Exiting, Chas Freeman Attacks ‘Israel Lobby’

I think Mr. Freemans letter serves to confirm the anti-israeli sentiments that had been the subject of debate, until now.
His vituperative language is atypical for expressing regrets and withdrawing a nomination.
Clearly he feels Obama will not be able to deal with the mideast “his way”, which is so frustrating to Mr. Freeman that I think, if true, I am glad.
Now we need to carefully assess and review the record of the next appointee for consistency or differences and I think we will understand much more. If Mr. Obama selects someone who does not have a documented record, that too would beg the question, why?

Another dog bites man story. This type of faux outrage over anti-hegemonic opinion is so commonplace that its hardly worth mentioning. The purges of the 1950′s are still with us.

What is the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center there for in the first place but collecting illegal intelligence on American citizens. Google the film “Hate Laws” or the SPLC and the Oklahoma city bombing, for an eye opener… if you have never heard of this before

Good for Mr. Freeman; he’s my new hero of the day. It’s time someone with respect and broadcast stated the truth about the Israili lobby. He’s not attacking or critizing Jews or Israel, but the lobby that’s been distorting our government directives for too many years. There will be no peace in the Middle East with them controlling our government decisions.

You know what I would like to see about now? That tape the LA Times wouldn’t release before the election. I’d like to know how Obama responds when he is in the presence of people saying similar things.

It always amazes me when such obviously bright people are so stupid. Freeman’s little cable proves the case against him doesn’t it? Just another sicko garden variety anti-Semite. We’ve had enough of rigid ideologues overseeing our country’s intelligence. Glad we dodged this nut.

Mr. Freeman amply demonstrates, in his hate-filled withdrawal cable, the kind of man he is. We are fortunate to not have him in government.

Sheesh. What good are journalist these days, I could get more honest reporting from a five-year old.
I take that back, that’s an insult to five year olds.
Posted by: TRW | Mar 10, 2009 10:38:24 PM
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i beg to differ sir…
dishonest he isn’t.
biased / misleading / petty / boring / predictable / etc /etc he is.

How many other State Department retirees become Saudi Arabian shills?
Freeman was on the payroll of a foreign country which while an ally of the U.S. in some way also promotes a violent anti-American agenda in its educational system within, and globally.

I’m quite certain that in the dozens of criticisms I’ve read of Freeman’s appointment, none of them displayed quotations in their full context. In fact, many didn’t even link to the full text that was available online. The only criticisms that I ever saw portrayed accurately were (1) Freeman thought declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization would lead to terror attacks against American interests and (2) Freeman wasn’t perfectly consistent in saying whether or not American support of Israel motivated 9/11. If a record of unblemished prescience and consistency were a requirement for the NIC chair, every single person I’ve seen leveling criticism against Freeman has been completely unqualified to comment on the matter.

STALKING HORSE. I think “Chas” was that, plain and simple. Look carefully who will be appointed next because he is likely to be even more foreignly corrupted or compromised than “Chas” was alledged to have been. But the opponents of “Chas” will rest on their laurels and accept the new candidate who not will be carefully vetted or examined.

Basically, anyone who does not support Israels policies of aperthied state, is an antisemite. Go figure.
In anycase, Israeli Lobby, in conjunction with NeoCons, got us into Iraq. Do people remember the advertisements on the CBS radio where AIPAC was advocating attacking Iraq?
America has become a stooge for Israel. We are being controlled by Israel to do what they want us to do at any time.
Everyone knows that the road to the White House is through Israel.
I don’t understand why Israeli Lobby is doing what it is doing? It has hurt America, in American Blood Shed, attack on our home, and lost money in defending Israel to the tune of 4 billion per year for many many years.
And all of these resources have been wasted. It hasn’t improved Israels security, Israels image, or its standing in the world community. Infact, antisemitic incidents are up. For last 50 years there has been continuation of war with this strategy. What makes you think the next 50 years are going to be easy for Israel?
Lets get real, when and if Israel decides to play fair, and give freedom to its minorities, thats the day the world will breath a sigh of relief, and tensions will go down.
There is nothing to loose to give peace a chance.
Brack Obama, you keep doing what you are doing. You are the best hope from this mad world!

I’m sad that Jake Tapper is ‘perplexed’.
Perhaps Freeman can better speak truth to power (newsflash: the Israel government isn’t always on the right track) from the outside than he would have been able to from inside the U.S. government.
So Jake, how about one (1) column on what you really think of the illegal settlements and the so-called ‘Greater Israel’ geographic boundaries? Or are you going to continue to shut your eyes tightly and pretend those settlements don’t exist, and that ‘Greater Israel’ is some fairy tale from long ago?
Time for you to man up and report exactly what is going on – the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Go ahead – the truth isn’t going to kill you, and in the long run facing reality will help Israel survive.

I rest my case. It looks like Andrew Sullivan and Ben Smith are actually doing what us common folk call…”journalism” while Tapper was busy being too “perplexed” to check out the back story to the opposition to Freeman’s appointment.

It wasn’t Jews who attacked us on 9/11. It’s the same people who are also attacking the Jews.

abc news ,chas freeman is the truth. israel is a nation based on lies and stolen property .
benjamin franklin wanted to bar jews like madoff from living in the usa because ge knew their national history ,i.e. usury for profit.
chas freeman said the truth . and evan ,yes the zionist lobby is and has been calling the shots in us government ,policy wise in the middle east since the mid late 1800s.
all the zionists want is to illegally steal and occupy someone elses rightful land and/or influence other entities so as to be able to achieve their zionistic/jewish intents. and they ll use the holocaust (sympathy)
zionist lobby (money for you cha ching! or character assassination if the money wont buy you e.g. chas freeman,among others ) or military means ( read the news,daily) to get what they want.
talk about the elephant in the room…

Unbelievable!
Any negative comment about Israel by anyone becomes labeled as anti-semitism by Jews anywhere.
Then, the real anti-semites come out of the woodwork and make everyone so disgusted that they don’t bother to comment anymore.
Personally, I am so disgusted by both sides, by our involvement in their middle-east problems. I think we should boycott and embargo the entire area. I will not purchase anything made or grown in Israel or any Moslem country either. Let the two sons of Abraham duke it out all by themselves, unaided by anyone, winner take all. I don’t give a damn anymore which of the two idiocies survives.

ralph nader the democrat (snicker)
LMAO!

Maybee: You know what I would like to see about now? That tape the LA Times wouldn’t release before the election. I’d like to know how Obama responds when he is in the presence of people saying similar things.
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I’d like to see that as well. The Freeman appointment presents some intriguing possibilities about Obama’s mideast leanings.
Additionally, he selected a person for the post who was so controversial even Chuck Schumer opposed him. The president had to know there would be strong opposition yet he failed to support his candidate.
What was that all about?

Ok, let me get this straight. Two countries want to annilate each other, and instead of taking sides, we try for a more peaceful approach. Yet republicans would rather take a side so they can watch a war continue in the middle east? Are they so hung up on Capitolism that they want to continue selling our Cold war weapons to Israel? Is this a real Republican extremist conspiricy to let the middle eastern religions wipe each other out? Why are Republicans so against Peace? We heard McCain sing Bomb Iran. Now the Republicans want to roadblock peace in foreign countries. Is this a Roman Empire thing?
Is the Republican Devil(Limbaugh) at play? Hoping for the End of Days?

I keep being reminded by The Colbert Report and the Daily Show that hypocrisy is the food and drink of politics. Let is remember that those who said that they hold certain truths to be self-evident, including the equality of all men and the right to liberty, also were slave owners who supported a campaign of genocide against Native Americans. The idea that democracy includes the right to free speech and respect for the positions of others also suffers from the same defect. Freeman may not always be right, but his views are well-reasoned, based on experience and expressed with openness and integrity. A democratic system should welcome the opportunity to debate and reconsider long-held policy views. Another lost opportunity to demonstrate that political America believes in the meaning behind the high-sounding words in its own Constitution. His letter, posted in full elsewhere (not in this report) is emotional and passionate – but also reasoned and measured. I am relieved for him that he has chosen the comfort of a private life.

Rahm Emanuel served in the freaking IDF (Israeli army), and yet nobody questioned whether or not he could serve as the Chief of Staff. Yet someone so much as criticizes Israeli policy, and they’re too radical to serve?
Need I remind you all that Israel is a religious state with legal discrimination against non-Jews? How does that comport with American values? And how on G-d’s green earth do the system of settlements match American values?

btw, when gingrich tried to claim “a clawback would hurt capitalism and enterprising businesses” this weekend, realize we are hearing more lies from the disgraced. gingrich and starr are getting too much press lately, after all they are the ones who preside over the school that runs the 3rd rate diploma mill that turned out such fine talent as blagovich. it is their form of hijacked religion and fanatical extremism that created such “religious lawyers” as the disgraced goodling. his ilk makes me VOMIT!

jpt: “only in Freeman’s case does the nominee make an allegation that a foreign power was lurking nefariously somehow behind it all”
Excuse me, Jake Tapper, but Chas Freeman specifically targeted the pro-Israel lobby in D.C. as source of his difficulties. Nowhere in his statement does he directly implicate the intrigues of a foreign power, Israel.
Please don’t deliberately twist Freeman’s prose into a verbal pretzel in order to either conflate the pro-Israel lobby with the State of Israel itself, or to mock the man as some sort of pro-Arab radical lunatic for having the nerve to say something with which you might personally disagree — lest you desire that some of us come to question YOUR own motives for doing so.

“What’s perplexing about this that so much of what critics objected to were Freeman’s statements, in full context.”
The China issue was a red herring. The Nelson Report newsletter reviewed the contents of the widely cited statement by Freeman about Tienanmen in 1989 and found that it was taken completely out of context and distorted.
There is no evidence so far to substantiate charges that there was anything improper about the Saudi funding for Freeman’s institute. Blair addressed that question yesterday.
It appears that these tangential and frivolous issues were raised to disparage Freeman’s character and make him seem like a “controversial” figure generally, while clouding the waters about the opposition’s real concern: Freeman’s realist orientation toward U.S. – Israel relations, which on its own would not have been disqualifying.
The whole episode does not bode well for middle east policy. Ideology continues to trump reality.

Freeman is right. U.S. unrealistically disproportionate support for Israel has given it the green light to steal Palestinian land, imprison millions of men, women and children, inflict disproportionate slaughter (“war” is a misnomer), lose credibility as a “peace” broker, marshal a violent Arab backlash against the U.S., allow the U.S. to be culpable for aiding and abetting war crimes, U.S. losing respect throughout the world, etc., etc.
All this has occurred because of the blind one-sided approach that Israel can do no wrong cultivated by the Israeli lobby in Washington.

AIPAC got us into Iraq war, 8000 of our finest men died there in addition to tens of thousands Iraqi’s. Now AIPAC is at it again, This time around its Iran.
Mr. Obama, you must support your men and stop this madness created by AIPAC.

Forcing Freeman out because his attempt to invoke an objective approach in the Middle East again shows how Israel’s tail wags the US dog.
Hypocritically, Israel’s Bibi-led extreme right wing government will be against a two-state solution, against good-faith negotiations, in favor of settlements, loyalty oaths by Israeli citizens of Arab descent, disproportionate military assault, expanding into a third Mideast war in Iran and including ultra-conservative religious parties led by ayatollah-like rabbis.
While not a single Major Jewish Organization has spoken out against Israel’s extreme right wing, they pounce on an an experienced U.S. diplomat who has taken a much more objective approach than the Bibi/Lieberman coalition.

Chas. Freeman is a paranoid nutcase who has fed at the Saudi trough for well over a decade. The NIC requires an experienced, objective intelligence analyst–he was neither. Why Obama through Blair would even consider him is deeply troubling, and speaks volumes about the Administration’s position on intelligence.

Israel creates and perpetuates its own problems and the US enables them to do so. This is not to say that Israel doesn’t have its enemies or deserve US support, but we’ve been on the wrong path for a long time. Ron Paul had a pretty good assessment of this during last year’s campaign.

This is another example of the bias that the media/beltway has when concerning two or three untouchable topics. I won’t bother to mention these protected things that we don’t dare talk about in our ‘free speech’ world. I believe that Israel is sacrosanct. When you play this card it’s time for the other players to fold their hands.

Jake,
can u say ouch?

@ agreed rahm imanuel NEVER served in the israeli defense force, it was his father, get your fact straight. also,
@ davey, did you know that clinton was a demoncrat president charged with the responsibility to protect and defend The United States of America and did NOTHING for 8 years despite 3 attacks on the world trade center, 2 attacks on American embassies and an attack on the USS Cole, demoncrats are for doing NOTHING when attacked NOT PEACE!

jpt: “What’s perplexing about this that so much of what critics objected to were Freeman’s statements, in full context.”
Wrong. Only if your premisse is that “Israel is NOT to be criticized” are Freeman’s statements “perplexing”. In Israel itself, those statements are shared by a LARGE section of the Israeli population.

“did you know that clinton was a demoncrat president charged with the responsibility to protect and defend The United States of America and did NOTHING for 8 years despite 3 attacks on the world trade center, 2 attacks on American embassies and an attack on the USS Cole…”
No I didn’t know that, and the reason why is because it’s baloney. Clinton had an aggressive anti-terrorist program running but you probably didn’t notice it because most of it was covert -he didn’t launch any invasions. It was some of Clinton’s people on the way out the door that warned the Bush administration that they thought a major attack was in the planning but Bush’s people ignored them.
So who failed to protect us more?

Steve, get YOUR facts straight. Rahm DID serve for one year in the IDF. He holds dual U.S./Israeli citizenship. His father belonged to the terrorist organization, “Irgun”, where he proudly participated in the bombing of the King David Hotel (killing many innocent people).

majority of you posters are just blind to the truth. You dems and repubs alike are like 2 sets of monkeys in a zoo flinging ##### at each other. Thats all that comes out either sides mouth is crap.
First of all, The lobby he Chas is talking about is so powerful had he been appointed majority of senators who this lobby contributes too would have crushed his nomination on the fear alone they would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions.
This does not stop on one side of the isle or the other, this lobby purchases anyone and everyone and has a long history of getting back anyone who opposes their view.
Simply do a search with the lobbies name and political careers they have destroyed.
As independent voter, im tired of both sides, all you rebulicrats stop ruining our country.
ITS OUR COUNTRY, not rebulicans, not democrats, not indies, not Israels, not Saudis but OURS, so stop thinking left and right and around the box start thinking center and whats inside (its us if your to stupid to figure it out)you may find this country gets some of its respect back

The NIE needs to be run by an objective technocrat not a polical wonk like Chas. Freeman. The United States needs realistic intelligence not filtered through someone with an obvious preexisting bias.

hopesprings52 – Don’t kid yourself. Last I checked the settlements and checkpoints were expanding. Before you comment you need to do the research. Look at a picture of the West Bank and the settlements. Israel is also taking all of the water from the Jordan away from the Palestinians. Quit turning a blind eye to Israeli crimes.

Huh- While mentioning crimes, why not mention Hamas’s violations of law? Like launching thousands of rockets randomly in the direction of Israeli towns. Like summarily torturing and murdering their political opponents. Like holding an Israeli soldier without access to international human rights organizations. Like broadcasting anti-semitic hate speech, and teaching their own children to be suicide bombers. The fact you have failed to mention any crimes of Hamas and Fatah is clear proof that all your comments are nothing but arab propaganda. The lands where settlements are expanding are disputed, not occupied, under international law, and are in no way illegal. The arabs’lack of adherence to the Oslo accords is sufficient reason for Israel to ignore her side of the deal. How foolish for Israel to uphold an agreement while the other side has done nothing but lip service.

micky – If my comments are Arab propaganda then yours surely are Israeli propaganda! By the way my so-called propaganda is deeply rooted in the Golden Rule with transcends all religions. Your propaganda is that Israel can do know wrong. Rockets are wrong, but so to is stealing potable land away from the Palestinians and keeping them locked between checkpoints.

For years our country has been at the mercy of the zionist mafia. Nixon tried to stop it. The Obama administration is showing it’s also willing to put up a fight so that America can once again do what’s in the best interest of Americans. I find this discourse encouraging becasue the more we can have an open debate about these issues without it being labeled anti-semitic — which it is fundamentally not — the better off we will be as a nation. Most of the educated world knows the fight we are in and finally the underbelly of the zionist movement in this country is being exposed to the light of day in America.

Kathleen, Go check out the Moveon sites and their ilk. They have been well funded by people like George Soros who has bankrolled not only Obama’s disingenuous campaign, but much of the radical anti-Israel agenda.

“First of all, The lobby he Chas is talking about is so powerful had he been appointed majority of senators who this lobby contributes too would have crushed his nomination on the fear alone they would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions.”
—————————————-If Freeman had no chance, the President was foolhardy to suggest him for the post.

If the Israel Lobby was so powerful, and behind the campaign to remove Freeman from the NIC, then why could they not get Samantha Powers removed from her position in the White House? Her position required Congressional Confirmation, and remember that she was the person who advocated for the US Military to invade Israel and force a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. She is equally if not more of a threat to Israel than Freeman was, but there was no “Israel Lobby” campaign to have her removed.
Anti-Semites will always find a way to blame Israel for everything that happens to them. If an Anti-Semite buys lottery tickets every day, but never wins, they blame it on the Jews and Israel Lobby.
After his comments above, I am extremely happy that he will have no influence over the next government. Honestly, his statements about China and the Tienanmen Square incident is more disturbing than anything I have seen quoted to him about Israel.

The term Anti-Semite gets thrown around a lot. Sometimes rightly, and a lot of times not so.
Posted by: Smoke_and_Mirrors
===========================================
You are the one who is throwing that label around constantly.
Hypocrite

Why is everyone focusing on the Israel issue? Isn’t enough that the guy shills for Chinese government owned Petroleum companies that are causing so much misery, violence and destabilization in countries like Nigeria and Sudan (Darfour)? In effect he is acting as an agent of the Chinese government. Do we really want this guy in charge of deciding what intelligence info gets passed along to the President?
And this is before we get into the issue that he is a paid agent also of the Saudi Government.
He can take whatever job he wants, just so long as he isn’t in a position to influence decisions in the government about his former clients (conflict of interest) as a civil servant.
One other point – the concern about Freeman and the Middle East is not that he is not pro-Israel enough, but rather that he’s far too pro-Saudi. In my opinion the Saudi lobby is already too powerful – 267 Billion barrels of oil is quite enough power for one country. We don’t need to let one of their paid agents put his hand on the White House’s intelligence information chokepoint as well.

Michael clearly doesn’t know what kind of person Chas Freeman is.
Everybody who knows Freeman knows that he is his own man. Let me quote some people who DO know Freeman personally.
David J. Rothkopf of Foreign Policy wrote: “Part of the reason he is so controversial is that he has zero fear of speaking what he perceives to be truth to power…His intellectual honesty and his appreciation for what is necessary in a functioning policy process is such that he will not stack the deck for any one position.”
M.J. Rosenberg, Director of Policy Analysis for the Israel Policy Forum pointed out that the Israeli government currently is on good terms with Saudi Arabia and criticized the *indicted* Steve J. Rosen for questioning Freeman’s loyalty when Rosen currently is on trial for espionage in forwarding classified information to Israel.
He also pointed out that those who criticized his views on China had no “interest in Freeman’s views on China until Steve Rosen (and some of his colleagues) decided to stir up the opposition to Freeman because of his alleged lack of fidelity to the occupation.”
This has got NOTHING to do with China: He sits on the board of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation that meets only yearly, Freeman was not involved in issues like the company’s dealing with Iran.
The claim that his Think tank is partly paid for by Saudi Arabia is even more preposterous as a smear, especially coming from zionists, rightwingers, and neocons: SA is an ALLY of Israel AND the US. Just search for the pictures of Bush holding hands with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, repeatedly.
Zionists, Rightwingers, and Neocons were afraid of his insights and understanding of the issues. That is what has derailed his position, not some position on a board or some Saudi Arabian money flowing into a think tank.
The people who were staging this despicable attack are being funded a thousand times more by rightwing Zionist and neocon hawks.

Israel lobby is extremely powerful! i don’t understand why are we supporting israel ! its our only problem over in the mideast! people over there have build so much hate against us because of the injustice and biased we are doing! i do not blame them! it feels good to see some of our politicians actually addressing the matter. The israeli lobby is so powerful ithat freeman will get thrown out of his position.

Freemen is a nut case.
His statements were about as aluminum foil hat theory as one could get and this clown ranks with all the leftards who pushed the 9/11 conspiracies as well as BIG OIL, global warming, elvis, etc.

Well said, Jake.
I am surprised by the depth of the anti-Jewish venom posted here. Has Storm Front expanded so much?

Chas Freedman is obviously kind of a nut.
“…It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so.”
You are permitted to say so. You just said what you thought and no one is arresting you.

if a friend (usa) cannot chalenge its friend (israel) over their evil and godless actions, then they are not worthy of the name of friend.

Seems to me the political discourse in the USA is warped or “modified” by the inability so many Americans have to discuss the Israel Lobby and the way US foreign policy is controlled or to some extent directed by pro-Israel interests. To those of us who live outside the USA, it’s evident the issue is ignored and/or covered up. It also seems many Jews and/or their friends use the “anti-semitic” tar brush quite liberally to smear and silence those who would dare discuss the Israel Lobby and how much its actions have hurt the USA.