Chas Freeman forced by Israel Lobbies to withdraw from NIC

Alpha · Last edited by Alpha on Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:09 am; edited 43 times in total

AIPAC runs out Freeman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxgm4EsyWTA&feature=channel_page

PBS 'Newshour' conveyed (during the news synopsis on March 10th, 2009) that Chas (Charles) Freeman was pressured to resign by Israel supporters for conveying that US support for Israel was PRIMARY MOTIVATION for 9/11:

http://tinyurl.com/dzbxoo

US Support for Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinian people PRIMARY MOTIVATION for 9/11:

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

http://tinyurl.com/2plhas

Freeman withdraws name from intel post (Eli Lake' piece in TWT today concedes offensive was led by AIPAC espionage defendant Steve Rosen & coup de grace by AIPAC operative Rahm Emanuel):

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/11/freeman-withdraws-name-from-intel-post/

Intelligence Pick Blames 'Israel Lobby' For Withdrawal:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031104308.html?wpisrc=newsletter

DE BORCHGRAVE: Freeman's unpardonable 'sin'

Arnaud de Borchgrave
COMMENTARY:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/06/intelligence-analyst-in-chief/

The Country's Loss

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031103213.html

Battling Over Freeman's Legacy

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/battling-over-freemans-legacy.html

Why isn't the media talking about Charles Freeman:

http://tinyurl.com/dmc2xg

Riz Khan - Chas Freeman and the Israeli lobby - 26 Mar 09 - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_b13cVqiB0&feature=related

Riz Khan - Chas Freeman and the Israeli lobby - 26 Mar 09 - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YPdYWoVIqs&feature=related

Chas Freeman slams 'destructive' Israeli policies

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=90342&sectionid=351020202

Freeman: Israel's policies destructive to US:

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=90376

Press TV (the Iranian channel) just did a 30 minute interview with Ambassador Freeman (but the 'American' media won't!) in New York (click on the 'Media Player' link at the following URL to watch such if interested further):

Exclusive Interview with Chas Freeman:

http://www.presstv.com/programs/player/?id=90443

Freeman: US run by Israel lobby

http://www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx?id=88235&sectionid=3510203

Joe Klein Defends Chas Freeman Against "Rabid" Jewish Opposition

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/03/08/the-assault-on-chas-freeman/

John Mearsheimer: The Lobby Falters:

http://tinyurl.com/cn2fv7

How To Talk About Israel (scroll down to Michael Scheuer's response at the following URL as he was the head of the Bin Laden unit for the CIA)?:

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/03/how-to-talk-about-israel.php

Freeman withdraws name from intel post (Eli Lake' piece in TWT today concedes offensive was led by AIPAC espionage defendant Steve Rosen & coup de grace by AIPAC operative Rahm Emanuel):

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/11/freeman-withdraws-name-from-intel-post/

The American Conservative -- Freeman?s Fight

The Israel lobby gets its man?and tips its hand.

http://amconmag.com/article/2009/mar/23/00006/

It's not a lobby, it's a philosemitic culture and era; and it's over (Chas Freeman situation mentioned by Phil Weiss):

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/yesterday-i-went-on-press-tv-to-talk-about-the-israel-lobby-with-elazar-barkan-and-dan-fleshler-whose-book-on-the-israel-lob.html

Here is that excellent Press TV interview with Phil Weiss about Chas Freeman which he references in the above blog entry:

http://www.presstv.com/Programs/player/Default.aspx?id=89735

Check out the discussion about Ambassador Freeman and the pro-Israel lobby at about 39 minutes until the end of the broadcast via the following URL as it was mentioned how CBS News didn't even cover Ambassador Freeman's withdrawal (simply click on the 'Media Player' link to access the video):

http://www.presstv.com/Programs/player/Default.aspx?id=89092

A Heretic Is Punished in Washington by Eric Margolis

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis141.html

http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/a-heretic-is-punished-in-washington.aspx

The Rape of Washington:

http://www.antiwar.com/avnery/?articleid=14407

Fathers and Sons: A Spirited Defense of Chas Freeman by his Politically Divergent Son

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/03/chas_fre/

Washington Post shows its hand (by Philip Giraldi):

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=14411

Call for Philip Giraldi about coming war with Iran which Chas Freeman would have resisted:

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/12/call-for-phillip-giraldi-about-pretext.html

The Israel Lobby Smear of Charles Freeman:

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2009/03/11/the-israeli-smear-of-charles-freeman/comment-page-1/

PJB: Of Patriots and Assassins:

http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-of-patriots-and-assassins-1476

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=14415

Charles Freeman?s disloyalty allegations

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/articles/MacDonald-Freeman.html

The Neocons Strike Back

The neoconservatives have demonstrated that their power in Washington remains strong as they have succeeded in keeping veteran diplomat Chas Freeman out of a top intelligence job:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/031109.html

http://tinyurl.com/amxopy

The Freeman Affair: Robert Dreyfuss/T. Engelhardt:

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=14408

The Rape of Washington:

http://www.antiwar.com/avnery/?articleid=14407

Obama pick quits over Israel Lobby:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/03/200931113340555177.html

Stephen Walt On Chas Freeman's withdrawal:

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/11/on_chas_freemans_withdrawal

Charles Freeman fails the loyalty test

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/10/freeman/index.html

It was the lobby that did the deed..

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/03/06/chas-freeman-aipac-smells-blood-in-the-water/

The Freeman fight: Was it all about Israel?:

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/10/1003589/the-freeman-fight-is-it-all-about-israel

Chas Freeman speaks: By vetoing U.S. appointments, the Israel lobby is enforcing adherence to a foreign government

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/freeman-the-powerful-israel-lobby-is-determined-to-prevent-any-view-other-than-its-own-from-being-ai.html

Chas Freeman is a victory the neocons will regret

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/chas-freeman-is-a-victory-the-neocons-will-regret.html

Scott Horton Interviews Philip Weiss:

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/03/18/philip-weiss-2/

Tomgram: Robert Dreyfuss, The Freeman Affair

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175046/robert_dreyfuss_the_freeman_affair

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=14408

Chas Freeman forced by Israel Lobbies to withdraw from NIC Chairmanship

http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/chas-freeman-forced-by-israel-lobies-to.html

Freeman speaks out on his exit

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/10/freeman_speaks_out_on_his_exit

McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years. He said today of Freeman's
withdrawal: "It is unprecedented that pro-Israeli hawks were able to
sabotage the innards of the intelligence community in this fashion." He
just wrote a piece titled "Timidity Derails Obama Intel Choice."

http://consortiumnews.com/2009/031109a.html

He wrote a piece published in today's Miami Herald titled "Steer clear
of attack on Iran."

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/943518.html

Jim Lobe just co-wrote the piece "Freeman Withdrawal Marks Victory for
Israel Lobby." He said today:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46059

In Freeman's own words:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123672847973688515.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Freeman discusses Israel Lobby on CNN:

http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=17721

Israeli Lobby Has A Hammer Lock On Discussion & Policy pt.1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaKiTMoT0cc&feature=related

Exiting, Chas Freeman Attacks Israel Lobby:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/03/exiting-chas-fr.html

Tom Murphy (of www.representativepress.org) writes (about what Jake Tapper conveys via the above ABC News blog entry):

I see Jake Tapper is "perplexed". He claims that Freeman says "a foreign power was lurking nefariously somehow behind it all" when as another reader noticed, Freeman was talking about the influnce of the lobby. Some guy Donals from Hawaii calls him on it. "Excuse me, Jake Tapper, but Chas Freeman specifically targeted the pro-Israel lobby in D.C. as source of his difficulties. Nowhere in his statement does he directly implicate the intrigues of a foreign power, Israel. Please don't deliberately twist Freeman's prose into a verbal pretzel in order to either conflate the pro-Israel lobby with the State of Israel itself, or to mock the man as some sort of pro-Arab radical lunatic for having the nerve to say something with which you might personally disagree -- lest you desire that some of us come to question YOUR own motives for doing so."

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Ex-AIPACer Rosen suing former employer for defamation

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/11/1003637/suspect-in-classified-information-case-sues-aipac-for-defamaton

Mr. President, Yes, You Could

An open letter to President Obama

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22188.htm

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How To Talk About Israel (scroll down to Michael Scheuer's response at the following URL as he was the head of the Bin Laden unit for the CIA)?:

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2009/03/how-to-talk-about-israel.php

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DE BORCHGRAVE: Freeman's unpardonable 'sin'

Arnaud de Borchgrave
COMMENTARY:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/06/intelligence-analyst-in-chief/

A rarity in Washington , the secret was well kept until the announcement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair. His deputy as chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) is Charles "Chas" Freeman, a Chinese-speaking iconoclast with a brilliant analytical mind that is anathema to the Israel lobby and the neocons.

Lucky for former Ambassador Freeman that Judaism, in contrast to Christianity, does not believe in mortal sins. But his sin is beyond redemption in Washington . Mr. Freeman is convinced that U.S. and Israeli strategic interests are not necessarily one and the same.

This triggered a cascade of epithets from "Saudi puppet" to "Chas of Arabia linked to Saudi cash" to " China-coddling , Israel -basher," and a major campaign to derail the nomination. Leading the charge was Steve Rosen, former foreign policy director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Mr. Rosen, long one of AIPAC's most influential officials on Capitol Hill, is under federal indictment since Aug. 4, 2005, for alleged violations of the Espionage Act while carrying out the lobby's work. With co-defendant Keith Wiessman, he faces a frequently postponed trial, now scheduled to begin April 29. Currently with the Middle East Forum (MEF), Mr. Rosen won't have much trouble establishing policy planning documents routinely made their way between friends from the Pentagon to the Israeli Embassy.

Mr. Freeman's new job as analyst-in-chief for the IC (intelligence community) is to produce midterm and long-term strategic thinking, compiled from the best thinking of 16 intelligence agencies that employ 100,000 (almost half of them analysts) at a cost to the taxpayer of $50 billion a year.

In a speech to the Pacific Council on International Policy in 2007, Mr. Freeman said, "We embraced Israel 's enemies as our own; they responded by equating Americans with Israelis as their enemies."

Former ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during Gulf war I), Mr. Freeman's new job is "to provide policymakers with the best information: unvarnished, unbiased and without regard to whether the analytic judgments conform to current U.S. policy." NIC's quadrennial piece de resistance is the Global Briefing. Timed for release between Election Day and Inauguration Day, it "assesses critical drivers and scenarios for future global outcomes approximately 15 years out." From time to time, the Global Briefing, like all forecasts, makes astrology look respectable.

This latest, titled "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," was briefed to Congress by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair. He called the global economic and financial crisis "our greatest threat," creating as it does millions more desperate people, many of them drawn to angry acts, also "regime-threatening instability," the kind of chaos that plays into al Qaeda's terrorist agenda.

Mr. Freeman incurred the wrath of AIPAC when he said in 2007, " Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them." Ha'aretz, the New York Times of Israel, frequently makes the same point, most recently with a secret defense document that established the creeping annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank .

Another conclusion, guaranteed to raise Israeli hackles, is Mr. Freeman's long-held belief that the terrorism the United States confronts is due largely to "the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by an Israeli occupation that has lasted over 40 years and shows no signs of ending." Accurate or not, this same refrain is heard from scholars to politicians to journalists in Arab and other Muslim capitals the world over. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Gaza "an open-air prison." And now this week's Newsweek cover blares in Arabic script "Radical Islam is a fact of life." Fareed Zakaria explains "How to live with it": "We don't have to accept the stoning of criminals, but it's time to stop treating all Islamists as potential terrorists."

Radical Islam has gained a powerful foothold in the Muslim imagination, says Mr. Zakaria, and television reporting on the death and destruction caused by Israeli bombs in the recent 22-day air and ground campaign in Gaza only strengthens the ranks of extremists.

Mr. Freeman also says Israeli contingency plans to bomb Iran 's nuclear installations would trigger Iran 's formidable asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities up and down the Persian Gulf and throughout the Middle East , where it can mobilize such surrogates as Hezbollah and Hamas. Neoconservative conventional wisdom, recently expressed publicly by former Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle, is that Iran is bluffing.

Three years ago, Mr. Perle told this reporter two B2B bombers, each with 17 independently targetable weapons systems, could set Iran 's nuclear program back a few years. Now Mr. Perle says the neoconservative movement is a figment of its detractors' imagination. Neocons, he adds, played no role in persuading President George W. Bush 43 to invade Iraq .

They will have a tough time trying to persuade Mr. Obama to bomb Iran 's nuclear weapons installations. In fact, according to Ha'aretz, the United States has already turned down Israeli requests for military hardware to help it prepare for an aerial attack against Iran 's nuclear facilities.

Mercifully for Mr. Freeman, the NIC job is not subject to Senate confirmation. Had it been, Mr. Freeman would have been axed with a nod from AIPAC. But Mr. Blair made clear where he stood. His statement said Mr. Freeman will be responsible for overseeing the production of National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) and other Intelligence Community analytical products, providing substantive counsel to the DNI and senior policymakers on issues of top national security importance." NIEs are key factors in shaping foreign policy, particularly in wartime.

Mr. Freeman, 64, first joined the Foreign Service in 1965, served in India and Taiwan before his Chinese language abilities landed him the assignment of principal interpreter during President Nixon's breakthrough visit to China and his historic meeting with Mao Tse-tung in 1972. Mr. Freeman later become deputy chief of mission in Beijing and his aptitude for languages took him to various Asian posts before he became deputy Africa chief at the State Department, and later ambassador in Saudi Arabia (1989-92). He also served at the Pentagon as assistant secretary for international security affairs during the Clinton administration. And in 1997, Mr. Freeman succeeded George McGovern to become president of the Middle East Policy Council, which "strives to ensure that a full range of U.S. interests and views are considered by policymakers."

Or the flip side of Washington 's pro-Israel think tanks.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

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The Appointment of Charles Freeman and the Coming War with Iran:

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Connelly-Freeman.html#Iran

Chas. Freeman appointed Intel chief despite opposition:

http://news.muckety.com/2009/02/27/despite-opposition-by-jewish-groups-chas-freeman-appointed-intel-chief/12241#jump

The Lessons of Freeman's Fall:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7944677.stm

Parasites of Politics:

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=89052&sectionid=3510303

Additional at the following message thread (URL):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/the-americas/2009/03/01/israel-lobby-fails-to-block-key-obama-intelligence-appointme.php

Alpha · Last edited by Alpha on Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:45 am; edited 1 time in total

Fw: Washington Post's Contradictory Responses to the Freeman/Israel Lobby Issue

Thursday, March 12, 2009 4:30 PM

The following is by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski (author of 'The Transparent Cabal' which I mentioned to Scott McClellan as seen via the youtube linked at the following URL):

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/08/dont-let-neocon-agenda-get-us-into.html

--- On Thu, 3/12/09, Stephen Sniegoski wrote:

From: Stephen Sniegoski
Subject: Washington Post's Contradictory Responses to the Freeman/Israel Lobby Issue
To: "Sniegoski, Stephen"
Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 4:12 PM

Friends,

Washington Post's Contradictory Responses to the Freeman/Israel Lobby
Issue

In today's (March 12) Washington Post, an editorial adamantly rejected the
allegation that the Israel Lobby was behind the attacks on Charles
Freeman's appointment to chair of the National Intelligence Council as a
crack-pot "conspiracy theory." However, on the first page of the
very same
issue of the Post, an article by Walter Pincus cites the groups and
individuals who successfully worked to prevent Freeman from taking this
position-AIPAC spokesman Josh Block, former AIPC lobbyist Steve Rosen
(indicted for espionage on behalf of Israel), the Jewish Institute for
National Security, the Zionist Organization of America (harder-line than
AIPAC), Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly
Standard, and Chait and Martin Peretz of the New Republic. Anyone with a
functioning brain can see the pattern here-it was an obvious smear campaign
orchestrated by the Israel lobby.

The Post editorial throws up various smokescreens for the benefit of the
very ignorant or the very cautious, who need to be provided with various
falsehoods to somehow justify their failure to note the obvious activity of
the Israel lobby. For example, the Post's editorial maintains that
"the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee says that it took no formal
position on Mr. Freeman's appointment and undertook no lobbying against
him.
If there was a campaign, its leaders didn't bother to contact the Post
editorial board." Presumably the Post's editorial board members
require
direct, personal evidence to consider anything to exist and do not
actually read the news in the media. The Post's "editorial
board," should
read the Post's first page and make a retraction, but I seriously doubt
that
this will occur,

And the Post expresses great concern that Freeman "headed a Saudi-funded
Middle East advocacy group" and "served on the advisory board of a
state-owned Chinese oil company" and wonders "whether such an actor
was the
right person to oversee the preparation of National Intelligence
Estimates."
.

Goodness me, we certainly can't have a person with ties to a foreign
country involved in American foreign policy. We need some 100 percent
pro-American figure with absolutely no possible connection to a foreign
state such as Doug Feith, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dennis Ross, or
Rahm Emanuel.

Obviously, there can be a dangerous Saudi lobby or China lobby, but there
cannot possibly be an Israel Lobby. The Israel lobby, especially Israeli
espionage agent Steve Rosen, really need a chutzpah award for this bit of
propaganda. Of course, there also needs to be another award given to
respectable gentiles for their absolute inability to mention the obvious
truth.

The Post editorial smokescreen continues with the spurious argument that
since the US has not always done exactly what Israel desired, there must,
ipso facto, be no pro-Israeli influence.. For example, the US refused to
provide Israel with "weapons it might have used for an attack on
Iran's
nuclear facilities; and [the US would] adopt a policy of direct negotiations
with a regime that denies the Holocaust and that promises to wipe Israel off
the map. Two Israeli governments have been forced from office since the
early 1990s after open clashes with Washington over matters such as
settlement construction in the occupied territories." Not pursuing a
policy
100 percent in line with the Israeli government obviously does not show the
lack of substantial Israeli influence. This is illustrated by the
America's provision of sophisticated weaponry (gratis) to Israel and its
support in the UN for Israeli policies that frequently violate international
law (the "security wall" and the occupation) and are opposed by
almost all
other countries in the world. There is no other country in the world that
gets as much support from the US. But sometimes the US does not sacrifice
important interests to fulfill Israeli objectives. It does not want a war
on Iran that could lead to a conflagration in the Middle East, which would
possibly lead to a stoppage of the flow of Gulf oil to the detriment of the
world economy. The US has numerous reasons to meet with Iran to bring about
the stability of in the Middle East and Afghanistan and has only failed to
do so because of the Israel lobby. The US certainly has an interest in
stopping and eliminating Israeli settlements on occupied territory, which
not only violate international law but cause the Islamic states and Muslim
people to oppose the US. But while the US has, at times, criticized
Israeli settlements it has not demanded that Israel pull out of this area or
face the termination of US aid. To repeat, the fact that the US does give
Israel 100% of everything it would like does not negate the existence of
very substantial US support for Israel, which is harmful to US national
interests and which results from the efforts of the Israel lobby. Moreover,
those who criticize this overwhelming support for Israel are obviously
smeared and harmed, as illustrated by the snubbing of Jimmy Carter at the
2008 Democratic Convention.

(I might add that my book "The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative
Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel,"
brings
out the role of the most aggressive element of the Israel lobby and how the
traditional American foreign policy establishment attempted to resist its
efforts. The website for my book is
http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/ )

I was surprised that Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis
Blair, had the courage to nominate Freeman. I would guess that this
signifies that a majority of the intelligence community not only recognizes
Freeman stellar ability but strongly dislikes the influence of the Israel
Lobby. And the support for Freeman was not just covert. He had more
public support than I would have expected. The Lobby did get its man once
again, but the level of support for Freeman would seem to show the rumbling
of strong opposition to the Lobby among elite opinion, which might boil over
in the not too distant future.

The following articles include the two pieces from the Washington Post and
an excellent article by retired CIA officer Ray McGovern that brings out
the Israel Lobby's involvement in the smear campaign against Freeman. On
the surface, McGovern's take is a little different than mine. However,
this might be a case of "whether the glass is half full or half
empty."
McGovern focuses on the Israel Lobby's success and the defeat of the
intelligence community and the spinelessness of Barack Obama. He writes:
"The effect of the Freeman affair on the intelligence community is easy to
predict. Those who were looking forward to a fearless integrity will be
deeply disappointed. They may seek honest work elsewhere, if they perceive
that Blair is only titular head of intelligence and that pro-Lobby political
operatives like Emanuel are calling the shots."

In contrast, I would never expect "fearless integrity" from any
significant
number of US government officials but rather assume fearful dishonesty in
the face of pro-Zionist intimidation and the possibility of a destroyed
career. Moreover, I would not expect Obama to dare buck the Lobby. The
Freeman affair, however, shows that the spirit of resistance to Israel
Lobby domination still lives. While I would assume that the Israel Lobby
will continue to get its way, its defeat, or, at least, its partial defeat,
is still possible.

_______________________________________________________________________

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031104
308_pf.html

Intelligence Pick Blames 'Israel Lobby' For Withdrawal

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 12, 2009; A01

The withdrawal of a senior intelligence adviser after an online campaign to
prevent him from taking office has ignited a debate over whether powerful
pro-Israel lobbying interests are exercising outsize influence over who
serves in the Obama administration.

When Charles W. Freeman Jr. stepped away Tuesday from an appointment to
chair the National Intelligence Council -- which oversees the production of
reports that represent the view of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies --
he decried in an e-mail "the barrage of libelous distortions of my record
[that] would not cease upon my entry into office," and he was blunt about
whom he considers responsible.

"The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show
conclusively
that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its
own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of
trends and events in the Middle East," Freeman wrote.

Referring to what he called "the Israel Lobby," he added: "The
aim of this
Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over
the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views." One result
of this, he said, is "the inability of the American public to discuss, or
the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East
opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics."

Freeman's angry rhetoric notwithstanding, the controversy surrounding the
former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia was broader than just Middle East
politics. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair's choice of
Freeman prompted a storm of complaints about his recent commercial
connections to China and questions about whether he was too forgiving of
that nation's leaders.

But most of the online attention focused on Freeman's work for the Middle
East Policy Council, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that is
funded in part by Saudi money, and his past critical statements about
Israel. The latter included a 2005 speech he gave to the National Council on
U.S.-Arab Relations, where he referred to Israel's "high-handed and
self-defeating policies" stemming from the "occupation and settlement
of
Arab lands," which he called "inherently violent."

Only a few Jewish organizations came out publicly against Freeman's
appointment, but a handful of pro-Israeli bloggers and employees of other
organizations worked behind the scenes to raise concerns with members of
Congress, their staffs and the media.

For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), often
described as the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington,
"took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it,"
spokesman Josh Block said.

But Block responded to reporters' questions and provided critical material
about Freeman, albeit always on background, meaning his comments could not
be attributed to him, according to three journalists who spoke to him. Asked
about this yesterday, Block replied: "As is the case with many, many
issues
every day, when there is general media interest in a subject, I often
provide publicly available information to journalists on background."

Yesterday, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, which tried
to derail Freeman's appointment, applauded his withdrawal. But it added:
"We
think Israel and any presumed 'lobby' had far less effect on the
outcome
than the common-sensical belief that the person who is the gatekeeper of
intelligence information for the President of the United States should be
unencumbered by payments from foreign governments."

There was plenty of debate about that within the blogosphere immediately
after Freeman's withdrawal and the publication of his e-mail.

Jonathan Chait wrote irreverently on his New Republic blog, "The old spin
was that Freeman's nomination, and the failure of his critics, shows how
evil the Israel lobby is. . . . The new spin will be that Freeman's, ahem,
resignation shows the Israel lobby is even more powerful and sinister than
we thought."

And Stephen Walt, one of two writers who in 2006 famously described the
influence of the Israel lobby as dangerous, chimed in on ForeignPolicy.com:
"For all of you out there who may have questioned whether there was a
powerful 'Israel lobby,' or who admitted that it existed but didn't
think it
had much influence . . . think again." (Foreign Policy is owned by a
subsidiary of The Washington Post Co.)

Time's Joe Klein opined that Freeman "was the victim of a mob, not a
lobby.
The mob was composed primarily of Jewish neoconservatives -- abetted by less
than courageous public servants . . . [who have] made Washington even less
hospitable for those who aren't afraid to speak their minds, for those who
are reflexively contentious, who would defy the conventional wisdom."

The White House, which had sidestepped questions about Freeman twice in one
week, said little yesterday. "I don't have anything to add from what
Admiral
Blair discussed yesterday in accepting Mr. Freeman's decision that his
nomination not proceed and that he regretted it," press secretary Robert
Gibbs said.

The White House did not respond last night to a question about outside
influence on personnel decisions.

The earliest cry of alarm about Freeman's appointment -- a week before it
was announced -- came from a former AIPAC lobbyist. Steve Rosen wrote Feb.
19 on his blog that Freeman was a "strident critic of Israel" and
described
the potential appointment as "a textbook case of the old-line
Arabism" whose
"views of the region are what you would expect in the Saudi foreign
ministry."

Rosen said yesterday that he had been "quite positive" about
President
Obama's previous appointments for Middle East positions but that he was
"surprised" about Freeman. The appointee's "most extreme
point of view," he
said, was not what he had expected for the head of the NIC.

Rosen has a unique position in Washington. A former chief foreign policy
lobbyist for AIPAC, he and a colleague were indicted by the Bush
administration in 2005 on suspicion of violating the Espionage Act, the
first nongovernment employees ever so charged. AIPAC cut him loose, and a
trial date has been set for May.

Meanwhile, Rosen is limited in what he can do. He said he cannot talk to
AIPAC employees, nor can he lobby Congress. He has talked to "a number of
journalists" who called him about Freeman, but not members of Congress. He
did not answer when asked yesterday whether he has talked to Hill staff
members.

Rosen's initial posting was the first of 17 he would write about Freeman
over a 19-day period. Some of those added more original reporting, while
some pointed to other blogs' finds about Freeman's record. In the
process,
Rosen traced increasing interest in the appointment elsewhere in the
blogosphere, including coverage by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, Michael
Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard, and Chait and Martin Peretz of the New
Republic.

Interest also was growing among members of Congress.

On March 2, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) wrote Blair to raise concerns
based on what he had read about Freeman's positions. Two days later, he
called for Blair to withdraw the appointment.

Also on March 2, the Zionist Organization of America called for support of a
letter by Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) that called on the DNI inspector
general to investigate Freeman for possible conflicts of interest because of
his financial relations with Saudi Arabia. That letter, signed by Kirk and
seven other congressmen, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner
(R-Ohio), was sent to Inspector General Edward Maguire on March 3.

Close observers of the events consider that request a turning point in the
effort to stop Freeman's candidacy, and Rosen's blog began focusing
almost
exclusively on the appointment.

On Monday, the seven Republicans on the Senate intelligence committee wrote
Blair to protest his choice, which was not subject to Senate confirmation,
and threatened to review the NIC's work as long as Freeman chaired that
body.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting one day later, Sen. Joseph I.
Lieberman (I-Conn.) told Blair of his own concerns, and he added that the
controversy "is not going to go away until you or Ambassador Freeman find
a
way to resolve it." Hours later, Freeman withdrew.

Freeman explained his decision last night on National Public Radio: "It
became apparent that, no matter what the National Intelligence Council or
the intelligence community might put out under my chairmanship, I would be
used as an excuse -- if something was said that wasn't politically correct
-- to disparage the quality and the credibility of the intelligence."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031103
384_pf.html

Blame the 'Lobby'
The Obama administration's latest failed nominee peddles a conspiracy
theory.

Thursday, March 12, 2009; A18

FORMER ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. looked like a poor choice to chair
the Obama administration's National Intelligence Council. A former envoy to
Saudi Arabia and China, he suffered from an extreme case of clientitis on
both accounts. In addition to chiding Beijing for not crushing the Tiananmen
Square democracy protests sooner and offering sycophantic paeans to Saudi
King "Abdullah the Great," Mr. Freeman headed a Saudi-funded Middle
East
advocacy group in Washington and served on the advisory board of a
state-owned Chinese oil company. It was only reasonable to ask -- as
numerous members of Congress had begun to do -- whether such an actor was
the right person to oversee the preparation of National Intelligence
Estimates.

It wasn't until Mr. Freeman withdrew from consideration for the job,
however, that it became clear just how bad a selection Director of National
Intelligence Dennis C. Blair had made. Mr. Freeman issued a two-page screed
on Tuesday in which he described himself as the victim of a shadowy and
sinister "Lobby" whose "tactics plumb the depths of dishonor and
indecency"
and which is "intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign
government." Yes, Mr. Freeman was referring to Americans who support
Israel
-- and his statement was a grotesque libel.

For the record, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee says that it
took no formal position on Mr. Freeman's appointment and undertook no
lobbying against him. If there was a campaign, its leaders didn't bother to
contact the Post editorial board. According to a report by Newsweek, Mr.
Freeman's most formidable critic -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- was
incensed by his position on dissent in China.

But let's consider the ambassador's broader charge: He describes
"an
inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider,
any option for U.S. policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling
faction in Israeli politics." That will certainly be news to Israel's
"ruling faction," which in the past few years alone has seen the U.S.
government promote a Palestinian election that it opposed; refuse it weapons
it might have used for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities; and adopt a
policy of direct negotiations with a regime that denies the Holocaust and
that promises to wipe Israel off the map. Two Israeli governments have been
forced from office since the early 1990s after open clashes with Washington
over matters such as settlement construction in the occupied territories.

What's striking about the charges by Mr. Freeman and like-minded conspiracy
theorists is their blatant disregard for such established facts. Mr. Freeman
darkly claims that "it is not permitted for anyone in the United
States" to
describe Israel's nefarious influence. But several of his allies have made
themselves famous (and advanced their careers) by making such charges -- and
no doubt Mr. Freeman himself will now win plenty of admiring attention.
Crackpot tirades such as his have always had an eager audience here and
around the world. The real question is why an administration that says it
aims to depoliticize U.S. intelligence estimates would have chosen such a
man to oversee them.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=14389
March 12, 2009
Obama Caves to Israel Lobby
by Ray McGovern

On Tuesday morning Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair,
employed the indicative mood in describing the high value that Chas Freeman,
his appointee to head the National Intelligence Council (NIC), will bring to
the job - "his long experience and inventive mind," for example. By
five
o'clock in the afternoon, Freeman announced that he had asked that his
selection "not proceed."

Not one to mince words, Freeman spelled out the strange set of affairs
surrounding the flip-flop and the implications of what had just happened.
Borrowing the pointed warning from George Washington's Farewell Address
against developing a "passionate attachment" to the strategic goals
of
another nation, Freeman made it clear that he was withdrawing his
"previous
acceptance" of Blair's invitation to chair the NIC because of the
character
assassination of him orchestrated by the Israel Lobby.

The implications? Freeman was clear:

"The outrageous agitation...will be seen by many to raise serious
questions
about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own
decisions about the Middle East and related issues...[It casts] doubt on its
ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the
United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and
interests of a foreign government...

"The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the
exercise
of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its
views...and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans
and our government other than those it [the Lobby] favors."

Foreign policy analyst Chris Nelson described the imbroglio as a reflection
of the "deadly power game on what level of support for controversial
Israeli
government policies is a 'requirement' for U.S. public office."
Before the
flip-flop on Freeman was announced, Nelson warned, "If Obama surrenders to
the critics and orders Blair to rescind the Freeman appointment, it is
difficult to see how he can properly exercise leverage, when needed, in his
conduct of policy in the Middle East. That, literally, is how the experts
see the stakes in the fight now under way."

The fight is now over.

Schadenfreude

Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D-New York) led Lobby boasting just minutes after the
Freeman debacle was announced. Schumer was clear: "His [Freeman's]
statements against Israel were way over the top...I repeatedly urged the
White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing."

And, as Glen Greenwald has noted, "Lynch mob leader Jonathan Chait [of the
New Republic and author of a recent Washington Post op-ed on the subject],
who spent the last week denying that Israel was the driving force behind the
attacks on Freeman," now concedes the obvious.

Greenwald quotes Chait: "Of course I recognize that the Israel Lobby is
powerful, and was a key element in the pushback against Freeman."

Neoconservative Daniel Pipes offered an anatomy of the crime, blog-bragging
about how it was conducted:

"What you may not know is that Steven J. Rosen of the Middle East forum
was
the person who first brought attention [on February 19] to the problematic
nature of Freeman's appointment...Within hours, the word was out and three
weeks later Freeman has conceded defeat. Only someone with Steve's stature
and credibility could have made this happen."

The same Steve Rosen? The same one who is currently on trial for violations
of the Espionage Act involving the transmission of classified information
intended for Israel? Yes, one and the same! This has to be the purest
brand of gall that ever came down the Pipes.

This "morning after," I find myself wondering when White House chief
of
staff Rahm Emanuel - another staunch supporter of the Lobby who reportedly
was Schumer's go-to guy on the get-Freeman campaign - saw fit to let
Admiral
Blair in on the little secret that no way could he have Freeman. And why
Blair tucked tail.

In a March 8 letter to Admiral Blair, we at Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) endorsed his appointment of Freeman and
decried the campaign to derail it. We seven signatories (with cumulative
experience of 130 years) noted that the Freeman case was the first time we
witnessed such a well-coordinated campaign to reverse the appointment of an
official to an intelligence job not requiring Senate confirmation.

In other words the influence of the Israel Lobby is seeping ever deeper into
the ranks of the intelligence community.

Military Mindset

It seems altogether possible that Admiral Blair, accustomed to military
command authority, assumed he had the right to appoint his senior staff and
did not think to check out the naming of Freeman with White House and other
politicians hypersensitive to pressure from the Lobby.

And this points up a host of other problems. One is that of having military
officers, active or retired, running national intelligence. It appears to
be beyond their ken to consider resigning on principle.

I imagine it never occurred to Blair that he might have quit on the spot as
soon as he learned that Freeman was being jettisoned a couple of hours after
Blair had praised him to the skies; or that, earlier, he might have
threatened to resign if the Obama administration let itself be bullied in
this way.

Blair is no neophyte, but he clearly underestimated the Lobby's power
compared with his own. It appears the White House told Blair to treat the
Freeman appointment as though in the subjunctive mood - long enough to
"run
it up the flagpole and see who salutes," as the saying goes.

Then, when the Lobby made sure there were no salutes, but rather the
strongest and most scurrilous spitting, Freeman was hauled on down. That
may be the way they do things in Chicago, as well as in Washington.

The Freeman flip-flop is merely the latest sign that Obama is afraid to take
on the Lobby. But the world is watching the new president. Most will
interpret the new president's acquiescence in this charade as a sign of
weakness - of his not being his own man. This is a distinct liability as
Obama prepares to meet next month with the likes of Vladimir Putin who will
be taking his measure.

The encounter with Putin brings to mind another young president's first
meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961.

Khrushchev had studied the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961; he would
have understood if Kennedy had chosen either to leave Castro alone or to
destroy him. When Kennedy was rash enough to approve a strike on Cuba but
not bold enough to finish the job, in Khrushchev's view, the latter decided
he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated
and blackmailed - one who would shrink from hard decisions.

Kennedy later said of his encounter with Khrushchev in Vienna, "He beat
the
hell out of me." The meeting gave him to believe that Kennedy might well
back down if the USSR put missiles in Cuba.

As for Israel, the Russians were better able to understand Washington's
"passionate attachment" to Israel in strategic terms, as the Cold War
played
out in the Middle East and Washington had a perceived need to have Israel as
a permanent "battleship" there. Now the Russians see the power of
the
Israel Lobby for what it is - who can miss it? The Obama administration is
seen as caving under political pressure.

Although the Russians continue to be amazed at the Lobby's strong influence
over U.S. policy, the Russians are happy as clams to sit back and watch as
the identification of the U.S. with Israeli policy inflicts incalculable
damage to U.S. interests throughout the region and beyond.

Though a sportsman, Putin is best at chess. He is likely to shy away from
playing basketball with our new president. Obama will have to beat Putin at
his own game - and Obama now has shown himself easy to push around.

Israeli Adventurism

With Freeman's withdrawal, there is surely much gloating among the
politically aware in Israel. Gloating is one thing; dangerous
miscalculation is another.

The danger is particularly high as Benjamin Netanyahu takes over as Israeli
prime minister. Netanyahu and his close "neoconservative" friends in
the
U.S. make no bones about their preference for a Bush/Cheney-style preventive
strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

As Gareth Porter and I write in today's Miami Herald, the specter of such a
strike takes on more reality with Netanyahu as prime minister. He, too, is
taking the measure of our young president and may draw very dangerous
conclusions from his subservience to the Lobby, as well as the key role
played by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in the White House.

Impact on Intelligence

The effect of the Freeman affair on the intelligence community is easy to
predict. Those who were looking forward to a fearless integrity will be
deeply disappointed. They may seek honest work elsewhere, if they perceive
that Blair is only titular head of intelligence and that pro-Lobby political
operatives like Emanuel are calling the shots.

On the other hand, those managers and analysts who were pleased as punch to
be sent over to brief the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (WINEP), created by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) will be delighted. This briefing practice, encouraged by the
Bush/Cheney administration, was highly irregular for a non-partisan
intelligence community to be engaged in. It can be expected to flourish
now, with the abject object lesson of Freeman's demise.

Unconscionable Timidity

On October 5, 2007 I published an article on Israel's deliberate attempt,
on
June 8, 1967, to sink the USS Liberty in international waters off the Sinai,
killing 34 of the Liberty crew and wounding over 170 in the process.

The lead was:

"So Who's Afraid of the Israel Lobby? Virtually everyone: Republican,
Democrat - Conservative, Liberal. The fear factor is non-partisan, you
might say, and palpable. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee brags
that it is the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on
Capitol Hill, and has demonstrated that time and again, and not only on
Capitol Hill."

The point? In June 1967, the Israelis learned that they could get away,
literally, with murder and still not endanger their influence in Washington.

Events of the past weeks demonstrate that they and their Lobby are equally
good at character assassination. It is embarrassingly shameful to watch
President Obama acquiesce in all of this.

This article first appeared at Consortiumnews.com.

Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=14389

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional at the following URL:

Chas Freeman forced by Israel Lobies to withdraw from NIC

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2009/03/11/chas-freeman-forced-by-israel-lobbies-to-withdraw-from-nic.php

Dr. Stephen Sniegoski discusses his 'Transparent Cabal' book:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2008/11/26/dr-stephen-sniegoski-discusses-his-transparent-cabal-book.php

Alpha · Last edited by Alpha on Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:24 am; edited 1 time in total

Zionist Organisation of America's memo detailing their role in resignation of Freeman

Yesterday at 6:30am
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

ZOA's Role in Withdrawal of Chas W. Freeman's Appointment As Chairman, NIC

[IMRA: Distributed with permission from ZOA National President Morton A.
Klein]

MEMORANDUM

TO: Members of ZOA National Board & Selected
Friends of ZOA

FROM: Morton A. Klein
National President

RE: ZOA'S Role In The Withdrawal Of The
Anti-Israel, Pro-Arab, Pro-China Chas W. Freeman's Appointment As Chairman,
National Intelligence Council

DATE: March 11, 2008

Yesterday, President Barack Obama's nominee for the post of Chairman of the
National Intelligence Council (NIC), Chas W. Freeman, withdrew his
nomination. Freeman has been a most virulent critic of Israel, blaming it
for 9/11 and anti-American terrorism, a fierce opponent of U.S. support for
Israel and an apologist for the regimes of Saudi Arabia and China. The
chairmanship of NIC is a major government posting that does not require
Senate confirmation. The Council has a strong influence on the content of
intelligence briefings presented to the President and the Council Chairman
is often called to brief the President directly.

On February 25, the ZOA issued a widely-distributed press release which
detailed at length Freeman's strong associations with Saudi Arabia and China
and virulently anti-Israel words and deeds, including his claim that Jewish
communities in Judea and Samaria rationalize Palestinian terrorism. The
Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported on our call for rescinding the
Freeman appointment that day. We also issued an Action Alert, advising our
members to contact their Members of Congress to urge them to sign on to the
Congressional letter co-signed by ZOA Honoree Cong. Shelley Berkeley (D-NV)
and Cong. Mark Kirk (R-IL) asking for an investigation of Freeman's past and
current activities on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Rep. Steve
Israel (D-NY) also wrote to Edward Maguire, Inspector General of the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), asking the
Inspector-General to broaden the scope of the investigation into Freeman's
background to include his activities with the Chinese National Offshore Oil
Company, on whose advisory board Freeman sits.

The ZOA's role in calling for the rescission of Freeman's appointment was
noted in the March 10 report in JTA by Eric Fingerhut, who observed that,
"The Zionist Organization of America and the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs were the only Jewish organizations to come out publicly
against the pick." (But of course ZOA did much more than send out a press
release). ZOA's role was also noted in the Jewish Week's (New York) March 4
Washington blog, and in several other political blogs as well.

The co-directors of the ZOA's Government Relations office in Washington,
Josh London and Dan Pollak, lobbied hard every day, educating Members of
Congress about Freeman's anti-Israel, anti-American record, urging them to
take up the issue with the Obama Administration and to sign on to the
Berkeley-Kirk letter. I personally phoned numerous Jewish communal and
Congressional leaders repeatedly in recent days on the subject and was
successful in getting Congressmen to add their name to the letter as well
pledge to make calls to the White House.

The ZOA leaders and members can therefore derive special satisfaction on a
positive outcome on an important matter affecting Israel and the
American-Israeli relationship.

Chas W. Freeman has served, among other positions, as U.S. Ambassador to
Saudi Arabia (1989-92) and, since 1997, as President of the Middle East
Policy Council (MEPC) (formerly known as the American Arab Affairs Council),
a lobbying group for the Arab world. MEPC owes its endowment to the
"generosity" of the Saudi monarch. In 1994, Saudi Arabia awarded Freeman the
Order of 'King Abd Al-Aziz' 1st Class (Diplomatic Service).

Freeman also has a strong partiality for tyrannical regimes that extends
beyond the Middle East. Until recently, he sat on the board of the People's
Republic of China-owned National Offshore Oil Corporation's international
advisory board. The Corporation is known for its connections to several
undemocratic regimes. Freeman also criticized the Chinese dictatorship for
appeasing and acting too slowly to prevent the 1989 Tiananmen Square
pro-democracy demonstrations, which Beijing subsequently put down with
murderous force.

Freeman has a long record of being been viciously anti-Israel, indulging in
the anti-Semitic tactic of accusing pro-Israel lobbyists as manipulating and
distorting American foreign policy in the service of Israel and contrary to
American interests. He has also boasted of the MEPC, unlike other
organizations, having republished the Mearsheimer-Walt anti-Semitic -Jewish
lobby tract which ZOA critiqued in detail at the time. Freeman has blamed
anti-American terrorism, including 9/11, on American support for Israel,
saying, for example, "We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past
for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel's approach to
managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with
the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of
our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines on battlefields in several
regions of the realm of Islam."

Freeman has also blamed Israel for anti-Americanism in these terms: "To end
[Middle Eastern] terrorism we must address the issues in the region that
give rise to it. Principal among these is the brutal oppression of the
Palestinians by an Israeli occupation ... American identification with
Israeli policy has also become total. Those in the region and beyond it who
detest Israeli behavior, which is to say almost everyone, now naturally
extend their loathing to Americans."

Upon withdrawing his nomination, Freeman offered a barely veiled
anti-Semitic swipe in a published message to his supporters: "I do not
believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while
its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate
attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country." He was
also quoted in today's New York Times as saying that the "tactics of the
Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include
character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of
the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the
truth."

-------------------------------------------------------

Israeli Lobby Has A Hammer Lock On Discussion & Policy pt.1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaKiTMoT0cc&feature=related

Alpha · Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:28 pm Post subject:

Council for the National Interest

The Freeman Brouhaha

The scurrilous campaign against the leading American diplomat on China and the Middle East, leading to the voluntary withdrawal of his name, may have been a blunder of strategic proportions for Israel and her lobby in the United States.

We have been witnessing the awesome exchanges between supporters for Ambassador Chas Freeman and AIPAC legmen for the past few days. Our judgment is that the great American desire to be fair and morally balanced is winning out as usual.

All across the country David Broder's article is saying, "Blair [Director of National Intelligence] said that the White House told him that if he wanted Freeman, he'd have to fight for him himself. When I asked the White House on Tuesday if Obama supported Freeman, a National Security Council spokesman said he would check, but he never got back to me. Freeman vanished without a squawk from Obama."

We at the Council for the National Interest predict that there will be a long and continuing backlash by the American, as well as European, Chinese and Arabian Intelligence Services over this incident. The question is can American Intelligence estimates on Israel and her neighbors ever be trusted again? The Freeman incident is far worse than the incident involving Valerie Plame and her husband Ambassador Joe Wilson in the run up to the Iraq war in 2003. We know now that Israeli intelligence in all probability worked with Italian intelligence to mislead America, the world and Secretary Colin Powell regarding yellow cake uranium from Niger.

The Freeman incident will have a much broader effect than how America went to war on behalf of Israel in Iraq with no exit strategy and little thought to the consequences. How can the Obama intelligence estimates so far as the Middle East is concerned, ever be trusted?

Harvard Professor Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby wrote about the Freeman incident this week in Foreign Policy, "It is one thing to pander to various special interest groups while you're running for office -- everyone expects that sort of thing -- but it's another thing to let a group of bullies push you around in the first fifty days of your administration."
Ambassador Freeman himself, has cited Shelly's Prometheus Unbound:
"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful, and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory."

Israel and her lobby may have won a pyrrhic victory but the real loser is America, Israel and final Middle East peace process that we all so desperately need. This is not the end of this incident. It uncovered the deep fissures in American Middle East policymaking.

Gene Bird
President, Council for the National Interest

P.S. A related matter is the obvious defeat the Israel lobby took on the three amendments, SA 629, SA 630 and SA 631 by Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) regarding Gaza and Egypt.
Click here to make a tax-deductible donation:

https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=2836Council for the National Interest Foundation
1250 4th Street SW, Suite WG-1 · Washington, DC 20024
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Alpha · Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:19 am Post subject: The Neocons Strike Back

The following was written by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski (author of 'The Transparent Cabal' about the Jewish Neocons who pushed US into the Iraq quagmire for Israel):

http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/

Freeman Affair Refutes the Chomsky/Finkelstein Interpretation of US Middle East Policy

Saturday, March 14, 2009 5:08 AM

From: "Stephen Sniegoski"

The Freeman affair provides additional evidence to refute the
Chomsky/Finkelstein argument that the traditional foreign policy
establishment has been pushing the US war policy in the Middle East and that the role of Israel and its supporters is only a minor one. The Freeman
affair clearly illustrates the significant differences between the
traditional foreign policy establishment and the Israel Lobby.

Chas Freeman has been the president of the Middle East Policy Council
(MEPC)-- members include George McGovern (former US Senator, and
Presidential nominee; Frank C. Carlucci, Chairman, The Carlyle Group; former U.S. Secretary of Defense; Gen. Charles W. Brown, U.S. Army; Curtis Brand, Chairman (ret.), ExxonMobil, Saudi Arabia, Inc. This membership would fit in with what Chomsky/Finkelstein would describe as pro-oil, corporatist and establishment. The MEPC has been totally hostile to the neocon-oriented war policy in the Middle East. This has been fully illustrated by the writing in the organizations journal--"Middle East Policy". See-- For the Record:

Our Analysts on Iraq http://www.mepc.org/journal/IraqQuotes.asp

Middle East Policy also published articles by Israel Shahak, Jewish-Israeli
staunch critic of Israel's aggressive wars and its oppression of the
Palestinians -- http://www.mepc.org/journal_shahak/shahakmain.asp

In short, Freeman has headed an organization and expressed opinions that go completely contrary to Middle East war policy of the Bush administration that has been pushed by the Israel Lobby. The fact that Admiral Blair would nominate Freeman illustrates that the intelligence establishment does not support the existing US war policy in the Middle East, which the Israel Lobby has promoted, and that it strongly opposes America's wholehearted supported for Israel.

The Lobby did get its man once again, but the level of support for
Freeman shows the rumbling of strong opposition to the Lobby among elite opinion. However, it shows that the Israel Lobby can get its way by
generating strong political support. The is yet another illustration of the
Lobby's ability to defeat the traditional foreign policy establishment in
regard to Middle East policy, which Chomsky/Finkelstein and their ilk just
cannot see.

Best,

Steve Sniegoski

-----Original Message-----

Subject: The Freeman Brouhaha

Council for the National Interest

The Freeman Brouhaha

The scurrilous campaign against the leading American diplomat on China and the Middle East, leading to the voluntary withdrawal of his name, may have been a blunder of strategic proportions for Israel and her lobby in the United States.

We have been witnessing the awesome exchanges between supporters for
Ambassador Chas Freeman and AIPAC legmen for the past few days. Our judgment is that the great American desire to be fair and morally balanced is winning out as usual.

All across the country David Broder's article is saying, "Blair [Director of
National Intelligence] said that the White House told him that if he wanted
Freeman, he'd have to fight for him himself. When I asked the White House on Tuesday if Obama supported Freeman, a National Security Council spokesman said he would check, but he never got back to me. Freeman vanished without a squawk from Obama."

We at the Council for the National Interest predict that there will be a
long and continuing backlash by the American, as well as European, Chinese and Arabian Intelligence Services over this incident. The question is can American Intelligence estimates on Israel and her neighbors ever be trusted again? The Freeman incident is far worse than the incident involving Valerie Plame and her husband Ambassador Joe Wilson in the run up to the Iraq war in 2003. We know now that Israeli intelligence in all probability worked with Italian intelligence to mislead America, the world and Secretary Colin Powell regarding yellow cake uranium from Niger.

The Freeman incident will have a much broader effect than how America went to war on behalf of Israel in Iraq with no exit strategy and little thought to the consequences. How can the Obama intelligence estimates so far as the Middle East is concerned, ever be trusted?

Harvard Professor Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby wrote about the Freeman incident this week in Foreign Policy, "It is one thing to pander to various special interest groups while you're running for office --
everyone expects that sort of thing -- but it's another thing to let a group
of bullies push you around in the first fifty days of your administration."
Ambassador Freeman himself, has cited Shelly's Prometheus Unbound:

"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful, and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory."

Israel and her lobby may have won a pyrrhic victory but the real loser is
America, Israel and final Middle East peace process that we all so
desperately need. This is not the end of this incident. It uncovered the
deep fissures in American Middle East policymaking.

Gene Bird
President, Council for the National Interest

P.S. A related matter is the obvious defeat the Israel lobby took on the
three amendments, SA 629, SA 630 and SA 631 by Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) regarding Gaza and Egypt.

Click here to make a tax-deductible donation:

https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=2836CouncilfortheNationalInterest

Foundation

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----------------------------------------------------

The Neocons Strike Back

The neoconservatives have demonstrated that their power in Washington remains strong as they have succeeded in keeping veteran diplomat Chas Freeman out of a top intelligence job:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/031109.html

Alpha · Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:23 am Post subject:

Just received the following from Dr. Stephen Sniegoski (author of 'The Transparent Cabal' about the JINSA/PNAC/AEI Neocons who pushed US into the Iraq quagmire for Israel):

http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/

Freeman's Demise as Prelude to War on Iran

Sunday, March 15, 2009 2:29 PM

From: "Stephen Sniegoski"

Friends,

Freeman’s Demise as Prelude to War on Iran

On Thursday, I was somewhat happy that the Freeman affair showed the existence of stauncher opposition to the Israel Lobby than I would have expected in the US intelligence agencies; now, after devoting more thought to the matter, it also seems likely that the failure of Freeman’s appointment could be a step toward a US attack on Iran.

The first article I include is Justin Raimondo’s “Charles Freeman's Victory.”

Raimondo’s central point is that the demise of Chas Freeman’s appointment is actually a defeat for Israel. He writes: “The nixing of Charles "Chas" Freeman from a post as head of the National Intelligence Council is not, as is commonly averred, a victory for the Israel lobby. It is, instead, a Pyrrhic victory – that is, a victory so costly that it really amounts to a defeat for them. Sure, they managed to keep out a trenchant critic of their Israel-centric and grossly distorted view of a proper American foreign policy, and, yes, they managed to smear him and put others on notice that someone with his views is radioactive, as far as a high-level job in the foreign policy establishment is concerned. And yet – and yet ….

“They – the Lobby – have now been forced out in the open. ‘A lobby,’ says Steve Rosen, the ringleader of the "get Freeman" lynch mob, ‘is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.’’

In the middle parts of his article, Raimondo acknowledges that it was absolutely essential for the Israel Lobby to prevent Freeman from getting the key intelligence position in order to attain their next goal: a US attack on Iran. Raimondo writes that “The Lobby was desperate to keep Freeman out of the NIC because it's an agency that provides key intelligence for the President and Congress. If you'll recall, that's how the War Party lured us into fighting an unnecessary war against Iraq – by manipulating the intelligence, and even resorting to forgery to achieve their ends. With Freeman at the helm of the intelligence-gathering machinery, they'd never be able to pull if off again.” [See also Edmund Connelly, “The Appointment of Charles Freeman and the Coming War with Iran,” http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Connelly-Freeman.html#Iran]

Raimondo concludes his article by writing that “The Freeman affair has exposed the Israel lobby for precisely what they are: it has flushed them out of the woodwork, and brought them in from the shadows. That in itself is a great victory, one that means much more in the longterm than anyone presently imagines.”

Now if without Freeman, the Israel Lobby is able to drive the US into an attack on Iran, one wonders how valuable any “longterm” effects of recognizing its power will be. As economist John Maynard Keynes quipped: “In the long run we are all dead.” And many people will be literally dead if the Israel Lobby is able to achieve its goal of war on Iran. Moreover, if the US becomes involved in a terrible conflagration in the Middle East, war propaganda and censorship would likely drown out any voices who would dare to point out the real cause of the war.

In the other article, Peter Lee in Counterpunch like Raimondo sees the Freeman affair as being related to the Israel Lobby’s plans for Iran, though he presents the Lobby’s position to be more defensive. Lee writes “The real significance of the fight against Freeman . . . . has everything to do with trying to disrupt Obama’s initiative to engage with Iran.”

Lee points out that rapprochement with Iran would be highly beneficial to United States interests in a number of significant ways. “Beyond helping keep the lid on in Iraq by moderating the behavior of the majority Sh’ia against the Sunni,” Lee writes that “an active Iranian role in Afghanistan could do the United States a world of good, especially in opening some kind of second front against the Taliban in the opium heartland of western Afghanistan and providing an alternative to the risky Pakistan route for U.S. and NATO supplies into Afghanistan”

Lee maintains that Israel and its American supporters will do everything they can to prevent any improvement in American/Iranian relations, which they believe will be harmful to Israel’s interests. Lee holds that Israel’s “claim to unstinting U.S. support is enhanced rather than damaged if it occupies an isolated position at the center of a dysfunctional Middle East filled with Muslim nations hostile both to it and the United States.” (As I point out in my book “The Transparent Cabal,” the Israeli Likudniks seek a fragmented Middle East in order to enhance Israeli security interests http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/)

Lee writes that “I anticipate unending efforts by Israel’s supporters in the U.S. Congress, media, and think tank commentariat to make the political cost of dealing with Iran unsupportable for the Obama administration. And with the economy stuck in a mile-deep rut, President Obama may in fact decide not to pick a fight over Iran and do little more than prolong the bloody standoffs in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

However, Lee adds that the economy might compel the Obama administration to seek better relations with Iran and overall stability in the Middle East. He writes:

“In order to pull the world out of recession, it’s better to have functioning states and economies in the Middle East and South Asia and working relationships with global and regional powers--not billion-dollar sinkholes for destabilizing security spending and defiant antagonism to Russia, China, and Iran.

“That means the U.S. needs concerted multi-lateral efforts to ratchet down the existential crises looming in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, potentially, Iraq. The world system is in shaky shape and today we may not be able to afford the domestic political division, confrontation-and-conflict based foreign policy, and international instability that indulging the Israel lobby traditionally brings.”

So, in short, Lee sees Obama on the horns of a perilous dilemma. There would be grave political costs if he tried to move away from the Israeli-oriented confrontational approach in the Middle East. However, the American economy, and the world economic system, are in such terrible shape that the continued instability in Middle East cannot be tolerated.

While Lee depicts the situation quite clearly, he neglects to mention the political value of one other approach—a US war on Iran. Undoubtedly this would dramatically worsen America’s economic situation. However, if the economy should continue to sink and begins to cause Obama’s popularity to plummet, war would be a way of diverting public attention from the economy and could concomitantly improve his public support dramatically as a great war leader in line with Obama’s presidential heroes—Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Wars make the general populace far more willing to endure hardship than is the case during peacetime. Moreover, the war would create the political climate to allow for extreme deficit financing (by money creation) that could mitigate the economic hardship in the short-term—postponing greater economic suffering for the future. Republican criticism would virtually cease, especially because the Republicans are likely to be the most hawkish on the Iranian issue. And having the full support of the Israel Lobby would certainly bolster Obama’s media image. Furthermore, Obama’s close pro-Zionist advisors, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod would likely be urging him to move in a war direction, contending that it would boost his political image. It would require a strong, independent, knowledgeable statesman to resist such a temptation and to sacrifice individual interest for the good of the country, especially when Obama’s key advisors would be urging war for the good of the United States.

If, as Raimondo maintains, the Israel Lobby intends to use the bogus intelligence to drive the US to war, the blocking of Freeman’s appointment might be a significant step to the purging, or intimidating into silence, of the critics of Israel/neocon war policy in the American intelligence services. Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe write that “Adm. Dennis Blair, who went to the Senate and strongly defended his appointee, may be the next target for Freeman's antagonists as they push for alarmist intelligence on Iran.” http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lubanlobe.php?articleid=14400 It should be noted that Freeman affair not only brought the Israel Lobby out into the open but it also revealed its critics in the national security apparatus. It has thus facilitated a possible purge.

Moreover, some leading officials in the national security apparatus are already in line with the Israel Lobby war agenda. New CIA director Leon Panetta and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen have recently been talking about the alleged Iranian nuclear threat. http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22176.htm

Once American intelligence agencies become unified in disseminating false intelligence, which would be trumpeted by the US media, the stage could be set for a war on Iran.

.Most members of Congress were quite willing to sign on for the Iraq war because of political pressure. What reason is there to think that Obama would be any different, especially if his own experts presented him with information illustrating the alleged danger posed by Iran? Of course, if the career professionals in the intelligence services are so opposed to a Middle East war, and if they have the courage to suffer career-wise, their staunch resistance might be able to thwart this development. Maybe the traditional foreign policy establishment and various financial interests will perceive a war on Iran to be so devastating that they will go all out to prevent this from occurring. However, if they don’t start reacting soon it could be too late when the Israel Lobby has gained control of the levers of power in national security.

An improved version of my previous message on the Freeman affair is at: “Chas Freeman and the imaginary Lobby,” The Last Ditch, March 15, 2009 http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/sniegoski_freeman_03_09.htm

_______________________________________________________________________

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=14394

March 13, 2009

Charles Freeman's Victory

Forced to withdraw, he took the Israel lobby down with him

by Justin Raimondo

The nixing of Charles "Chas" Freeman from a post as head of the National Intelligence Council is not, as is commonly averred, a victory for the Israel lobby. It is, instead, a Pyrrhic victory – that is, a victory so costly that it really amounts to a defeat for them. Sure, they managed to keep out a trenchant critic of their Israel-centric and grossly distorted view of a proper American foreign policy, and, yes, they managed to smear him and put others on notice that someone with his views is radioactive, as far as a high-level job in the foreign policy establishment is concerned. And yet – and yet ….

They – the Lobby – have now been forced out in the open. "A lobby," says Steve Rosen, the ringleader of the "get Freeman" lynch mob, "is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." If so, then the Israel lobby is slated for oblivion, because as frenetically – and pathetically – as they tried to mask the centrality of their involvement, and as much as they tried to make this about other issues (his alleged ties to Saudi Arabia, his supposed views on China), everybody knows it was really all about Israel and Freeman's contemptuous view of the "special relationship" which requires us giving Tel Aviv a blank check, moral as well as monetary. As a foreign policy realist, he thinks we ought to put our own interests first, in the Middle East and elsewhere, not those of a foreign country, no matter how much political clout – and campaign cash – its American fifth column can muster.

This, in the current atmosphere in Washington, is "extremism," a charge that hung over Freeman's appointment from the get-go. Jonathan Chait, writing in the Washington Post, went so far as to call Freeman a "fanatic." A charge which seems counterintuitive, considering that we're talking about an adherent of a foreign policy perspective that coldly calculates American interests in what the righteous would disdain as shockingly amoral terms. Oh, says Chait, he's not like those neocons, with their "simplistic" division of the world into "good guys" and "bad guys." No, instead, Freeman doesn't recognize any "good guys" he's the sort who opposed our bombing of the former Yugoslavia and our support to the narco-Mafioso "Kosovo Liberation Army," the precursor to Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, which, likewise, lured us into a foreign war under false pretenses. But the Kosovo war "halted mass slaughter," says Chait: apparently the death of hundreds of Serbians at American hands is a slaughter not considered "mass" enough to merit mention. Yet the alleged "genocide" the Serbs were supposedly committing turned out, in the end, to inhabit the same nonexistent country as Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction." It was, in short, war propaganda, of the sort we have become all too familiar with of late.

To be sure, Chait says: "Realism has some useful insights. For instance, realists accurately predicted that Iraqis would respond to a U.S. invasion with less than unadulterated joy."

This is a lot more than Chait managed to do: to this day, he defends his forceful support for the biggest strategic blunder in American military history. "I don't think you can argue that a regime change in Iraq won't demonstrably and almost immediately improve the living conditions of the Iraqi people," Chait said on television as our troops massed for the attack. No one would think of uttering such nonsense today – at least with a straight face. Oh, but don't forget, it's those nasty realist ideologues – not the neocons or their liberal interventionist allies – who are the real danger.

As the Iraq disaster unfolded, the magazine of which Chait is employed as a senior editor declared "the central assumption underlying this magazine's strategic rationale for war now appears to have been wrong," and yet "if our strategic rationale for war has collapsed, our moral one has not." Two years later, however, Chait and his fellow editors issued a shamefaced apology: "The New Republic deeply regrets its early support for this war."

The "liberal" interventionism that Chait invoked in support of the war actually flew the flag of "humanitarianism." One million Iraqi deaths later, such a claim has a rather sinister ring to it. He also invoked the principle of "international law" – this, in support of a lawless occupation and an unprovoked attack on a people who had no ability to strike back. "Multilateralism" was another "principle" invoked by Chait, the great liberal – and yet who else but a genuine fanatic would make such an argument about a war that had little to no support from our allies?

Chait is unconcerned about the actual fanatics who have done so much damage – with his help – to the country and its interests abroad. Forget the neocons, his erstwhile allies, and let's concentrate on the real danger, the enemies of the Israel lobby:

"Taken to extremes, realism's blindness to morality can lead it wildly astray. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, both staunch realists, wrote ‘The Israel Lobby,' a hyperbolic attack on Zionist political influence. The central error of their thesis was that, since America's alliance with Israel does not advance American interests, it could be explained only by sinister lobbying influence. They seemed unable to grasp even the possibility that Americans, rightly or wrongly, have an affinity for a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships. Consider, perhaps, if eunuchs tried to explain the way teenage boys act around girls."

Putting Israel first is as natural as heterosexuality – but only if you work for Marty Peretz.

Why Chait and his confreres continue their denialism when it comes to the demonstrable power of the Israel lobby – which, after all, has succeeded in blocking Freeman, and many others from positions of influence – is beyond me. AIPAC went out of its way to deny any hand in the lynch mob that went after Freeman, and yet, as Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan point out, this is just a subterfuge: their top media relations guy has his fingerprints all over this hit job, and a very effective job it was.

Effective, yet oddly forced and unconvincing: for example, it seems curious to argue that Freeman is afflicted by a "blindness to morality" when it is precisely a sense of justice that gives rise to Freeman's apparent sympathy [.pdf] for the plight of Palestinians who chafe under the constraints of life in the occupied territories. It is precisely a sense of offended morality that drives the vast Arab anger at Israel, and causes realists like Freeman to question our unbending fealty to the inhumane and unsustainable policies of the Israeli government toward their Palestinian helots. If anyone is afflicted with moral blindness, when it comes to this question, it is Chait and the editors of the magazine for which he works.

Chait then cites Freeman's by now infamous remarks on the Tiananmen Square incident, and yet this China trope was never really all that convincing. To begin with, even in the truncated quote served up as evidence of his supposed pro-crackdown views, it is clear that Freeman was not expressing his personal view, but rather that of the average Chinese, as perceived through his own eyes:

"[T]he truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than – as would have been both wise and efficacious – to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the mob scene at 'Tian'anmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action." [Emphasis added]

The phrase "in this optic" indicates – to any literate person – that the author is not speaking in his own voice, but in what he imagines to be the voice of the Chinese people. Does Chait imagine we're too stupid to see this? I'm afraid he and the Washington crowd he epitomizes believe precisely that. But they'd better watch it: if they get too careless, someone may call them out on it – and then they'd have to admit that Freeman's alleged "links" to China had nothing to do with the real objections of his detractors. So, he served on the advisory board of a Chinese company – so what? If everyone with a commercial connection to China had to drop out of consideration for government work, a large proportion of those currently working in Washington would be missing.

The complete disingenuousness with which Chait made his argument is so transparent that it makes me wonder if, perhaps, the Israel lobby has abandoned all attempts at subtlety, and is now working on the assumption that it doesn't matter any more if they come out in the open. The nightflower has been exposed to the light of day, and, rather than wilt, perhaps its nurturers have decided that it's better to brave the sun. That's why the Mearsheimer-Walt book has become such a target, to the point that anyone who praises it, as Freeman has done, is deemed unfit for office in Washington. This explains why former AIPAC top lobbyist Steve Rosen, the indicted spy who stole classified information on behalf of Israel, openly led the anti-Freeman movement (see this timeline) and didn't even try to hide his key role in the affair.

The Lobby was desperate to keep Freeman out of the NIC because it's an agency that provides key intelligence for the President and Congress. If you'll recall, that's how the War Party lured us into fighting an unnecessary war against Iraq – by manipulating the intelligence, and even resorting to forgery to achieve their ends. With Freeman at the helm of the intelligence-gathering machinery, they'd never be able to pull if off again. In his absence – well, they just might. That's just what they're getting ready to do in the case of Iran, which, we are told, is gathering "weapons of mass destruction." Part of the NIC's job is to prepare the daily presidential briefings, and with such access to the President, Freeman would have been in a good position to block the War Party's machinations. Which is why Chait's parting salvo is such an outrage:

"This is the portrait of a mind so deep in the grip of realist ideology that it follows the premises straight through to their reductio ad absurdum. Maybe you suppose the National Intelligence Council job is so technocratic that Freeman's rigid ideology won't have any serious consequences. But think back to the neocon ideologues whom Bush appointed to such positions. That didn't work out very well, did it?"

The neocons uphold a set of beliefs, they have an ideology: so too do the realists believe in a comprehensive worldview. However, the question is: what do they believe? Chait only mentions two realist principles: the pursuit of American interests abroad, and hostility to those who would put the interests of "a fellow imperfect democracy" above the realists' "cold analysis." Yet rational analysis, however "cold" its temperature may be, seems a necessary antidote to the hysteria that followed in the wake of 9/11. And as for that "imperfect democracy" of Israel – what will Chait and his fellow "liberals" do when Avigdor Lieberman becomes its public as well as its private face?

Freeman himself said it best in his statement explaining his withdrawal:

"The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors."

The real fanatics are the Israel-firsters, who have used every subterfuge, no matter how low, to maintain their parasitic grip on the American policymaking process. The really dangerous ideologues are the Likudniks and their American amen corner who willfully distort and deform American policy into a means to empower and succor a militaristic settler colony that is increasingly anti-democratic and aggressive. The Freeman affair has exposed the Israel lobby for precisely what they are: it has flushed them out of the woodwork, and brought them in from the shadows. That in itself is a great victory, one that means much more in the longterm than anyone presently imagines.

~ Justin Raimondo

Find this article at:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.counterpunch.com/lee03132009.html

AIPAC Takes Another Scalp

What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

March 13 / 15, 2009

By PETER LEE

The possibility that Chas Freeman was brought down by an ad hoc operation run on a shoestring by a rogue ex-AIPAC official, Steven Rosen, awaiting trial on espionage charges, working the political and media pipe organ like the neo-conservatives did in the run-up to the Iraq war, is an indication that the guns are in place, the mines are laid, and—more disturbingly—that the Obama administration wandered into the battlefield bereft of a plan, arms, or allies close at hand and got its hat handed to it.

There’s understandable handwringing on thoughtful foreign policy blogs that hoped Freeman taking over something called the National Intelligence Council would lead to a more sensible, less reflexively pro-Israel stance on Middle East issues.

Of course, AIPAC has not endeared itself or its patron to the Obama administration by spearheading a nasty, humiliating, and successful battle to bar a high-level and qualified nominee from a significant post. Take for example the blog post by the Israel Policy Forum’s M.J Rosenberg:

The campaign to defeat Chas Freeman… may come at a cost. The perception, almost universally held, that he was brought down because he is a strong and vocal opponent of Israel's West Bank and settlement policies is, not good for the Jewish community and the pro-Israel community in particular. … What does it all mean? …[An] insider I spoke to last night said: "This was a real pyrrhic victory. One, the administration is pissed off. And, two, Obama is going to be more determined than ever to take a strong stand on settlements, Gaza relief, and negotiations. They shot their wad on Freeman. They will not think that was so smart a few months from now."

Let me tell you what it all means, MJ. As far as Israel’s lobbying position in Washington, zip.

Israel’s access to buckets of U.S. money and shiploads of arms is secure as long as the grass grows and the rivers run, no matter what it does with settlements on the West Bank or to the people of Gaza.

The real significance of the fight against Freeman takes us away from the traditional need to affirm the right of Israel to exist, enjoy America’s commitment to its continued survival, and consume its yearly entitlement from the U.S. budget. It has everything to do with trying to disrupt Obama’s initiative to engage with Iran — an initiative that has the active encouragement of Russia, probably tacit support from China, and the active interest of Iran itself.

Iran has an interesting battery of carrots to offer the United States. Beyond helping keep the lid on in Iraq by moderating the behavior of the majority Sh’ia against the Sunni, an active Iranian role in Afghanistan could do the United States a world of good, especially in opening some kind of second front against the Taliban in the opium heartland of western Afghanistan and providing an alternative to the risky Pakistan route for U.S. and NATO supplies into Afghanistan.

But rapprochement with Iran is anathema to the Israeli government, since it would replace the current situation—where it is assumed that the interests of Tel Aviv and Washington are identical and, if there is a conflict, Israeli priorities should prevail because it has the most at stake — to a more complicated arrangement in which Israel’s position might be downgraded to that of just another stakeholder, whose interests might be compromised by Washington for the sake of its geopolitical objectives and bilateral dealings with Iran.

Back on February 6, concerning the signs of U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, I wrote oh-so-presciently (my crystal ball was polished to a brilliant sheen for this one):

Direct U.S. dealmaking with Iran (in effect, giving a higher priority to America’s own strategic interests a la Walt-Mearsheimer at the expense of unequivocal support of Israel’s priorities and preferences) is Israel’s greatest fear, so any thawing of relations between Washington and Tehran will have to run the multiple gauntlets of opposition, resistance, provocation, and sabotage thrown down by the Israeli government (soon, apparently, to be run by the hard-right Benjamin Netanyahu) and its allies in the United States.

So, consider l’affaire Freeman the first conspicuous salvo in the effort to sabotage the Obama administration’s outreach to Tehran.

Under the Bush administration, when the identity of U.S. and Israeli priorities was pretty much a given, regional confrontation was a welcome opportunity to advance Full Spectrum Dominance, and the idea of fighting two billion-dollar wars (plus for good measure a Global War on Terror) was considered to play to America’s economic and military strengths, AIPAC’s trashing of Middle East realists was not such a big deal.

But now we are in classic Walt-Mearsheimer territory, where the Obama administration’s intense desire to disengage from Iraq and fix Afghanistan requires at the very least a divergence from Israeli priorities and at worst (from Tel Aviv’s point of view) bilateral engagement with Iran.

Provocation, obstruction and even the active sabotage of U.S. Iran initiatives inflicts few costs on Israel. Israel’s political position in Washington is secure, and its claim to unstinting U.S. support is enhanced rather than damaged if it occupies an isolated position at the center of a dysfunctional Middle East filled with Muslim nations hostile both to it and the United States.

For the United States, it’s different. The Obama administration is trying to unwind from overextended positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It needs the help of regional powers that have real reach and positive interests inside Iraq and Afghanistan to avoid a catastrophic mess that would damage U.S. interests and cripple the Obama presidency.

That means Iran. And Syria.

Not Israel.

I anticipate unending efforts by Israel’s supporters in the U.S. Congress, media, and think tank commentariat to make the political cost of dealing with Iran unsupportable for the Obama administration. And with the economy stuck in a mile-deep rut, President Obama may in fact decide not to pick a fight over Iran and do little more than prolong the bloody standoffs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, while the Schumers and Liebermans of this world celebrate Freeman’s withdrawal and engage in their enthusiastic osculation of AIPAC’s obliging hindquarters, they should consider that continued confrontation in the Middle East and drift in U.S. policy will have real costs for American interests and the world.

In order to pull the world out of recession, it’s better to have functioning states and economies in the Middle East and South Asia and working relationships with global and regional powers--not billion-dollar sinkholes for destabilizing security spending and defiant antagonism to Russia, China, and Iran.

That means the U.S. needs concerted multi-lateral efforts to ratchet down the existential crises looming in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, potentially, Iraq. The world system is in shaky shape and today we may not be able to afford the domestic political division, confrontation-and-conflict based foreign policy, and international instability that indulging the Israel lobby traditionally brings.

Peter Lee is a business man who has spent thirty years observing, analyzing, and writing on Asian affairs. Lee can be reached at peterrlee-2000@yahoo.com

Alpha · Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:21 pm Post subject:

Obama, the Lobby, and a War on Iran
Sunday, March 22, 2009 10:37 AM
From: "Stephen Sniegoski"

Friends,

Obama, the Lobby, and a War on Iran

I had an article published in Antiwar.com [ http://www.antiwar.com/orig/sniegoski.php?articleid=14434 ] which follows this message. It deals with the topic that I have been discussing in a number of my recent mailings—the likelihood of the Obama administration launching an attack on Iran.
However, I would like to add in this message that I do not consider Obama to be a tool of the Israel Lobby. I maintain that Obama would go to war with Iran for his own reasons. Moreover, his goals are different from those of the Israel Lobby. . Strengthened by a victory over Iran, Obama would have the political capital to take on the Lobby in an effort to change the world in a positive direction. I consider Obama’s policies to combine a cautious political pragmatism (seeking the support of powerful groups—Wall St. and the Israel Lobby) with a quasi-messianic idealistic desire to change the US and the world.
Certainly, the Obama administration is now taking what seems to be a more conciliatory position on Iran. But as I point out in my article, Obama still makes demands on Iran without offering much of any quid pro quo. These conciliatory measures could actually serve to facilitate a war. As I write in my article : “Obama, with the image of being a man of peace, would have greater credibility with the American people in taking an aggressively hardline policy toward Iran than either Bush II or McCain. This especially would be the case after his pursuit of diplomacy, which has little chance of success without a quid pro quo to Iran. Once diplomacy breaks down, tougher measures would be portrayed as the only alternative in dealing with an allegedly intransigent foe.”
As I pointed out in my previous posting, the derailing of Chas Freeman might portend an overall effort of the Israel Lobby forces to takeover of US intelligence which would then disseminate war propaganda masquerading as intelligence--analogous to the build-up for the war on Iraq.
None of this is intended to imply that Obama plans or wants to wage war on Iran. However, there are various factors which will push him in this direction. These include: his pro-Israel advisors, the efforts of the Israeli Lobby, pro-war intelligence, military incidents in Iran and Afghanistan, and the continued difficulties with the economy and a concomitant fall in his popularity. Moving toward a war position in such a situation would definitely have political advantages and being reared in Chicago politics, Obama would certainly seem to consider political interest in making policy decisions. As the serious economic problems continued, with no apparent solution, and as Obama’s attendant popularity waned, war would definitely be a smart political move. As I pointed out in last weeks message: “ Wars make the general populace far more willing to endure hardship than is the case during peacetime. Moreover, the war would create the political climate to allow for extreme deficit financing (by money creation) that could mitigate the economic hardship in the short-term—postponing greater economic suffering for the future. Republican criticism would virtually cease, especially because the Republicans are likely to be the most hawkish on the Iranian issue. And having the full support of the Israel Lobby would certainly bolster Obama’s media image. Furthermore, Obama’s close pro-Zionist advisors, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod would likely be urging him to move in a war direction, contending that it would boost his political image.”

However, although Obama definitely has political instincts, it seems that he really wants to change the world for the better. His political models, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lincoln were presidents, who, it is conventionally believed, launched wars to improve society. And certainly his pro-Israel advisors will be reinforcing the idea that using war to prevent a rogue state such as Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is certainly a beneficial goal for the world.

In some respects, Obama could be likened to Woodrow Wilson, a once iconic president who has fallen out of the liberal pantheon in recent years because of his staunch support for racial segregation. (Liberalism and support for segregation could harmoniously coincide in the early part of the 20th century). Wilson was a fervid idealist and entered office in 1913 as a staunch opponent of war. Like Obama he entered office focused on domestic reform and he was able to enact a very significant reform agenda—e.g., Federal Reserve Act, Clayton Anti-Trust Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, Underwood Tariff (reduced the tariff),. All of these measures were considered progressive at the time even though some, if not all, actually benefitted existing powerful interests. (Federal Reserve Act)
Wilson sought to keep the US out of World War I, but due to various factors—British anti-German propaganda, advice from pro-war advisors, his own pro-British attitude—pursued a pro-British neutrality that inevitably led to war with Germany. The situation is similar today with pro-Israel anti-Iran propaganda, pro-Israel advisors and the pursuit of a Middle East policy with a definite pro-Israel tilt, demanding that Iran stop aiding Hezbollah and Hamas and cease its nuclear enrichment without offering much in return. This approach would not be acceptable to Iran, which would could be portrayed by the media as Iran’s belligerence. As I write in my article: “Once diplomacy breaks down, tougher measures would be portrayed as the only alternative in dealing with an allegedly intransigent foe.”
The idealistic Wilson envisioned himself as a peacemaker, but as the war in Europe dragged on, he began to look upon war as a vehicle to bring about a just global order.. When the US entered war, Wilson would preached an idealistic peace which became embodied in his Fourteen Points and a League of Nations. Wilson became a great idealist hero throughout the world, and the war was championed by progressives as a means of achieving a just world. (to be disillusioned by the actual peace).
Like Wilson, Obama is holds the belief that he has the power and the ability to enact significant social change. And he is pushing a very extensive reform agenda. Once the economic difficulties stymie his domestic reform agenda, however, it would seem plausible that he would turn his reform impulse to the global scene. And since Obama already enjoys immense popularity among the world’s people and even leaders, it would not be irrational for him to think that he could bring about change on the global level. Certainly, conventional liberals have believed that global solutions for peace, prosperity, and the environment are achievable by international action.
In making war on Iran, Obama’s interests would not be the same as those of the Israel Lobby. The Lobby simply wants to destroy an enemy of Israel’s and allow Israel to reign supreme in its region. Obama, however, would look to defeating Iran as the means to a better Middle East and a better global order. After defeating Iran (and if the war does not have disastrous consequences), he would have such great and deep popularity that he could reasonably believe that he would have the political capital to go against the Israel Lobby. It would seem apparent that he does not really identify with Israel—he did listen to Reverend Wright for many a year without a complaint—and probably only supports their positions for political reasons. Israel Lobby members have been suspicious of Obama.
The idea that a popular president could pressure Israel is not novel Bush I and Jim Baker thought that they could achieve this after the Gulf War in 1991 with their plans for a new world order. Their plans were ultimately destroyed by the Israel Lobby when they sought to pressure Israel on the settlements issue. Obama, of course, would have far deeper public support than Bush I, which was large but not staunch enough to prevent it from quickly evaporating.
The Israel Lobby undoubtedly knows that Obama is not their instrument and that if had the power he would go against their interests. They are probably developing contingency plans to deal with such a situation—skeletons in Obama’s closet could become headline stories. However, from the Lobby’s perspective, that is the future. At the present time, Iran is the problem and Obama is the vehicle that can advance Israel’s interests.
Of course, a war, even one that relied on solely on air attacks, could bring about such a conflagration as to destroy Obama’s presidency. For Obama, the war would have to be kept within strict limits and not bring about extreme anti-American violence in the rest of the Middle East, which could topple America’s Arab allies and greatly reduce the flow of oil, wreaking havoc with the world’s economy (though it could also provide a boost for Obama’s alternative energy program).
On the other hand, regional turmoil would be to the advantage of the Israel—at least according to the views of the Israeli Right, as I bring out in my book “The Transparent Cabal” http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/
Increasing the Arab and Islamic hatred of the US would help to solidify the contention that Israel is America’s only ally in the Middle East. And such turmoil, with Middle Eastern countries and groups fighting among themselves, certainly would help to keep Israel’s enemies fragmented and weak—a traditional goal of the Israeli Right.

Stephen Sniegoski

____________________________________________________

March 21, 2009
Obama and the Neocon Middle East War Agenda
by Stephen J. Sniegoski

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/sniegoski.php?articleid=14434

Additional at the following URL:

Freeman's Demise as Prelude to War on Iran

http://tinyurl.com/d2c5ph

Alpha · Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 12:07 am Post subject:

The Freeman Affair: Robert Dreyfuss/T. Engelhardt:

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=14408

The Rape of Washington:

http://www.antiwar.com/avnery/?articleid=14407

Alpha · Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:32 pm Post subject:

Daniel Pipes admits that AIPAC espionage case defendant Steve Rosen was responsible for the ouster of Chas Freeman

From: D. Pipes Mailing List [mailto:dplist@danielpipes.org]
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 12:52 PM

Subject: #911: Request to support MEF's new Washington Project, headed by Steven J. Rosen

March 16, 2009

The Middle East Forum, the organization I founded in 1994 and continue to serve as director, has just added a Washington policy dimension to its work - and can already boast a major success to its credit.

Within days of joining the Forum, Steven J. Rosen was the first to blow the whistle on the questionable appointment of Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council. Hours after his "Alarming appointment at the CIA" appeared, the word was out and others quickly joined him. Three weeks later, Freeman withdrew his name from consideration, blaming Rosen and me. Only someone with Steve's stature and credibility could have made this happen, and on the basis of a mere 445-word comment.

Steve has already written important essays for the Forum on secret understandings between Bush and Sharon about settlements and on the so-called Iranian offer of a "Grand Bargain."

Since opening its doors in 1994, the Forum has focused primarily on the larger picture and the longer run publishing a journal, critiquing bias in Middle East studies, monitoring the advances of radical Islam, and influencing American views of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has not, however, made a sustained or systematic effort to play a role in Washington.

With a new administration coming into office - one we have deep concerns about - we decided it was time for us to enter the fray. The Washington Project focuses precisely on the special environment of the D.C. policy community.

We are fortunate to have Mr. Rosen head the project. He brings a strong academic background to the topic, having taught at Brandeis University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Australian National University, as well as coordinated Middle East research at the RAND Corporation. He also has a wealth of practical experience, having for 23 years been responsible at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for relations with the State Department, the National Security Council, and other agencies.

Due to the economic downturn, the Forum lacks the financial resources fully to finance the Washington Project. I therefore turn to you in the hopes that you can help us fund Mr. Rosen's work.

The MEF is a publicly supported, nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

I hope that you will make a contribution, most easily at our website, using our secure encrypted contribution page: https://www.meforum.org/participation/

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Pipes

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