Freeman confirmed in intelligence job

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"A controversial former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia was appointed to a top intelligence job.

Charles "Chas" Freeman Jr. was named the chairman of the National Intelligence Council by Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence.

A letter from Blair's office to congressional leaders obtained Thursday by the Politico news Web site spelled out Freeman's responsibilites.

The letter said Freeman "will be responsible for overseeing the production of National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) and other Intelligence Community analytical products, providing substantive counsel to the DNI and senior policymakers on issues of top national security importance, reaching out to nongovernmental experts in academia and the private sector to broaden the Intelligence Community's perspective, and articulating substantive intelligence priorities and procedures to guide intelligence collection and analysis."

More than any almost other document, national intelligence estimates help shape foreign policy, particularly in wartime. The Bush administration blamed omissions in a 2002 estimate for some of the misinformation it peddled about the threat posed by Iraq.

News of the likelihood of the appointment had set off a firestorm among pro-Israel pundits in recent days. Freeman heads the Middle East Peace Council, a think tank that has raised substantial sums from the Saudi royal family, and is chairman of Projects International, a firm that has represented U.S. defense firms in Saudi Arabia."

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Related thread:

Israel critic is reported appointment to top intelligence post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=261838

[Howardx]

1. its a good start

business will not be "as usual"

[Jefferson23]

2. This is good news! Thanks for posting Scurrilous

[Idealism]

3. Heads are exploding already...

[Jefferson23]

4. Probe Urged over Chas Freeman, Obama’s Anti-Israel Intel Pick

Read more: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130263

Change some people have no desire to see given a chance.

[Scurrilous]

5. "Have they not a shred of decency?"

<snip>

"Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s infamous witch hunt against alleged communists in the U.S. government relied primarily on lies, innuendo, and intimidation. Then, at a particularly odious hearing, after McCarthy had falsely accused a young Army officer of being a communist agent, Army counsel Joseph Welch turned on the senator and shot back: "At long last, Senator McCarthy, have you not a shred of decency?"

I am reminded of that moment as I watch the all-too-predictable smear campaign against Charles Freeman’s appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. As soon as the appointment was announced, a bevy of allegedly “pro-Israel” pundits leapt to attack it, in what The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss called a “thunderous, coordinated assault.” Freeman’s critics were the usual suspects: Jonathan Chait of the New Republic, Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, Gabriel Schoenfeld (writing on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal), Jonah Goldberg of National Review, Marty Peretz on his New Republic blog, and former AIPAC official Steve Rosen (yes, the same guy who is now on trial for passing classified U.S. government information to Israel).

What was their objection to Freeman? Did they think he’s unpatriotic, not smart enough, or that he lacks sufficient experience? Of course not. Just look at his resume:

Freeman has worked with more than 100 foreign governments in East and South Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and both Western and Eastern Europe. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires in Bangkok and Beijing, Director of Chinese Affairs at U.S. State Department, and Distinguished Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and the Institute of National Security Studies."

What unites this narrow band of critics is only one thing: Freeman has dared to utter some rather mild public criticisms of Israeli policy. That's the litmus test that Chait, Goldberg, Goldfarb, Peretz, Schoenfeld et al want to apply to all public servants: thou shalt not criticize Israeli policy nor question America's "special relationship" with Israel. Never mind that this policy of unconditional support has been bad for the United States and unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. If these pundits and lobbyists had their way, anyone who pointed that fact out would be automatically disqualified from public service."

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[miricle]

6. Philip Weiss has some great posts on the Freeman appointment

Uh oh--hints that Chas Freeman about to be tossed under the bus
www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/uh-ohhints-that-chas-freeman-about-to-be-tossed-under-the-bus.html

Jumping up and down about China, Freeman's pursuers hide their real agenda, Israel/Iran
www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/jumping-up-and-down-about-china-freemans-pursuers-hide-their-real-agenda-israel.html

Alleged spy for Israel tries to get MJ Rosenberg fired for supporting Ambassador Freeman
www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/alleged-spy-for-israel-tries-to-get-mj-rosenberg-fired-for-supporting-ambassador-freeman.html

Freeman would actually take on the occupation, and that's why he's being attacked
www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/the-good-fight-freeman-would-be-the-most-prominent-official-to-endorse-israel-lobby-critique-and-tha.html

[bemildred]

7. This is good.

Not only because Freeman gets the job, but because the Neocon attack posse is revealed to be impotent.

[bemildred]

8. Probe Urged over Chas Freeman, Obama’s Anti-Israel Intel Pick

(IsraelNN.com) The two leading Republican Congressmen, backed by at least one Democrat, have demanded an investigation into United States President Barack Obama’s choice of Saudi Arabia-linked and longtime anti-Israeli Charles "Chas" Freeman as Obama’s top intelligence official.

Minority Leader John Boehner and party whip Eric Cantor, six other Republicans and one Democrat, Congresswomen Shelley Berkley, wrote a letter questioning Freeman’s financial ties. President Obama has named him as the chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC).

---

The White House ignored the letter and did not directly relate to it when questioned by ABC News and instead talked in general terms about the new president’s commitment to Middle East peace.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "I've not read those . I think anybody can look at what the president has said and what the president's views are, enumerating from the very beginning of this administration the desire to be engaged actively in the Middle East region to ensure a durable and lasting peace.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130263

[bemildred]

9. Another Anti-Semite For Freeman

Joe Klein:

So, in sum, a guarded vote for Chas Freeman--not that any votes will be necessary for this appointive position. It's time we had some candor and intellectual noncomformity, some abrasiveness in the too-smooth collegiality of the intelligence bunker. It is also time to resume the relative balance that existed before George W. Bush gave veto power to Israel's neoconservative supporters over US government policy and appointees in the region.

Read it all. I should add - again - that I don't share all of Freeman's views. But I am glad that his perspective might be thrown into the mix as the new president re-callibrates the US's Mid-East policy. I don't think genuine disagreements about foreign policy should be forced into the box of identity politics. And I do think a mix of realism and internationalism is useful in a Democratic administration. In fact, I'm suspicious of any foreign policy thinker who is only ever in one tradition or other. I know I've long had elements of neoconservatism and realism in my own approach to foreign policy - and I try to balance them in the face of a changing world and always-shifting situations.

I was initially skeptical of intervention in the Balkans, for example, until the horror of Serbian genocide came home to me and I could see a sensible and not-too-risky way of stopping it. I am against intervention in Darfur and was against the Somalia adventure - because I haven't been persuaded that the risks outweigh the benefits (on Somalia, I was proven sadly right). I've never thought of China as some kind of mortal enemy to the US, and, although I loathed the Soviet Union, was happy to make my peace with Russia as a great and un-ideological power. My neocon apex was in the run-up to the Iraq war, as al Qaeda seemed to provide real proof of the worst fears of some neocons, and as I naively believed what they told me was simply incontrovertible evidence of Saddam's weapons programs and of Iraq's readiness for secular democracy. I'd love the world to be more democratic and to see the Islamist theocracies and Arab autocracies of the Middle East reform. But I'm required to look at the world as it is, and not as I might like it to be.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/another-anti-se.html

You read Mr Klein's piece, and you read the comments, and google around, the debate on this is getting demented. It has become a control issue.

[whosinpower]

10. He withdrew - nt