Fox's ideas on fighting terror are a distinction without a difference

I'm going to quote FoxNews "security analyst" K.T. McFarland at length, with my comments, on her prescriptions for fighting violent Islamists... THINGS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS LARGELY ALREADY DOING:

KTM: "An economic component that bankrupts radical jihad by cutting off their oil revenues  - attacking their oil fields, refineries and tankers  -- while we also develop our own resources to be energy independent of Arab oil."

Me: The U.S. is already energy independent, thanks to Obama's relaxing rules on fracking. We have so much U.S. oil -- and that's a mixed blessing, if you read the WSJ or Bloomberg -- that Obama even ended the long-time ban on exporting U.S. oil.  ISIS does control oil fields in Syria, but they sell it all on the black market, and we are already bombing them. 

KTM: "A banking component that uses the US primacy in international banking and finance to freeze out any country or company that does business with radical Islamists from ISIS to Boko Haram."

Me: Ditto the above.  I'm sure we could do more to root out the middle men trading ISIS's oil, (cough! Turkey!) but again, it's not like ISIS is trading oil on the world futures market.

KTM: "An alliance component that draws together moderate Muslims into an alliance against radical Islam.  If they’re reluctant to join an anti-Islamist alliance, we should let them know they shouldn’t come running to us if things don’t work out.   We should call them out if they have some in their inner circles that play both sides.  

"And we may have to hold our noses and partner with countries we do not always approve of, as we did during World War II."

Me:  Who are the moderate Muslim countries that have the capacity to fight ISIS?  I can think of only one: Turkey.  Saudi Arabia has the capacity but it is not a moderate Muslim country.  The Kurds are everybody's favorite moderate Muslims but they don't have their own state; and moderate ally #1, Turkey, will not allow the Kurds to form their own state. 

KTM: "An anti-hostage component – we will not negotiate, exchange prisoners with nor pay ransom to terrorists. If you take our people hostage, we will turn the tables on you and put a very large bounty on your heads. We promise to hunt down kill anyone who kills our citizens, no matter now long it takes."

Me: Who's the greatest terrorist hunter of all time?  President Barack Obama.  Indeed, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg just revealed that, "killing the so-called caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is one of the top goals of the American national-security apparatus in Obama’s last year." 

And that's not an empty threat, coming from the guy who killed bin Laden and most of Al Qaeda's senior leadership during his term in office.

KTM: "A communications component which champions western values, like we had during WWII and the Cold War. Violent radical Jihad and western civilization are NOT morally equivalent.  No apology tour, no comparing the Crusades to ISIS.  Be proud of America or be quiet."

Me: Communications are a funny thing. Compel somebody to say something they don't believe -- good luck with that! -- and it comes across as lame.  And when the U.S. tries to do it ourselves -- and we do, assiduously -- the results are mixed, because we're even lamer, and nobody there trusts our motives.  The truth is that, in the age of social media and instant viral communication, it's very hard to shape the dialog, especially in a region we understand poorly.  Putin's Russia does the best job of it, with an army of paid trolls and bloggers, but what they mainly accomplish is sowing doubt in the concept of objective truth of events itself to create cover for Putin's maneuvers, not creating a new accepted truth.

KTM: " An Internet component that blocks their online recruiting and training efforts and uses metadata to track and destroy terrorist leaders."

Me: This sounds a lot like more cyber spying.  And who's the greatest cyber spy of all time?  Again, President Obama. 

KTM: "A religious and ideological component which applauds moderate Muslim leaders – like Egyptian President Sisi and the Grand Imam of Al Ahzar Mosque- who speak out against radical Islam."

Me: Ouch.  Egyptian President Sisi is now widely regarded in Egypt and the region as a worse tyrant than President Mubarak.  He doesn't "speak out" against radical Islam, he jails, tortures and kills anybody suspected of associations with such.  That's not exactly clean and neat, and certainly not representative of traditional American values.  Nevertheless... who is Sisi's greatest patron?  Again, President Obama.

KTM: "And finally, a military component which does not, repeat does not, require thousands of American combat forces, but rather gives our allies every inducement and all the arm twisting necessary so they put their own boots on the ground.  And which supplies them with whatever they need to do the job."

Me: This is the only semi-novel and impactful recommendation of McFarland. She's basically saying, arm the Saudis and the Turks to fight our battles for us, because nobody else has the capacity even to accept such help.  Israel does but they don't want to get involved. (BTW, gee, isn't it funny that our bestest ally in the Mideast isn't helping us to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq?  Why is that??) But we have problems with Turkey (see: Kurds); and with Saudi Arabia, which spends millions of dollars all over the world promoting a radical Wahhabist version of Sunni Islam; and which is still more concerned with Iran than ISIS or Al Qaeda.

So in summary, McFarland's prescriptions on how to fight "global jihad" boil down to a distinction without a difference vis-a-vis current U.S. policy. The truth is, there is only so much the U.S. can do in the world, especially in the fractious and conflicted Arab Middle East, and even less our "allies" are willing to do, no matter what bribes or inducements we throw at them.

Finally, I've said it before, but comparing all of these people to the Nazis or the USSR, and saying we can copy-paste what we did in the 40's or the Cold War to defeat them is moronic, stupid, wrong, impractical...I just don't know how else to say it.  Political correctness has nothing to do with this fight either.  Whenever you hear somebody say any of this, know you're listening to an old fogey who doesn't understand "franchised" terrorism and the root of these many regional conflicts -- which have nothing to do with Islam, originally -- that create power vacuums and provide the perfect breeding ground for Islamist terrorism. 


Yes, America, it's war. Here's how we can stop losing and start winning
By K.T. McFarland
March 22, 2016 | FoxNews
URL: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/03/22/yes-america-its-war-heres-how-can-stop-losing-and-start-winning.html?intcmp=hphz01

Today's thoughts on ISIS

Just like our President, I don't yet have a strategy with regard to ISIS. I'm not even sure whether they're worth defeating. 

The fact that President Obama has refused to be rushed by the media into taking action is refreshing; then again, it's typical Obama restraint that at other times is so frustrating. When our troops' lives and billions of dollars are on the line, his restraint is atypical of balls-to-the-wall Presidents trying to look tough, and who pay for it with the nation's credit card and somebody else's children.

Pop quiz: How many fighters does ISIS have?  You probably don't know. If you nevertheless feel we must defeat ISIS, little facts like this one are important.

Spot check: If there were no YouTube videos or reports of ISIS carving off Westerners' heads, would you feel the same way about them?  The answer is probably no. So is emotion -- or revulsion, as the case may be -- a proper basis for going to war?

My impression is that many Americans -- driven by FOX and talk radio -- have an ill-informed, fear-based, apocalyptic view of ISIS. Maybe ISIS is indeed worth our trouble to "take out," but let's be real: an Islamic state they are not. Al Qaeda they are not.

Because as I've said so many times before: conflict and religious extremism are encouraged by failed states, not vice-versa. ISIS is the orphan of Syria to the west and Iraq to the east, who got a huge, unexpected inheritance from its rich Uncle Sam with lots of guns who lives across the ocean.

Today I was listening to talk radio. First, Rush Limbaugh. He was slamming Obama's "no strategy yet" statement, naturally, but also Obama's caveat that we cannot "perpetually" destroy ISIS: as soon as we would leave, they would reconstitute. "Can you imagine FDR telling the American public that we couldn't perpetually defeat Nazi Germany?" Rush asked, incredulous, in perpetual outrage mode.

Bam.  Rush hit one of my pet peeves: comparing everything with Nazis and WWII.  Hell, Russia's president Putin is doing it right now, comparing Ukraine's army's actions against terrorists in its own country to the actions of Nazis in the siege of Leningrad.  Crazy, right?  Well it's crazy here, too. 

Because ISIS is not a state. They may have pretensions or plans to statehood, but a state they are not. There is no infrastructure of theirs to blow up -- they'd probably blow it up first, just for the hits on YouTube.  They have no political apparatus -- they are strictly a paramilitary organization.  And ISIS has none of the other trappings of a state with which we'd go to war and eventually have to make peace with.  

Incidentally, Obama is right: ISIS can be hurt or even crippled by the U.S., but with failing states and the ensuing anarchy in Syria and Iraq, not to mention volunteers from all over the world, and donations from our "allies" the Saudis, ISIS surely would come back. Indeed, they are not Nazi Germany. They don't intend to rebuild anything or hold any borders. All ISIS needs to do is re-arm. 

So we should be careful about declaring war on groups of irregular soldiers with tons of outside support, some of it from our "allies." The U.S. is the most powerful and richest country on Earth; when we bend down to crush an ant, suddenly that ant gains status. 

Do we really want to grant ISIS such "enemy" status? Methinks that is exactly what ISIS wants, that's why they're executing our citizens after demanding ridiculous ransoms they know that nobody will pay.  ISIS wants the U.S. to get involved.  Hey, there's no better recruiting and donations tool than the Great Satan as your adversary.

I mean, think for a second without emotion. Let's say the U.S. declares war on ISIS.  Then we wipe them off the battlefield, winning every fight along the way.Then we go home, or leave yet another small training and security force in Iraq. And then... two months later ISIS is back.  It doesn't matter in what guise. Nevertheless they're back on YouTube, back to taking hostages, back to seizing unprotected villages in the desert, whatever. Suddenly -- and this is important -- ISIS can say that it "defeated" the United States. It wasn't destroyed. All ISIS has to do to win is live, in whatever form, to fight another day.   

Understanding that, if you were POTUS, would you want to commit yourself to total victory over ISIS in Rush Limbaugh's terms? Or would you hedge? Or would you even consider doing nothing at all? What's the upside?  Does ISIS really represent a clear and present danger to the U.S.?  No.  To our allies?  Well, yes (Iraq), no (Syria) and maybe (Saudi Arabia, et al). Meanwhile, those allies do not have armies capable of defending themselves -- they rely on the U.S. 

Even worse, meanwhile, some of those allies -- cough, Saudi Arabi! cough! cough! -- spend billions exporting Wahhabist and jihadist religion all over the world that bites themselves and us in the ass. 

And meanwhile, sadly, as our small attention span is captured by masked men with dull knives in the desert, a European country is being invaded for the first time since WWII by an honest-to-God scary military power. THAT'S where the WWII analogies should be drawn. THAT'S where America's attention should be.

Alas, our media loves sensation and so do we.  Folks, let's be smarter and shrewder, eh? 

War Nerd: ISIS conquering empty desert; and bless the Kurds

You gotta love Gary for writing stuff that only he would write, such as this:

Actually, topography has everything to do with what’s gone well or badly for I.S.I.S. in this latest push. If you know the ethnic makeup of the turf they’ve taken, their “shocking gains” don’t seem so shocking, or impressive. After all, we’re talking about a mobile force–mounted on the beloved Toyota Hilux pickup truck, favorite vehicle of every male in the Middle East—advancing over totally flat, dry ground in pursuit of a totally demoralized opponent. In that situation, any force could take a lot of country very quickly. It’s just a matter of putting your foot on the accelerator, moving unopposed on the long stretches of flat desert, then dismounting at the next crossroads town for a small, quick firefight against a few defenders who didn’t get the memo to flee. Once they’re dead, you floor it again until the next little desert town.

So this isn’t the second coming of Erwin Rommel by any means. Everything has conspired to push the Sunni advance, from the lousy opponent they’re up against to the terrain, which is a light mechanized commander’s dream.

Gary has a long-time soft spot for the Kurds, the strongest fighting force in Iraq and a soon-to-be state (one of three) formed from the crucible of Old Iraq:

Something wonderful came out of the horrors of 20th century Iraq, among the Kurds of the Northern hills. They became the only non-sectarian population in Iraq, and perhaps the only such group between Lebanon and India.

[...] Of all the hill tribes, the Sunni Kurds are doing best in this chaos. It’s allowed them to take Kirkuk, which they always needed and wanted, and it also just so happens to put the one and only “supergiant” oilfield in the North (5 billion gallons) totally inside Kurdish territory.

I’m happy as Hell for the Kurds. I love them anyway, and miss Suli a lot—but more than that, it’s simple justice that they get a break for once. The Kurds have paid their dues. Saddam’s murderers in uniform killed nearly 200,000 Kurds, and the man from Tikrit was supposedly very disappointed he hadn’t been able to wipe them out completely.

At the moment, I.S.I.S isn’t even trying to pick a fight with the Pesh Merga—a fight they would lose very quickly if it ever did happen. But then Sunni jihadis have always liked softer targets, the softer the better.

Upshot: Gary's little article should serve to calm some of those Nervous Nellies in Congress, the White House and the U.S. foreign policy establishment about "ISIS overrunning Iraq."  Yeah, they might overrun fellow Sunni areas of Iraq, but that's about it.  The Kurds and Iran (Shiites) will step in and stop them cold elsewhere... but wait, that's what a lot of U.S. fear is really about: letting Iran get even more influence in Iraq, and solving this ISIS problem without our help, making them look strong and us, well, the opposite of strong.  

Beyond that, I still think the real enemy is the Saudis, who prop up all these jihadists all over the world with money, crazy clerics, weapons and asylum. Yet the House of Saud plays nice with Texas oil billionaires and Israel, so we Americans for some reason can't love 'em enough!....

UPDATE (22.07.2014): Here's a continuation at Pando of Gary's coverage of the lame ISIS "invasion" of Iraq: "I.S.I.S. and the Western media: Groping each other in public like a Kardashian Thanksgiving." 

The War Nerd: Like it or not, what’s happening in Iraq right now is part of a rational process

By Gary Brecher

June 23, 2014 | Pando Daily

URL: http://pando.com/2014/06/23/the-war-nerd-like-it-or-not-whats-happening-in-iraq-right-now-is-part-of-a-rational-process/

War Nerd: Saudis use jihad as a release valve

Saudi jihadist motto: What happens outside Saudi Arabia stays outside Saudi Arabia.

I hope soon more Americans will realize that America's two greatest "allies" in the Mideast, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are doing the most of any country to get Americans killed by terrorists.

And I'm glad to see the War Nerd is back at it, edumacating us about blood, guts, war and politics.

The War Nerd: Saudis, Syria, and “Blowback”

By Gary Brecher 

December 19, 2013 | Pando Daily

URL: http://pando.com/2013/12/19/the-war-nerd-saudis-syria-and-blowback/

Is it good the Saudis are mad at Obama?

I meant to post this earlier. But it's not too late because we're still seeing op-eds such as this one on Fox: "Saudis lament, 'we have been stabbed in the back by Obama'".

Just like Christianity is pretty diverse, so is Islam. Most people know there are Shiites (such as in Iran, Lebanon and Syria) and Sunnis (most everywhere else). There are further branches of each of those sects. Perhaps it's a crude analogy, but let's call Wahhabism, a branch of Sunni Islam, the Southern Baptist Church of Islam. 

And Saudi Arabia is the home and sponsor of Wahhabism. It sends billions of petro-dollars around the globe to preach this ultra-conservative brand of Islam in Islamic countries that is entirely compatible with Ismalist and terrorist ideology. And it is engaged in a religious conflict with Iran, the #1 sponsor of Shiite Muslims. As Zakaria points out, Saudi Arabia has a sizable Shiite majority located in oil-rich areas that it wants to keep down.  

Risibly, Saudi Arabia, an absolutist monarchy, calls itself the #1 Arab ally of the United States, which is supposedly engaged in a global war on Islamic terrorism.

See the disconnect?  

So kudos to Fareed Zakaria for calling a spade a spade. And if the Saudis are indeed upset with President Obama, then... maybe he's onto something.

The Saudis Are Mad? Tough!

By Fareed Zakaria

November 11, 2013 | TIME

URL: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2156259,00.html#ixzz2ojBAuFe4

Foreigners don't need Super PACs to buy U.S. elections

This expose is long but worth reading.  It should make you angry and sad.  

Take the Keystone XL pipeline, for instance.  Suddenly, last year Republicans all agreed that this pipeline just had to be built for the sake of U.S. jobs and "energy independence."  But would they have been so excited if their GOP Congressional puppet masters had told them that it was meant to pipe Canadian oil to a Saudi refinery to sell on the world market?  The Saudi-backed American Petroleum Institute (API) was mum on those details when it aired pro-pipeline TV ads and attacked unsympathetic Democrats.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, foreign companies like Aramco from Saudi Arabia can influence U.S. public opinion and elections, spending undisclosed $ millions.  

"We gotta keep our corporate logo out of the bull's-eye," explained one GOP lobbyist. Don't forget the country's flag.

Thank God (and Dubya) for free -- and very secret -- speech!

Never Mind Super PACs: How Big Business Is Buying the Election

By Lee Fang 

August 29, 2012 | In These Times

URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/169639/never-mind-super-pacs-how-big-business-buying-election?page=full#

U.S. Senators swear to Saudi gov't's role in 9/11

The lib'rul NYT deliberately released this story before Breitbart's murder to distract us from the real conspiracy!

Anyway, for what it's worth to those of you so easily distracted from Obama's crimes by the lamestream media, two former U.S. Senators submitted sworn affadavits about the Saudi government's possible involvement in 9/11. (YAAAAWN! 9/11, that was like, so 10 years ago.)

Saudi Arabia May Be Tied to 9/11, 2 Ex-Senators Say

By Eric Lichtblau

February 29, 2012 | New York Times

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/us/graham-and-kerrey-see-possible-saudi-9-11-link.html?_r=4

King Abdullah to Obama: Don't humiliate my fellow dictator pal!

"Meanwhile, the Egyptian military has been accused of being involved in both the disappearance and torture of Egyptian citizens, including the use of electric shocks.

"Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in Cairo, said hundreds, and possibly thousands, of ordinary people had 'disappeared' into military custody across the country. Many were still missing.

"'Their range is very wide, from people who were at the protests or detained for breaking curfew to those who talked back at an army officer or were handed over to the army for looking suspicious or for looking like foreigners even if they were not.'"

But oh no, the last thing we want to do is offend the precious feelings the oppressor, autocrat, and torturer Mubarak. Gimme a break.


Report: Saudis Warned Obama Not to 'Humiliate' Mubarak
February 10, 2011 FOXNews

URL: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/09/source-saudis-tell-obama-humiliate-mubarak/

Chomsky: Egypt uprising and the U.S. 'usual playbook'

Great interview. This point by Chomsky provides the best perspective on the current "debate" in the West whether any democracy which would allow the Muslim Brotherhood to come to power would be a good or a bad thing "for the region," meaning, for Isreal and the U.S.:

"Saudi Arabia—the king of Saudi Arabia has been, along with Israel, the strongest supporter, most outspoken supporter of Mubarak. And the Saudi Arabian case should remind us of something about the regular commentary on this issue. The standard line and commentary is that, of course, we love democracy, but for pragmatic reasons we must sometimes reluctantly oppose it, in this case because of the threat of radical Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood. Well, you know, there's maybe some—whatever one thinks of that. Take a look at Saudi Arabia. That's the leading center of radical Islamist ideology. That's been the source of it for years. The United States has—it's also the support of Islamic terror, the source for Islamic terror or the ideology that supports it. That's the leading U.S. ally, and has been for a long, long time."

He goes on to say basically the same thing about Pakistan, another U.S. "ally" going back to Reagan, whose people hate us and make terror plots against us:

"The population [of Pakistan] is passionately anti-American, increasingly so, largely, as she [the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan in leaked WikiLeaks cables] points out, as a result of U.S. actions in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the pressure on the Pakistani military to invade the tribal zones, the drone attacks and so on. And she goes on to say that this may even lead to the—what is in fact the ultimate nightmare, that Pakistan's enormous nuclear facilities, which incidentally are being increased faster than anywhere else in the world, that these—there might be leakage of fissile materials into the hands of the radical Islamists, who are growing in strength and gaining popular support as a result of—in part, as a result of actions that we're taking.

"Well, this goes back to—this didn't happen overnight. The major factor behind this is the rule of the dictator Zia-ul-Haq back in the 1980s. He was the one who carried out radical Islamization of Pakistan, with Saudi funding. He set up these extremist madrassas. The young lawyers who were in the streets recently shouting their support for the assassin of the political figure who opposed the blasphemy laws, they're a product of those madrassas. Who supported him? Ronald Reagan. He was Reagan's favorite dictator in the region. Well, you know, events have consequences. You support radical Islamization, and there are consequences. But the talk about concern about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whatever its reality, is a little bit ironic, when you observe that the U.S. and, I should say, Britain, as well, have traditionally supported radical Islam, in part, sometimes as a barrier to secular nationalism."


Chomsky: Why the Mideast Turmoil Is a Direct Threat to the American Empire
An interview with Noam Chomsky about what this means for the future of the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy in the region.
By Amy Goodman
February 3, 2011 Democracy Now

URL: http://www.alternet.org/story/149786/chomsky:_why_the_mideast_turmoil_is_a_direct_threat_to_the_american_empire?page=1

Israel and S. Arabia are using us

So why should the United States get all bent out of shape over Iran's nuclear program, which can't possibly touch us, when the two biggest powers in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are ready and able to take care of their "Iran problem" themselves? All they want is America's diplomatic cover. They want us to do all the international jaw-flapping and finger-wagging for them, and then let us take all the heat for them from the UN and NATO, after they've carried out a preventive first strike on Iran. Now that's what I call a lose-win. Gee, thanks, guys.

Saudis give nod to Israeli raid on Iran

Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Sarah Baxter

July 5, 2009 | Timesonline.co.uk

URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6638568.ece

Likud lobby's libel of Amb. Freeman

You should watch the refreshingly truthful interview on Fahreed Zakaria's show last Sunday with Amb. Charles Freeman. 

He's such a calm, measured man.  If I had just been the victim of an organized character assassination funded by agents and sympathizers of a foreign political party, I would be spitting mad and naming names.  But I suppose such restraint typifies Chas Freeman's career as a U.S. diplomat and public servant. 

As German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer noted: "All truth passes through three stages.  First, it is ridiculed.  Second, it is violently opposed.  Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."  Unfortunately, when it comes to the manifest truth about the pernicious influence of the "Likud lobby" on U.S. foreign policy, we are still in stage 1 or 2.


Of Patriots and Assassins
By Patrick J. Buchanan
March 17, 2009 | MSNBC

During Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972, his interpreter and I, free for a few hours, conscripted a driver to take us on a tour of Beijing. Somewhere in my files are photos from that day we toured the grim city of Chairman Mao in the time of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

The interpreter: Charles Freeman -- the same Charles Freeman Adm. Dennis Blair chose to chair the National Intelligence Council that prepares National Intelligence Estimates on critical national security issues such as Iran's nuclear program.

Educated at Yale and Harvard Law, Freeman has served his country in Delhi, Taipei, Bangkok and Beijing. He was Ronald Reagan's deputy assistant secretary of state for Africa and Bill Clinton's assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. George Bush I named him ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Freeman was our man in Riyadh when Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and 500,000 U.S. troops arrived to evict the army of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

In 1997, Freeman succeeded George McGovern as president of the Middle East Policy Council -- and he began to speak out.


He opposed the bombing of Serbia and said aloud what few privately deny:  Reflexive support for Israel's repression of the Palestinian people is high among the reasons America is no longer seen as a beacon of liberation in the Arab and Muslim world.

Freeman echoed the Obama of yesterday, who bravely blurted, "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."


At MEPC, however, Freeman committed a great crime. He published "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, which went onto the New York Times best-seller list -- and put Freeman on AIPAC's enemies list.

Hence, when his name surfaced as Blair's choice to chair the NIC, the Israel Firsters went berserk, with Steven Rosen declaring him to be a "textbook case of the old-line Arabism" that infected the Department of State when Gen. George Marshall was secretary.

And who is Rosen?

A former fixture at AIPAC, Rosen faces imminent federal criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act for transferring top-secret Pentagon documents to the Israeli Embassy. Rosen's accomplice, Larry Franklin, is serving a 12-year sentence.


Picking up the Rosen dog whistle, the neocommentariat came howling. To Gabriel Schoenfeld, late of Commentary, Freeman is a "China coddling Israel basher." Tom Piatak of Chronicles found no fewer than five blogs from National Review Online, in two hours, savaging Freemen, two by Jonah Goldberg and two by Michael Rubin.

Rich Lowry of NR calls Freeman "Chas of Arabia," a diplomat of "odious" views, a "lap dog" and "blinkered ideologue" who enjoys "pandering to and making excuses for the world's dictators and terrorists."

To The New Republic's Jonathan Chait, Freeman is a "fanatic." To Jeffrey Goldberg of Atlantic, formerly of the Israeli Army, Chait's piece was dead on. To TNR ex-publisher Marty Peretz, Freeman is a "bought man." To Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard, Freeman is a "shill for the Saudis," who defends "corrupt Arab states that foment and support terror."

Freeman is denounced as a shill of Saudi Arabia -- by people who have spent careers shilling for the Israeli lobby and Likud.

Within this smear bund (Murray Rothbard's phrase), who has given America a tenth of the patriotic service and loyalty of Chas Freeman?

What were the specific charges? That, in private life, Freeman advised a Chinese company. Would the Israel Firsters have used that argument against Al Haig or Henry Kissinger?

Saudi contributions to MEPC should disqualify Freeman, they say. But what did they say when Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, David Wurmser and the rest with inextricable ties to Israel stove-piped to the press the cherry-picked War Party propaganda lies about a "Prague connection" between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence, yellow cake from Niger, Saddam and al-Qaida, Saddam and the anthrax attacks, "mushroom clouds," "aluminum tubes" and WMD?

Who among them questioned State's decision to hand the Iran portfolio to Dennis Ross of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a creation and front of AIPAC?

Realizing the assaults would not end, Freeman last week withdrew, saying, "I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction of a foreign country."

The foreign country is Israel; the political faction Likud.

Nor did Freeman shrink at naming the source of the noxious campaign of slander against him.


"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."

"A lobby," Steve Rosen confided in an AIPAC internal memo, "is like a night flower; it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun."


Yes, and long ago, Al Smith addressed the age-old problem of the Rosens within: "The best way to kill anything un-American is to drag it out into the open, because anything un-American cannot live in the sunlight."

Well done, Ambassador Freeman.