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Freeman wasn't the first
The mainstream media caught up with the Charles Freeman saga today. It gets page 1 treatment in the New York Times and more detailed and extensive coverage in the Washington Post, with some solid reportage by Walter Pincus, a column supporting Freeman by David Broder, and an overwrought editorial attacking Freeman's defenders for advancing a "conspiracy theory." The ever-alert Glenn Greenwald dissects the latter's contradictions here.
This level of attention is probably not what Freeman's attackers wanted, because these stories demolish the claim that the fracas was about his views on Tibet and Tianenmen Square or even the fact that the think tank he headed had received a small portion of its funding from Saudis. It is now clear that Freeman's "sin" was the fact that he had publicly said some critical things about Israeli policy, though his views were in fact no more critical than comments frequently made by more moderate Israelis. Indeed, if Freeman were Israeli, he could write a regular column in Ha'retz and nobody would bat an eye.
The level of attention this case has now received stands in sharp contrast to several other examples where valuable public servants were denied key posts due to opposition from groups or individuals in the lobby. Jimmy Carter reportedly wanted to make George W. Ball his secretary of state in 1976, but he knew that groups in the lobby would oppose the appointment and so he went with Cyrus Vance instead. The late Richard Marius, a long-time Harvard lecturer, recounted that he was offered a job as a speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore and then fired before he began work, after Martin Peretz falsely charged him with anti-Semitism, based on a book review Marius had written for Harvard Magazine. And in 2001, when Bruce Riedel was leaving his post handling Middle East issues at the NSC, Peretz's New Republic reported that the Pentagon had "held up the appointment of Riedel's designated successor, Alina Romanowski, whom Pentagon officials suspect of being insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state." Who got the job instead? Elliott Abrams.
The same litmus test operates on the Hill, of course. As influential Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) told an online chat group during the 2006 election: "there will be some Democratic congressman who may not share all my views or have as clear a perspective on Israel as I do, but they will not be chairing committees dealing with Israel and the Middle East."
What is different about the Freeman case is that the campaign against him got waged out in the open, and many people figured out quickly what was going on and were willing to say so, mostly in the blogosphere. At that point, even the mainstream media started paying attention.
It bears repeating the real issue here is whether U.S. interests are best served by making uncritical support for the "special relationship" a de facto criterion for public service in important foreign policy positions. How about people who think the United States and Israel should have a normal relationship, one similar to our relations with other democracies, and who believe that this would be better for the United States and Israel alike? Is that really such a heretical view?
One more thing: this case shows that discourse on this issue is changing and that is all to the good. It didn’t move fast enough to save Freeman, but maybe it can move fast enough to rescue the United States from some of its past mistakes, and prevent it from making more.
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“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
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Freeman's "sin" is that he is a "Realist" critical of Israel?
From NewMajority.com
March 12, 2009
CHAS FREEMAN'S UGLY GOODBYE
--Noah Pollak
Two thoughts on the demise of Chas Freeman, the first on the way we debate Israel, and the second on the claim by many of Freeman’s defenders that being a “realist” was his true sin.
The Freeman episode solidified what had been inchoate in previous Israel-related debates, such as over the recent Gaza War and the emergence of the left-wing lobbying group J Street. The true fallout from Walt and Mearsheimer seems not to be the exposure of a conspiracy that manipulates American policy – it is the provision to one side of the debate of a ready-made excuse for its political failure and an inflammatory argument against its opponents.
The new Israel Lobby paradigm is very simple: when Israeli actions, such as Operation Cast Lead, are condemned, or a public figure who has harshly criticized Israel is defended, the democratic legitimacy of the opposing side is called into question. Instead of debating them on the merits, Chas Freeman’s critics have been portrayed as ruthless enforcers of orthodox opinion about Israel; they are not participants in a controversy, but illiberal destroyers and silencers of debate, not to mention treasonous advocates for foreign interests.
This method has the added benefit of being impervious to refutation: having cast opposition to Freeman as Israel-obsessed, his rejection can be dismissed as another example of the Lobby’s ability to manipulate American politics. Of course, Freeman’s comments on Israel have nothing whatsoever to do with the financial investigation he faced which seems to have been an important factor in his withdrawal, or the outrage of those who could be said to be members of the China Lobby over his statements about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. But saying that you were scalped by the Israel Lobby is so much more dramatic and ennobling than the pedestrian embarrassment of having to admit that your financial dealings with foreign interests disqualified you from sensitive work, or that an array of people disputed your appointment for a variety of reasons.
And then there is the claim that Freeman’s true sin was being a foreign policy realist, putting him in the crosshairs of the neocons. But since when has realism involved the outright admiration of despots? It turns out that the people who are most conspicuous in apologizing for tyrants tend to also be most conspicuous in their condemnations of the Jewish state, a thriving democracy in the heart of a region dominated by autocracies. It is interesting that the very things the Chas Freemans of the world find perfectly justifiable in Saudi Arabia and China form the basis of their condemnation of Israel: that Israel mistreats minorities, that it abuses its power, that its behavior is too self-interested, that it refuses -- in defiance of its superior regional power, as any realist would acknowledge -- to submit itself to the demands of the Arabs.
Would Chas Freeman apply his Tiananmen Square principle to the Palestinian intifada? Can anyone imagine him lauding “Bibi the Great” (he once called the Saudi king “Abdullah the Great”) because of the accomplishment of some superficial reform?
The claims that Freeman was attacked for his “realism” are self-serving. They are an attempt to apply a sheen of doctrinal sophistication to what are simply a set of ugly opinions. Freeman isn’t actually a realist about Saudi Arabia and China -- he is an admirer of their successful thuggery and despotism. And he certainly isn’t a realist about Israel, an American client whose military power put an end to the decades of state-versus-state wars that culminated in an Arab oil embargo in 1974, a dire challenge to American interests. If they care at all about protecting the reputation of their school of foreign policy, realists should not allow Chas Freeman to portray himself as a martyr to their cause.
© 2009 NewMajority.com
http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=64f610eb-2719-4b75-b3e1-e4062e94f6b1
Doublespeak
He is a realist about China and Saudi Arabia -- that is the source of what you call his admiration of their despotism. Why anything that might have been the case in 1974 should apply to our calculations today is left unexplained in your glib geostrategery.
And he was in fact attacked for his realism. The only mainstream press attention that his case drew before a few days ago -- Jon Chait's execrable Washington Post op-ed from two weeks ago -- specifically did so, in the strongest of terms. He was labeled a realist ideologue, a notion that should raise questions of simple coherence in any thinking person.
But why am I addressing this author in the second person? It's just a cheap reprint of some hackery published elsewhere. Ah well.
Chas is a realist
Yes, Chas is a realist on China and Saudi Arabia.
We get something from both of them: oil, and a country who lends us money (part of which we stupidly give away to Israel, btw).
What has Israel done for the U.S. lately, besides make us a target of terrorism?
-Clint (American Jew)
PS: Hardline right-wing militant apartheid-supporting AIPAC "Jews" are less than 0.5% of U.S. population but send the largest share of our foreign aid to Israel. Is that realism?
I want Israel out of U.S. polity.
Loved the gift of the 19 9/11
Loved the gift of the 19 9/11 hijackers from the Saudis.
More of that, please!
But at least they're not Jews...
US is subject to terrorism BECAUSE of our support of Israel.
US is subject to terrorism BECAUSE of our support of Israel.
Otherwise, only Israel would be subject to terrorism. Which, as an American, it is OK for me since they oppress their population, like the Brits did to the Americans.
Get it?
-Clint (American JEW)
Terrorism against the US
"US is subject to terrorism BECAUSE of our support of Israel."
Baloney. The Palestinians tried to overthrow the government of Kuwait by terrorism and got kicked out; they tried to overthrow the government of Jordan by terrorism and got kicked out; they tried to overthrow the government of Lebanon by terrorism and got kicked out. Nothing to do with support of Israel; those "Palestinians" involved are just bad people.
Arabs have been practicing genocidal terrorism against each other since time immemorial, over such issues as who has the "true" Baathist faith; over Sunni vs. Shia; Jerusalem vs. Mecca, jihadi Salafism, Mohammed's idea of the Hudna (a temporary truce until you can gain strength to defeat the enemy), oil. In fact Abraham kicked out Ishmael (the historical ancestor of the Arabs) for having a thoroughly bad character, and we are told that his hand would be turned against every man.
Then there's the classic Arab proverb: "Me against my brother; me and my brother against my father; me, my brother and my father against my tribe; me and my tribe against the world." Another biblical prophecy confirmed.
Give it up; the Palestinians are a global problem, not an Israeli one and the only long-term solution is probably, as much as it hurts my humanistic bones, global resettlement. Better for everyone but their corrupt leaders; a state won't solve this problem but simply exacerbate it.
When groups like Al Qaeda
When groups like Al Qaeda seek out funding and recruits who are ready to literally blow themselves up, one of their TOP selling points is that Israel is running the WORLDS ONLY violently enforced colonial settler movement. NO WHERE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD is such a thing tolerated, but it is happening to Arabs and Muslims and no one else, and Israel and the US could seem to care less, as though all that talk about human rights and democracy is just talk when it comes to Arabs and Muslims.
In fact, Although the settlments, and then settlements alone, are nearly bankrupting Israel, the US continues to make up the shortfall financially, miltarily, and politically, at what has become a CRUSHING expense for us as well, if you factor in the cost of all of the terrorism it has helped to inspire against us.
Those Saudi Highjackers adn those that backed them would never have been motivated or funded well enough if it were not for the contribution of 40 plus years of brutal ethnic cleansing and apartheid tearing up Isreals ( and the US) image among arab and islamic nations world wide.
The reason that it is such a great marketing tool for Al Qaeda is because the settlements ARE truly evil and utterly indefensible on every level. Imagine such a thing happening in the US today. Could it be justified on ANY level? It stands in direct opposition to EVERY VALUE that the US holds up as indisputable.
The day we FORCE Israel to raze every settlement and quit the occupation is the first day that the hope of real peace would be possible. We could EASILY force this to happen by simply no longer paying for it or polically protecting them.
What has Israel done for us lately?
Well, let's see.
The personal computer and Intel's latest, fastest "Nehalem" chip.
Many major medical breakthroughs which save lots of American lives.
The entire public key system of secure communications, standard in most everyone's browser.
Lots of Nobel prizes.
Breakthroughs in agriculture, including drip irrigation.
Lots of exports of agricultural products and flowers.
Many leading researchers and teachers in US academe.
Protection of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Bahai and other holy sites that are part of the world's heritage.
A source of regional security and democracy.
A military counterbalance to radical Islam in the immediate region.
Freedom of worship for all religions.
Freedom of speech.
Religious academies for every faith.
Tolerance of even those who oppose the State (Arab members of the Knesset, Naturei Karta).
A system of courts that bends over backwards often overruling the government.
Values of cooperation and coexistence, rather than (Islamic) world domination.
etc.
In almost every case above, the Saudis have either given us nothing or made inimical contributions to the above. Even the oil was developed by the US (Aramco)--the Saudis simply lucked out and later grabbed it. As Sheikh Yamani once said to Tommy Gold, "I always wondered why all those dinosaurs came to Saudi Arabia to die."
I suppose U.S. natural resources
really do belong to us though, right?
Zionist Cockroaches Scurrying from Light
[I updated this entry and cross-posted it to my blog for Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel.
Freeman, American Naiveté, Israel Lobby
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)
To be completely frank, I as an American care far less about the harm Palestinians have suffered from Zionism than I do
I am particularly disturbed by the meager understanding of Zionism that even non- or anti-Zionist political scientists have managed to provide to the American public and political leadership. Not only are American scholars generally naïve about the role of conspiracy in E. European politics, but specialists in E. European history are usually unable to apply their knowledge because of their ignorance of Jewish studies.
The USA is the slave of Zionist "Big Lies" that call "Israel a thriving democracy in the heart of a region dominated by autocracies" and that by claim that the State of Israel shares American values.
This sort of propaganda excuses the original racist murderous genocidal founding of the State of Israel, and it conceals the hundred years of corrupt Jewish financial manipulation and savage ethnic Ashkenazi violence
Today such hasbarah covers up the ethnocratic-oligarchic nature of the Zionist state
The key weakness of Mearsheimer and Walt's thesis lies in their emphasis of outcomes over process. Their book provides no discussion either of the collusive Western European Jewish business system or of the conspiratorial Eastern European political context
Even if Freeman had become CNI chairman, the smear campaign against him would still have indicated severe Zionist rot of the American political process as Greenwald, Weiss, Walt and others have indicated.
Because Mearsheimer & Walt misinterpret the nature of the Israel Lobby, which is the public face of the Zionist Virtual Colonial Motherland [Judonia], Walt's recent analysis of the Chas Freeman affair fails to indentify how far back in time this sort of Zionist political machination really goes.
Initially the Zionist Movement (funded by the fortunes of the Herzl family, David Wolffsohn, and Johann Kremenetzky) represented a sort of transnational Jewish politics in many ways comparable to the form of Arab Jihadism founded by Abdulla Azzam, Kamel al-Sananiri, and Osama bin-Ladin and studied by Thomas Hegghammer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
[Azzam, who was able to read Hebrew and whose family remains active in Hamas politics in Gaza, seems to have modeled parts of his ideology and some of his activities on his partial understanding of early Zionist history.]
When Herzlian Zionism hooked up with the Cousinhood of the wealthiest British Jews and was able to benefit from the full-fledged international Jewish financial and philanthropic network, the virtual state organization that I call Judonia was born.
Judonia has been an major international actor since the beginning of the 20th century. A brief discussion of more than a century of Judonia's international influence and domestic US-UK manipulations is availabe in the following two on-line texts:
Judonia is the Jewish/Yiddish counterpart of Polonia, whose public face was the PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna) and which is sometimes described as a 40 year conspiracy to found an independent Polish state. The eminant PPS conspirator ideologist Kaziemierz Kelles-Krauz advocated PPS alliance with Jewish nationalism in historic Poland. Kelles-Krauz, who ideologically is very similar to the Zionist leader Ber Borokhov, viewed Jewish nationalism as consisting of two components:
Historic Polonia differs from modern Judonia in that the Polish conspirators took public roles in the Polish government when Poland became independent. In contrast, the Zionist oligarchy and intelligentsia never intended to relocate to an independent Zionist state but remained in N. America and Europe in order to manipulate and to exploit the N. American and European political and economic systems for the benefit of Judonia, its oligarchy, and its intelligentsia.
In the current situation the Bundists and Yiddishists have dropped out of the equation, but we are still stuck with the Zionist conspiracy here in the USA, where the vast majority of political scientists unlike their Polish and Russian counterparts have no local conspiratorial political history that could serve as a lens to understand how the Zionist conspiracy operates and destroys the US political economic system.
Even though mostly Jewish communist subversion threatened America in the first half of the 20th century, the common wisdom carefully crafted primarily by Jewish academics trivializes the original Communist penetration of American political institutions and treats the anti-Communist response as the bigger problem. (See Jewish, Christian, and Palestinian Holidays for mention of 19th century Jewish academic distortions.)
Nowadays almost entirely Jewish Zionist subversion may kill the the US political and economic system before the 21st century hits the halfway point. The seceding American colonies did not face as great a threat from Britain as the USA does today from Judonia.
If I had funding, I would make a documentary entitled Delusion: Radical Judaism's War Against Everyone. (See blogentries on Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.)
Because Palestinians are at the front line of the struggle against Jewish Zionist extremism, racism, exploitation, and murderousness, we Americans should acknowledge Palestinian heroism and support the liberation of Stolen and Occupied Palestine from Zionist control in every way we can. Yet ultimately the duty falls upon us to take decisive action to neutralize the Zionist fifth column and obliterate Zionism from the pages of history.
A Realist Traitor
His sin is that he has no spine, no values, no beliefs.
He went native in Saudi Arabia - and decided to proselytize the Saudi doctrine that Jews are Monkeys and Christians are Pigs. That's why his textbooks, which the American Textbook Association took to task, along with a few other organisations, looked so similar to the ones used in every classroom in Sandi Oil-Rabia.
Since that's what they teach in every school there - but somehow this doesn't interest Walt, Freeman, and the anti-AIPACers.
Either they are ignorant of what they are defending
or they are complicit in it.
And a liar?
Published quotes of some of his Tien An Mien Square remarks make it clear that he is voicing his own opinion. He says so in explicit terms. Yet I heard him with my own ears last week claim that he was describing what the Chinese leaders think, not what he thinks and that his remarks were taken out of context.
In other words, if the published quotes are accurate, he has a strange view of truth. More reason to mark him unfit to be in charge of the National intelligence Estimates on which the President and US policy will rely.
If I were to be kind, I would say that he was confused, and referring to a different quote than his accusers cited. Such confusion is, again, not the sort of thing we want in the man in charge of NIEs.
The Middle East Shouldn’t Fret About Charles Freeman’s Exit
The National (Abu Dhabi)
March 19, 2009
The Middle East Shouldn’t Fret About Charles Freeman’s Exit
By Michael Young
When the former American ambassador Charles “Chas” Freeman last week decided not to accept his appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, many people, particularly in the Middle East, put this down to the workings of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. Mr Freeman, in a departing salvo, substantiated that interpretation. However, his Arab defenders paid little attention to the ambassador’s observations of how the Chinese authorities dealt with the Tiananmen “incident” (Mr Freeman’s words) in 1989, and what this said about how political “realists” like him approach American policy in the Arab world.
In comments on the Chinese government’s repression of the student protests posted to an e-mail list in 2006, Mr Freeman argued that the government’s error was to have wasted too much time before clearing Tiananmen Square. The ambassador wrote, “I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans’ ‘Bonus Army’ or a ‘student uprising’ on behalf of ‘the goddess of democracy’ should expect to be displaced with dispatch [sic] from the ground they occupy.”
Political realists like Mr Freeman pride themselves on being able to dispassionately assess national interests, and pursue them with relative amorality, so that the advancement of values and human rights are important only in their impact on reasons of state. That explains his affixing quotation marks around the words “goddess of democracy” in his e-mail, a way of ridiculing the symbol held up at the time by students, whose “propaganda” demanding a more open Chinese system was distasteful for having disrupted “the normal functions of government”.
Oddly, the ambassador’s smugness prompted his supporters to maintain that he was ideal to head the National Intelligence Council, because he could “think outside the box”. In fact the template of his foreign policy judgments remains not only squarely “inside the box”, it is also dated and in some ways reactionary. For whether Mr Freeman likes it or not, in the past decade and a half, concepts like democracy, liberal internationalism, human rights and humanitarian intervention have become mainstays of foreign policy thinking, even when they are hypocritically implemented.
This raises a broader question of how American realists should tackle the Middle East. For over half a century, Mr Freeman was very much a by-product of the mainstream view in Washington that it was not up to the United States to concern itself with the internal conduct of its Arab allies. If a leader useful to Washington repressed his own people, then that was his business. The attitude was grim, certainly, and the US had dozens of useless programmes to bolster Arab civil society and democracy to mitigate any criticism of its selfishness, but realpolitik authorised it.
Where the realist paradigm broke down, however, was when the region’s despots, to enhance their standing at home, broke out of their borders and destabilised the region. That is what Saddam Hussein did in 1989, for example, when he invaded Kuwait. The administration of George HW Bush decided to reverse the assault, denying Iraq any supremacy over US allies in the Gulf, above all Saudi Arabia, where Mr Freeman happened to then be serving. Yet Mr Bush could not persuasively justify his decision to deploy American soldiers on the grounds of defending US national interests – for no one wanted to shed blood for oil – so he explained that the US was establishing a “new world order”. As we might recall, that only lasted until the old order returned when the US looked the other way as the Baathists crushed the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings.
That textbook illustration of realistic amorality came just before the arrival of the Clinton administration, which presided over a substantial change in the vernacular of international relations. The new American president was no liberal internationalist, and in places such as Rwanda, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Bill Clinton showed that he could be as craven or indifferent as the realists. However, there were two wars that the president, for domestic reasons, could not avoid, those in Bosnia and Kosovo; and in order to validate American involvement in them, Mr Clinton had to publicly embrace principles of humanitarian intervention.
This time, the principles stuck better. Success in the Balkans, but also the lingering guilt over the apathy in Rwanda, showed that more aggressive humanitarianism could pay off. The subsequent trial of the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, seemed a further nail in the realist coffin. Leaders could now be held accountable for domestic abuses, laying a new, if shifting, foundation for international legal standards of behaviour.
With George W Bush, this trend continued, albeit haphazardly, particularly in the Middle East. His administration removed Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, ending the most sinister of dictatorships and installing a pluralist order on its ruins. In Lebanon, the US played an essential role in sponsoring the first United Nations investigation ever of a political murder, when the Security Council set up a commission in 2005 to look into the assassination of Rafiq Hariri. And when hundreds of thousands of people occupied the heart of Beirut for weeks, demanding a Syrian withdrawal, Mr Bush did not urge the authorities to clear Martyrs Square because this impaired the normal functions of government.
Mr Bush’s detractors accused him of duplicity, but they missed the point. It has become increasingly difficult for leaders of Western democracies to avoid mentioning human rights and democracy in rationalising their overseas behaviour. Political realism will not die. States won’t suddenly become moral Leviathans. However, the stripped down realism of a Mr Freeman, without an ounce of human sympathy or humour, is a thing of the past – as he himself, and much to our relief, has become.
Michael Young is the opinion editor of The Daily Star in Lebanon
© Copyright of Abu Dhabi Media Company FZLLC
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090319/OPINION/548101536/1080
Chas Freeman: petitions the U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan
From Commentary Magazine's "Contentions" Weblog:
March 23, 2009
Thank Goodness for the Obama Administration’s Thorough Vetting Process
By Ted R. Bromund
I had dinner last week with a former student who worked for Obama’s campaign and now, like millions of others, is in town to try to land an administration job. His complaint was that the administration’s vetting procedures were so thorough that they were slowing him up, a complaint that made me choke on the excellent Pomerol we’d ordered.
I thought of his complaint again today, when a friend pointed out an interesting item in the February 26, 2009, New York Review of Books: a petition calling on the U.S. to withdraw immediately and totally from Afghanistan. One signatory, predictably, was Norman Finkelstein. Another, equally predictably, was Chas Freeman. That petition was published weeks before Freeman’s name was put forward as the arbiter of U.S. intelligence assessments. Now, naturally, it would never for a moment compromise Freeman’s objectivity that his self-declared political opinions are wildly at odds with those of the administration he sought to join. Nor is there anything even slightly unseemly about a candidate for such a position publicly stating preferences that would immediately put him at partisan odds with the President. Nor, of course, need we wonder at the fact that Freeman found himself politically at home with a conspiracy theorist like Finkelstein.
But I do have to wonder about those vetting procedures. Freeman wanted the job, but it seems unlikely that he informed the administration of his publicly-expressed views. And amazingly, no one in the administration noticed them. The press doesn’t get a pass here: it’s astonishing that this publicly-available petition wasn’t immediately brought up as a reason why he was profoundly unsuited for the intelligence job.
Of course, all that may be too generous. Perhaps it’s not true that no one in the administration noticed his views about their policy. Perhaps, instead, they noticed and didn’t care. In that case, we have to ask not about the competence of their vetting process, but about the sincerity of their commitment to the war in Afghanistan.
Copyright © 1997-2009 Commentary Magazine
All Rights Reserved
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/bromund/59741
Freeman vs. Reality (From The Weekly Standard's "The Blog")
From The Weekly Standard's "The Blog"
March 31, 2009
Freeman vs. Reality
Chas Freeman last month:
"The Taliban is not a direct military threat to the United States."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/03/freeman_wanted_out_of_afghanis.asp
The headline in today's Los Angeles Times:
Pakistan's Taliban leader threatens attacks in the U.S.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-threat1-2009apr01,0,1183316.story
So how would a "contrarian" like Freeman assess this report if he were, as Blair still wishes, head of the NIC?
--Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 05:38 PM
© Copyright 2008, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/03/freeman_vs_reality.asp
...when Israeli actions ...
...when Israeli actions ... are condemned, ... the democratic legitimacy of the opposing side is called into question. Instead of debating them on the merits
Pot, meet kettle.
When has the israeli lobby ever debated on the merits? They traditionally smeared anybody they didn't like as antisemitic. It's only recently that they've settled for things like accusing Freeman of being too friendly to saudis rather than not friendly enough to israel.
If the US public comes to ignore anybody who fits the label "zionist", if "zionist" gets more than half the connotation that "antisemite" has had for so long, it will be only what you deserve.
The use of "turnspeak" by the
The use of "turnspeak" by the first comment is classic. The very propaganda tactic used by the Lobby is projected onto the Lobby's critics. I'm sorry, but 8 years of Karl Rove has pulled the curtain back on that ploy.
Alina Romanowski
With all due respect, Prof. Walt, do you really think she is a good example of the Israel Lobby (you really seem to be arguing here that it's not the Lobby, but just Martin Peretz, who has a lot of power) derailing someone's career?
She is currently the second person listed on the State Department's "Senior Leadership" page:
http://exchanges.state.gov/about/senior-leadership.html
So are you saying that Ms. Romanowski is now a right-wing Likudnik, or are you saying that the number two person listed on the State Department's "Senior Leadership" page is not an "important foreign policy position"?
It has to be one of the two, right? Or...
I think you're suggesting a false dichotomy...
Peretz' Status
I would call Peretz a member of both the Zionist political economic oligarchy and also the Zionist intelligentsia.
Because there is no reason to treat the IDF as any less terrorist than the IRG, Peretz aids and abets Zionist terrorism.
By the standards of the wonderful anti-terrorism laws that are the legacy of the Bush II administration, Peretz should long ago have been arrested, stripped of all his assets, tried, convicted, and set to prison, where he belongs far more than Sami el-Arian or the HLF defendants.
false dichotomy...
Professor, not sure if you're still reading these, or if you plan to respond to my last post re: Ms. Romanowski (I know you are very busy and this is not your only job - and I appreciate that you responded at all to my first post).
But on the topic of false dichotomies, at one point, you write:
"Indeed, if Freeman were Israeli, he could write a regular column in Ha'retz and nobody would bat an eye."
Sure, but the Israeli public would likely more than merely bat an eye if their Prime Minister were to name Gideon Levy or Amira Haas to the equivalent post in their national security establishment as head of the NIC, or do you really think they wouldn't?
I understand the point you're trying to make, but "opinion columnist/pundit" is not equivalent to a top intel/national security position.
And I know you're just trying to make the "we don't have the same debate in the U.S. that Israelis can about Israel" - which is a valid discussion point, but just as I don't believe your Romanowski example bolsters your thesis, neither is your "Freeman as Ha'aretz columnist" particularly meaningful.
In the U.S., Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak, for example, are ubiquitous cable news pundits/columnists and pretty fierce critics of Israel and the U.S./Israeli relationship.
They could be Ha'aretz columnists too, as could you. I'm not really sure what that has to do with whether Freeman should have pulled his name out of the running for the NIC job or not.
I would like to wager that the Israelis would not appoint someone with Mr. Freeman's views (and yes, there are some in Israel - Ilan Pappe, Neve Gordon, Uri Avnery on your blog roll, etc....) to a top intel post, regardless of who Israeli newspaper editors choose to employ
They, along with Levy and Haas, shouldn't be expecting a call from the Prime Minister or Defense Minister any time soon.
What you said, Professor:
Here's what you said, sir:
"making uncritical support for the "special relationship" a de facto criterion for public service in important foreign policy positions."
Whereas before you said of Ms. Romanowski:
"suspect(ed) of being insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state"
So is it that she is now a true believer in "uncritical support for the 'special relationship'" (call it right-wing likudnik, ultra-zionist, or whatever descriptor you prefer so that it's not a "false dichotomy") between the U.S. and Israel, or is she just not in an "important foreign policy position"?
You intimate the latter, naturally::
"but it's worth noting that she doesn't appear to be in a position where she'd have a direct influence on major policy issues involving the Middle East."
But it's clear that you did not actually read her bio - which states this:
"In the career Senior Executive Service, Ms. Romanowski has 27 years of experience in three key national security agencies in the U.S. government. She came to the Department of State in June 2003 to establish a new office to oversee and manage the high-profile Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and served as its founding Director. For nine months she also served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs."
You'll notice that is well after the scenario you describe with Martin Peretz.
Or maybe you read did read her bio, but you are saying being "founding director" of a State Department office called the (high-profile, no less!) "Middle East Partnership Initiative" (or, for that matter, "Acting Deputy Assistant Sec'ty in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affiars") is somehow not a position with a "direct influence on major policy issues involving the Middle East"?
I can't imagine you'd actually argue that.
And she's been promoted to an even higher position at State since then.
She's really just not that good example of someone who has been railroaded out of important foreign policy positions (let alone ones with a direct impact on the Middle East) by the Israel Lobby.
Look, Walt needs examples to
Look, Walt needs examples to make his case. So what if the Alina Romanowski example isn't perfect, or even good? Cut him some slack, will you.
Anyway, he stretches the bounds of credibility with his examples, but makes up for it with his "solid" (if I may borrow from Walt) use of adjectives. I mean, if an editorial is overwrought, who would ever believe it? And really, who can disagree with the ever-alert? These just from the first paragraph:
"solid reportage"
"overwrought editorial"
"ever-alert Glenn Greenwald"
Game, set, match - Walt!
Oh, David!
Your wit is devastating.
:Takes a bow :-)
:Takes a bow
:-)
Facetious.
:)
Yes, Prof. Walt seems to
Yes, Prof. Walt seems to think adjectives can substitute for evidence.
Very funny and pathetic.
making a case with examples.....
you mean like the adjective anti-semite?
re: Freeman as a Moderate Israeli
S. Walt wrote "...though his views were in fact no more critical than comments frequently made by more moderate Israelis. Indeed, if Freeman were Israeli, he could write a regular column in Ha'retz and nobody would bat an eye."
A good illustration of how little you know about Israel.
The critical quotes attributed to Mr. Freeman, that I read were largely one sided and FEW Israelis would share his views.
And Haaretz is a paper few people in Israel bother to read so of course "nobody would bat an eye."
But more to the point Israeli newspapers are generally held in low esteem in Israel, much like other places in the world, and practice tabloid journalism. That is they use rumour and innuendo to generate headlines and interest,with little regard for the truth. Ha'Eretz follows that tradition and most of their editorials reflect an extreme and very extreme left wing point of view within Israel which regardless of the it's merit in no way is reflective at any level of the general views held by the public. Editorials in Israel are not usually reflective of any general held point of view, but are presented from extreme points of view to provoke, or in more charitable interpretation to stimulate, a public debate.
I would again point to the recent election results. Instructive is, Meretz Yahad the left wing party which would most agree with the general content of Mr. Freeman's statements got LESS THAN 3% OF THE VOTE.
Mr. Walt you understand little of our (Israeli)struggles, our culture or our history.
So please Mr. Walt stop saying that you are representing widely held or moderate Israeli views and you do so with our best interests at heart. You do neither.
Something tells me
you may not be serving as an honest arbiter of the range of public opinion in Israel, Ms. Chrome. Or Mr.
I would again point to the
I would again point to the recent election results. Instructive is, Meretz Yahad the left wing party which would most agree with the general content of Mr. Freeman's statements got LESS THAN 3% OF THE VOTE.
I see! You're basicly saying that there are no longer moderate israelis.
So why should americans support israelis in their immoderate behavior?
It used to be, israelis told us they had a problem they didn't know how to solve and would we help them. So we gave them everything they needed to feel secure and we tried to negotiate a peace. But it turns out the israelis didn't at that time want peace, they wanted to stall the negotiations. They pretended to negotiate and make it look like it was entirely the other guys' fault when it failed.
Now they aren't pretending any more. What role should america have in this?
Israel is a democracy. But so is serbia, and we bombed serbia for doing things no different from what israel has been doing.
No, I take it back. Serbia was doing institutionalised rape. Israeli soldiers have never been reported to rape palestinian women. In this one single way israel is better than serbia.
Wishful thinking from the Professor
Professor, this is just a wishful thinking, Freeman is the Patriot and he is realistically saw that there is nothing left to save of the State and resigned. I really respect this Guy's realistic decision, Patriots don't need to be saved, they are themselves the saviours if there is anything left to be saved. And you still try to save the State?!
Follow the Patriot's path Mate!
Be at least as courageous as the ex-soviets, dissolve the State!
Grand Sen~or.
What we need to do is
What we need to do is aggressively push back against the Making-The-World-Safe-For-Israel groups when they go after scholars and the like who dare voice a less than orthodox position. Particularly, we need to hammer down on AIPAC, and remind everyone over and over again whenever they try to slander someone as "anti-semitic" that these are Americans dedicated to serving the interests of a foreign nation. It's not illegal, but they have way too much pride for such a position, and need to be taken down a notch.
In the meantime, what would be nice would be if the US would come up with a single, clear platform of goals they want to see in a final solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, then declare that none of the participants is getting any goods unless they get cracking on it. I suppose the second part is unlikely, though, when you have a Congress with massive pro-Israel tendencies; they'd just pass the aid right over the resistant President's head.
Opposing censorship
If character assassination is the crime, then there are MANY criminals in public discourse.
Where were Freeman's supporters, arguing assertively for his skill, character, freedom from prejudice? The very vast majority of posts relative to his candidacy related to who was opposing it, rather than ANY statements of support of appropriateness for the job.
Why do you engage in character assassination of those that considered a gamut of concerns (including Israel) in their formation of doubt? (Pelosi for example). And, in the context of opposing character assassination as political means?
What specifically are you aware that was misrepresentative?
Do you believe that a man less outspoken but still committed to full uncensored data interpretation and transmittal upstream, cannot be found, one that there is no conspicuous basis for objection?
The anger of this story is all that has seen the light of day on the blogosphere, not the content of the discussion.
I can imagine Phil Weiss writing an insightful dramatically written piece on this describing Freeman's clear appropriateness for the job, as context for the story on the heat from and on the Israel Lobby, but ONLY after the fact. All silent on Freeman's behalf during the argument.
"I share your anger", is not the same message as "I actively support you".
A bevy
of diplomats signed a letter testifying to his 'appropriateness,' but they shouldn't have had to, as only one opinion ought to have mattered: that of DNI Dennis Blair.
Where was that published? I
Where was that published?
I didn't see Stephen Walt or Phil Weiss refer to that bevy, in the 30 or so blog posts on the topic.
You miss the point. This is a republic not a democracy.
Walt, like the diplomats themselves, was more concerned with the character assassination campaign being carried out to derail the legitimate prerogative of a presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed cabinet official. That isn't a crime, but just as much as the assassins were within their rights to oppose the nominee, other citizens are within their rights to oppose the fact of the campaign and the tactics used to wage it. Our position is that this campaign was disgraceful, and a new administration should have the space to fill posts according to their rights under the Constitution and statutes. It concedes the argument to you to comply with a request for a positive defense of the nominee on substantive grounds. Blair wanted him for the position; he is in a top position responsible for ensuring U.S. security, a position to which he was appointed as a result of the orderly unfolding of our democratic system. Blair needs to be given the deference that all top officials need to be given early in their tenures as they go about filling the positions in their portfolio.
Normal Relationship? Why?
Dr. Walt,
Why should U.S. even have a normal relationship with Israel?
It is a country that has imprisoned part of its population based on ethnicity/religion; has flouted more than 70 U.N. resolutions; attacked 3 of its neighbors in the last 3 years: Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza (although the latter would better be described as its own concentration camp), without much regard for civilian casualties. [Note I am not saying that they targeting civilians, only that the Israelis cavalierly did not much bother if many of the Arab lower-species civilians/cockroaches were murdered.]
Please have a look at Noam Chmosky's (a real upstanding moral Jew, btw) website for details:
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090119.htm
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090124.htm
Would you advocate that the U.S. have a "normal" relationship with Apartheid South Africa? Should the U.S. have had a normal relationship with Nazi Germany?
We should stand up for U.S. principles and the real basis of civilization: protection of the weak and oppressed, which, in this case, are the Palestinians.
Yes, they carry out terrorism against Israel which is wrong, but Israel denies them the right to even have a defense department -- no air force, no army, no navy. Plus the Palestinians do not get $3,000,000,000.00 per year from U.S. taxpayers for their military. What should they do? Please remember Americans carried out terrorism against the Brits when they were fighting the revolutionary war. Even a few brave Jews carried out terrorism against Nazi Germany.
These "terrorist" anti-Nazi Jews are glorified (properly) in Edward Zwick's movie 'Defiance'.
Hamas is using "the wrong means to fight for a just cause", as Gideon Levy (the true moral compass of Zionists) stated in his letter in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (see below).
So, had we any backbone, we should have an antithetical or adversarial relationship with Israel, until they renounce Apartheid and militant oppression, and dismantle settlements, and abide by U.N. resolutions, and give reparations to ethnic-cleansed Palestinians.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056269.html
Last update - 09:35 18/01/2009
Gideon Levy / An open response to A.B. Yehoshua
By Gideon Levy
Click here for more articles by Gideon Levy
Dear Bulli,
Thank you for your frank letter and kind words. You wrote it was written from a "position of respect," and I, too, deeply respect your wonderful literary works. But, unfortunately, I have a lot less respect for your current political position. It is as if the mighty, including you, have succumbed to a great and terrible conflagration that has consumed any remnant of a moral backbone.
You, too, esteemed author, have fallen prey to the wretched wave that has inundated, stupefied, blinded and brainwashed us. You're actually justifying the most brutal war Israel has ever fought and in so doing are complacent in the fraud that the "occupation of Gaza is over" and justifying mass killings by evoking the alibi that Hamas "deliberately mingles between its fighters and the civilian population." You are judging a helpless people denied a government and army - which includes a fundamentalist movement using improper means to fight for a just cause, namely the end of the occupation - in the same way you judge a regional power, which considers itself humanitarian and democratic but which has shown itself to be a brutal and cruel conqueror. As an Israeli, I cannot admonish their leaders while our hands are covered in blood, nor do I want to judge Israel and the Palestinians the same way you have.
The residents of Gaza have never had ownership of "their own piece of land," as you have claimed. We left Gaza because of our own interests and needs, and then we imprisoned them. We cut the territory off from the rest of the world and the occupied West Bank, and did not permit them to construct an air or sea port. We control their population registrar and their currency - and having their own military is out of the question - and then you argue that the occupation is over? We have crushed their livelihood, besieged them for two years, and you claim they "have expelled the Israeli occupation"? The occupation of Gaza has simply taken on a new form: a fence instead of settlements. The jailers stand guard on the outside instead of the inside.
And no, I do not know "very well," as you wrote, that we don't mean to kill children. When one employs tanks, artillery and planes in such a densely populated place one cannot avoid killing children. I understand that Israeli propaganda has cleared your conscience, but it has not cleared mine or that of most of the world. Outcomes, not intentions, are what count - and those have been horrendous. "If you were truly concerned about the death of our children and theirs," you wrote, "you would understand the present war." Even in the worst of your literary passages, and there have been few of those, you could not conjure up a more crooked moral argument: that the criminal killing of children is done out of concern for their fates. "There he goes again, writing about children," you must have told yourself this weekend when I again wrote about the killing of children. Yes, it must be written. It must be shouted out. It is done for both our sakes.
This war is in your opinion "the only way to induce Hamas to understand." Even if we ignore the condescending tone of your remark, I would have expected more of a writer. I would have expected a renowned writer to be familiar with the history of national uprisings: They cannot be put down forcibly. Despite all the destructive force we used in this war, I still can't see how the Palestinians have been influenced; Qassams are still being launched into Israel. They and the world have clearly taken away something else from the last few weeks - that Israel is a dangerous and violent country that lacks scruples. Do you wish to live in a country with such a reputation? A country that proudly announces it has gone "crazy," as some Israeli ministers have said in regard to the army's operation in Gaza? I don't.
You wrote you have always been worried for me because I travel to "such hostile places." These places are less hostile than you think if one goes there armed with nothing but the will to listen. I did not go there to "tell the story of the afflictions of the other side," but to report on our own doings. This has always been the very Israeli basis for my work.
Finally, you ask me to preserve my "moral validity." It isn't my image I wish to protect but that of the country, which is equally dear to us both.
In friendship, despite everything,
Israel and its Lobby is Worlds Greatest Security Peril
They were instrumental in bringing the Iraq War about. The suicidebomb-weapon, sometimes called 'the poor mans missile', got perfected in Palestine and Lebanon, and in Iraq found its greatest use ever. It came to Afghanistan in 2005 and later Pakistan. Allthough it is kind of taboo -- or perhaps Israel don't like to acknowledge that its enemy are able to make all these punches (and therefore enforces the taboo)(You say :"Oh they have no such control in the media to be able to do that" I say: "No?") -- it is a logical thought that many of those doing it are the ones with a motive, the Palestinians who in Iraq wanted to make a punch at Israels only ally on the face of the Earth, now when Israel itself is so difficult to hit. Now can you imagine all those Americans driving convoys up and down the country, and often very inexperienced - compared to the 3 year drafted israelis - exposing themselves and making easy tragets of themselves --- it must have been easy picking for all those who was brought up in a camp in Lebanon, without citizenship or any other rights, living destitute life there, unable to make a punch at those who have stolen their land. And likewise in Afghanistan and Pakistan we hear of many Arabs being present. If not Palestinians then Iraqies or someother Arabs, who have learned the trade in Iraq.
Now they have two fronts (3 with Pakistan), and they can turn up or down of the attacks on any of these fronts to confuse their enemy, Israels only ally on the face of the Earth.
And when the Americans start to withdraw troops in Iraq, it would be an ideal opportunity to increase the attacks in this country.
Americans! You must do something about the colony called Israel situated in the middle of Arabia - of all places - with an inhabitable surface area the size of Delaware and the adjacent Cecil County in Maryland. It is unheard of that such a tiny entity should be allowed every now and again to vrec havoc on U.S. common sense, its national interests, and its relations with that crucial part of the world.
Israel's right to govern itself and decide its own affairs constitutes the greatest security peril that the world have seen since WW2.
Let the Freeman case be the marker: Now begins Israel-rollback
Use the same uncompromising tactics as them, and roll back Israel by placing hefty sanctions on it, and demean it at every opportunity for all the injustices this tiny colony have done.
Take a look at the table below. If Israel had been closed down in, say 1965, none of the following would have happened:
Use the same uncompromising
Dream on Guys!
while you are dreaming the bid on the Monopoly is becoming a done deal;->>
As I keep saying, your only way out is to dissolve the Monopoly. I know it is tragic for you to do so, but that is the cost of staying realist;->
Grand Sen~or.
1967: 50.000 Palestinians
Hardly. Militant pro-Palestinian groups (including Arafat's) predated the 1967 war, and the same goes with Islamist groups.
Rabin died in 1995.
After Hezbollah had been shooting rockets at them from southern Lebanon for years, and after Hezbollah tried to kidnap Israeli soldiers on patrol.
"How about people who think
"How about people who think the United States and Israel should have a normal relationship, one similar to our relations with other democracies, and who believe that this would be better for the United States and Israel alike?"
Israel isn't a democracy, Stephen. It is a Jewish state. One can't be an ethnocentric state and a democracy at the same time.
"with some solid reportage by Walter Pincus"
The Pincus article is not nearly as solid as many are making it out to be. It makes absolutely no mention at all of the many prominent people who came out in support of Freeman (including 17 former U.S. ambassadors, including the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, and 7 intelligence officials) and offers no details of all the positive work he has done over the years, in fact doesn't mention any of the work he's done.
Pincus didn't offer any rebuttal to JINSA's false assertion, which he happily quoted, that Freeman was receiving money from foreign governments.
Hardly solid reporting.
Walt's Conflict of Interest?
Back in March 2006 Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer got Harvard endorsement for their initial attack on the "Israel Lobby".
But the first, and apparently only publication of this paper in a policy journal is in the September issue of "Middle East Policy," , which just happens to be Chas Freeman's flagship publication!
Now just in case you are wondering what Saudi money can do - Freeman boasts that
MEPC
(Odd - its not a Zionist publication, and the anti-AIPAC crowd claim Zionists control discourse - but hey, Freeman of all folks, with all his Saudi money, happens to be the man behind the number one policy rag on the middle east - cold water anyone?)
So there is some kind of nexus here between Mr. Walt and Mr. Freeman - that goes back several years- and which he as a blogger, should have disclosed. I am sure Mr. Walt is well aware where Mr. Freeman gets most of his money, and who his backers are.
Is it time to declare Mr. Walt part of the Saudi lobby?
Wrong again Mossad!
Allan (or Brad?),
you are wrong again. (how is the weather in Tel Aviv, btw?)
A version of the Israel Lobby was published in London Review of Books:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/print/mear01_.html
be sure to read the critique by Massing:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=19062
The basic message of the articles is that AIPAC wields an inordinate amount of influence and though supposedly representing a wide cross-section of pro-Israel Jewish voices (dovish to hawkish) in the US is in fact run by a
small clique of its administrators and tends, strongly, to favor the more right-wing militant and expansionist policymakers in Israel.
eg. from the New York Review article (by Massing):
====
"AIPAC claims to represent most of the Jewish community. Its executive committee has a couple of hundred members representing a wide spectrum of American Jewish opinion, from the dovish Americans for Peace Now to the militantly right-wing Zionist Organization of America. Four times a year this group meets to decide AIPAC policy.
According to several former AIPAC officials I have talked to, however, the executive committee has little real
power. Rather, power rests with the fifty-odd-member board of directors, which is selected not according to how well they represent AIPAC's members but according to how much money they give and raise.
Reflecting this, the board is thick with corporate lawyers, Wall Street investors, business executives, and heirs to family fortunes. Within the board itself, power is concentrated in an extremely rich subgroup, known as the
"minyan club." And, within that group, four members are dominant: Robert Asher, a retired lighting fixtures dealer in Chicago; Edward Levy, a building supplies executive in Detroit; Mayer "Bubba" Mitchell, a construction materials dealer in Mobile, Alabama; and Larry Weinberg, a real estate
developer in Los Angeles (and a former owner of the Portland Trail Blazers). Asher, Levy, and Mitchell are loyal Republicans; Weinberg is a Scoop Jackson
Democrat who has moved rightward over the years.
The "Gang of Four," as these men are known, do not share the general interest of a large part of the Jewish community in promoting peace in the Middle East.
Rather, they seek to keep Israel strong, the Palestinians weak, and the United States from exerting pressure on Israel. AIPAC's director, Howard Kohr, is a conservative Republican long used to doing the Gang of Four's bidding. For many years Steven Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, was the main power on the staff, helping to shape the Gang of Four's pro-Likud beliefs into practical measures that AIPAC could promote in Congress. (In 2005, Rosenand fellow AIPAC analyst Keith Weissman left the organization and were soon after indicted by federal authorities for receiving classified national security information and passing it on to foreign (Israeli) officials.)"
====
Um - did you not get the
Um - did you not get the "policy" part of "journal"?
But it figures - the hysterics here reveal that some people read the London Review of Books - for their policy.
Yup.
Brad - sorry - I mean Allan - great weather here in Tel-Al-A-vive
kindly send me your approved pro-zionist reading list
Kindly send me your approved pro-zionist reading list. I promise not to read anything else.
In return, here is another book for you to read, by an Israeli author, Ilan Pappe:
http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670
Ok?
COntrary to you, I read Ilan Pappe.
So?
There was ethnic cleansing - so? There was one in the creation of the modern Turkish, Greek, Pakistani, Indian, Hungarian, Czech...want me to go on?
I am not a revisionist. I don't deny historical facts.
But I also know what a "policy" publication is, and if you read my quote from Freeman's website, you could put 2 + 2 together, and realize that the LBR is not a bloody "policy" publication.
You want to deny the tie between
Saudis-Freeman-Walt?
Because that's what your arguments are distracting from!
Saudi connection?
...Let's hypothesize that there is a connection.
So?
I would be happy that we have a powerful pro-Saudi lobby since we get the fuel for our economy from them.
Ditto China.
China is our second biggest trading partner.
China lends us the most money.
We cannot live without China.
More power to Saudis and China. And to their lobbies.
What has our support of Israel gotten us, except make everyone with a US passport a terrorist target because of the (ongoing) injustice perpetrated by Israel(e.g. outlined in Pappe's book)? If you are not a revisionist, you know Israel is an illegal state (in its current militant oppressive apartheid form).
Having said that I think there is no Saudi-Walt connection. Your arguments are flimsy and contrived.
Plus we don't give $3,000,000,000.00 in military aid per year to Saudis.
Personally, I believe ALL paid lobbying should be illegal. Lets start from the most useless and counter-productive lobbying: the Israel Lobby. They give our representatives a few million and get a few billion per year from US taxpayers.
Personally, I believe ALL paid lobbying should be illegal.
Tell that to the Gazan Rocket Lobbyists.