National Review editor Rich Lowry joins Freeman-bashing:
It’s not pro-democracy protesters but Israel that is the
most intense object of Freeman’s ire. He blames the Jewish state for
the deadly hatred directed at it, and at us. He thinks we have paid for
our support of Israel “with the blood of our citizens here at home,” a
reference to 9/11. After the attacks, he urged that we “examine
ourselves” as we consider “what might have caused the attacks” (perhaps
the worldwide export of Saudi radicalism had something to do with it?).
Whether
you consider these views odious (right answer!) or courageous, Freeman
is a committed partisan in the war over American foreign policy,
exactly the wrong profile for a job requiring dispassionate analysis.
most intense object of Freeman’s ire. He blames the Jewish state for
the deadly hatred directed at it, and at us. He thinks we have paid for
our support of Israel “with the blood of our citizens here at home,” a
reference to 9/11. After the attacks, he urged that we “examine
ourselves” as we consider “what might have caused the attacks” (perhaps
the worldwide export of Saudi radicalism had something to do with it?).
Whether
you consider these views odious (right answer!) or courageous, Freeman
is a committed partisan in the war over American foreign policy,
exactly the wrong profile for a job requiring dispassionate analysis.
And what if you think those views are neither odious nor courageous, but just realistic? Isn't that just the sort of person you want supervising intelligence assessments?
Also: The reason there's a war over American foreign policy is that it was hijacked by ideologues, including all those who are now attacking Freeman, who gave us the greatest mistake in our foreign policy ever, Iraq, resulting in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
It's the height of hypocrisy for an Israel advocate such as Lowry to talk about "dispassionate analysis." What a joke.
Sorry Kelly, but your beliefs are the joke. Any moron who states that 3000 innocent men and women, murdered in cold blood, is an excuse for America to turn its back on it moral commitment, is a dangerous moron.
The biggest mistake America can make is kowtow to Islamic fascism.
America refused to bow to the demands of japanese fascism before Pearl Harbor. When attacked did we whine, as you do, that we should have allowed Imperial Japan access to oil to fuel their war machine, it would have saved the 2700 who died at pearl? No. We destroyed Japan.
In 2007, citizens in various Middle Eastern nations were polled to find what Al Qaeda goals they agree with most.
What made the overall top of the list? To push the US to stop favoring Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians (p17)
Combine that with 2004 Two newly released blue-ribbon reports — one issued in Washington, the other in Jerusalem — are citing Arab and Muslim anger at Israel as a central factor in motivating Islamic terrorists. Forward 2004
Of all these themes, the notion of payback for injustices suffered by the Palestinians is perhaps the most powerfully recurrent in bin Laden's speeches. It has become fashionable to assert that al-Qaeda's attachment to the Palestinian cause is relatively recent, and has been cynical and deliberately manipulative. That is simply not true. As long ago as 1984, witnesses report bin Laden shunning American goods to protest American support of Israel. His fellow traveler Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the first assault on the World Trade Center in 1993, testified that his sole motive was US backing of Israel. Berg
Yousef ’s instant notoriety as the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing inspired KSM to become involved in planning attacks against the United States. By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel. 9/11 commission p147
It's the height of hypocrisy for an Israel advocate such as Lowry to talk about "dispassionate analysis."
To be fair, Lowry doesn't claim to be qualified. It's funny that realists are now "fanatics" and will "politicize" intelligence by making American national interest paramount!
Any moron who states that 3000 innocent men and women, murdered in cold blood, is an excuse for America to turn its back on it moral commitment, is a dangerous moron
How about 6000? 6 million? Does all that pale in comparison to our special relationship with Israel?
America refused to bow to the demands of japanese fascism before Pearl Harbor. When attacked did we whine, as you do, that we should have allowed Imperial Japan access to oil to fuel their war machine, it would have saved the 2700 who died at pearl? No. We destroyed Japan.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't want any kumbayah limp-wristers like Carter running this country. Not that there's anything wrong with limp wrists…but dammit, a president needs to have testosterone (or be a woman who surrounds herself with testosterone advisors :-) )
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair1126.html
As you read this truth, note that note that none of Chris's Stools have ever even served in the US Military,
though some, like Witty, have their kids in the IDF, or contemplating such service,
You're an idiot. Access to oil? We bombed Japan to test the A-bomb.
Furthermore, Berel:
And we bombed Hiroshima in 1945. Pearl Harbour happened in 1942. Roosevelt only got involved with Japan because Japan had a treaty with Germany. If we went to war against Japan we could get into WWII, which Americans were resisting.
Any moron who states that 3000 innocent men and women, murdered in cold blood, is an excuse for America to turn its back on it moral commitment, is a dangerous moron.
What exactly do you mean by America turning its back on its moral commitments? Which commitments? How are they moral?
The biggest mistake America can make is kowtow to Islamic fascism.
What is Islamic fascism? Who are they? Exactly what actions might America take that you would define as 'kowtowing'?
berel: "Any moron who states that 3000 innocent men and women, murdered in cold blood, is an excuse for America to turn its back on it moral commitment, is a dangerous moron."
Since when does the US have a moral commitment to Israel? That country is a millstone around our necks, costing us $3 billion a year in direct aid, billions more in forgiven loans, and a $2 billion in bribes to Egypt each year not to attack Israel. And what is our thanks? Israel makes paranoid attacks on Lebanon and Gaza. And despite having 300-to-nothing nuclear advantage over its neighbors it is forever whining about some supposed existential threat.
Our financial support for Israel is far worse than just money down the drain. Our uncritical support has destroyed our moral credibility and made us hated around the world. Friends of Israel talk about that country like she's the 51st state. In fact she's an excruciating liability.
Duscany, sorry to wake up your ignorant ass. You can go back to sleep now.
Duscany, you are correct. chris berel is just a beany oye boy, he never did a thing for the land who has sheltered him.
The expressions "Islamic fascism" and Islamofascism" are polemical They have no historical basis, in terms of detailed and relevant analysis, nor theoretical basis, from the point of view of political science. As a matter of fact, there are hardly any western political scientists who have taken the trouble to define fascism with any accuracy except A James Gregor, who taught at U.Cal from the 1960s until whenever he retired, and wrote something like a dozen extremely valuable books on the subject (which led to him being called a sympathiser, but unfortunately teaching political science is always like that, and in any case, it isn't really a 'science'.)
"dammit, a president needs to have testosterone (or be a woman who surrounds herself with testosterone advisors.)"
That has got to be one of the most ignorant, sexist sentences I have ever read! Congratulations, Suzanne. You're not only a racial bigot, but sexist too!
Let me inform you that testosterone is a hormone, not a neurotransmitter. Presidents need to use their brains, not their dicks, to perform the duties of their office. Although testosterone is useful for sexual arousal, most normal human beings are not looking to get sexually aroused when they are setting policy regarding war and peace, thus making the presence/absence of testosterone in the Oval Office completely irrelevant, and a little insulting.
The girl can't help it, Ana, it's all those oestrogens.
Very funny, Rowan.
Obama is not a realist.
FDR wanted to go to war with Japan so he could go to war with Germany (why was V-E Day before V-J day when they never attacked us?). It was a repeat of World War 1, only Japan happened to be on the other side and playing a larger role. The Soviets were a hell of a lot closer and had fought the Japanese recently, and they managed to keep peace until right before the end, why didn't we do the same for Germany? Because it was all about our special relationship with England, and with the decline of France in the Franco-Prussian war England viewed Germany as the greatest threat to its power as the largest empire in the world. After the Yanks and Russkies split up Germany, the Soviets replaced them as the big bad. A longer defense of my WW2 skepticism is in my post What was so bad about Charles Lindbergh?
TGGP: "A longer defense of my WW2 skepticism is in my post What was so bad about Charles Lindbergh?"
My Jewish mother-in-law once denounced Charles Lindbergh in front of me as an "anti-Semite" for his having pointed out in a pre-war speech that the English and the Jews both desperately wanted us to enter WWII. Lindbergh was right of course on both counts but my mother in law, not a sophisticated thinker, regarded any criticism of Jewish behavior as anti-Semitic by definition.
My Jewish father in law, on the other hand, was a great Lindbergh fan. As a boy he had excitedly listened to Lindbergh's flight on a crystal radio. That was more important to him that the fact that Lindberg had uttered inconvenient truths about Jews in a speech he hoped would help keep us out of the war.
Lindbergh was an antisemite. You are just like your mother in law, not a sophisticated thinker.
A cautionary tale of hero worship and anti-Semitism
Friday, December 12, 2003 | by marek breiger, correspondent | news & features
We live, as it is often said, in an age of celebrity. Movie stars and generals, talk-show hosts and computer millionaires, athletes and pop singers — all are given credibility in terms of politics they have not earned and do not deserve.
But our age is not unique.
For in the 1920s and 1930s and up to Pearl Harbor, as Max Wallace's excellent "The American Axis" makes clear, two of America's biggest celebrities — car manufacturer Henry Ford and aviator Charles Lindbergh — openly sympathized with Adolf Hitler and actively pushed an anti-Semitic agenda, influencing countless Americans to support the most notorious racist who has ever walked the earth.
What Ford did against the Jewish people can never be excused. A genius in his own field, Ford knew nothing of history except to call it "bunk." He swallowed the lies of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and then published them in his paper, The Dearborn Independent.
He initiated a seven-year campaign against the Jews, which ended only when a Jewish boycott against Ford automobiles prompted an "apology." Wallace shows that this apology was motivated by convenience rather than sincerity.
Ford's plants in Germany used slave labor during World War II and, Wallace writes, Ford's son Edsel, who died during World War II, was to have been indicted for trading with the Nazis.
Hitler kept a huge photo of Henry Ford above his desk and awarded him with a Nazi medal that Ford not only accepted but boasted about in private.
Lindbergh was a genuine hero and a genuine dupe, who, like Ford, detested Franklin Roosevelt but lauded Hitler and the Third Reich. Like Ford, he proudly received a Nazi medal, and admired Nazi Germany. Before World War II, his speeches for America First were isolationist and anti-Semitic. Lindbergh's overestimation of German military strength set the stage, Wallace shows, for appeasement at Munich. Both men were far adrift as actors in a world they did not understand. Yet, because of their celebrity, millions followed their every word.
Wallace's book, if read seriously, might give readers pause before they trust our 2003 celebrities from Noam Chomsky and on the left to Rush Limbaugh on the right.
Wallace concludes: "Unless we honestly examine the phenomena that fueled the destructive social forces championed by Ford and Lindbergh, we ignore, at our peril, a cautionary tale of intolerance, abuse of power and reckless hero worship just as applicable to our own times."
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/21286/a-cautionary-tale-of-hero-worship-and-anti-semitism/
As soon as I saw the length and professional layout of that, I knew c berel had simply pasted it in from somewhere or other – he doesn't have the intelligence to compose that sort of thing.
@ chris berel
"Any moron who states that 3000 innocent men and women, murdered in cold blood, is an excuse for America to turn its back on it moral commitment, is a dangerous moron."
No. This is twisted logic. It should have made the USA leaders question immoral aspects of repeated
foreign policy. The first draft of the findings of the commission who looked into 9/11 nailed the motive, basically blowback from the USA's one-sided support of Israel sans conditions. This finding was redacted, turned into a generality that did not mention Israel.
"The biggest mistake America can make is kowtow to Islamic fascism"
islam and fascism do not belong together. Contemporary Middle East is not 1930s or earlier 1940s Europe, except in the restricted sense that the Palestinians are a victim peoplehood of a racist, military power.
"America refused to bow to the demands of japanese fascism before Pearl Harbor. When attacked did we whine, as you do, that we should have allowed Imperial Japan access to oil to fuel their war machine, it would have saved the 2700 who died at pearl? No. We destroyed Japan.
The USA did all in its power to deny Imperial Japan oil; this is the only reason Japan desperately , at last, attacked at Pearl. Roosevelt's attempts to get his nation in a war with Germany were not going well.
Roosevelt knew Japan was allied with Germany. Historians debate to this day if Roosevelt knew ahead of time Japan was going to attack at Pearl. Once Pearl, then Hitler declared war on USA.
"My Jewish mother-in-law once denounced Charles Lindbergh in front of me as an "anti-Semite" for his having pointed out in a pre-war speech that the English and the Jews both desperately wanted us to enter WWII."
He was right of course. This followed the same pattern that got the USA into WW1.
Next time around, WW3, will be triggered by attack on Iran–it does not matter if Israel or the USA acts first of course. Must be done before most of our troops leave Iraq. Would be a twofur–rescue us from
a 2nd Great Depression, and placate Jewish donors.
Historians know that Roosevelt had a personal fondness for the fleet and would have never sacrificed it to get into war with Germany.
Lindbergh praised and adored Nazi Germany. Like you, perhaps he was just a USF.
How stupid are you to repeat that Lindbergh was labeled an antisemite, which he was, because he stated that England wanted the US to enter the war? You are truly an idiot.
Where did anyone repeat that Lindbergh was labeled an antisemite? Chris, who said that other than you?
Certainly England wanted us into both WW1 & WW2–how stupid are you?
Citizen did. Are you blind, or can't read very well? Not as stupid as you, obviously.
Better go see an eye doctor, berel.
Ford was an anti-semite, but Lindbergh should not be conflated with him. As I made clear in my post, when he accepted that medal HE WAS IN GERMANY ON BEHALF OF THE US GOVERNMENT AND INVITED BY THE US AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY. It is the case that he overestimated the chance the Germans had of beating England. His expertise was in aviation, and he was correct to be impressed by the German Luftwaffe (remember, they were on the cutting edge and the first to use jets). What he didn't fully take into account was the great advantage going to defensive planes due to the flight over the English channel using up so much of the attacker's fuel. I think the English also used radar technology he wasn't aware of. Lindbergh's medal only became controversial later on when relations between the countries worsened and he REFUSED TO GIVE IT BACK. Nobody objected when he initially received it.
Lindbergh did consider buying a house in Berlin (he already had one in England, and I think in France). After Kristallnacht he decided Germany was not a kind of place he wanted his family in and changed his mind. He volunteered to take back his old position in the airforce and would have fought the Germans during the war, but he was prohibited from doing so. Instead he went to the pacific and despite civilian status flew combat missions there, even as he deplored the murderous racial hatred of his comrades in arms. He was not pro-Nazi, which was just a smear created because he was an isolationist. He genuinely abhorred war.
"Next time around, WW3, will be triggered by attack on Iran–it does not matter if Israel or the USA acts first of course. Must be done before most of our troops leave Iraq. Would be a twofur–rescue us from a 2nd Great Depression, and placate Jewish donors."
I don't think a war with Iran would save us from another depression. It would just drive the price of oil to several hundred dollars a barrel. The resulting world wide economic collapse would leave half the world eating out of garbage dumps. The US would enter an economic collapse from which it would not recover in my lifetime. And when it did recover, it would no only be the pre-eminent world power, trailing China and perhaps even India.
Thank you, TGGP. Lindbergh was an honorable man who did great things for his country in peace and war. To slander such a man is utterly contemptible.
on ford-lindbergh-orwell:
http://www.orwelltoday.com/readerfordlindbergh.shtml
On using Lindbergh and good manners to promote an antisemitic and racist agenda – lesson Weiss learned at whose knee?
link to splcenter.org
Electronic Storm
Stormfront grows a thriving neo-Nazi community
By T.K. Kim
Storm Chatter
The Stormfront.org message boards are full of hate on topics ranging from dating to guns.
Read More
On most days, the man once labeled a "near genius" in a Time magazine article spends the bulk of his time in an office of the Mandeville, La., home of infamous white supremacist David Duke.
There, Jamie Kelso whips across Duke's hardwood floors on a wheeled office chair as he attends to his work: monitoring the burgeoning community of the racist Stormfront Web site on one of six different computers.
To the thousands of white supremacists who regularly visit Stormfront and its forum, Kelso is best known by his e-moniker, "Charles A Lindbergh." He signs off all his posts with a quote from Lindbergh, a well-known racist and anti-Semite: "We can have peace and security only as long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood."
"I admire the aviator so much, " Kelso says.
The aviator, were he still alive, might well admire Kelso. As Stormfront celebrates its 10th birthday — the first major hate site on the Internet, it was created by former Alabama Klan leader Don Black in 1995 — Kelso has much to be proud of. In the three years he's been a senior moderator of the site, it has grown from fewer than 10,000 registered users to, as of mid-June, an astounding 52,566. And while many thousands of that ever-growing total probably haven't visited in years, independent Web monitors recently ranked Stormfront the 338th largest electronic forum on the Internet, putting it easily into the top 1% of all sites on the World Wide Web.
Black and Kelso have created something more than just another hate site that draws people for a few months, then fades for lack of interest. Using everything from good manners to "white scholarships" to such catchy gimmicks as highlighting its members' birthdays, these two men have built something that very few people on the entire Internet have — a genuine and very large cyber-community. That they did it at a time when major neo-Nazi groups are on the decline is merely icing.
Lindbergh's only offense was he asked, is it good for America? Rather, than, is it good for the jews?
Ditto with Ford. They were heroes in their own time, and great role models for the USA citizens. Most jews of course resent this. Only patriotic USA jews honor those names, along with their non-jewish fellow citizens.