| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject: MSNBC's Olbermann won't address Mearsheimer/Walt on air |
| Forwarded:
Mearsheimer/Walt paper on pro-Israel lobby viewed as 'trivia' and 'falsely predicated' by Olbermann (is it because he is Jewish as well?):
From: "Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)" <Keith.Olbermann@MSNBC.COM>
To: "'James Morris'"
Subject: RE: Feedback on Abrams as MSNBC head already posted in the Comment s on page 1 here..
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:13:30 -0400
Sorry. I haven't mentioned the report you refer to, because in my news judgment it's trivia and falsely predicated.
And please keep your prejudice to yourself -- don't write to me again.
-----Original Message-----
From: James Morris
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 6:57 PM
To: Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)
Subject: RE: Feedback on Abrams as MSNBC head already posted in the Comment s on page 1 here..
Why don't you cover it then (you haven't even mentioned Mearsheimer/Walt on the air)? You won't though.. Because the serving Israel first execs at MSNBC (or maybe even yourself) wouldn't dare convey such to the majority of Americans before Iran is bombed for Israel as well (just like Iraq was with Halliburton contractors making profit in the process). I suggest you get a copy (the paperback version) of James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book and read about the 'A Clean Break' agenda in it (on pages 261-269/321 and the additional chapter at the end about the AIPAC/spying for Israel case that you and the serving Israel first US networks also won't cover).
You won't dare provide Americans with the truth as to why we were tragically attacked on 9/11 either.. I had to fly all the way to Washington to do it, and it still wasn't addressed (see the link of my exchange with 9/11 co-chairman Lee Hamilton in D.C. from last year via C-SPAN at the following URL):
http://www.IRmep.org/jm.wmv
Additional at following URL:
US Support for Israel PRIMARY MOTIVATION for tragic World Trade Center attacks in 1993 and on 9/11 as well:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/05/the-gorilla-in-the-room-is-us-support-for-israel.php
Even Chalmers Johnson mentioned (last night during the 'Q & A' program on C-SPAN) that we were attacked on 9/11 because of support of what Israel does to the Palestinians:
http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/?ProgramID=1079
"Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)" <Keith.Olbermann@MSNBC.COM> wrote:
Because he is not the "head," he's the General Manager - the upper extreme of middle management.
UPI's report here appears to be largely down the middle. You might learn something from it.
-----Original Message-----
From: James Morris
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 6:19 PM
To: Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)
Subject: RE: Feedback on Abram as MSNBC head already posted in the Comment s on page 1 here..
Mr. Olbermann,
I simply sent you that blog entry that appears at Huffingtonpost.com which is correct in having Dan Abrams mentioned as becoming the general manager of MSNBC, so why are you diverting from such just because the title of the email send says 'head'?
I don't want you to get me wrong as your broadcast has been good in going after the Valerie Plame leak and the NSA spying as well, but you (and/or your producers) won't touch the following (so you think UPI is anti-Semitic as well, I assume?):
PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY IN US UNDER ATTACK
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060320-124726-1902r
Intl. Intelligence
WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Two of America's top scholars have published a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby in a British journal, warning that its "decisive" role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action against Iran. And they say that the Lobby is so strong that they doubt their article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication.
Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, author of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kenney School, and author of "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy," are leading figures American in academic life.
They claim that the Israel lobby has distorted American policy and operates against American interests, that it has organized the funneling of more than $140 billion dollars to Israel and "has a stranglehold" on the U.S. Congress, and its ability to raise large campaign funds gives its vast influence over Republican and Democratic administrations, while its role in Washington think tanks on the Middle East dominates the policy debate.
And they say that the Lobby works ruthlessly to suppress questioning of its role, to blacken its critics and to crush serious debate about the wisdom of supporting Israel in U.S. public life.
"Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts -- or by suggesting that critics are anti-Semites -- violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends," Walt and Mearsheimer write.
"The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel's backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned," they add, in the 12,800-word article published in the latest issue of The London Review of Books.
The article focuses strongly on the role of the "neo-conservatives" within the Bush administration in driving the decision to launch the war on Iraq.
"The main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to the Likud," Mearsheimer and Walt argue." Given the neo-conservatives' devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn't surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests."
"The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam's removal from power. The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) or WINEP (Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy), and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war," Walt and Mearsheimer write.
The article, which is already stirring furious debate in U.S. academic and intellectual circles, also explores the historical role of the Lobby.
"For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel," the article says.
"The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?" Professors Walt and Mearsheimer add.
"The thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country - in this case, Israel -- are essentially identical," they add.
They argue that far from being a strategic asset to the United States, Israel "is becoming a strategic burden" and "does not behave like a loyal ally." They also suggest that Israel is also now "a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
"Saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around," they add. "Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits."
They question the argument that Israel deserves support as the only democracy in the Middle East, claiming that "some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens."
The most powerful force in the Lobby is AIPAC, the American-Israel Public affairs Committee, which Walt and Mearsheimer call "a de facto agent for a foreign government," and which they say has now forged an important alliance with evangelical Christian groups.
The bulk of the article is a detailed analysis of the way they claim the Lobby managed to change the Bush administration's policy from "halting Israel's expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation of a Palestinian state" and divert it to the war on Iraq instead. They write "Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical."
"Thanks to the lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians," and conclude that "Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and U.S. policy more even-handed."
-------------------------------------
Mearsheimer replies to the irate "Israel Lobby"
Letters - The Israel Lobby - From John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt.
We wrote 'The Israel Lobby' in order to begin a discussion of a subject that had become difficult to address openly in the United States (LRB, 23 March). We knew it was likely to generate a strong reaction, and we are not surprised that some of our critics have chosen to attack our characters or misrepresent our arguments. .... Must Read !!!
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n09/letters.html
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/print/mear01_.html
Additional at the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
Pro-Israel (AIPAC) lobby pushing hard for US to attack Iran:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2006/06/08/the-sun-never-sets-on-aipac.php
"Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)" <Keith.Olbermann@MSNBC.COM> wrote:
Because, apart from the fact the site you've linked me to is anti-semitic paranoia, if you'd look at the announcement today, the man put in charge of MSNBC isn't Dan Abrams, it's Phil Griffin.
-----Original Message-----
From: James Morris
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 3:59 PM
To: Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)
Subject: RE: Feedback on Abram as MSNBC head already posted in the Comments on page 1 here
So why haven't you covered the Mearsheimer/Walt paper, Mr. Olbermann (even the BBC won't touch it)? Nothing delusional about that, is there? Chris Matthews was even given a print out of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper when he was at USC in southern California recently and still hasn't addressed it on his program either (scroll down to the USC 'Daily Trojan' article link in the comments section of the following URL):
"Hawkish Israeli Lobby Wants War with Iran!"
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/12448/index.php
Scroll down to the 'Pro-Israel lobby under attack' UPI article at the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
Pro-Israel (AIPAC) lobby pushing hard for US to attack Iran:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2006/06/08/the-sun-never-sets-on-aipac.php
"Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)" <Keith.Olbermann@MSNBC.COM> wrote:
Yes. Was this a special page devoted to the Delusional, or was it a coincidence?
-----Original Message-----
From: James Morris
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 2:10 PM
To: Olbermann, Keith (NBC Universal, MSNBC)
Subject: Feedback on Abram's already posted in the Comments on page 1 here..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/06/12/msnbc-anchor-dan-abrams-n_n_22820.html
Last edited by Alpha on Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:41 am; edited 1 time in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 9:21 am Post subject: |
| http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pentagon_confirms_Iranian_directorate_as_intelligence_0615.html
Pentagon confirms Iranian directorate as officials raise new concerns about war
06/15/2006 @ 1:44 pm
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna
Current military and former intelligence officials remain concerned about a US-led strike on Iran, despite the recent appearance of diplomacy on the part of the US State Department and the offer of an incentives package to Iran.
Officials point to new developments, such as a recent meeting in Rome between an Iranian arms dealer and controversial neoconservative Michael Ledeen and the March creation of the Iranian directorate inside the Pentagon, as examples of recent events similar to the lead up with war in Iraq.
These officials also add that an as-yet uncompleted ‘Phase II’ investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence suggests the same problems may recur when addressing Iran. They note that the Pentagon’s Iranian directorate mirrors the so-called Office of Special Plans, which played a major role in feeding intelligence to the President that bolstered a case for war.
Ledeen goes to Rome
A recent trip by Michael Ledeen to Rome has raised red flags among those concerned about a potential war with Iran. Some believe that Ledeen -- a long-time advocate of Iranian regime change -- was involved in the Niger forgeries scandal.
In late 2001, Ledeen, mid-east expert Harold Rhode and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin (who later pleaded guilty to passing classified information to a Washington pro-Israel lobbying group) traveled to Rome to meet with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and various Italian, Iranian, and Egyptian intelligence agents. Not long after, documents falsely purporting that Iraq had attempted to buy yellowcake uranium surfaced in the international intelligence community, ending up at an Italian magazine, Panorama, for which Ledeen wrote periodic articles.
Ghorbanifar and Ledeen were directly involved in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, which implicated then-President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George H. W. Bush and the highest ranking members of the Reagan administration in the illegal sales of weapons to Iran.
Ledeen’s recent visit to Rome and meeting with Ghorbanifar have created new concern that something is developing with regard to US plans for Iran. Ledeen, however, denies that his visit to Italy was anything other than a personal trip with his wife Barbara.
“I did not ‘go to Rome.’ I went to Naples to see the San Gennaro celebration and the opening of the Fontanelle cemetery after more than twenty years of closure,” Ledeen wrote in an email to RAW STORY.
“You'll be able to read descriptions in my forthcoming book, Virgil's Golden Egg and Other Neapolitan Miracles," he added.
Ledeen, who has spent the last year working on a book about Naples, confirmed traveling to Rome as part of a visit to meet with friends. When asked if he had met with Ghorbanifar while in Rome, Ledeen confirmed the allegation by intelligence sources, but said that this visit was of a personal nature, unlike his previous visit.
“We visited various friends in Rome and Florence,” Ledeen said.
“[Ghorbanifar] is a friend of mine, and so, as it has been for more than twenty years, I talk to him from time to time and I meet with him when our schedules intersect,” Ledeen added.
Ledeen characterized the meeting as part of a "normal friendship."
“I would say on average I see him twice a year for a day or half a day," he said. "And it's not just him, it's sometimes his wife, his daughter... imagine! A normal friendship.”
Pentagon confirms Iran Directorate
Military and non-military intelligence sources have also raised worries over what some describe to as “the Iran group” and others as “the Iran working group” and still others as a “cabal” operating out of the Pentagon.
A recent article by Laura Rozen for the Los Angeles Times revealed the Pentagon has created yet another Office of Special Plans-type body called the Directorate for Iran, or the Iranian Directorate.
“The Pentagon's directorate began with six full-time staff members," Rozen reported. "But they can draw on expertise throughout the government, providing access to potentially hundreds of specialists."
The notorious Office of Special Plans – which focused on Iraq -- is now believed by most experts to have provided a secondary conduit of cherry-picked intelligence on Iraq to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the White House. (More here)
One former intelligence official, wishing to remain anonymous for this article, described OSP in a mocking tone as a “separate channel of information.”
John Pike of Global Security, a Washington-based intelligence clearinghouse, was less polite in his description of OSP.
“It was created to, as Dean Acheson urged Harry Truman, to scare hell out of the American people by making things a little bit clearer than the truth,” he said.
Lt. Col. Barry E. Venable, a spokesman for the Pentagon, confirmed the creation of the directorate for Iran in both a phone conversation and an email message.
“As the State Department stated in early March (Daily Press Brief, Mar. 3), the U.S. Government is organizing itself better to address what Secretary Rice called ‘one of the great challenges for the United States, a strategic challenge for the United States and for those who desire peace and freedom,’” Venable wrote.
“As a counterpart to the State Department's new Office of Iran Affairs, the Department of Defense has split off a new directorate for Iran-related policy issues from the existing Directorate of Northern Gulf Affairs in the Office of Near East and South Asia Affairs (NESA),” he added. “These regional policy offices fall within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.”
Venable also confirmed that the new directorate falls under the policy side -- more specifically -- under the new number three at the Pentagon, Eric Edelman. Edelman, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, holds the same position that Douglas Feith held when he ran OSP at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
Moreover, sources say that the Iranian Directorate is staffed with many of the same people, including OSP’s former director Abram Shulsky, and receives expert analysis from such controversial figures as Project for the New American Century member Reuel Marc Gerecht, who by all accounts was a failure as a CIA field officer. It also includes military personnel such as Ladan Archin, who appears to be serving in the Larry Franklin analyst role among a sea of think-tank operatives and neoconservative war hawks.
When asked specifically about Shulsky, Venable described his involvement as follows:
“Mr. Shulsky continues in his position as Senior Advisor to the USD (P), focusing on Mid-East regional issues and the [global war on terror].”
Ledeen says that he is not involved with the new Iran operation out of the Pentagon.
Iraq intelligence inquiry remains incomplete
Former intelligence officials also point to a yet-to-be completed Phase II investigation of Iraq pre-war intelligence by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“The committee continues its work on Phase II and hopes to complete it as soon as possible,” said Wendy Morigi, Communicators Director for Senator Rockefeller, Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee. “One of the key sections, however, which was to review the office of former Undersecretary Doug Feith, has been postponed by the Chairman until the Pentagon IG completes its own investigation.”
As previously reported by RAW ST0RY (article here), Phase II consists of several areas of focus that the Committee is investigating in order to determine Iraq pre-war planning and post-invasion failures -- specifically in five key areas:
-Whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information;
-The postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments;
-Prewar intelligence assessments about conditions to be expected in postwar Iraq;
-Any intelligence activities relating to Iraq conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and
-The use by the Intelligence Community of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.
The Office of Special Plans aspect of the investigation has been part of the reason for the delay in the delivery of Phase II by the Committee and is contingent on the Pentagon Inspector General’s office concluding its own investigation.
The lack of a comprehensive report as to how the Pentagon conducted itself prior to the Iraq war, as well as afterward, raises suspicions among some still in uniform about the Pentagon’s Iran Directorate's role going forward. Many see parallels between what is already known about the Office of Special Plans and what appears to be escalating activity surrounding Iran.
Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, told RAW STORY that “In the short term the risk for military confrontation [with Iran] has been reduced,” but cautions that “In the long run, however, unless there are talks taking place the risk for a military strike remains the same.”
Access the links in the left margin of the following URL:
http://nowarforisrael.com/Rachel%20Corrie.htm
Olbermann Disses Mearsheimer and Walt Critique:
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=412
Must watch/must listen video clip with Dr. Stephen Sniegoski:
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=400
'Iraq War Conceived in Israel' author Dr. Stephen Sniegoski on Karen
Kwiatkowski's radio program (General Janis Karpinski of Abu Ghraib also
discussed the JINSA/PNAC Neocon war for Israel agenda via the link for
her radio program broadcast at the following URL):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/05/17/iraq-war-conceived-in-israel-author-on-karen-kwiatkowski-s.php
Also, check out how Mearsheimer and Walt were very well received here:
Authors of Israel Lobby Paper Get Warm Reception at Military College:
http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/06/authors-of-israel-lobby-paper-get-warm-reception-at-military.html | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
