Got To be Good News (Please God)

[kbo234]

What on earth is going on here? Would Obama really appoint a man to chair the National Intelligence Council who would say a thing like this? Has his appointment been confirmed?*

If this is true then something either very big or very strange is going on inside the halls of American power.

Freeman: Beyond the Pale

February 27, 2009 Posted by John at 10:15 AM

We wrote here and here about President Obama's appointment of Saudi shill Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council. Freeman's loyalty to Saudi Arabia and his outside-the-mainstream views on the Middle East make him a strange choice for the post, to say the least. But now even more explosive information about Freeman has emerged.

Check out this April 2002 program in which Freeman participated, sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Freeman's contributions included a tribute to the government of Saudi Arabia that began:

I urge anyone who has not done so to read the most profoundly self-reflective speech by a political leader that I have seen in the last quarter-century: Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah's December 2001 address to the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Muscat.

Freeman went on:

Saudis and other Gulf Arabs were shocked by the level of ignorance and antipathy displayed by Americans toward them and toward Islam after September 11. The connection between Islam and suicide bombing is a false connection. Kamikaze pilots were not Muslims.
Freeman's fealty to the Saudis was so striking that when it came time for questions from the audience, Michael Stein of the Washington Institute said:

It has been a long time since I read Alice in Wonderland, but I must say there has been a through-the-looking-glass quality to some of the things we have heard here. The Saudis have eliminated 5 percent of their educational material. What of the other 95 percent? What of the Saudi-financed madrassas that teach hatred of the West? I read the newspapers avidly, and I have yet to see a report from an objective journalist coming out of Saudi Arabia. By the way, I served in the navy in World War II; I seem to recall that even kamikaze pilots attacked military targets, not civilians. Perhaps I am not reading the program correctly; I wonder whether Ambassador Freeman was the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, or the Saudi ambassador to America. (Laughter.)

What was really shocking about Freeman's comments, however, were his references to the September 11, 2001 attacks:

And what of America's lack of introspection about September 11? Instead of asking what might have caused the attack, or questioning the propriety of the national response to it, there is an ugly mood of chauvinism. Before Americans call on others to examine themselves, we should examine ourselves.
***
[I]t is very difficult for me as an American to go to the region and hear such high levels of skepticism about the facts of September 11. I have a lot of confidence, more confidence than Hassan, in our institutions, and I accept that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden almost certainly perpetrated the September 11 attacks. Fifteen of the hijackers probably were recruited in Saudi Arabia. I accept that, but I can tell you, it is not accepted in the Arab region. The polls show that overwhelming numbers of people do not accept the official U.S. explanation of September 11.

I'm not sure whether Freeman's approval requires Senate confirmation or not. If so, one would hope that Republican Senators will ask him whether he still believes the September 11 attacks should have been an occasion for self-examination to determine "what might have caused the attack," and what "cause" he had in mind. Further, he should be asked whether it is still his view that al Qaeda "almost certainly" perpetrated the attack, what grounds for doubt he is aware of, and the identity of those, other than al Qaeda, whom he considers possible suspects.




* See what Paul Craig Roberts says (today 02/03/2009) about this here:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22128.htm

Quote: "With Rahm Israel Emanuel, an Israeli dual citizen, in charge of the White House and Obama’s schedule, Obama will have an even less independent foreign policy in the Middle East than Bush. Somehow someone among the Obamacons managed to put forward an appointment that could challenge the Israel Lobby’s stranglehold. Charles Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, former top Pentagon official, and president of the Middle East Policy Council, was chosen by Admiral Denis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, to head the National Intelligence Council.

The neocons went berserk. Steve Rosen, formerly of AIPAC, currently indicted as an Israeli spy, Gabriel Schoenfeld, who wants the New York Times indicted for allegedly violating the Espionage Act for reporting the Bush regime’s illegal spying, Daniel Pipes, who sees Muslim terrorists under every bed, Michael Rubin of the warmonger American Enterprise Institute, and Frank Gaffney, possibly the goofiest person in America, damned Freeman’s appointment as “deeply troubling,” because Freeman has an open mind on the Middle East situation.

In other words, if you are not on Israel’s side, you are disqualified.

There is no more certain indication of continuing war in the Middle East on Israel’s behalf than for Freeman’s appointment to be blocked.

Pay close attention to this one. If Obama succumbs to the Israel Lobby and nixes Blair’s appointment of Freeman, the US will have to finance interminable wars on top of trillion dollar bailouts and massive unemployment.

The US might not even make it to 2012 before it is a banana republic."

[Thermate911]

This is not intentionally written to rub you up the wrong way, kbo, but your 'God' isn't listening.

Just because this Freeman (irony or what?) character 'sides with the Saudis' doesn't mean he ain't hand-in-glove with the puppet masters, does it? Just angers one faction and raises the ante.

They're all at each others throats. Maybe they'll end up wiping each other out, in true criminal Valentines Day fashion?

Then we may thank whatever benign spiritual force we choose.

[kbo234]

[Thermate911]

Oops - so I did rub you up the wrong way. It's always the same when one's religion is knocked.

[kbo234]

Rather offensive and ignorant stuff, Thermate but seeing as you're only being personal, I'll let it go.

[Disco_Destroyer]

As God once said 'Now knock it off'

This should help


Link

[Thermate911]

Aahh, that's better; thanks D_D ;-) I sometimes wonder whether 'our' group lives on its own plane!

kbo, I PM'd you with an attempted apology at disturbing you but didn't send it. There's really nothing more to say over such a gulf, is there?

[truthseeker john]

[truthseeker john]

[Thermate911]

Getting close, IMO, truthseeker.

Interesting links but why oh why do scientists have to invent their own language? Eg. "Quantum Physics and Non-Interventionist Objective Special Providence" when they could say 'guys, looks like we're being run by a higher intelligence' ;-)

Have you come across Thornhill & Talbot's 'Electric Universe'?

http://www.holoscience.com/

or

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm

I find these concepts and discoveries truly refreshing and so very applicable to our present state of evolution. I can't find the primary source for the claim that our 'redundant' DNA is capable of acting as an electro-mgnetic communications system, but this article gives a hint...

http://www.potentiation.net/page2.html

---
Meanwhile, back on topic, is this the same Charles Freeman who wrote "The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason"?

mentioned here:
http://www.loc.gov/nls/tbt/2006/1janfeb.txt

[truthseeker john]

[truthseeker john]

[Thermate911]

[Disco_Destroyer]

42

[kbo234]

Freeman's out. Hope dies.

Predictable, disgusting, maddening.

Our countries are 'occupied' by Zionist financiers. There's only one government and it ain't the hoors we elect.

http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/03/charles-freeman-fails-loyalty-te st.html

March 10, 2009

Charles Freeman fails the loyalty test

By Glenn Greenwald

Obviously, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are rabid, hateful paranoids -- total bigots and anti-Semites -- for having suggested that there are powerful domestic political forces in the U.S. which enforce Israel-centric orthodoxies and make it politically impossible to question America's blind loyalty to Israel. What irrational lunacy on their part:

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.


In situations like this, it is often impossible to know whether the appointee really did voluntarily withdraw or whether he was forced out and is merely being allowed to say that he withdrew. To his credit, Adm. Blair was in the Senate this morning defending Freeman from the likes of Joe Lieberman, but everything that is publicly known about Freeman makes it seem unlikely that he would have voluntarily withdrawn due to the shrieking criticisms directed at him. If he were forced out -- and there's no basis for assuming he was until there's evidence for that -- then that reflects quite badly on the Obama administration's willingness to defy the Bill Kristols, Marty Peretzes, and National Reviews of the world when it comes to American policy towards the Middle East.

In the U.S., you can advocate torture, illegal spying, and completely optional though murderous wars and be appointed to the highest positions. But you can't, apparently, criticize Israeli actions too much or question whether America's blind support for Israel should be re-examined.

UPDATE: Prior to the announcement that the Freeman appointment was terminated, Max Blumenthal documented that the man leading the anti-Freeman assault was Steve Rosen, the long-time AIPAC official currently on trial for violations of the Espionage Act in connection with the transmission of classified U.S. information intended for Israel. Blumenthal also quotes foreign policy analyst Chris Nelson as follows:

Freeman is stuck in the latest instance of the deadly power game long played here on what level of support for controversial Israeli government policies is a "requirement" for US public office. If Obama surrenders to the critics and orders [Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair] to rescind the Freeman appointment to chair the NIC, 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 of the fight now under way.


Blumethal also suggested that right-wing Israel fanatics in the U.S. are particularly interested in controlling how intelligence is analyzed due to their anger over the NIE's 2007 conclusion that Iran had ceased its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“It’s clear that Freeman isn’t going to be influenced by the lobby,” Jim Lobe, the Washington bureau chief of Inter Press Service, remarked to me. “They don’t like people like that, especially when they’re in charge of products like the NIE. So this is a very important test for them.”


Blumenthal further noted that the leader of the anti-Freeman crusade in the House, Rep. Mark Kirk, is Congress' top recipient of AIPAC donations. Identically, Greg Sargent previously reported that, in the Senate, "concern" over Freeman was expressed by Sen. Chuck Schumer directly to Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
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?

UPDATE II: Andrew Sullivan on "The Freeman Precedent":

Obama may bring change in many areas, but there is no possibility of change on the Israel-Palestine question. Having the kind of debate in America that they have in Israel, let alone Europe, on the way ahead in the Middle East is simply forbidden. Even if a president wants to have differing sources of advice on many questions, the Congress will prevent any actual, genuinely open debate on Israel. More to the point: the Obama peeps never defended Freeman. They were too scared. 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.


Actually, Obama's DNI, Adm. Blair, did defend Freeman, but only today, and it's true that no other Obama officials did. As usual, it was a bipartisan onslaught of government officials marching in lockstep loyalty to AIPAC mandates, with nobody outside of some bloggers and online writers defending Freeman. Though I was just arguing yesterday that the rules for discussing Israel in the U.S. have become more permissive, and I still think that, this outcome was probably inevitable given the refusal of virtually all influential Beltway factions to deviate from mandated loyalty to the right-wing Israel agenda. That it was inevitable doesn't make it any less grotesque.

UPDATE III: Chuck Schumer -- who supported Bush's nomination of Michael Hayden for CIA Director despite his key role in implementing Bush's illegal eavesdropping program, and supported Bush's nomination of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General despite his refusal to say that waterboarding was torture -- is now boasting about the role he played in blocking Freeman's appointment, all based on Freeman's crimes in speaking ill of the U.S. Israel:

Charles Freeman was the wrong guy for this position. His statements against Israel were way over the top and severely out of step with the administration. I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing.


That's certainly evidence that (a) Freeman was forced out, and (b) his so-called "statements against Israel" were the precipitating cause.

[kbo234]

Freeman spells it out.

Freeman blames ‘Israel lobby’ for withdrawal

March 11, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Supporters of the Obama administration's aborted appointment for a top intelligence post said the former ambassador was unfairly tarred by pro-Israel pundits and advocates.

But lawmakers who led the successful campaign against the selection of Charles “Chas” Freeman said their concerns always had less to do with his criticisms of Israel than his financial ties to Saudi Arabia and a Chinese oil company with business dealings in Iran.

"This was not about Israel, it was about a revolving door through which Freeman rotated and was paid handsomely," said U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), after Freeman withdrew his name from consideration Tuesday.

The New York congressman was referring to the idea of the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia going from serving the U.S. government to being paid by foreign governments and then returning to government service.

"There was a steady revelation of financial conflicts of interest involving foreign powers that were troubling," said Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who along with Israel, led the opposition in Congress. "If it had simply been a dispute about Middle East policy, he would have survived."

Freeman lashed out at his critics Tuesday evening, releasing a statement blaming "the Israel Lobby" and "unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country" for his exit.

"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," he said. "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."

Freeman's appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, where he would have overseen the production of National Intelligence Estimates, had drawn criticism as soon as it became public.

The first criticism came in a blog post by former top AIPAC staffer Steve Rosen, who is under indictment for passing classified information to Israel. Soon after, a number of prominent commentators joined in the criticism, including Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard, and Jon Chait and Martin Peretz of The New Republic.

Many of those writers noted Freeman’s view that the Israelis were primarily responsible for the failure to secure a peace deal with the Palestinians and a 2006 speech in which he seemed to blame U.S. support of Israel for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. But several of the critics also raised other objections to Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

In suggesting that his “realist” foreign policy views were just as ideological as the “neonconservative” views of the previous administration, the critics stressed Freeman’s leadership of the Saudi-funded Middle East Policy Council, and highlighted his statements that Chinese authorities should have intervened earlier to “nip” the Tiananmen Square protests “in the bud” and never allowed such demonstrations in the capital.

In response, Freeman's defenders dismissed the concerns about China and Saudi Arabia as a smokescreen, insisting that the critics were motivated solely by their commitment to Israel. Among the defenders were two vocal critics of AIPAC -- Stephen Walt, co-author of the book “The Israel Lobby,” and the Israel Policy Forum’s M.J. Rosenberg.

Andrew Sullivan, a traditionally pro-Israel pundit not known for bashing AIPAC, also came down on Freeman’s side, calling “the hysterical bullying” of the appointee “repulsive.”

“Freeman’s appointment is the first skirmish in what could be an intense war for the soul of Obama’s foreign policy,” Sullivan wrote in the London Times. “The goal is not just to force one realist thinker to withdraw, but to ensure that policy towards Israel changes very, very little from the Bush years.”

But lawmakers who took up the fight against Freeman rejected this line of argument, insisting that his financial ties to Saudi Arabia and China were the big problem.

Israel, one of the legislators who requested an investigation of Freeman's financial ties, said he was concerned about Freeman's 12-year chairmanship of the Middle East Policy Council, which has received one-twelfth of its funding from Saudi Arabia. He also cited the $10,000-per-year that Freeman received for serving as a member of the international advisory board of the Chinese government-owned international China National Offshore Oil Company, or CNOOC, which has business dealings in Iran.

“It's a glaring conflict of interest,” Israel said Tuesday morning, before Freeman withdrew.

Israel, a member of the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel of the House Appropriations Committee, said the intelligence assessments that led the U.S. into the Iraq war were based on “political agendas and strong opinions,” which made him vow to never trust future assessments unless they come from “unimpeachable” sources.

“He is a walking opinion, not an independent intelligence analyst,” said Israel. Freeman is "entitled to be a strident critic of Israel and be a strident defender of China. He is not entitled to hold those opinions and make judgment on intelligence matters."

Meanwhile, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a longtime booster of human rights, wrote his own letter to President Obama last week outlining his objections to the appointment, specifically focusing on Freeman's ties to CNOOC and China's purchase of oil from Sudan throughout the Darfur genocide, as well as his use of the term “race riot” to describe a protest in Tibet.

“This cannot go through,” Wolf said in an interview Monday. “Do you realize the message this will send?”

At that time -- not long after a conversation with Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who had tapped Freeman for the post -- he urged the Jewish community to get publicly involved.

“I need some help,” he said.”Everyone who cares about Israel, Tibet, China, Darfur, Burma.”

Asked whether any such Jewish groups had been quietly urging him or others to get involved, Wolf said no.

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, though Freeman’s defenders said the pro-Israel lobby had quietly raised concerns with members of the media.

Israel also said he has heard from very few constituents and no lobbyists on the issue -- he said it was simply an issue he felt strongly about.

In exchanges with lawmakers, Blair had defended the choice.

At a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday morning, hours before Freeman's withdrawal, Blair said Freeman is "a person of strong views, of an inventive mind in the analytical point of view."

Freeman also was backed by a group of 17 former U.S. ambassadors, including two who served in Israel, Sam Lewis and Thomas Pickering. The envoys signed a letter of support that was sent to The Wall Street Journal describing Freeman as a “man of integrity and high intelligence who would never let his personal views shade or distort intelligence assessments.”

The most spirited defense of Freeman came from his son, Charles Freeman Jr., a former assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Affairs.

In a recent blog post on www.thewashingtonnote.com, the younger Freeman declared that he would like to “punch some of these guys in the face” and said his father’s “appointment is being challenged these days by a small cabal of folks that believe first and foremost in the importance of allegiance to Israel as a core U.S. priority.” He referred to his father’s critics as “low-lives,” “Israel first-ers” and “schmucks” while accusing them of smearing his father. And he accused Rosen of “chutzpah,” given his legal troubles.

Rosenberg, another of Freeman’s outspoken defenders -- and the only one connected to a pro-Israel organization -- told JTA that he read Freeman's speeches and writings and didn't have a problem with his views.

Instead, Rosenberg said, the real problem was what he described as the campaign to ensure that someone who has criticized Israeli policies is considered inappropriate to serve in the U.S. government.

“There's a perception that American Jews gang up to block the appointment of people they don't consider acceptable on Israel, and it's dangerous,” said Rosenberg, who is said to have butted heads with Rosen when both worked at AIPAC. “It reflects on the community as a whole, when it is in fact 10 people.”

In a blog post at TalkingPointsMemo.com, Rosenberg described the group of Freeman critics as “so oblivious to Jewish history that it believes it can recklessly put their interests in Israel above everything else and not expect to build strong resentment in Washington (it was strong enough, even before this).”

One Capitol Hill insider, though, seemed prescient on Monday when he said that the initial concerns about Freeman's criticism of Israel were not enough to stop his official appointment to chair the NIC about a week after it was first reported.

This person argued that Freeman's comments on China and Tibet, and his involvement with CNOOC, the oil company, were what would end up derailing the appointment.

“He was never vetted, where these kinds of things would come out,” said the source, referring to the announcement last week that the examination of Freeman's finances that is customary for all top appointments has not yet occurred. “While the initial point of contention may have been Israel, people became aware of a multitude of problems.”

[Thermate911]

[item7]

[Thermate911]

Certainly not but the psychological battering they can inflict is a short road to hell for the victim - lasts longer, too.

[item7]

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m52594&hd=&size=1&l=e