
In 1999 Douglas Feith wrote an essay for a book entitled The Dangers of a
Palestinian State, which was published by ZOA. Also in 1999 Feith spoke to a
150-member ZOA lobbying mission to Congress that called, among other things,
for "U.S. action against Palestinian Arab killers of Americans" and for
moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The ZOA lobbying group
also criticized the Clinton administration for its "refusal to criticize
illegal Palestinian Arab construction in Jerusalem and the territories,
which is far more extensive than Israeli construction there." (19)
Initially, Feith strongly supported the Netanyahu government controlled by
the Likud party. Immediately before Netanyahu took office, Feith in a
Washington Times op-ed wrote: "His Likud party is in general about as
radical as our Republican Party. Mr. Netanyahu favors diplomatic, defense,
and economic policies for Israel similar in principal to the kind of
policies that Reaganites favored (and favor) for the United States." In the
opinion piece, Feith echoed the Likud position on peace negotiations and
occupied territories. According to Feith, "Israel is unlikely over time to
retain control over pieces of territory unless its people actually live
there. Supporters of settlements reason: If Israelis do not settle an area
in the territories, Israel will eventually be forced to relinquish it. If it
relinquishes the territories generally, its security will be undermined and
peace therefore will not be possible."
Feith wrote that the Likud party's policies were guided by the
"peace-through-strength principle." Feith took the opportunity of the op-ed
to explain that both Israel and the United States would benefit from a
strong commitment to missile defense. According to Feith, Israel would
directly benefit from the installation of a sea-based, wide-area missile
defense system, which would supplement Israel's own national missile defense
system that the U.S. helped develop. Noting the symbiosis of U.S. and
Israeli interests, Feith wrote that Netanyahu knew that "if he encourages
Israel's friends in Congress to support such programs, he will create much
good will with the broad-based forces in the United States, led by the top
Republicans in Congress, that deem missile defense the gravest U.S. military
deficiency." Feith didn't see fit to mention that, along with Israel, the
main beneficiary of such a global missile defense system would be military
contractors such as the ones he represented in his law firm, including
Northrup Grumman. (20)
Feith is also well known for his participation-along with neoconservative
big wigs Richard Perle and David Wurmser-in a 1996 study organized by the
Israel-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, which
urged scrapping the then-ongoing peace process. The study, titled "A Clean
Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," advised Prime Minister-elect
Benjamin Netanyahu "to work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain,
destabilize, and roll back" regional threats, help overthrow Hussein, and
strike "Syrian military targets in Lebanon" and possibly in Syria proper.
Three of the six authors of the report-Perle (who was IASPS team leader),
Wurmser, and Feith-helped set the Middle East strategy, including strong
support for Sharon's hard-line policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
in the Bush II administration. Perle chaired the DOD's Defense Policy Board,
Feith became undersecretary of defense for policy, and Wurmser became Vice
President Cheney's top Middle East adviser after leaving the State
Department where he worked under Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
John Bolton.
Other members of the IASPS study group on "A New Israeli Strategy Toward
2000" included James Colbert of the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, Meyrav Wurmser of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),
and Jonathan Torop of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a
neoconservative think tank founded by a director of the American Israeli
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). At the time the report was published,
David Wurmser was an associate of IASPS.
As guiding principles for a new framework of Israeli-U.S. policy in the
Middle East, the report advocated that the new Likud government do the
following:
a.. Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including
upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defense into all Palestinian
areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat's exclusive grip on Palestinian
society.
a.. Forge a new basis for relations with the United States-stressing
self-reliance, maturity, strategic cooperation on areas of mutual concern,
and furthering values inherent to the West.
a.. Israel has the opportunity to make a clean break; it can forge a peace
process and strategy based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one
that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to
engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of
which must be economic reform. (13)
By 1997 Feith and other right-wing Zionists in the United States were
expressing their disappointment that the Netanyahu government had not
"dismantled the Oslo process," as Feith wrote in Commentary, the
neoconservative magazine of the American Jewish Committee. Feith then
proceeded to outline a radical break with what he characterized as the
"peace now" framework of negotiations. Instead, Feith recommended that
Netanyahu fulfill his "peace through strength" campaign promise.
"Repudiating Oslo would compel Israel, first and foremost, to undo the
grossest of the errors inherent in the accords: the arming of scores of
thousands of PA 'policemen'." Feith asserted that the "PA's security force
has succeeded primarily in aggravating Israel's terrorism problem." What is
more, Feith argued for Israel "to deflate expectations of imminent peace"
and to "preach sobriety and defense." (21) It was not until a new Likud
government was formed under Ariel Sharon and when Feith and other Zionists
such as Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, and Michael Rubin, together with
militarists such as Rumsfeld and Cheney, took over control of Middle East
policy during the Bush II administration that Israel, supported by the
United States, made a "clean break" from the Oslo framework.
Typical of other neoconservatives, Feith in public statements has not made
reference to his own Zionist convictions. Rather in congressional testimony
and in op-eds in major media, Feith has instead argued that U.S. policy in
the Middle East should be guided by concerns about human rights and
democracy. Israel, according to Feith, should never enter into good-faith
negotiations with Arab countries or the PA because they are not democratic.
Moreover, human rights violations in Syria, Iran, and Iraq justify
aggressive U.S. and Israeli policies aimed at ousting undemocratic and
repressive regimes. Israeli occupations are justified in the name of
ensuring the national security of democratic Israel. (22)
In addition to his close ties with the right-wing ZOA, Douglas Feith before
assuming his current position as the third ranked civilian in the Pentagon
cofounded One Jerusalem. Alarmed at the conciliatory direction of the Camp
David peace talks, prominent Israelis and Jewish Americans founded One
Jerusalem with the objective of "saving a united Jerusalem as the undivided
capital of Israel." Other cofounders of this Jerusalem-based organization
are David Steinmann, chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, board member of the Center for Security Policy, and chairman of the
executive committee of the Middle East Forum; Dore Gold, a top adviser to
Prime Minister Sharon; and Natan Sharansky; Israel's Minister of Diaspora
Affairs and current chairman of One Jerusalem.
Although an organization of American Jewish and Israeli right-wing Zionists,
One Jerusalem actively courts the involvement of Christian Zionists. In May
2003, One Jerusalem hosted the Interfaith Zionist Summit in Washington, DC,
bringing together such Christian Zionists as Gary Bauer of American Values
and Roberta Combs of the Christian Coalition with Daniel Pipes of Middle
East Forum and Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America. (27)
Intelligence Operations and Scandals
Feith is no stranger to intelligence scandals. In 1982 he left the National
Security Council under the shadow of an FBI investigation of administration
officials suspected of passing intelligence information to Israel. (30)
During the Bush II administration, investigative reports by Seymour Hersh in
the New Yorker focused public attention on the Office of Special Plans that
came under Feith's supervision. (23)
In the days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Feith and Wolfowitz
started cooking intelligence to meet the needs of the radically new foreign
and military policy that included regime change in Iraq as its top priority.
One might have thought that the priority for a special intelligence would
have been to determine the whereabouts of the terrorist network that had
just attacked the homeland. But Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and
Undersecretary of Defense Feith, working closely with Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Richard Cheney, had other intelligence
priorities. This loosely organized team soon became the Office of Special
Plans directed by Abram Shulksy, formerly of RAND and the National Strategy
Information Center (NSIC). The objective of this closet intelligence team,
according to Rumsfeld, was to "search for information on Iraq's hostile
intentions or links to terrorists." OSP's mission was to create intelligence
that the Pentagon and vice president could use to press their case for an
Iraq invasion with the president and Congress.
About the same time the Pentagon took the first steps toward launching a
counterintelligence operation called the Office of Strategic Intelligence to
support the emerging security doctrine of preventive war. But this shadowy
office, whose very purpose was to create propaganda and to counter
information coming out of Iraq, was quickly disbanded. Congressional members
expressed their concern that a counterintelligence office would not limit
itself to discrediting the intelligence of U.S. adversaries. Such a secret
counterintelligence office, critics warned, either intentionally or
inadvertently might spread disinformation to the U.S. public and policy
community as part of the build-up to the planned invasion.
Feith oversaw these efforts to provide the type of "strategic intelligence"
needed to drive this policy agenda. As the Pentagon's top policy official in
Middle East affairs, Feith had oversight authority of the DOD's Near East
and South Asia bureau (NESA). That office came under the direct supervision
of William Luti, a retired Navy officer who is a Newt Gingrich protégé and
who has long advocated a U.S. military invasion of Iraq.
The OSP worked closely with Ahmed Chalabi and others from the Iraqi National
Congress (INC), an expatriate group promoted by the neoconservatives to
replace the Hussein regime once U.S. troops were in Baghdad. Chalabi assured
the Pentagon that a U.S. invasion would be supported by widespread Iraqi
resistance, leading to claims by top administration officials and neocon
pundits that the invasion would be a "cakewalk." The OSP also relied on
intelligence flows about Iraq from a rump unit established in the offices of
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon-who like Chalabi was a proponent of a U.S.
military invasion and had close relations with neocons like Wolfowitz and
Feith. (24)
Feith became embroiled in a new intelligence scandal in late August 2004
when it was reported that the FBI had for the past two years been
investigating intelligence leaks to Israel from the Pentagon. The Pentagon
official named in the media reports is Lawrence Franklin, who was brought
into the Office of Special Plans from the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Franklin, who had served in the military attache's office in the U.S.
Embassy in Tel Aviv in the late 1990s as a colonel in the Air Force Reserve,
is suspected of passing classified information about Iran to the American
Israeli Public Affairs Committee and Israel.
The Israeli government and the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee
have denied that they engaged in any criminal operations involving
classified Pentagon documents about Iran. Israeli cabinet minister Natan
Sharansky, a cofounder with Feith of the right-wing Zionist organization One
Jerusalem, said, "There are absolutely no attempts to involve any member of
the Jewish community and any general American citizens to spy for Israel
against the United States." He observed that the investigation of DOD Office
of Planning staff most likely stemmed from an interagency rivalry within the
U.S. government. (29)
And Michael Ledeen told Newsweek that the espionage allegations against his
close friend Franklin were "nonsensical." (25) The FBI is also investigating
whether Franklin and other DOD officials passed classified information to
Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. Ledeen and other neocons,
like Sharansky, see the investigations as instigated by the State Department
and the CIA to undermine the credibility of the neoconservatives and to
obstruct their Middle East restructuring agenda, including regime change in
Iran. According to one neocon interviewed by the Washington Post, "This is
part of a civil war with the administration, a basic dislike between the old
CIA and the neoconservatives." (26) | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 10:18 am Post subject: Re: LEADING AMERICA INTO THE ABYSS! |
| Esteemed US intelligence author James Bamford eloquently conveys in his new book ('A Pretext for War') that Vice President Dick Cheney (who is a hack for the JINSA/CSP/PNAC Zionist Neocon cabal in the Bush regime) relentlessly pressured the CIA for 'intelligence' in order to have the US military wage the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel (and Halliburton as Cheney financially benefitted in the process especially when he received the 20 million dollar severance package to do Halliburton's bidding and had his stock portofolio raise in value when his Halliburton stock rose in value after Halliburton got those non-bid contracts in Iraq that Cheney helped arrange).
The CIA initially resisted Cheney, but CIA director George Tenet 'caved' in and gave Cheney what he wanted... There is a CIA operative witness who conveys such in 'A Pretext for War' (read more about the 'A Clean Break' agenda from pages 261-269 of Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' via the following URL):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
Bamford also eloquently discusses the Office of Special Plans (OSP) associated with Douglas Feith (who is one of the Zionist Jew traitors to America shown at the top of www.nowarforisrael.com ) as he had the OSP 'cook' intelligence needed to launch the long desired war for Israel (in accordance with the 'A Clean Break' document which Feith co-authored as well). See the following 'The Lie Factory' article for more on Feith and his OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS (how much is the Zionist controlled/influenced US press/media telling us about this - NOT MUCH!):
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html
| Alpha wrote: | Just saw the following about Feith on one of the Internet newsgroups (Feith is the traitorous JINSA/CSP Jewish supremacist/Israel firster shown at the top of www.nowarforisrael.com ):
Forwarded:
LEADING AMERICA INTO THE ABYSS!
Feith served as the number three civilian in the George W. Bush
administration's Defense Department, under Donald Rumsfeld and Paul
Wolfowitz. Undersecretary for Policy Feith had previously served in the
Reagan administration, starting off as Middle East specialist at the
National Security Council (1981-82) and then transferring to the Defense
Department where he spent two years as staff lawyer for Assistant Defense
Secretary Richard Perle. In 1984 Feith advanced to become Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy. Feith and Perle were among the
leading advocates of a policy to build closer U.S. military and diplomatic
ties with Turkey and to increase the military ties between Turkey and
Israel. (21)
Feith left DOD in mid-1986 to found the Feith & Zell law firm, based
initially in Israel, whose clients included major military contractor
Northrup Grumman. In 1989 Feith established another company, International
Advisors, Inc., which provided lobbying services to foreign clients
including Turkey.
Feith's private business dealings raised eyebrows in Washington. In 1999,
his firm Feith & Zell formed an alliance with the Israel-based Zell,
Goldberg & Co., which resulted in the creation of the Fandz International
Law Group. According to Fandz's web site, the law group "has recently
established a task force dealing with issues and opportunities relating to
the recently ended war with Iraq.and is assisting regional construction and
logistics firms to collaborate with contractors from the United States and
other coalition countries in implementing infrastructure and other
reconstruction projects in Iraq." Remarked Washington Post columnist Al
Kamen, "Interested parties can reach [Fandz] through its Web site, at
www.fandz.com. Fandz.com? Hmmm. Rings a bell. Oh, yes, that was the Web site
of the Washington law firm of Feith & Zell, P.C., as in Douglas Feith [the]
undersecretary of defense for policy and head of-what else?-reconstruction
matters in Iraq. It would be impossible indeed to overestimate how perfect
ZGC would be in 'assisting American companies in their relations with the
United States government in connection with Iraqi reconstruction projects'."
(9) (15)
A vocal advocate of U.S. intervention in the Middle East and for the
hard-line policies of the Likud party in Israel, Feith has been involved in
or overseen the activities of two controversial Pentagon operations-the
Defense Policy Board, whose former head Richard Perle resigned after
concerns arose about conflicts of interest between his board duties and
business dealings, and the Office of Special Plans (OSP), which allegedly
misrepresented intelligence on Iraq to support administration policies.
Feith's office not only housed the Office of Special Plans and other special
intelligence operations associated with the Near East and South Asia (NESA)
office and the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs but also the office of
Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, who directed
military policy on interrogations of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and then
arranged for the transfer of the base's commanding officer, Maj. General
Geoffrey Miller to the Abu Ghraib prison in an effort to extract more
information from Iraqi prisoners.
Feith & Israel
Feith cannot be described by just one label. He is a longtime militarist, a
neoconservative, and a right-wing Zionist. According to Bob Woodward's book,
Plan of Attack, Feith was described by the military commander who led the
Iraq invasion, Gen. Tommy Franks, as "the f---ing stupidest guy on the face
of the earth," referring to the bad intelligence fed to the military about
Iraq and the extent of possible resistance to a U.S. invasion.
Feith also has a reputation as a prolific writer, having published articles
on international law and on foreign and defense policy in The New York
Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Commentary,
and New Republic.
His militarism-and close ties with the military-industrial complex-were
evident in his policy work in the Pentagon working with Richard Perle in the
1980s and then part of the Vulcans along with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and
Cheney in the Bush II administration; his work as a corporate lobbyist in
the 1990s for Northrup Grumman along other military contractors; and his
prominent role in the Center for Security Policy and in the Jewish Institute
for National Security Affairs (JINSA). His political orientation is
distinctly neoconservative, as evident in his affiliations with such groups
as the Middle East Forum, Center for Security Policy, and Institute for
Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS). Feith has also been
associated with the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), a policy
institute that promotes missile defense, space weapons, and nuclear weapons
development. Feith, along with Max Kampelman, were team leaders for NIPP
initiatives, funded by the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation, for
studies advocating the implementation of ambitious missile defense systems.
Feith served as chairman of the board of directors of the Center for
Security Policy, a policy institute that promotes higher military budgets,
missile defense systems, space weapons programs, and hard-line policies in
the Middle East and East Asia. CSP was founded in 1988 by Frank Gaffney, a
fellow neocon and, like Feith, a former DOD official in the Reagan
administration. Feith helped Gaffney organize CSP's large advisory board,
which includes leading neocons, arms lobbyists, and the leading
congressional members linked to the military-industrial complex. Feith has
also served as an adviser to the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, which aims to foster closer working relationships between the
Israeli military, the U.S. military, the Pentagon, and military contractors
in both countries.
Feith has supported lobbying efforts aimed at persuading the United States
to drop out of treaties and arms control agreements. Wrote one journalist in
The Nation, "Largely ignored or derided at the time, a 1995 [Center for
Security Policy (CSP)] memo co-written by Douglas Feith holding that the
United States should withdraw from the ABM [antiballistic missile] treaty
has essentially become policy, as have other CSP reports opposing the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the
International Criminal Court." (8) (14)
Feith is a self-proclaimed Zionist-not a Labor Zionist but a right-wing
Zionist close to the Likud party and the Zionist Organization of America.
In the 1990s, Feith was an outspoken critic of the Middle East policies of
both the Bush and Clinton administrations which he said were based on the
faulty "peace now" and "land for peace" policy frameworks. Instead, he
called for a "peace through strength" agenda for Israel and the United
States-invoking a phrase promoted by the neoconservatives since the
mid-1970s, which became the slogan of the Center for Security Policy.
The Middle East Information Center described Feith as an "ideologue with an
extreme anti-Arab bias," remarking that "during the Clinton years, Feith
continued to oppose any agreement negotiated between the Israelis and
Palestinians: Oslo, Hebron and Wye." Feith "defined Oslo as, "one-sided
Israeli concessions, inflated Palestinian expectations, broken Palestinian
solemn understandings, Palestinian violence.and American rewards for
Palestinian recalcitrance."(5)
In 1991, Feith, together with Frank Gaffney (founder of the Center for
Security Policy), addressed the National Leadership Conference of the State
of Israel Bonds Organization. In Feith's view, it was foolish for the U.S.
government and Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians over issues of land
given that contrasting principles-not differences over occupied lands-fueled
the Israeli-Arab conflict. He notes that, even before Israel was
established, Western political leaders mistakenly thought that "the vast
territories newly made available for the fulfillment of Arab ambitions for
independence would make it easier to win acceptance within the region of a
Jewish state in Palestine." According to Feith, no matter what they say
publicly or at the negotiating table, the Palestinians have always rejected
the principle of legitimacy, namely "the legitimacy of Zionist claims to a
Jewish National Homeland in the Land of Israel." Criticizing the George H.
W. Bush administration's attempt to broker a land for peace deal, Feith
warned, "If Western statesmen openly recognized the problem as a clash of
principles, they would not be able to market hope through the launching of
peace initiatives." (16)
In 1997 the Zionist Organization of America honored Dalck Feith and Douglas
Feith at its annual dinner. It described the Feiths as "noted Jewish
philanthropists and pro-Israel activists." The father was awarded the
group's special Centennial Award "for his lifetime of service to Israel and
the Jewish people," while Douglas received the "prestigious Louis D.
Brandeis Award." (17)
Dalck Feith was a militant in Betar, a Zionist youth movement founded by
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, an admirer of Mussolini. Betar, whose members wore dark
brown uniforms and spouted militaristic slogans modeled after other
fascistic movements, was associated with the Revisionist Movement, which
evolved in Poland to become the Herut Party, which later became the Likud
Party. (18)
In 1999 Douglas Feith wrote an essay for a book entitled The Dangers of a
Palestinian State, which was published by ZOA. Also in 1999 Feith spoke to a
150-member ZOA lobbying mission to Congress that called, among other things,
for "U.S. action against Palestinian Arab killers of Americans" and for
moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The ZOA lobbying group
also criticized the Clinton administration for its "refusal to criticize
illegal Palestinian Arab construction in Jerusalem and the territories,
which is far more extensive than Israeli construction there." (19)
Initially, Feith strongly supported the Netanyahu government controlled by
the Likud party. Immediately before Netanyahu took office, Feith in a
Washington Times op-ed wrote: "His Likud party is in general about as
radical as our Republican Party. Mr. Netanyahu favors diplomatic, defense,
and economic policies for Israel similar in principal to the kind of
policies that Reaganites favored (and favor) for the United States." In the
opinion piece, Feith echoed the Likud position on peace negotiations and
occupied territories. According to Feith, "Israel is unlikely over time to
retain control over pieces of territory unless its people actually live
there. Supporters of settlements reason: If Israelis do not settle an area
in the territories, Israel will eventually be forced to relinquish it. If it
relinquishes the territories generally, its security will be undermined and
peace therefore will not be possible."
Feith wrote that the Likud party's policies were guided by the
"peace-through-strength principle." Feith took the opportunity of the op-ed
to explain that both Israel and the United States would benefit from a
strong commitment to missile defense. According to Feith, Israel would
directly benefit from the installation of a sea-based, wide-area missile
defense system, which would supplement Israel's own national missile defense
system that the U.S. helped develop. Noting the symbiosis of U.S. and
Israeli interests, Feith wrote that Netanyahu knew that "if he encourages
Israel's friends in Congress to support such programs, he will create much
good will with the broad-based forces in the United States, led by the top
Republicans in Congress, that deem missile defense the gravest U.S. military
deficiency." Feith didn't see fit to mention that, along with Israel, the
main beneficiary of such a global missile defense system would be military
contractors such as the ones he represented in his law firm, including
Northrup Grumman. (20)
Feith is also well known for his participation-along with neoconservative
big wigs Richard Perle and David Wurmser-in a 1996 study organized by the
Israel-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, which
urged scrapping the then-ongoing peace process. The study, titled "A Clean
Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," advised Prime Minister-elect
Benjamin Netanyahu "to work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain,
destabilize, and roll back" regional threats, help overthrow Hussein, and
strike "Syrian military targets in Lebanon" and possibly in Syria proper.
Three of the six authors of the report-Perle (who was IASPS team leader),
Wurmser, and Feith-helped set the Middle East strategy, including strong
support for Sharon's hard-line policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
in the Bush II administration. Perle chaired the DOD's Defense Policy Board,
Feith became undersecretary of defense for policy, and Wurmser became Vice
President Cheney's top Middle East adviser after leaving the State
Department where he worked under Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
John Bolton.
Other members of the IASPS study group on "A New Israeli Strategy Toward
2000" included James Colbert of the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, Meyrav Wurmser of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),
and Jonathan Torop of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a
neoconservative think tank founded by a director of the American Israeli
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). At the time the report was published,
David Wurmser was an associate of IASPS.
As guiding principles for a new framework of Israeli-U.S. policy in the
Middle East, the report advocated that the new Likud government do the
following:
a.. Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including
upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defense into all Palestinian
areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat's exclusive grip on Palestinian
society.
a.. Forge a new basis for relations with the United States-stressing
self-reliance, maturity, strategic cooperation on areas of mutual concern,
and furthering values inherent to the West.
a.. Israel has the opportunity to make a clean break; it can forge a peace
process and strategy based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one
that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to
engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of
which must be economic reform. (13)
By 1997 Feith and other right-wing Zionists in the United States were
expressing their disappointment that the Netanyahu government had not
"dismantled the Oslo process," as Feith wrote in Commentary, the
neoconservative magazine of the American Jewish Committee. Feith then
proceeded to outline a radical break with what he characterized as the
"peace now" framework of negotiations. Instead, Feith recommended that
Netanyahu fulfill his "peace through strength" campaign promise.
"Repudiating Oslo would compel Israel, first and foremost, to undo the
grossest of the errors inherent in the accords: the arming of scores of
thousands of PA 'policemen'." Feith asserted that the "PA's security force
has succeeded primarily in aggravating Israel's terrorism problem." What is
more, Feith argued for Israel "to deflate expectations of imminent peace"
and to "preach sobriety and defense." (21) It was not until a new Likud
government was formed under Ariel Sharon and when Feith and other Zionists
such as Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, and Michael Rubin, together with
militarists such as Rumsfeld and Cheney, took over control of Middle East
policy during the Bush II administration that Israel, supported by the
United States, made a "clean break" from the Oslo framework.
Typical of other neoconservatives, Feith in public statements has not made
reference to his own Zionist convictions. Rather in congressional testimony
and in op-eds in major media, Feith has instead argued that U.S. policy in
the Middle East should be guided by concerns about human rights and
democracy. Israel, according to Feith, should never enter into good-faith
negotiations with Arab countries or the PA because they are not democratic.
Moreover, human rights violations in Syria, Iran, and Iraq justify
aggressive U.S. and Israeli policies aimed at ousting undemocratic and
repressive regimes. Israeli occupations are justified in the name of
ensuring the national security of democratic Israel. (22)
In addition to his close ties with the right-wing ZOA, Douglas Feith before
assuming his current position as the third ranked civilian in the Pentagon
cofounded One Jerusalem. Alarmed at the conciliatory direction of the Camp
David peace talks, prominent Israelis and Jewish Americans founded One
Jerusalem with the objective of "saving a united Jerusalem as the undivided
capital of Israel." Other cofounders of this Jerusalem-based organization
are David Steinmann, chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, board member of the Center for Security Policy, and chairman of the
executive committee of the Middle East Forum; Dore Gold, a top adviser to
Prime Minister Sharon; and Natan Sharansky; Israel's Minister of Diaspora
Affairs and current chairman of One Jerusalem.
Although an organization of American Jewish and Israeli right-wing Zionists,
One Jerusalem actively courts the involvement of Christian Zionists. In May
2003, One Jerusalem hosted the Interfaith Zionist Summit in Washington, DC,
bringing together such Christian Zionists as Gary Bauer of American Values
and Roberta Combs of the Christian Coalition with Daniel Pipes of Middle
East Forum and Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America. (27)
Intelligence Operations and Scandals
Feith is no stranger to intelligence scandals. In 1982 he left the National
Security Council under the shadow of an FBI investigation of administration
officials suspected of passing intelligence information to Israel. (30)
During the Bush II administration, investigative reports by Seymour Hersh in
the New Yorker focused public attention on the Office of Special Plans that
came under Feith's supervision. (23)
In the days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Feith and Wolfowitz
started cooking intelligence to meet the needs of the radically new foreign
and military policy that included regime change in Iraq as its top priority.
One might have thought that the priority for a special intelligence would
have been to determine the whereabouts of the terrorist network that had
just attacked the homeland. But Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and
Undersecretary of Defense Feith, working closely with Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Richard Cheney, had other intelligence
priorities. This loosely organized team soon became the Office of Special
Plans directed by Abram Shulksy, formerly of RAND and the National Strategy
Information Center (NSIC). The objective of this closet intelligence team,
according to Rumsfeld, was to "search for information on Iraq's hostile
intentions or links to terrorists." OSP's mission was to create intelligence
that the Pentagon and vice president could use to press their case for an
Iraq invasion with the president and Congress.
About the same time the Pentagon took the first steps toward launching a
counterintelligence operation called the Office of Strategic Intelligence to
support the emerging security doctrine of preventive war. But this shadowy
office, whose very purpose was to create propaganda and to counter
information coming out of Iraq, was quickly disbanded. Congressional members
expressed their concern that a counterintelligence office would not limit
itself to discrediting the intelligence of U.S. adversaries. Such a secret
counterintelligence office, critics warned, either intentionally or
inadvertently might spread disinformation to the U.S. public and policy
community as part of the build-up to the planned invasion.
Feith oversaw these efforts to provide the type of "strategic intelligence"
needed to drive this policy agenda. As the Pentagon's top policy official in
Middle East affairs, Feith had oversight authority of the DOD's Near East
and South Asia bureau (NESA). That office came under the direct supervision
of William Luti, a retired Navy officer who is a Newt Gingrich protégé and
who has long advocated a U.S. military invasion of Iraq.
The OSP worked closely with Ahmed Chalabi and others from the Iraqi National
Congress (INC), an expatriate group promoted by the neoconservatives to
replace the Hussein regime once U.S. troops were in Baghdad. Chalabi assured
the Pentagon that a U.S. invasion would be supported by widespread Iraqi
resistance, leading to claims by top administration officials and neocon
pundits that the invasion would be a "cakewalk." The OSP also relied on
intelligence flows about Iraq from a rump unit established in the offices of
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon-who like Chalabi was a proponent of a U.S.
military invasion and had close relations with neocons like Wolfowitz and
Feith. (24)
Feith became embroiled in a new intelligence scandal in late August 2004
when it was reported that the FBI had for the past two years been
investigating intelligence leaks to Israel from the Pentagon. The Pentagon
official named in the media reports is Lawrence Franklin, who was brought
into the Office of Special Plans from the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Franklin, who had served in the military attache's office in the U.S.
Embassy in Tel Aviv in the late 1990s as a colonel in the Air Force Reserve,
is suspected of passing classified information about Iran to the American
Israeli Public Affairs Committee and Israel.
The Israeli government and the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee
have denied that they engaged in any criminal operations involving
classified Pentagon documents about Iran. Israeli cabinet minister Natan
Sharansky, a cofounder with Feith of the right-wing Zionist organization One
Jerusalem, said, "There are absolutely no attempts to involve any member of
the Jewish community and any general American citizens to spy for Israel
against the United States." He observed that the investigation of DOD Office
of Planning staff most likely stemmed from an interagency rivalry within the
U.S. government. (29)
And Michael Ledeen told Newsweek that the espionage allegations against his
close friend Franklin were "nonsensical." (25) The FBI is also investigating
whether Franklin and other DOD officials passed classified information to
Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. Ledeen and other neocons,
like Sharansky, see the investigations as instigated by the State Department
and the CIA to undermine the credibility of the neoconservatives and to
obstruct their Middle East restructuring agenda, including regime change in
Iran. According to one neocon interviewed by the Washington Post, "This is
part of a civil war with the administration, a basic dislike between the old
CIA and the neoconservatives." (26) | | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 1:03 pm Post subject: Check out The Gorilla in the Room |
| Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 08:48:36 EDT
Subject: Check out The Gorilla in the Room
Someone to contact
Another really good exchange starts at around [1:14], and includes Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) pressing Richard Perle on the Clean Break paper ( http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm ), the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group ( http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/2005/02/office-of-special-plans-organization.html ), and the real agenda behind the war. You can tell Rep. Jones has read up on this, and is aware of a lot of the material I've mentioned on this blog. (Didn't he get the memo that AIPAC doesn't allow you to talk about that?) Anyway, I'm going to take off my Democratic partisan hat for a moment and give kudos to Rep. Jones -- he linked it all together, and you can hear the emotion in his voice as he goes after Perle. He mentions that he's been to four funerals for Marines from bases in North Carolina recently, and you can tell that the fact that he understands that they died in a war sold under false pretenses offends him greatly. He keeps it civil with Perle, but just barely.
The Gorilla in the Room ( http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/ ) | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:08 am Post subject: C Mideast Briefing: the Crawford Summit and More |
| Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 18:56:31 -0700
From: "Jeff Blankfort" <jblankfort@earthlink.net>
Subject: AJC Mideast Briefing: the Crawford Summit and More
This briefing from Israel by the American Jewish Committee's Eran Lerman, formerly a member of Israeli intelligence is well worth reading, particularly the analysis he offers at the end of the article. And, of course, there is the question of Iran.
Jeff
The Crawford Summit and
The Question of Construction in the E-1 Zone:
A New Round in the Battle of Jerusalem?
A Weekly Briefing on Israeli and Middle Eastern Affairs
April 11, 2005
Dr. Eran Lerman
Director Israel/Middle East Office
There was a dramatic tone to some of the media reports this week, on the eve of the "Crawford Summit," about the question of settlement expansion; a conflict was brewing, it was argued, over the Bush administration's displeasure with Israeli plans to build 3,500 housing units in an area known as E-1. This would constitute an extension westward of the town of Ma'aleh Adumim and would create an urban link to Jerusalem. The differences over this plan are real enough (and long-standing), but it is not at all certain that they merit the attention given at this time. At least some of attention may have been generated by those who are eager—for various reasons—to see a rift emerge between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President George W. Bush. (For certain elements of the Israeli right wing, it has become almost essential to prove that Sharon is not telling the truth, and the U.S. is not "really" committed to support the Israeli position on the future of the settlement blocs.) The real agenda of this crucial meeting at the president's ranch concerned, above all, the urgent need for action on the Iranian nuclear effort, which is fast approaching the point of no return; as well as other aspects of the broader regional agenda, launched by the administration, and the profound ways in which they have transformed Israel's strategic environment; and the more immediate questions related to the implementation within the next three months of the Disengagement Plan. But all these items seemed to be overshadowed by the "E-1 question," and by the forceful Palestinian complaint that this project, if carried out, would slice the West Bank into two and would render it impossible to create a contiguous Palestinian state. However, a closer look at the map, and at the timetables, would indicate that what is at stake is not the possibility of implementing Stage II of the Road Map, but rather the decisive, though not necessarily immediate, battle for the future of Jerusalem, which is perhaps the most delicate and explosive of all Stage III (permanent status) issues. Ma'aleh Adumim, whether linked to Jerusalem by a narrow road or by a broad built-up zone, does not cut in half the West Bank; it is quite conceivable to construct a good road that will carry people and goods from Ramallah to Bethlehem—either under Ma'aleh Adumim or aroumd it to the east—so that the Palestinians do not have to go through Israeli checkpoints. On the other hand, the construction at E-1 would indeed tighten Israeli control over the eastern approaches of Jerusalem, thus making it more difficult to redivide the city (which is, indeed, Sharon's intent; he begins every meeting with foreign dignitaries with a reference to the unity of Israel's capital, and claims, with some reason, to be upholding Yitzhak Rabin's own legacy on this question). The battle for Jerusalem, which has always been at the core of the conflict, is thus reemerging, well in advance of the actual resumption of negotiations. Sunday's clashes with far-right Jewish elements who wanted (but failed) to use the Temple Mount to trigger a crisis that would derail the disengagement; the equally ugly responses by some Muslims, who do not want the feet of Jews to "defile" the Haram al-Sharif; the E-1 controversy; and the attempt by the PA leadership to move directly to Permanent Status negotiations, including Jerusalem—all are opening shots in this new round of political warfare (which, for now at least, have not been translated into actual fighting, beyond the unrelated deterioration in Gaza). The tensions over the city will not go away, even if the deft handling by the police prevented a conflagration on the first day of Nisan 5765 (April 10), the occasion chosen by the radicals to attempt their provocative ascent. Was it wise, however, for the Israeli government to add fuel to the crisis by reviving the debate over the E-1 plans? After all, the construction itself will not start for some years, and the present timing, apparently harmful to Mahmoud Abbas in his internal struggle with Hamas, could not have been worse. Explanations based on sheer folly or inattention to detail are indeed, very often, the most plausible. Yet there is another way of looking at this "crisis," which may have been somewhat more orchestrated than meets the eye. If timing is at the root of the trouble here, timing—i.e., an agreement to delay—could easily be part of the solution. Meanwhile, the overt pressure on Israel could be used by the U.S. to show Abbas that there is some degree of even-handedness at work; and thus it would make it easier for Bush to require him:
To help coordinate disengagement plans with Israel, particularly on the security framework;
To break the present mold of inaction and take effective measures against the terrorists (who are even now raining mortar shells on Gush Katif);
To abandon the unworkable push for "Stage III Now!" and prepare the ground for an acceptable interim agreement, once the preconditions (an end to terror) are met.
This is reminiscent, one might say, of the Jewish folktale about a poor man who comes to his rabbi to cry over the incredible crush he and his large family are enduring in a small one-room hovel; the rabbi's advice, much to the man's surprise, is to add a goat to the household! Two weeks later, when told they may now send the goat out, the family suddenly feels so much better, breathing fresh air in their very tiny but comfortable home. The E-1 plan, in other words, may not mean much on the ground for years to come—but it has proven a useful device in demonstrating to the Palestinians, and their leaders, that Israel is ready to struggle for Jerusalem, while, at the same time, showing that the U.S. is not automatically allied with Israel on all issues. If taken off the agenda (for the time being) under U.S. pressure, E-1 could become the Palestinians' "rabbi's goat"—i.e., the extra element whose removal makes it easier to adjust to other demands.
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