Open Thread on Freeman's Withdrawal

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/10/intelligence-pick-withdraws-amid-controversy/

Comments

[curious]

2 - 0 for aipac.

It seems US middle east foreign policy is going to be very distorted again. This is like watching train wreck in slow motion. Highly predictable disasterous result.

[PirateLaddie]

Ah, well -- so it goes. I guess it's just not acceptable for a president to have someone managing his IC account who hasn't drunk from the font of the Lobby. Might Bernie Madoff be an acceptable candidate for the job?

[J]

This is sad for our nation, that a distinguished individual like Freeman and his fine record were liabeled by the Israeli lobby to such a point that Freeman folded his tent.

[ServingPatriot]

COL,

What else is there to say? This is total BS.

One day, we are going to act like Americans again. But not today.

Sadly,
SP

[Hank Foresman]

This is wrong, wrong, wrong, the key to effective government is diverse views, I guess the new political correctness has taken hold. Israel is a legitimate state but it is not above criticism. . .we should copy the French who have made it a great sport of being critical of the United States.

[castellio]

Painful. How can the American people and its government ever get accurate information when the channels are controlled?

[LeaNder]

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/>Powerful statement by Freedman

Interesting: the "China citation", if this is true, they are really sick:
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=235>Nelson Report via Jim Lobe.

Glenn Greenwald: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/10/freeman/index.html>Charles Freeman fails the loyalty test

Seems this definitively would have been the right person.

So: Yes we cannot.

[gordon]

the israel lobby is alive and well

[Abu Sinan]

So much for the idea that the Obama camp might even be a bit more fair handed.

[Cieran]

Any time you've got Pete Hoekstra [R-2nd District, State of Rapture] speaking out on something important, you know it's going to end up ugly.

[eakens]

1 point for aipac

[Dick Durata]

A black day, but don't miss Freeman's statement.
When will we say, "Enough!"?

[Yohan]

Can there be any further doubt that "the Lobby" exists and has veto authority?

This man was more than qualified to take this possition, but had to withdraw because he was, "too entangled in foreign affairs to handle the job." What a joke! I'd like to see the exact same bar be set for other appointees like Dennis Ross and co. I guess they hung out with "good" foreigners and had "good" conflicts of interest.

The unwillingness of official Washington to call a spade a spade for the sake of special interests is fatal to policy, and this is yet another example. This is what happens to those who speak plainly.

[Ael]

Freeman's statement:
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/10/freeman_speaks_out_on_his_exit

[Jon T.]

Looks like (1) don't call a spade a spade (2) it's all right to be affiliated with Israel (e.g. E. Abrams, D. Feith) but not the Saudis where public policy counts.

That's a shame.
It's shame driven and power hungry. Hammurabi code wins again. So sad, too bad. No forgiveness in this hear world.

Say, who's controlling the Opium crop these days and to what end?

Long ago during the Viet Nam war an African American inner city man came to the campus I attended and explained that whole Catch-22 to us. Still's the deal, eh?

And btw, exactly where is Mr. O Bin Laden? Are you sure he is not all cleaned up in an Italian Tessori black pinstriped suit, that 6'4" dude ducking into Sardi's working his Blackberry, fomenting CDS vortex explosion? Hidden in plain sight bye the bye? And US enjoying the confused profit margin.

Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman pass by. (WB Yeats)

Szervusz

[curious]

So here is what I sense,

Remember that funny Navy vs. chinese ship incidence? (total prankish).

Anybody remember that Surveillance plane vs. chinese airforce during Rumsfeld tenure?

Both have this prankish quality that lead to, hey 'can we re-start the cold war'? .. The entire neocon show has just begun again. I almost expct Rumsfeld showing up on TV and say "hey, can we attack China yet?"

My next guess, we gonna have wen ho lee type of media campaign. The danger of yellow peril, tied to china vs. US trade friction. But the big point is, somebody wants to ignite a cold war. (any war will do it, as long as it sells weapon and flush the think-tank with cash.)

Second, missile defense. It's a gigantic military industrial project involving nearly ALL of republican defense establishment ($80B plus change annually) So you can expect somebody is going to find a reason why we need a star wars/missile defense ... (Picking up a fight with russia, or what not...who is not important. Its the money)

Middle east: pure neocon agenda re-run. I think Hillary will run hard right in 6 months. I frankly think the entire middle east diplomacy has turn into kabuki and noone expects any change. The cumulative effect will be Israel aggression in 2 years. (Syria, Iran, Lebanon. )

the usual script, this is going to be a complete rehash of Iraq war run up:

- weird media report (I am waiting for next Judith Miller)
- heating up echo chamber (TV talkings head, the usual circle)
- senate start squacking demanding war
- UN gambit
- saber rattling

the detail may be different, eg. hopefully Obama administration won't push for war. But DC think-tank will push te media, while tying Obama in some this or that scandal. (Clinton gambit that resulting in Iraq liberation act, which then pretty much set up the stage for Bush Iraq invasion. I hope Obama doesn't like BJ.)

Second biggest thing to watch. Pentagon is utterly penetrated by Israel/pro-Israel operative. So reports and analysis are going to follow pro-Israel think-tank script. (eg. Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Russia, China)

The basic plot is set, It's now how they gonna do it.

(Iraq will be fubar. afghanistan doubly so. but we are waiting for what is the shape of report and leadership team that will execute the policy. this ought to be interesting.)

[Subkommander Dred]

Sir;
Watching what is going on in the Obama administration has left me very disapointed. In fact, I feel a lot like Johnny Rotten at the last Sex Pistols concert. The band by this time had pretty much hated each other, and Sid Vicious was strung out on cheap smack, bashing a bass guitar mindlessly with no musical talent whatsoever. So, Johnny Rotton, singer of the band, disgustingly yells out to the crowd: "Do you ever feel like ya been cheated?"
That's kind of how I feel right now, like I been cheated. So much for change you can believe in. AIPAC, multinationals, Saudi's and various assorted rich pricks still run the show. I was a fool to believe it would ever be different.

Dred

[different clue]

Since my knowledge is limited to what I can read in the totally open public prints; I have to wonder what will never be reported about who said what to whom behind closed and sound-proofed doors. Why would Ambassador Freeman withdraw his name so soon and suddenly after being publicly and strongly praised and wished for by Obama and Blair? Did he himself not wish to subject himself to a feast of accusation in the public prints and a pack of rude stupid questions from a bunch of ill-informed Congressfolk? Did Obama simply not want another "nominee controversy" after the "Daschle controversy"? Will this look to the whole Diplomatic Corps like a lack of backup after backup was promised? Would this make any other tough-minded prospective nominee not even want to be bothered? If people inside government decide that Obama was forced to back down on Freeman; will people inside government try backing Obama
down over and over on key issues?

The several different groupings of statements-or-involvements-giving-rise-to-dismay make it look as though several different interest-grouped bunches of people might have wanted to prevent this nomination. The statements about Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan would upset the AIPackers of
course. The threat of objectivity in estimating about Iran would upset anyone who wants to spread the war to Iran.

But what brings statements about China into this? Are these diversionary comments found and broadcast by neoconservatives who wish to
create the appearance of separate concerns held by others not connected to the Israel Lobby? Or could these really be concerns held by others not connected to the Israel Lobby? I know we used to have a China Lobby in this country (really an "anti-China pro-Taiwan" Lobby) which strongly affected China policy for several decades. Could remnants of the China Lobby still survive? Could this be their Last Hurrah? (I heard a news report that Ambassador Freeman referred to the recent unrest in Lhasa as a "race riot". If parts of the China Lobby are morphing into a Tibet Lobby, might they be separately upset about that?)

Why would Peter Hoekstra of Michigan be so upset? Is he a Dutch Reformed Churchmember who feels like he has his own concerns about China? Is he connected to Dutch Reformed local powergroupings in and around the Holland, Michigan
area? ( I believe I once remember Clifford Kiracofe mentioning many threads ago that members of this power-grouping were referred to by some as the "Van Der Fucks". It makes me wonder what Mr. Kiracofe thinks about all this. Are there really this many moving parts and pieces? Or is my tinfoil hat doing my thinking for me on this?)

Regardless; if Obama and Blair really did support Freeman as strongly as they say they did, and if they would have backed him up to the bitter end, and if Freeman himself chose to withdraw; I find myself wondering whether a scorched-earth political battle waged on Freeman's behalf by Obama, Blair, and whomever else they could recruit might have been a good thing.

[Castellio]

Dick Durata asks "When will we say 'Enough!'"

When we quit saying "Uncle! Uncle!"

It's about freedom.

[JerseyJeffersonian]

What follows is a letter I sent to both of my Senators as well as my Congressman. Embedded within that communication is a letter that I sent to the White House. Text follows:

(Senator or Congressman,)

The following is a letter I sent to the White House regarding the withdrawal of Ambassador Charles W. Freeman from his appointment by the DNI to the post of Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. I expect you also to carry the national security needs of the United States uppermost, and not those of other nations, something sagely advised by President George Washington in his Farewell Address. I don't have any use for fifth columnists such as AIPAC or JINSA, and neither should you if you truly care for your country. The text of the letter follows:

Sir,

I write to express my extreme displeasure with the way in which Ambassador Charles W. Freeman, DNI Dennis Blair's choice as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council has been forced to withdraw his candidacy. This victory for the scurrilous rumor-mongering of the "Israel First" crowd is intolerable. Your abject surrender to the disreputable tactics employed to undermine this eminently qualified, experienced, and patriotic public servant speaks volumes about your lack of commitment to the sort of truly diversified and clear-eyed assessment of our nation's national security that has been so sorely missing in the last administration. Platitudes about "bi-partisanship" are cheap; leadership demands sterner stuff. I am appalled by the failure to support your DNI by fighting for his choice for this crucial position.

In Disgust,
*************

Boy, I sure feel better.

[curious]

Schumer did it?

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/10/did_chuck_schumer_kill_the_freeman_appointment
Did Sen. Charles Schumer, as the New York Democrat seems to imply here, kill the appointment of Chas Freeman to chair the NIC?

Not so, said Freeman by e-mail: "Schumer deserves no credit. This was between me and [DNI Adm. Dennis] Blair and for the reasons stated."
"Schumer didn't need anyone to tell him" Freeman was problematic, said one former official at a pro-Israel group. "He's been in the business a long time, and he’s got good staff. But that doesn't mean they didn't call AIPAC for research material." (An Aipac official told the New York Times that the group "had not taken a formal position on Mr. Freeman’s selection and had not lobbied Congress members to oppose it.")
"Freeman’s resignation leaves big unanswered questions," the former lobby group official continued. "Was the White House blindsided with this appointment because Blair never cleared the choice of his old friend or gave Team Obama a chance to vet him? The result is Blair handed a big gift to the administration’s enemies."
The controversy surrounding the appointment shows that the Obama administration "forgot number one what vetting is supposed to be about," a former Hill foreign policy staffer said. It's not, as has recently been employed on multiple would-be nominees, he continued, "about having IRS lawyers" searching through decades of receipts. "It's a classic vet," about whether someone has perceived or actual baggage or conflicts of interest.

[rfk]

Chas Freeman isn't just a patriot and long suffering diplomat and civil servant of the US of A and a competent professional, he is also a highly regarded member of the foreign policy establishment and the broader US 'establishment' of power. I'm fairly certain this is not going down well in many quarters. Nor am I persuaded this is merely an Obama snafu over improper vetting or that Dennis Blair acted alone in Freeman's nomination as "unscrupulous" others are braying, who serve and have "a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country." The lead villain in this affair once warned that: “A lobby is like a night flower...It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.” That traitor has just massively violated a core maxim in securing the ouster of Chas Freeman. The 'war in heaven' as described by a journalist between 'realists' and neocons during the Bush regency is now evolving into a greater war between "truly enlightened and independent patriots," and the slavish servitude of traitors whose primary loyalties are to a foreign power. If America has any destiny at all the former must triumph over the latter as Americans did some 200 years ago against a similar danger in different dress.

[jr786]

Obama is either a coward or a waterboy for Israel. he doesn't deserve any respect whatsoever.

On a positive side, the lobby spent a lot of capital on this one, certainly exposing themselves to the light of day. I have to believe that plenty of people had their eyes opened.

As for me, the Irseal Firsters who submarined Freeman are not my fellow citizens but fifth columnists for a terrorist state.

An absolute disgrace.

[srv]

When the original post on Freeman went up, I was going to comment that this was Rahm offering up red meat for the lobby to put a stake in.

I thought I thought better of it.

[Ian]

"Does anyone doubt that it's far more permissible in American political culture to criticize actions of the American government than it is the actions of the Israeli Government? Isn't that rather odd, and quite self-evidently destructive?"

Glenn Greenwald