War of words over espionage probe

[seemslikeadream]

Spy case renews debate on pro-Israel lobby's Pentagon ties

WASHINGTON It began like most national security investigations, with a squad of FBI agents surreptitiously tailing two men, noting where they went and with whom they met. What was different about this case was that the surveillance subjects were lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and one of their contacts turned out to be a policy analyst at the Pentagon.
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The ensuing criminal investigation into whether the committee's officials had passed classified information from the Pentagon official to Israel has become one of the most byzantine counterintelligence stories in recent memory. So far, the Justice Department has not accused anyone of wrongdoing, and no one has been arrested.
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The committee has dismissed the accusations as baseless, and Israel has denied conducting espionage operations in the United States.
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Behind the scenes, however, the case has reignited a furious and long-running debate about the close relationship between the committee, a pro-Israel lobbying organization, and a conservative group of Republican civilian officials at the U.S. Department of Defense who are in charge of the office that employs Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon analyst.
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Their hard-line policy views on Iraq, Iran and the rest of the Middle East have been controversial and influential within the Bush administration.

more
http://www.iht.com/articles/537588.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. Dual Loyalties The Bush Neocons and Israel

Dual Loyalties The Bush Neocons and Israel

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Former CIA political analysts

Wolfowitz in turn is the mentor of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff who was first a student of Wolfowitz and later a subordinate during the 1980s in both the State and the Defense Departments. Another Perle protégé is Douglas Feith, who is currently undersecretary of defense for policy, the department's number-three man, and has worked closely with Perle both as a lobbyist for Turkey and in co-authoring strategy papers for right-wing Israeli governments. Assistant Secretaries Peter Rodman and Dov Zackheim, old hands from the Reagan administration when the neo-cons first flourished, fill out the subcabinet ranks at Defense. At lower levels, the Israel and the Syria/Lebanon desk officers at Defense are imports from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank spun off from the pro-Israel lobby organization, AIPAC.

Neo-cons have not made many inroads at the State Department, except for John Bolton, an American Enterprise Institute hawk and Israeli proponent who is said to have been forced on a reluctant Colin Powell as undersecretary for arms control. Bolton's special assistant is David Wurmser, who wrote and/or co-authored with Perle and Feith at least two strategy papers for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996. Wurmser's wife, Meyrav Wurmser, is a co-founder of the media-watch website MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), which is run by retired Israeli military and intelligence officers and specializes in translating and widely circulating Arab media and statements by Arab leaders. A recent investigation by the Guardian of London found that MEMRI's translations are skewed by being highly selective. Although it inevitably translates and circulates the most extreme of Arab statements, it ignores moderate Arab commentary and extremist Hebrew statements.

In the vice president's office, Cheney has established his own personal national security staff, run by aides known to be very pro-Israel. The deputy director of the staff, John Hannah, is a former fellow of the Israeli-oriented Washington Institute. On the National Security Council staff, the newly appointed director of Middle East affairs is Elliott Abrams, who came to prominence after pleading guilty to withholding information from Congress during the Iran-contra scandal (and was pardoned by President Bush the elder) and who has long been a vocal proponent of right-wing Israeli positions. Putting him in a key policymaking position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is like entrusting the henhouse to a fox.

Pro-Israel activists with close links to the administration are also busy in the information arena inside and outside government. The head of Radio Liberty, a Cold War propaganda holdover now converted to service in the "war on terror," is Thomas Dine, who was the very active head of AIPAC throughout most of the Reagan and the Bush-41 administrations. Elsewhere on the periphery, William Kristol, son of neo-con originals Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, is closely linked to the administration's pro-Israel coterie and serves as its cheerleader through the Rupert Murdoch-owned magazine that he edits, The Weekly Standard. Some of Bush's speechwriters -- including David Frum, who coined the term "axis of evil" for Bush's state-of-the-union address but was forced to resign when his wife publicly bragged about his linguistic prowess -- have come from The Weekly Standard. Frank Gaffney, another Jackson and Perle protégé and Reagan administration defense official, puts his pro-Israel oar in from his think tank, the Center for Security Policy, and through frequent media appearances and regular columns in the Washington Times.

more
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison09062004.html

[truthisfreedom]

2. there's a greater sickness at work here.

Leo Strauss.

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgc132.html

Previously, I have used two Straussian aphorisms or paraphrases: One, Lies are the Grease of Politics and, two, Enemies are Politicians' aphrodisiacs. I added that the core of Strauss's political philosophy is to do whatever it takes to seize power and, having seized power, do whatever it takes to keep power.

A simplistic view of Strauss is to take Orwell to the tenth power. From Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Straussians acknowledge being unrepentant elitists. Orwell called them "pigs." In reference to 1984, Orwell was at least 20 years early. Orwell was reacting to Soviet Communism. Today, we have George W. Bush as supreme irritant.

[slojim240]

3. Isn't it time for AIPAC to be banned?

They are a blight on our democracy and our nation.

[pocoloco]

4. Way past time!!

[Moderator]

5. Duplicate

of this http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=804314

and one of your own posts yesterday.

Let's try to keep articles about the same subject in one thread.
Also this is not really breaking news. but commentary.