Chas Freeman on "the Lieberman lobby"

Posted By Joshua Keating Friday, March 13, 2009 - 5:43 PM Share

If you've been following the Chas Freeman saga, you'll certainly want to check out the former nominee's interview with The Nation's Robert Dreyfuss. In the interview, Freeman addresses the blistering e-mail message that The Cable's Laura Rozen featured on Tuesday:

 The only thing I regret is that in my statement I embraced the term ‘Israel lobby.' This isn't really a lobby by, for or about Israel. It's really, well, I've decided I'm going to call it from now on the [Avigdor] Lieberman lobby. It's the very right-wing Likud in Israel and its fanatic supporters here. And Avigdor Lieberman is really the guy that they really agree with. And I think they're doing Israel in.

Freeman also says he wasn't too surprised by the unproductive conversations he had on Capitol Hill:

Well, they didn't go badly. But I'm one guy talking to one or two people, and they're quite a number of people and they're feeding all sorts of disinformation in, and they have established channels and they also have clout. So there wasn't much hope on my part that I could get many people to stand up and support me, because the down side of doing that is so obvious. Because if you go against this group, they either curtail your contributions or they arrange to contribute to an opponent. So it's not realistic to expect courage on the Hill. And I didn't. 

EXPLORE:INTELLIGENCE, ISRAEL/PALESTINE, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, POLITICS
 
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STERNLIGHT

11:09 PM ET

March 13, 2009

The (Avigdor) "Lieberman" lobby

Further confirming how out of touch Freeman is, and thus how unfit for any senior intelligence position, the only Lieberman most Americans favorable to Israel have ever heard of before the headlines about the current Israeli election is US Senator Joe Liebermen.

Freeman, like his co-conspiracy theorists M&W simply don't get that most Americans are favorable to Israel but are not part of any group except that invented out of whole cloth by so-called intellectuals and the media. This kind of pseudo-speciation is at the heart of bigotry and has been since time immemorial.

"Vast right-wing conspiracy", anyone?

 

PAPICEK

6:35 AM ET

March 16, 2009

A few weeks ago...

I counted myself a supporter of Israel. In spite of the settlement activity (who wants a huge salient of people who hate you pointing at the heart of your country?) I even thought that if Hamas didn't want to be invaded they shouldn't have fired, or allowed, the 8000 rockets which landed in Israel.

The pictures of the dead children in Gaza turned me. An atrocity was committed in Gaza, pure and simple. Israel's reaction is overwhelingly out of proportion to the threat and there's no justification possible and ICC involvement may be called for.

The Chas Freeman episode is icing on the cake, but at this point, the US relationship with Israel just mekes me feel dirty.

 

WILSONROFISHING

4:54 PM ET

March 14, 2009

Graceless Exit

Freeman certainly did himself no favors with his graceless exit.

Even if the media decided not to report on it, his confirmation would have been problematic for a variety of reasons and conflicts of interest.

But Freeman's rants and raves about the "all powerful cabal' that arrayed itself against him is reason enough for him to remain a private citizen. Good Riddance.

 

PAPICEK

6:37 AM ET

March 16, 2009

the position

he was about to take doesn't require Senate confirmation. Congress called for an investigation after prodding from - well, the Israel lobby, I guess you'd call it.

 

ABEBIRD

5:24 AM ET

March 16, 2009

It is NOT Israel problem; It's Israel bashers'

It is NOT Israel, it's the future of America integrity and well function regime!

Sure the United States and Israel should have a normal relationship, one similar to US relations with other democracies, and lets not have the US pushing it's nose into the Israeli – Palestinian problem as the US doesn't push its nose into the Tibetaian crisis, for example.
Freeman not only has extremist views regarding the Middle East and China, but he has been beholden to lobby groups that are anxious to influence intelligent assessments regarding Saudi Arabia and China. Freeman bowed out when it became clear that his highly questionable financial ties to the Saudi and China lobby would be deeply probed by inspectors general, congressional staffers and the media. He couldn't handle the truth about his financial ties to these lobbies which do not serve the interests of the United States. The heavy thumbs of the powerful Saudi and Chinese lobbies would have subtly, and perhaps invisibly, weighed on Freeman's intelligence assessment.
The truth is that the Freeman appointment was bad for America, bad for peace in the Middle East, bad for human rights in China, bad for Tibet, bad for the environment, and bad for "policy-neutral intelligence." Those who challenged it performed a patriotic duty. They should be praised for helping the Obama administration avoid a serious blunder that threatened to compromise the president's ability to act in the interest of the United States on the basis of policy-neutral intelligence. All Americans owe them a debt of gratitude.
• arvay ; You sound as one who wishes that Israel will be ruined by the "progressive" Islamic militants. No demography neither terror will destroy Israel. And Israel's haters know it very well and that’s why they act extensively to bash her and to hurt the US – Israeli strategic cooperation that the US also benefits from.

 

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