Chas Freeman Forced Out!

Chas Freeman has been forced to pull his name out of consideration for the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council. I knew it was too good to be true.

Pressure from pro-Israel members of Congress, AIPAC, and the Israeli leadership turned out to be too much. Once again Israel has shown that it can control American politics. We might as well call Benjamin Netanyahu the President of the United States. Because in many ways... he, along with the Israeli lobby groups in this Country, determine U.S. policy. Obama is nothing more than Israel's poodle. Members of Congress are like Prostitutes working for another Country.

It's absolutely amazing to me that even with a Democratic House of Representatives, a Democratic Senate, and even with a popular President, Progressives still don't hold any sway in this Country. They have no say in the formulation of policy nor in determining who works for the President. They (Progressives) don't even have a platform to make any demands, since no media infrastructure exists. The airwaves are dominated - more like clogged and polluted - by Right wing zealots, religious Conservatives, and "Neo-Con Lite" Democrats who repeat Right Wing talking points...allowing the Right to control the narrative on damn near every media outlet in the Country... so it doesn't matter who you listen to.

The Rethuglicans claim there was a conflict of interest... that Freeman had too many Saudi business dealings. What about the Bush's? George H.W. Bush and Skull & Bones Jr. were basically sleeping with Saudi royalty... One of the younger Bush brothers, Neil Bush, was neck deep involved with the Saudi's.

Bush exchanging saliva with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia


Remember how Bush wanted to sell U.S. ports to UAE interests? They didn't have much of a problem with all of Clinton's MANY overseas dealings. For them, they made an accommodation... because they can tolerate Neo-Con Lite. But when Chas Freeman comes along, now all of a sudden these Conservatives come out of the woodwork claiming a problem. Of course none of this was the real problem.... the problem was Israel and AIPAC. It seems to me, they gave some folks an ultimatum on Freeman. And Joe Lie-berman - Senator from the State of Israel - couldn't be more disingenuous. Where were these jackass Republicans when Bush was selling us out? Go and read up on the Bush's and The Carlisle Group and their connections with Saudi Arabia. Chas Freeman's dealings pale in comparison... it's not even close.

It's almost enough to make me sick to my stomach.

Obama better grow a backbone and a pair of testicles and learn how to fight for something. All this caving has to stop.

__________________________

NPR story on Chas Freeman's nomination


UPDATE

See Freeman's statement from Juan Cole's Blog

Who is Chas Freeman and why should we care about what's happening to him?

Hat tip: The Daily Dish

I've been reading about the case of Chas Freeman, who has been nominated for National Intellgence Council Chief. Seems as if Mr. Freeman has been targeted by the Israeli Lobby for being, agasp, a person not falling in line with everything pro-Israel.

Mr. Freeman from a speech in 2007:

In a fall 2007 speech to the Pacific Council on International Policy Freeman said:


"In retrospect, Al Qaeda has played us with the finesse of a matador exhausting a great bull by guiding it into unproductive lunges at the void behind his cape. By invading Iraq, we transformed an intervention in Afghanistan most Muslims had supported into what looks to them like a wider war against Islam. We destroyed the Iraqi state and catalyzed anarchy, sectarian violence, terrorism, and civil war in that country. Meanwhile, we embraced Israel’s enemies as our own; they responded by equating Americans with Israelis as their enemies. We abandoned the role of Middle East peacemaker to back Israel’s efforts to pacify its captive and increasingly ghettoized Arab populations. We wring our hands while sitting on them as the Jewish state continues to seize ever more Arab land for its colonists."

I agree with Andrew Sullivan. If the man has FINANCIAL problems, fine. I don't have a qualm with him being jetted because of financial dealings. But, that doesn't seem to be what's happening here. He's being villified by the neo-cons, who shouldn't be able to say SHIT for what they've put this country through in the past 8 years, and the Israeli lobby. When is this country going to begin doing foreign policy for what's best for US, and not what's best for Israel? Hell no, I don't think they're one in the same. We give them, what, 3 billion dollars a year (conservative estimate- some put it as high as 5.5 billion), and we don't get to tell them what to use it for? Why isn't the foreign aid to Israel put in the same box as that 'aid' given to Africa?