By Robert Dreyfuss. Good reporting.
My big new theme, I'm working on this one. In 1857-60, Abraham Lincoln, then an outsider radical and disappointed office-seeker who believed one thing-- that slavery was evil-- built the Republican Party and broke the Democratic Party with the aid of a brilliant political thrust: he said there was a "conspiracy" to spread slavery across the United States and this conspiracy included a lot of northern Democrats, working in "concert" with the slave power, and who were not up front about their motives.
Lincoln is today considered our greatest president, and one of our greatest intellectuals/lawyers, to boot.
Lincoln's gift to us is his religious/moral thinking, and his political labors. We may use different language, but we must also do our political work, which includes identifying the powerful political actors who are not being upfront about their true agenda and who are acting in concert. This action has been going on for a long time on this issue--anti-Zionist Jews complained 60 years ago about getting out-foxed in Washington by the Jewish-nationalists, at the same time as the Arabists (Freeman's tradition) were also dealt out-- and you can call it neoconservatism or Israel-firstism, or a transparent cabal, or the Israel lobby; but until Chris Matthews can discuss it openly, let alone our presidential contenders, our politics are corrupted by it.
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Chris Mathews should do a story about Chas Freeman and Steve Rosen's opposition to it. As I recall, the prosecutors said they would not indict AIPAC along with Rosen and Weisman, provided the two were fired, AIPAC cooperated, and AIPAC did not pay their legal fees. They paid the legal fees anyway. Now Rosen, who once boasted he could get 67 senators signatures on his napkin in 48 hours, still under indictment for passing classified intelligence to Israel, having corrupted Lawrence Franklin into passing it to him, is leading the charge trying to control who gets appointed to US Intelligence, to make sure they are sufficiently Israel-friendly to be under his influence. Meanwhile, Jews everywhere are separating themselves from blind support for Israeli aggression and Neocon influence, a true shattering of the former unity. How is that not news, News, NEWS? How can any journalist who covers this stuff honor a code of silence not to talk about the charges against Rosen, while repeating his charges against Obama's nominee for NIC Chair? Come on newspeople. Get real!
The Bob Dreyfuss piece excellent. If Obama doesn't stick with him, his presidency will reveal itself as completely emasculated right from the git-go. Note that no one on the Left or center-reallist camp even tried to block Elliott Abrams from a key White House Mid East job.
Agree re Matthews, Keith Olberman, etc.
Freeman is toast.
They vetted badly and didn't realize that he's a bit too friendly with the Saudis.
I'm sure some deal breaker dirt on him will emerge soon.
If not, his hands are tied in that position anyway.
I wonder if Obama considered him as an olive branch gesture to the left wing of the Party…which seems to have stopped honeymooning with him. lol!
Phil, you've got to get off the Lincoln thing.
You're misreading the history to create a secular saint. Abe wasn't.
It's the leftism that leads you astray. Time to grow up and shed it.
ZOA tells Obama to forget Freeman–inadvertently by quoting Freeman reveals exactly why Obama should appoint Freeman–This proposed candidate decision for Intelligence lead will be a clear sign from Obama.
http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=1588
You're right bonMOT. That letter speaks for itself! Chris Matthews, here's your chance! You can quote extensively from a letter from the President of ZOA. You can quote the whole thing! By quoting Freeman so extensively, it sets up the issue very clearly, and articulates the different perspectives starkly. You can read the thing, and then ask your panel and your viewership: "Who's right?" In one moment, we are then and at long last engaged in full and open debate concerning the most important issue of our times.
Also note, "I'm sure some deal breaker dirt on him will emerge soon." Ah, the last and only redoubt of the rhetorician with no substance to argue – personal attacks.
How the dual loyalty spooks react to Freeman's appointment will be a more important issue. The dual loyalty spooks are the ones concerned citizens should be most worried about. They have been well rewarded the past eight years, and they have the financial resources to fund several political machines, not to mention lots of mercenary actions.
"Lincoln, then an outsider radical and disappointed office-seeker who believed one thing– that slavery was evil– built the Republican Party and broke the Democratic Party with the aid of a brilliant political thrust: he said there was a "conspiracy" to spread slavery"
And today, there's a conspiracy between both parties in the current two-party-regime to spread evil Zionism and the Zionist mentality, which includes supremacist, caste-system thinking, greed, Big Government Bolshevik-Corporatist partnership (a kind of Commu-fascism), and a "conscience" comprised of a Jewish Zionist priest class, backed by masses of "Christian" Zionists and secular pagan/occultist/atheists.
The entire Leviathan resembles one of Dante's circles of hell, and the chaos of contemporary America is a reflection of its nature.
Seig Heil, ED, Seig Heil.
Seig Heil, ED, Seig Heil.
I don't think he voted for Avidgor Lieberman, Chris Berel.
Lincoln was one of our worst presidents, a dictatorial warmonger nationalist. Warren Harding was far better (he pardoned Eugene Debs and licked the 1920-1921 depression so handily nobody remembers it anymore). I kind of like this Freeman fellow though.
No, but Chris did. He also voted for the Lieberman over here. Chris is consistent.
No, Berel, it's:
"Seig Zion! Seig Zion!…"
Jewish supremacism is about the one thing that everyone in the two-party-regime and all of its useful idiot masses can agree upon. Well, that and necessity of a Commu-fascist Leviathan to enforce it.
Chas Freeman:
"I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China, allowing students to occupy zones that are the equivalent of the Washington National Mall and Times Square, combined. while shutting down much of the Chinese government's normal operations. I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang's dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing with domestic protesters in China."
What an idiot. I can't imagine the US government calling in tanks to get protesters out of the Washington Mall or Times Square.
If you're going to prove Godwin's Law, at least spell correctly. It's "Sieg," not "Seig."
@ Julian
Chas Freeman:
· “…[Israel’s] inability to find peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs is the driving factor in the region's radicalization and anti-Americanism … Demonstrably, Israel excels at war; sadly, it has shown no talent for peace … For the past half decade Israel has enjoyed carte blanche from the United States to experiment with any policy it favored to stabilize its relations with the Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors, including most recently its efforts to bomb Lebanon into peaceful coexistence with it and to smother Palestinian democracy in its cradle … The suspension of the independent exercise of American judgment about what best serves our interests as well as those of Israelis and Arabs has caused the Arabs to lose confidence in the United States as a peace partner … By sad contrast, the American decision to let Israel call the shots in the Middle East has revealed how frightened Israelis now are of their Arab neighbors and how reluctant this fear has made them to risk respectful coexistence with the other peoples of their region … [the 2002 so-called Arab Peace Initiative] would exchange Arab acceptance of Israel and a secure place for the Jewish state in the region for Israeli recognition of Palestinians as human beings with equal weight in the eyes of God, entitled to the same rights of democratic self-determination … Despite the fact that such a peace is so obviously also in Israel's vital and moral interests, history and the Israeli response to date both strongly suggest that without some tough love from Americans, including especially Israel’s American coreligionists, Israel will not risk the uncertainties of peace. Instead, it will persist in the belief, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that it can gain safety through the officially sanctioned assassination of potential opponents, the terrorization of Arab civilians, and the cluster bombing of neighbors rather than negotiation with them. These policies have not worked; they will not work. But unless they are changed, the Arab peace plan will exceed its shelf life, and Arabs will revert to their previous views that Israel is an ethnomaniacal society with which it is impossible for others to coexist and that peace can be achieved only by Israel's eventual annihilation, much as the Crusader kingdoms that once occupied Palestine were eventually destroyed. Americans need to be clear about the consequences of continuing our current counterproductive approaches to security in the Middle East. We have paid heavily and often in treasure in the past for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel’s approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government’s neoconservative mentors to be in prospect.”
That recorded POV has been given by ZOA to Obama as the reason not to back Freeman! If Obama is half the American man he thinks he is, and peddles himself as, he will appoint Freeman.
Can an Arabist be appointed to NIC in a post 9/11 world?
The million dollar question.
Opposition to his appointment seems to be gaining steam.
Freeman uses irony and sarcasm, both deeply Anti-semitic.
I see "Arabist" being bandied around rather loosely. An "Arabist" is someone who studies Arabs and their culture, nations, etc. and usually is not Arab themselves. An Arabist is NOT someone with a particular ideology in spite of the way some here seem to use the term.
http://www.usdiplomacy.org/history/service/arabists.php
Over at the Weekly Standard, they're screaming "It's a disgrace" because Freeman GOT THE JOB.
link to weeklystandard.com
/>
But Google hasn't heard about it yet. But let's hope it's true.
further to, Foreign Policy announces Freeman's appointment:
link to thecable.foreignpolicy.com
/>
quoting Politico:
link to politico.com
/>
which quotes this:
link to politico.com
/>
from its own site
Arabist
Instead of attempting to understand and relate to the peoples who have reacted negatively to our policies and behaviors, those who oppose Freeman's appointment would rather just shoot first and do away with asking questions altogether.
'Lincoln's gift to us is his religious/moral thinking.'
Such as the notion that it's worth vaporizing 500,000 lives to 'preserve the Union'?
Obama the Lincoln acolyte continues the tradition — the gift that keeps on giving, as it were — by sending 17,000 troops to Afghanistan to, quote, 'win the war and prevent terrorists from attacking us.'
If it's true that Lincoln is considered our greatest president, this would explain why the U.S. is a doomed country. Lincoln introduced all of the destructive, insidious innovations — paper money, income tax, military draft, 'total warfare' — which have destroyed America both morally and economically.
America's twisted love affair with this gaunt, syphilitic mass murderer says it's beyond redemption. As a post-nationalist cosmopolitan … frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. It ain't worth saving.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/02/26/1003322/freeman-confirmed-in-nic-job
Ahh. This is such good news.
Given the fiasco with the 2007 NIE report, it's very important to the Zi-borgs that it be done correctly this time. The next estimate better damn well confirm that Iran is, in fact, building the Death Star.
this article details the slanders directed against Freeman by zionist americans:
link to wallwritings.wordpress.com
/>
If he is confirmed and a couple of posted article state that, then it is just one step. George Mitchell is there but it remains to be seen if he can implement anything concrete, as well as Chas. Chas has to go to Clinton while Mitchell goes to Obama. We'll see if this administration has the balls to do something.
Haygood: "Such as the notion that it's worth vaporizing 500,000 lives to 'preserve the Union'?"
I've often wondered that as well. What was so great about having one country instead of two that it was worth so many dead Americans? People often say that Lincoln went to war to "free the slaves." But people who think that stopped reading history in the eighth grade. If Lincoln had done nothing southern slavery would have disappeared of its own accord, as it quickly did in all developed countries.
Today, without what one of my college roommates used to call "the northern war of aggression," the north and south would be friendly countries without armed borders, just as the US and Canada are. Since the southern states joined the union voluntarily it seems to me they should have the right, if they wanted, to leave it too.
The notion that we should celebrate Lincoln because "he held the union together" is like saying we should celebrate chewing gum because it keeps the bedpost from flying apart at night.
'If Lincoln had done nothing southern slavery would have disappeared of its own accord, as it quickly did in all developed countries.' — Duscany
I agree. However, a Harvard professor wrote a book called 'Time on the Cross' which took issue with the notion that slavery was economically moribund and would soon have disappeared. He claimed that slavery was highly profitable; that slaves were secure capital assets; and that the U.S. slave system, had war not interfered, would have flourished.
However, he did not examine the worldwide social trend against slavery (as Duscany mentioned), which was eliminated in developed countries by the late 1800s. All except the U.S. managed to ban slavery without violence. So we celebrate the president who had to snuff a half million to effect political change? All one can say is that historians still celebrate the warmonger presidents, and we are still involved in pointless, sanguinary wars.
Even if social trends hadn't killed slavery, the one-two punch of late 19th century deflation, followed by early 20th century farm mechanization, surely would have. 'Time on the Cross' is an interesting, well-researched snapshot of the antebellum U.S., but the author never considered the import of the decades which followed.
What I don't get is why my man Phil, who shares my fierce objections to the Iraq war, would be a Lincoln admirer. Not part of the antiwar profile, one would think. But nationalist propaganda can derange the finest of minds. And there's a Harvard 'edumacation' (as distinguished alumnus George Bush calls it) to be overcome. ;-)
Lincoln didn't know who his maternal grandfather was, as his mom Nancy Hanks was illegitimate. But he imagined his grandpa to be perhaps a 'distinguished Virginia planter.' In his diseased mind, in other words, Abe's ancestors owned slaves — lots of them! And it's only a short step from such idyllic plantation fantasies to more prurient ones involving the female slaves, uh huh … you with me, Phil? ;-)
Freeman is in.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0209/Freemans_in.html
Duscany and Jim: Thanks, great posts.
Lincoln is a leftist hero because he wielded massive state power for the sake of equality.
Leftists in general, whether communist, neocon, or liberal, believe that it is appropriate to use coercive power to bring about an ideal state of human relations.
A neocon who considers the massive death toll in Iraq to be an acceptable price to "spread freedom," is reasoning the same way as a Lincoln fan who thinks that ending slavery or preserving the "American Ideal" was worth the death toll.
Likewise, the Ukrainian Holodomor would be justified because it brought the backwards Ukrainians closer to an ideal, classless society.
The Left idealizes power wielded for a messianic/ideal vision of humanity. This is why they are attracted to warmongers whom they can cast into a messaianic role, like Lincoln or FDR.
I have always considered the Civil War too costly for the results. Too many lives lost and, though slavery was abolished, the war did not really set most slaves and their descendants free. Lincoln's untimely death usually is pointed to the extra hundred years of servitude, penal oppression and bigotry ex-slaves endured. Nevertheless, the Civil war was extremely expensive for the South, which did not fully economically recover itself for another hundred years after Antietam, not to mention the violence and the stresses it unleashed on all of the survivors and their families. Veterans groups from the era are credited with establishing gun culture, not to mention other groups known for vigilante violence. I am, however, not sure that slavery could have been abolished any other way, so am very glad it happened sooner rather than later. If the cost was high, it was very close to being the right thing to do, and perhaps the best available person was somehow chosen to communicate that need, for his time and for history.
Slavery was practiced differently in America than other places. After importation of slaves was outlawed, American slave owners began a rational breeding program designed to maximize labor and profits. Had slavery not been abolished, Texas would probably still have slavery. The slave labor of the South was very productive, its abolishment and destruction of infrastructure partly kept the South impoverished for a long time. Had slavery been allowed to flourish, it might still be in use today. South African apartheid ended not too long ago, which is perhaps how the South would appear today had there been no war.
Obama's fascination with Afghanistan is another matter. There he is trying to solve the riddle of the Sphinx and become a great hero. Hubris will be Obama's greatest sin. Expect tragedy.
Doug says: "…An Arabist is NOT someone with a particular ideology in spite of the way some here seem to use the term…"
Sometimes when I read certain commentary I believe the word "arabists" might mean something to do with ideology… I could be wrong?
—-
Regarding the Jonathan Pollard case.
Rep. Eiot Engel [D-NY] "…Well, Rabbi, I think you're right and I think, unfortunately, what's happened is people who should care deeply have lost interest in the case. Jonathan has been in prison for so long it's almost as if, in certain quarters, the parade has sort of passed him by. It's really wrong and those of us who feel strongly about it need to do a better job, myself included.
We need to show the inherent unfairness of what's going on and continues to go on. You were talking before about anti-Semitism – is it or isn't it? It's difficult to prove anti-Semitism, but I think the element of anti-Semitism is there and it's wrong to deny it. We have arabists in the State Department; we have arabists in government, we have arabists all around…"
http://www.estherandjonathanpollard.com/2001/072201.htm
Julian, have you ever heard of the "Bonus Army" and Douglas MacArthur? Also, I had an uncle in the army when MLK was shot and they were loaded on trucks with rifles about to wreak havoc on D.C before it was called off. In his opinion, once they were let out of the trucks they would have massacred everyone in their path regardless of what orders they were given.
The whole "slave power" conspiracy was ridiculous nonsense. Our founding fathers believed in load of crazy conspiracies as well (many arising out of anti-Catholicism). Because they won, nobody today regards them as the paranoiacs they really were.
Arabist is not an ideology but can be turned into an epithet to create prejudice against someone knowledgeable about Arabs and/or Arabic, which is what the NY Representative was probably trying to do.
From Merriam-Webster Online
Main Entry:
Ar·ab·ist Pronunciation: \-bist\
Function: noun
Date: 1753
1 : a specialist in the Arabic language or in Arabic culture
2 : a person who favors Arab interests and positions in international affairs
Merriam-Webster
Well Suzanne, some dictionaries list just the first usage and others both. In all cases the first usage is the one of scholar. The second usage appears to be a recent but rapidly ramping one. Judging by the common net use of arabist as one who favors Arab positions, often used as a slur, I'm surprised it hasn't moved to number one yet.
So tell me Suzanne. Has the word "arabist" been so damaged that you only use it in the second sense? Do you assume the same of other's usage?
It should no more be used as a slur than Zionist should be used as a slur.
Arabist has been used for decades. It is hardly ever used for a scholar but almost exclusively used for western politicians who favor Arab positions.
Arabist has been used for decades. It is hardly ever used for a scholar but almost exclusively used for western politicians who favor Arab positions.
Perhaps in your circles that's so. Or maybe all those dictionaries are just wrong.
I suspect the former.
It's really hard to imagine that someone that studies a language and the culture remains a complete hater of it. Maybe if you have a specific reason, e.g. to study the culture as the present and future enemy?
Arabist (political)
NOUN:
1. A specialist in the Arabic language or culture.
2. One who is favorably disposed toward Arab concerns and policies.
One day somebody will trace the earliest usage of the politicized second sense. A quick search on Google books gives us Daniel Pipes and Robert D. Kaplan on top.
**************************************************************************
Doppler, there is a grain of truth in a hesitancy concerning too close relations with the Saudi. But isn't it interesting that the Saudis weren't on the axis of evil? The problem is Goldberg simply states bias and does not provide evidence that Freeman suffers from a pro-Saudi bias versus say American interests: oil. There surely is a vague feeling of double standards.
This is absolutely wrong: she invested Israel with Nazi-like characteristics by describing Israel’s 1967 capture of the Golan Heights as a “Blitzkrieg.”
Blitzkrieg doesn't originate with the Nazis but in WWI, as everybody surely can check on the net, even ZOA. There is always a fuss in finding a Nazi connection. But not the needed fact checking.
Let's see what Wikipedia says:Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg (German, "lightning war"De-blitzkrieg.ogg listen (help·info)) is "a headline word applied retrospectively to describe a military doctrine of an all-mechanized force concentrating its attack on a small section of the enemy front then, once the latter is pierced, proceeding without regard to its flank."[1] As British military historian Sir John Keegan has noted, it was an idea which owed its creation to soldiers of several nations: the British theorists of tank warfare Major General J.F.C. Fuller, who pioneered the first massed tank offensive at Cambrai in 1917 and Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, the German "tank pioneers" Heinz Guderian and General O. Lutz, and the Frenchman General J.E.B. Estienne who, independently of the British, had invented a tank in 1915.[2] In the Soviet Union Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky was developing similar tactics, specifically infiltration tactics were a philosophical solution to a philosophically viewed problem". Both solutions nevertheless proved to be only partial answers to the ever-thickening trench systems.[3]
Adding two missing links:
Noun
************************************************************
The second missing one was from the above ZOA link bonMOT already posted.
the funny thing is….Phil uses the term Arabist.
I used it instead of calling him a jihad lover, which is my usual term. I was trying to use a tamer word.
Since the control freaks around here are so bent on controlling my language, I'll just go back to jihad lover. :-)
Suzanne,
Yes, exactly. Phil uses it as well. Note that my original post was not directed at Phil's antagonists. I'm a longtime reader of Commentary which is where I first encountered the term. For some time I assumed "arabist" meant someone with warm fuzzies toward Arabs, more than tinged with anti-Semitism. Then I ran across different usages in other contexts and looked up the word.
It's clear that in the Israel/Arab current heated dialectic, the second usage is the most common. Sometimes it's the only usage. Sad really.
Doug–I don't generally use the word Arabist and it struck me as one of those terms that could be negative, positive, or neutral, depending on tone. (kind of like Zionist, actually)
So what would be an accurate way to describe him? He definitely fits the definition, in terms of having close associations with Arab interests.
Good question Suzanne. I don't really know but you are right it suffers the same fate Zionist does. But Obama does need, as Israel needs and no doubt has, arabists (in the original sense). The link I posted does provide some background about these folks. One can imagine the feelings of true non advocate arabists often being associated with proponents of some of the worst excesses of places like Saudi Arabia. How much affinity this fellow has with Arabs seems to be in dispute but Obama has a broad range of advisors with differing perspectives including very pro Israel ones so I'm not particularly disturbed at this point. So long as he is an American first. A requirement I assume holds for all official advisors regardless of secondary affinities.