Obama has begun to show signs of weakness and instability, his recent appeasement of the Israel lobby over the Freeman falala being an ominous example of his impotence. Will this limp-wristed and laissez-faire president be able to halt the headlong rush to a new war in the Middle East?
Obama Blinks, The Lobby Gloats
Dr. Lasha Darkmoon
Speaking to a Jewish friend the other day about the Freeman debacle and its significance, I ventured to express my concern over the formidable power of the Israel lobby. “Where’s it all going to end?” I sighed. He fixed me with a baleful eye. “Iran!” he crowed. “That’s where it’s going to end!”
Make no mistake: Iran was what the Freeman imbroglio was all about. Freeman was merely an irritating obstacle that had to be kicked out of the way on the road to Iran. The lynching of this loyal public servant is a chilling proof that the Israel Lobby is now in control of America. Nor will the Lobby rest until Iran, like Iraq, lies in ruins. [1]
Let’s review the basic facts.
On February 19 an important announcement was made. Charles W. Freeman, a distinguished Arabist whose love for Israel was insufficiently ardent, was appointed to the key post of chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). He had been selected for this post by Admiral Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence. Blair had made the mistake of assuming that Freeman’s stellar talents and fitness for the job — his fluency in several languages, his experience of diplomacy, his judicious realism, his perspicacity and his patriotism — would all somehow compensate for his tepid feelings toward a foreign country built on stolen land.
Within hours of the announcement of Freeman’s appointment, the American agents of this foreign country, Israel, went into action.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the first of these agents, though he owns an American passport, had already given ample proof that the interests of Israel meant more to him than the interests of America. A former official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the man’s name is Steve Rosen; and he is currently on trial for violations of the Espionage Act. [2]
This impudent traitor was soon to be joined by other agents for Israel. Launching a “thunderous, coordinated assault” [3] against Freeman, this swarm of hissing hornets included such luminaries as Jonathan Chait of the New Republic, Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, Gabriel Schoenfeld of the Wall Street Journal, Jonah Goldberg of the National Review, and Martin Peretz of the New Republic.
What these Israel Firsters said between them was enough to bring Freeman down. It didn’t matter that what they said was untrue. What mattered only was that it was sufficiently nasty; that is to say, nasty enough to produce the desired effect of enforcing silence and an ignominious surrender to its dictates. “The tactics of the Israel lobby,” Freeman was to complain later, “plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the wilful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.” [4]
And so Freeman resigned. Or was given the push. The scenario probably goes something like this:
Senator Chuck Schumer, a stern critic of Freeman — “wrong man for this position” [5] — conveys his concerns to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Proud son of an Irgun terrorist and Obama’s chief minder, Emanuel naturally has identical “concerns” and needs no reminding that Freeman is bad news. [6]
Emanuel then whispers honeyed words in Obama’s ears. Obama understands his instructions. Picking up the phone, he calls DNI Blair and speaks in the dull monotone of a well-trained Manchurian candidate. Blair gets the message. Blair then calls Freeman and breaks the news. “Chas, Obama’s wimped out. He’s thrown you to the wolves. He says you gotta spend more time with your family.”
Freeman starts writing his resignation statement.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, Emanuel is on his cell phone to ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu in Israel. Bibi punches the air when he hears about Freeman’s castration. He calls Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s own answer to Hitler [7], and gives him the happy tidings. Avigdor dances with delight. “Iran, we gotcha now!” he drools.
And so there’s gloating all round in high places.
An absurd scenario? Of course. But who knows to what extent reality has begun to resemble the febrile fantasies of a Hollywood scriptwriter?
Isn’t it strange that those who have denounced Freeman as a shill for Saudi Arabia should think it quite acceptable to shill for Israel, a country that has constantly spied on America?
Having vociferated so loudly about Freeman’s lack of “evenhandedness” in regard to Israel, isn’t it odd that the same hotheads should raise no objections to Dennis Ross landing the Iran portfolio? — Ross who hangs out at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, itself a creation and front for AIPAC — which in turn, as everyone knows, is no more than an ad agency for Israel.
Finally, isn’t it like something out of Alice in Wonderland to think of Avigdor Lieberman — a man “who out-Sharons even Ariel Sharon” and whose solution to the Arab-Israeli problem includes drowning Palestinians in the Dead Sea [8] — isn’t it weird to think that this Jewish Hitler will soon be visiting America to break bagels with Hillary Clinton? And this the lady who, when witnessing the recent destruction of 4000 homes in Gaza and the death of 1300 Palestinians (as opposed to 13 Israelis) could find nothing better to say than that these Israeli war crimes were — wait for it — “unhelpful”.
The question we need to ask ourselves is: who runs the madhouse? Is Obama in control of America? Or is he a puppet on an Israeli string?
*****
Shortly before Freeman’s defenestration, foreign policy analyst Chris Nelson had this to say: “If Obama surrenders to the critics and orders Blair to rescind the Freeman appointment, it is difficult to see how he can properly exercise leverage, when needed, in his conduct of foreign policy in the Middle East.” [9]
Some commentators believe that Obama did not in fact “blink”. He simply decided to humor the Israel lobby this one time — to sacrifice a pawn, so to speak, the better to improve his position on the chessboard. Deep down, Obama is seething. The Freeman affair has stiffened his sinews and hardened his resolve. Next time the Lobby had better watch out!
“This was a real pyrrhic victory,” an insider is reported to have told political pundit MJ Rosenberg. “One, the administration is pissed off. And two, Obama is going to be more determined than ever to take a strong stand on settlements, Gaza relief, and negotiations. They shot their wad on Freeman. They will not think that was so smart a few months from now.” [10]
Wishful thinking, methinks.
Whether the Lobby is trembling in its boots or not, the simple fact remains that they have chalked up another victory. Not only have they savaged Freeman, but they have now begun to snap at DNI Blair’s heels [11]; and to view Obama with increasing malevolence.
What kind of nut, they are asking, could have appointed Freeman in the first place? And how come Obama didn’t do something about Freeman at the outset — this “fanatic” (Jonathan Chait), this “bought man” (Martin Peretz), this “shill for the Saudis (Michael Goldfarb), this “China-coddling Israel basher” (Gabriel Schoenfeld), this “lapdog” and “blinkered ideologue” with his “odious” views (Rich Lowry) [12] — hey, how come Obama didn’t whack this monkey as he went scrambling up the palm tree, before he got himself into a position to lob political coconuts at nice Americans with Israeli passports? [13]
Obama has an answer to that one. He knew nothing about Freeman’s appointment to one of the most important posts in his administration. Nobody told him. They didn’t run it past him. Hey boys, gimme a break, I’m only the President!
It would appear that AIPAC and the Jewish neoconservatives who blow the trumpet for Israel in the Weekly Standard, the New Republic, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other such organs of hasbara for Israel, have a weak point. Their Achilles heel is their very Jewishness. This exposes them to constant accusations of disloyalty, of putting Israel’s interests before America’s. [14]
The convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, though he remains their secret hero, is also their nemesis. If Steve Rosen, Freeman’s most implacable attacker, should end up sharing a prison cell with his accomplice in crime, Larry Franklin, more salt to the wound.
It is significant that Freeman, in his resignation statement, makes the disloyalty accusation no fewer than three times:
“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 in a FOREIGN country.” (My emphasis)
Again: “There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a FOREIGN government – in this case, the government of Israel.”
And yet again: “I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide, what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a FOREIGN government.” [15]
Foreign, foreign, foreign! Every repetition of that word is like a hammer blow to those who would like to convince the world that Israel is NOT a foreign country. That it is a loyal little outpost of America. Its fifty-first state in all but name. What is good for Israel is good for America. They have identical interests. The are joined at the hip like Siamese twins. Or so we are told by those who want America to continue to subsidize Israel, arm it to the teeth, condone its atrocities, connive at its landgrabbing, and fight its cruel wars.
These seemingly innocuous words that form the coda of Freeman’s swan song are perhaps freighted with a hidden meaning : “I retain my respect and confidence in President Obama and DNI Blair. Our country now faces terrible challenges abroad as well as at home. Like all patriotic Americans, I continue to pray that our president can successfully lead us in surmounting them.” [16]
What “terrible challenges” face the President “at home” — apart from dealing with an economic disaster set in motion by Wall Street moneymen and by a man now facing a lengthy prison sentence for siphoning $65 billion out of the American economy and into mysterious offshore accounts, many of them reportedly in Israel? (17)
I asked an anti-Zionist correspondent of mine to speculate on what these domestic “challenges” facing Obama might be. His emailed response to me was so vitriolic that I quote it only with trepidation: “Can these challenges have anything to do with getting rid,” he raged, “of an EVIL INCUBUS that is now using America, as it once used Germany, as its ravishing concubine and RAPE VICTIM? How many senators and congressmen are being bribed and blackmailed right now? Are there no honourable men left in America, no patriots, no dragonslayers to deliver it from this scourge? And when is Netanyahu going to move into the White House and start giving the orders?”
As a bemused philosemite, I can only say that such sentiments — straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion [18] — are inappropriate and regrettable [19]
*****
That the Zionists and their ideological antagonists now face each other across a narrow divide, fangs bared and hackles bristling, can be inferred from this ominous exchange between DNI Blair and his inquisitor Senator Joe Lieberman.
Asked by Lieberman, during a United States Committee on Armed Services hearing, why Blair had seen fit to appoint Freeman head of the National Intelligence Council, Blair replied blandly: “I think I can do a better job if I’m getting strong analytical views to sort out and pass on to you and to the president than if I’m getting precooked pablum judgements that don’t really challenge.”
“Precooked pablum judgements” is one of those rapier phrases calculated to pink a Zionist opponent. Lieberman must have winced. He knew well enough that this was a sly dig at Israeli “intelligence” and the neoconservative propagandists who had misled the previous president into an illegal war on fabricated evidence, forgery, and a farrago of lies.
Blair was in effect saying that the same liars who had pushed America into a foolish war in Iraq were now doing their damndest to push America into a foolish war in Iran. And he, Blair, wasn’t going to stand for it! Well, we’ll see about that, Lieberman replied in so many words, not without a smidgen of insolence. “I guess I would say, ‘to be continued’”, he sneered. [20]
Lieberman was to get his way. Freeman bowed out, and Blair got his nose bloodied in the process. As for Obama, did he lift a finger in support of his own men? No, Obama sat twiddling his thumbs by the White House windows, humming a little tune to himself: “Nobody is suffering more/than the Palestinian people...!” [21]
When all is said and done, the buck stops with Obama.
“Obama faced the lobby eyeball to eyeball and blinked.” [22] He tucked his tail between his legs and then rolled over and let Rahm Emanuel tickle his tummy. Political maestro or Manchurian candidate? President of America or Zionist puppet? Take your pick.
*****
Retired CIA officer Ray McGovern does not mince his words when talking of America’s pusillanimous new president. Obama, he says, “is afraid to take on the Lobby. Most will interpret the new president’s acquiescence in this charade as a sign of weakness — of his not being his own man. This is a distinct liability as Obama prepares to meet next month with the likes of Vladimir Putin who will take his measure....Obama will have to beat Putin at his own game — and Obama has now shown himself easy to push around.” [23]
If Obama can’t stand up to the son of an Israeli terrorist and the Zionist firebrands who buzz around him like a swarm of angry bees — if he can’t tell the Boltons and the Kristols, the Podhoretzes and the Perles, the Frums and the Krauthammers, to go take a hike — how is going to stand up to the most powerful man in Russia?
What if Putin should decide to build a base on Cuba? Or plant America-bound missiles on a small island off the coast of Venezuela, courtesy of Hugo Chavez? [24] Would Obama have the guts to stand up to Putin as Kennedy once stood up to Kruschev? Or would he wilt at the knees and send for the smelling salts?
“From the president down, no one is safe!” the inimitable Taki tells us. [25]
So this is where we are. Storm clouds on the horizon. Iran in the cross-hairs. And the lunatics running the asylum.
————
REFERENCE NOTES
1.Norman Podhoretz, The Case for Bombing Iran.
http://www.commenta rymagazine. com/viewarticle. cfm/the-case- for-bombing- iran-10882
2. Justin Raimondo, AIPAC, Espionage, and Legal Sabotage.
http://www.antiwar. com/justin/ ?articleid= 11856
3. Robert Dreyfus (The Nation), Chas Freeman for NIC: Lots at Stake.
http://www.thenatio n.com/blogs/ dreyfuss/ 411714/chas_ freeman_for_ nic_lots_ at_stake
4. Charles W. Freeman’s resignation statement in full.
Juan Cole, Chas Freeman forced by Israel Lobbies to withdraw from NIC Chairmanship.
http://www.juancole .com/2009/ 03/chas-freeman- forced-by- israel-lobies- to.html
5. Glenn Greenwald, Chares Freeman fails the loyalty test.
http://www.salon. com/opinion/ greenwald/ 2009/03/10/ freeman/index. html
6. Christopher Bollyn, Son of a Zionist Terrorist: Rahm Emanuel’s Dirty Secret.
http://www.rumormil lnews.com/ cgi-bin/archive. cgi/read/ 95806
7. Justin Raimondo, A Jewish Hitler? The Rise of Avigdor Lieberman.
http://www.antiwar. com/justin/ ?articleid= 9923
8. Robert Fisk, Why Avigdor Lieberman is the worst thing that can happen to the Middle East.
http://thetruthseek er.co.uk/ article.asp? ID=10357
9. Ray McGovern, Obama Caves to Israel Lobby.
http://www.antiwar. com/mcgovern/ ?articleid= 14389
10. MJ Rosenberg, Freeman’s Opponents’ Pyrrhic Victory.
http://www.israelpo licyforum. org/blog/ freeman-opponent s-pyrrhic- victory
11. Caroline Glick, Disturbing D.C. developments exposed by Freeman’s appointment.
http://www.jewishwo rldreview. com/0309/ glick031309. php3
“America’s top intelligence officer [DNI Bair] is willing to take Iran’s word on everything,” Glick complains. “On the other hand, he is not willing to take Israel’s word on anything.” Glick is suggesting that Blair is an anti-Semite for failing to accept that Israel always tells the truth.
12. Patrick J. Buchanan, UnAmerican Activities: The Israeli Lobby’s Assassination of Chas Freeman.
http://www.vdare. com/buchanan/ 090316_freeman. htm
13. Melanie Phillips, Exit, Spraying Venom.
http://www.spectato r.co.uk/melaniep hillips/3429641/ exit-spraying- venom.thtml
Phillips rages thus: “Given the unhinged hatred towards Israel and the Jews coursing through the west, which was given rocket fuel in the US by the Walt/Mearsheimer travesty which invested Jewish conspiracy theory with a wholly spurious aura of academic respectability, it was inevitable that if Freeman bit the dust the Jews would be blamed.” Kevin McDonald notes mildly, making use of understatement, that Phillips sounds a bit “unhinged”. http://www.theoccid entalobserver. net/articles/ MacDonald- Freeman.html
Here is Phillips in fine frenzy, giving full vent to her hysteria: “The Obama administration is preparing the ground TO THROW ISRAEL TO THE WOLVES OF IRAN. The dominant faction in DC has decided that a nuclear Iran is something America will have to live with; to live with it, America must do a deal with it; that deal will consist of ISRAEL DELIVERED TO IT BOUND AND GAGGED, IN EXCHANGE FOR WHICH IRAN WILL LEAVE THE US ALONE. Except that of course it would not leave the US alone. On the contrary, AN INCINERATED ISRAEL WOULD BE THE GALVANIC IMPETUS FOR A NUCLEAR IRAN TO FINISH OFF BOTH AMERICA AND EUROPE”.
(It’s Payback Time]. http://www.spectato r.co.uk/melaniep hillips/3439651/ payback-time. thtml
14. Kevin McDonald, Charles Freeman’s Disloyalty Accusations.
http://www.theoccid entalobserver. net/articles/ MacDonald- Freeman.html
15. Charles W. Freeman’s resignation statement.
Juan Cole, Chas Freeman forced by Israel Lobbies to withdraw from NIC Chairmanship.
http://www.juancole .com/2009/ 03/chas-freeman- forced-by- israel-lobies- to.html
16. As above.
17. Christopher Bollyn, Who is Bernie Madoff, the man behind the $50 billion fraud?
(Online access temporarily denied — “bandwidth limit exceeded”).
18. Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Protocols_ of_the_Elders_ of_Zion
“The Protocols has been proven to be a forgery, a fraud and a hoax, ” Wikipedia tells us; so be warned.
19. Wikipedia, Antisemitic Canard.
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Antisemitic_ canard
20. Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe, Freeman Withdrawal Marks Victory for Israel Lobby.
http://www.antiwar. com/ips/lubanlob e.php?articleid= 14386
21 Obama, “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”
http://www.american thinker.com/ 2008/03/obama_ and_carter_ and_israel. html
22. Richard Silverstein, The Israel lobby’s Lexington and Concord.
See also: Andrew Sullivan, The Freeman Precedent. “The fact that Obama blinked means no one else in Washington will ever dare to go through the hazing that Freeman endured.” http://andrewsulliv an.theatlantic. com/the_daily_ dish/2009/ 03/the-freeman- pre.html
23. Ray McGovern, Obama Caves to Israel Lobby.
http://www.antiwar. com/mcgovern/ ?articleid= 14389
24. David Nowak (Washington Post), Kremlin shoots down general’s musings.
http://washingtonti mes.com/news/ 2009/mar/ 15/general- muses-over- basing-bombers- near-us/
25. Taki, Fear of the Smear.
http://www.takimag. com/blogs/ article/fear_ of_the_smear
