[TorryJens]

For different reasons. Unless and until the country I am now a citizen of ceases to be, I have to worry about being a middle class American first and foremost.

Her plans for America were very similar to Obama's. We'll just have to wait and see how his plans turn out for middle class America.

[Peptobismol]

For what it's worth, Clinton at least acknowledged that the middle class is not a free infinite ATM machine to be tapped whenever someone needs cash.

[Drugmachine]

Washington — The spectrum of arguments against the appointment of Charles “Chas” Freeman to Washington’s top intelligence assessment post ranged from his approach toward China to his ties with Saudi Arabia to his views on human rights.

But for Freeman, it was always about Israel. In a statement he released hours after withdrawing his agreement to serve as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Freeman pointed his finger in only one direction — at the pro-Israel lobby. “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,” Freeman wrote. While many in the pro-Israel lobby celebrated Freeman’s withdrawal — some publicly, most privately — it was hardly the kind of victory that Jewish groups were wishing for. Most preferred to sit out this battle and stick to behind-the-scenes phone calls, leaving the public fight against Freeman’s appointment up to bloggers and other public interest groups. “Why bother?” an official with a major Jewish group asked. “We all reached the conclusion that weighing in, as a community, could be counter-productive.” The official, speaking on condition of anonymity as per his organization’s policy, added that it was clear “it wouldn’t be wise to get into a direct fight on this and then lose.”

Officially, most pro-Israel groups chose to avoid the spotlight on this issue, even while one activist with a national Jewish group said that his group’s members “were getting calls from all over from people who wanted to do something.” Josh Bock, spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, stated, “AIPAC did not take a position and did not lobby Capitol Hill on this issue.”

But Freeman and his supporters argued that the fingerprints of the pro-Israel lobby are all over the story. The Israel Policy Forum’s director of policy analysis, M.J. Rosenberg, who has been fighting in favor of Freeman’s appointment in the trenches of the blogosphere since the debate broke out, took a sarcastic tone after hearing of Freeman’s withdrawal: “Must have been his stance on [European Union] membership for Cyprus.”Although most Jewish groups did not take an official stand on the Freeman issue, it is clear that many pro-Israel players and opinion makers were involved in the debate. It started off with former AIPAC lobbyist Steve Rosen, who began posting daily reports on his blog. The reports were in regard to Freeman’s remarks on issues relating to Israel, and also in regard to donations that the think tank he headed received from Saudi Arabia. Joining the criticism were leading bloggers known for their pro-Israel approach, among them The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait.

Many of the lawmakers demanding an investigation into Freeman’s qualifications for the intelligence post are known as strong supporters of Israel: Senator Charles Schumer from New York raised the issue with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and, in a statement released upon his resignation, specifically cited Freeman’s views on Israel as the disqualifying factor; Republican Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk and Democrat Steve Israel of New York took the issue to the inspector general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Joseph Lieberman, the Independent from Connecticut, questioned Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, on this issue during the March 10 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

For critics of the Israel lobby, this was enough to see the line connecting between Freeman losing the job and his critical views on Israel.
It also helped open once again the discussion about the lobby, and has fueled arguments against the lobby’s power and what critics see as its attempt to stifle any open debate about American policy toward Israel.
In his March 10 statement, Freeman said he believes “that the 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” was harmful to Israel. Freeman added, “It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so.”This theme was echoed by many of Freeman’s supporters. Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic wrote in his blog, after the appointment was withdrawn, that the theme is a signal that the Obama administration is not going to change American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. “The fact that Obama blinked means no one else in Washington will ever dare to go through the hazing that Freeman endured. And so the chilling effect is as real as it is deliberate,” he wrote.

Freeman losing the NIC post will go down in history as yet another round in the endless fight between pro-Israel activists in Washington and their detractors. The latter believe they lost the fight to the pro-Israel lobby, while the lobbyists themselves keep arguing they were never even in the fight. The only attempt thus far to end the debate in an original way belongs to Freeman’s son, Charles Freeman Jr. On his blog, the younger Freeman called critics of his father’s appointment “low lives” and said he would like to “punch some of these guys in the face.”

http://forward.com/articles/103815/

[Drugmachine]

Chas Freeman and 9/11

posted Saturday, 7 March 2009

How important has resentment of Israel been to Al Qaeda's terrorism? Here is one side of the argument, by an American who knows Saudi Arabia well: The heart of the poison is the Israel-Palestinian conundrum. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I was told by Saudi friends that on Saudi TV there were three terrorists who came out and spoke. Essentially the story they told was that they had been recruited to fight for the Palestinians against the Israelis, but that once in the training camp, their trainers gradually shifted their focus away from the Israelis to the monarchy in Saudi Arabia and to the United States. So the recruitment of terrorists has a great deal to do with the animus that arises from that continuing and worsening situation.And here is the opposing view, by an American who knows the Kingdom equally well: Mr. bin Laden's principal point, in pursuing this campaign of violence against the United States, has nothing to do with Israel. It has to do with the American military presence in Saudi Arabia, in connection with the Iran-Iraq issue. No doubt the question of American relations with Israel adds to the emotional heat of his opposition and adds to his appeal in the region. But this is not his main point.So now you've heard two sides of the debate. Who made the first statement? Charles "Chas" Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the Obama administration's nominee to head the National Intelligence Council (NIC). Who made the second statement? Charles "Chas" Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the Obama administration's nominee to head the National Intelligence Council (NIC).

The first quote dates from January 2004, the second from October 1998. The difference between them is 9/11, when it became the Saudi line to point to Israel's conflict with the Palestinians as the "root cause" of the September 11 attacks. The initial promoter of this approach in the United States (well before Walt and Mearsheimer) was Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed. "At times like this one," Alwaleed announced a month after 9/11, "we must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack. I believe the government of the United States of America should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance towards the Palestinian cause." That statement led then-mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani to return a $10 million check Alwaleed had just presented to him for a special "Twin Towers" relief fund.

Since 9/11 Freeman hasn't repeated his 1998 assessment ("nothing to do with Israel"), instead sticking with his Saudi-pleasing spin of 2004 ("the heart of the poison is the Israel-Palestinian conundrum"). It's not hard to figure out why. When the 9/11 Commission interviewed him in 2003, it noted that his position as president of the Middle East Policy Council "requires regular trips to the Persian Gulf for fundraising. While there, he meets with many senior Saudi officials." In 2006, Freeman finally went the extra mile, offering this explanation for 9/11: We have paid heavily and often in treasure 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.Freeman was now touting precisely the sort of nonsense he had previously dismissed out of hand. And he hit paydirt for doing it: within months, Prince Alwaleed wrote a check to Freeman's Middle East Policy Council for $1 million. Here is a photo of Freeman, supplicant, visiting Alwaleed in the latter's Riyadh HQ.


Does Freeman really believe that Israel's actions caused Bin Laden's terror? Who knows? He's put forward two completely contradictory explanations. One would like to believe that in his heart of hearts, he still knows what he knew in 1998, that Bin Laden's "campaign of violence against the United States, has nothing to do with Israel." One would like to believe that in 2006, he was cynically shilling for the Saudis when he blamed 9/11 on "our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel's approach." Because if he wasn't just cynically shilling, he's gone off the rails. (Actually, there is a third Freeman explanation for 9/11, so bizarre that I don't know quite how to categorize it. Parse this: "What 9/11 showed is that if we bomb people, they bomb back.")

If Freeman's gone off the rails, he obviously shouldn't be taken out of mothballs to coordinate U.S. intelligence. But that's so even if he was just cynically shilling. “An ambassador," said Sir Henry Wotton, "is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.” In America, an ex-ambassador is all too often an honest man hired from abroad to lie to his own country. Freeman may have an impeccable record of past service, just as his old buddies attest. But if the National Intelligence Council and its products are to earn the respect of the American people, the NIC chair cannot be suspected of ever having deliberately twisted the truth into something else for our consumption, especially on a crucial issue of national security and at the behest of foreign interests.

Chas Freeman doesn't pass that test.

Update, March 9: Some have argued that the two opening quotes in this post are actually consistent with one another. So I offer the full context of the first quote from 1998, which demonstrates that on that occasion, Freeman was actively deflecting the thesis that Bin Laden's appeal rested on Israel and U.S. support for it. He was chairing a panel, and a member of the audience asked a question.
Q: I'm astonished that nobody has mentioned the name Osama bin Laden. And it astonishes me also that we do nothing, apparently, to indicate that we are not a colony of Israel, when his whole appeal depends on demonstrating and reminding Muslims the world over that the United States is identified with Israel. If we do not develop a firm disagreement with Israel, we are going to suffer repeated casualties and deaths, including Foreign Service personnel.

AMB. FREEMAN: Perhaps I could begin by saying that Mr. Osama bin Laden is a renegade from his family and from Saudi Arabia; his family has disowned him, and the kingdom has certainly dissociated itself from him. Mr. bin Laden's principal point, in pursuing this campaign of violence against the United States, has nothing to do with Israel. It has to do with the American military presence in Saudi Arabia, in connection with the Iran-Iraq issue. No doubt the question of American relations with Israel adds to the emotional heat of his opposition and adds to his appeal in the region. But this is not his main point.So Freeman was actively deflecting an argument he himself would later make. It is interesting that this one-time-only absolution of Israel occurred while Freeman was playing host to a panel featuring Martin Indyk, at the time Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. Maybe that explains it. Pointer: See subsequent post, Chas Freeman and preemptive cringe.
Update, late afternoon, March 10: "Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman’s decision with regret."


http://sandbox.blog-city.com/chas_fr...ptember_11.htm

[MannoFr]

They tried to blame in on AIPAC's Steven Rosen, the one who is currently on trial.

[Lt_Apple]

watch what happens: Jewish lobby sank anti Zionist candidate, it will be in the msm no less.

[doctorzlo]

Well it's already happening in the blogs. Of course they ignore that our zhid overlords weren't that thrilled with Hillary Clinton either. Odd how we let that one get away.

[tgs]

Well it's already happening in the blogs. Of course they ignore that our zhid overlords weren't that thrilled with Hillary Clinton either. Odd how we let that one get away.

But you supported Hillary Clinton.

[PhillipHer]

For different reasons. Unless and until the country I am now a citizen of ceases to be, I have to worry about being a middle class American first and foremost.