Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Neocon is code for ... idiot.

There are people on both sides of the debate who receive some benefit from claiming that "neocon" is a codeword for Jew, although right now it is mostly the neocons themselves trying to make that claim.

As we see, only an idiot would think that claim would hold up under scrutiny.

Sheehan's Crawford encampment has swollen in the past week, as other antiwar protesters have flocked to Texas. Members of CodePink, a women's antiwar organization, have pitched their tent near Sheehan's.

TrueMajority, an antiwar group founded by Ben Cohen -- one of the creators of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream -- hired Fenton Communications, a Washington public relations firm that has worked intermittently with Sheehan over the past year to coordinate media coverage.

There are more examples of this than can be counted, but for some reason this one caught my eye.

Link

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Speaking of idiots...

From Steve Clemmons at the Washington Note today:

"There are rumors now -- strong rumors -- of a classified Italian intelligence report that may implicate Michael Ledeen for alleged complicity in either helping to "generate," "legitimate," and "promulgate" forged documents about Iraq's attempts to secure uranium from Niger. There are some good investigative journalists trying to access this report."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

8/17/2005 02:56:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is funny about the neocon=antisemite accusation is that until some started talking like that I never even thought about the religion of the various neocon players. I mean I know that some in this country obssess over religion but personally I have a lot to do without wondering/investigating who is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.

8/18/2005 05:17:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If neo con is a code word for "jews" then anti-semitism is a code word for "Israel first"

Without going all McCarthy, I am in favor of drawing some very strong legal lines between what people do in Israel's interest vr. the US interest....and I think that is the whole intent of the current investigations into AIPAC. No one can serve two masters.

8/18/2005 12:57:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/
politics/18inquire.html?ex=1124942400&en=0e659a03a38b1410
&ei=5070&emc=eta1


U.S. Diplomat Is Named in Secrets Case

By DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
Published: August 18, 2005
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 -

The second-highest diplomat at the United States Embassy in Baghdad is one of the anonymous government officials cited in an Aug. 4 indictment as having provided classified information to an employee of a pro-Israel lobbying group, people who have been officially briefed on the case said Wednesday.

David M. Satterfield, deputy chief of the United States mission in Baghdad, is accused of giving classified information to a pro-Israel lobbyist.

Text: The Indictment
The diplomat, David M. Satterfield, was identified in the indictment as a United States government official, "USGO-2," the people briefed on the matter said. In early 2002, USGO-2 discussed secret national security matters in two meetings with Steven J. Rosen, who has since been dismissed as a top lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as Aipac, who has been charged in the case.

The indictment said that Mr. Rosen met USGO-2 on Jan. 18, 2002, and March 12, 2002, but provides few details about the encounters. The indictment does not describe Mr. Satterfield's activities in detail nor does it specify what classified information the diplomat discussed with the lobbyist. The meetings were also confirmed by documents, people who have been briefed said. These people asked not to be identified because many of the matters related to the case are classified.

The indictment does not accuse USGO-2 of any wrongdoing, nor does it indicate whether he might have been authorized to talk with the lobbyist. Mr. Satterfield is not believed to be the subject of a continuing investigation. He is the first higher-ranking government official to be caught up in the criminal inquiry.

Mr. Satterfield's role in the inquiry has been known within a small circle at the State Department. Before he was sent to Baghdad, officials at the State Department asked the Justice Department whether the investigation posed any impediment to his assignment in Iraq, someone who has been officially briefed said. Officials at the State Department were advised that he could take the job.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You need to read the entire two page article. What comes thru loud and clear is the attempt in the press and by certain US officals to whitewash the interaction between AIPAC/Israel and officals of the US government..even when it comes to "giving classified National Security information".
AIPAC and Israel supporters have been greasing the slippery slope for years trying to make it seem as if Israel and the US were one and same and that therefore Israel was entitled to US national security secrets.

The FBI understands that Israel and the US are not the same country and Israel acts in it's own interest not ours. Let's hope they can make that clear to our government and to the Israeli firsters in this government and country.

8/18/2005 01:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Zionists should be encouraged to slime people as "anti semitic" to their hearts' content. Think about it.

There's way too much political correctness anyway, on the issue of Palestine, on the issue of Iraq, on the issue of the media. Time to blow away the cobwebs.

8/18/2005 03:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with Stacy's comment on the use of the term anti-semitism..

But...where is all this anti-semitism people are talking about?

The only incidents of anti-semitic acting out I have read about come from the same old groups of bigots that have been around forever and in countries outside of the US. I am just not seeing a rise in anti-semitism among normal people.

A "political" turn against and questioning of the hard right fanatic type of Israelis and their supporters I am seeing...and I think that is justified...they should be lumped in with the radical Muslims and the radical christians as far that goes...they are all dangerous and deluded.

8/18/2005 05:28:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.billmon.org/

Billmon has an excellent rant on the AIPAC/ case and everything associated with it.

Which again reinforces my conviction that the Israeli intrusion into our government has been a slow growing cancer for a long,long time. It has sprouted so many secondary tumors it is almost impossible to find and cut them all out without killing off half the government.

With McNutty indicating so far that he isn't going to indict the "american" officals involved in releasing classified info it seems he is just using chemo to slow down the disease, not save the patient.

However I want to make a prediction.....

Israel will eventually violate the new US/Isr agreement on monitoring Isr arm sales to countries like China the US considers a threat to our security.

The baby gorilla wants to be the silverback...not a dependent junior pack member.

And that will be that...

8/18/2005 06:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Regarding the Satterfield news;

Juan Cole says :

"An informed reader writes to say that Satterfield may well have been under orders from higher-up to brief AIPAC officials on sensitive subjects. (If this is true, it would help to explain why he is not slated for any further investigation or sanction."

..which of course we could all have assumed from the begining...all roads, ALL roads in the Israeli caper lead to someone higher and higher in the Bush adm's Israeli neo appointees. I am not counting on it but harbor hope that perhaps McNutty is climbing the tree to the top rotton apples.

I wonder if Feith will have bodyguards after he leaves the pentagon..a quick snatch and short trip to Syria on one of those DOD rendition flights could probably answer all the questions and save the FBI a lot of time. Maybe they could snatch Ledeen too and solve all the AIPAC/Yellowcake/Plame/Missing Iraqi 9 Billion/ affairs in one swope.

8/19/2005 12:27:00 AM  
Blogger Antony Loewenstein said...

I couldn't agree more. In Australia, for example, there is little debate about these matters, despite the fact we have troops in Iraq and the government of John Howard is disturbingly pro-Bush.
Furthermore, the connections between Western intelligence services and Islamic fundamentalism is truly disturbing and is becoming clearer by the day.

Read on: http://antonyloewenstein.blogspot.com/2005/08/connections.html

8/19/2005 12:54:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

08/19/2005 New York Jewish Week
What Did AIPAC Know — And When?
Former pro-Israel lobby chief says he was aware of aide's access to secret info in '83.
Larry Cohler-Esses - Editor-At-Large

Contrary to recent claims by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a top official of the pro-Israel lobby knew of the use of classified government information in its work, The Jewish Week has learned.

Thomas Dine, a former executive director of AIPAC, confirmed this week that during his tenure Steven Rosen, the lobby's foreign policy director until April, informed him of his success in gaining access to a highly classified document.

Rosen, 63, and two others pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal charges in Alexandria, Va., that they had conspired to obtain and disclose classified national defense information. The indictment against Rosen, his former AIPAC colleague Keith Weissman and their alleged Pentagon source, Larry Franklin, cites alleged security breaches dating back to 1999.

Dine said federal agents investigating Rosen unearthed a memo from 1983, soon after Rosen's arrival at AIPAC, in which Rosen boasted about his access to a comprehensive, classified review of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

"They showed it to me," Dine said of FBI agents who interviewed him for about 45 minutes in April. "I remembered the letter."

The Rosen memo was directed to one of the lobby's prominent supporters and himself, Dine said.

AIPAC and federal prosecutors have depicted Rosen as a lone ranger. His superiors at AIPAC have said that until recently they were ignorant of his alleged pursuit of classified information.

But Dine's account indicates that soon after starting his job at the lobby, Rosen explicitly informed his boss — the lobby's top staff official — of his success in obtaining such information in writing. It also shows that federal investigators are probing much further back into Rosen's activities than the indictment indicates.

Asked his reaction to the memo at the time, Dine said his impression was that Rosen had not actually laid his hands on the classified document itself but had obtained intelligence on it in the draft stage.

"The normal course of business in Washington is the exchange of ideas and information," Dine said. "It's mainly done verbally. Whether those ideas and [the] sharing [of them] are classified is ambiguous, vague — and business as usual."

Another source who has seen the memo said, "He [Rosen] was bragging, 'I got access to this classified document that shows us where U.S. policy is going. And I'm working to influence it.' "

The source described the two-page memo as being typed on plain, non-letterhead paper.

Both Dine and the source agreed that in the memo, Rosen specifically described the information he was accessing as "classified" and named the document in question as "National Security Decision Directive 99" — a crucial comprehensive review of U.S. Middle East policy, then in draft form.

The memo, which was copied to Dine, was addressed to Guilford Glazer, they said. Glazer, a wealthy AIPAC supporter, was then a business partner to billionaire oilman Armand Hammer and known to be a financial patron of Rosen's work. Attempts to reach Glazer were unsuccessful.

Dine, who resigned as AIPAC's executive director in 1993 after serving 14 years on the job, recently left his post as president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty to become the chief executive of San Francisco's Jewish Community Federation.

A spokeswoman for Abbe Lowell, Rosen's attorney, declined to comment on the memo's implications. Asked about AIPAC's depiction of Rosen as having acted without authorization, the spokeswoman replied, "We'll address those issues in motions we will be filing in court."

Patrick Dorton, an AIPAC spokesman, said the lobby "dismissed Rosen and Weissman because they engaged in conduct that was not part of their jobs, and because this conduct did not comport in any way with the standards that AIPAC expects of its employees."

Asked if the memo did not suggest a different standard was in place earlier, Dorton replied, "What may or may not have happened 22 years ago is not relevant, given that the entire AIPAC staff and leadership has changed. None of the principals are at AIPAC anymore."

Dorton declined to say when the current standards had been established or by whom.

"AIPAC could not condone or tolerate the conduct of the two employees under any circumstances," he said. "The organization does not seek, use or request anything but legally obtained, appropriate information as part of its work."

Dorton said federal investigators had never brought up the document in the many interviews conducted with AIPAC personnel.

Dine's attitude toward the information he received from Rosen mirrored views expressed by many lobbyists, journalists and policy analysts since the indictments were announced earlier this month.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' secrecy project, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: "This prosecution breaks troubling new ground. It means that anyone who works in national security-policy advocacy or as a government watchdog could be liable to prosecution. That's preposterous."

But others pointed out that in the more recent case, according to the indictment, Rosen allegedly shared the classified information he had obtained with foreign officials, reportedly Israelis.

Pattern of Activity

In some ways, Rosen's pattern of activity as related in the account of the 1983 memo was similar to the allegations detailed in the indictment. In the more recent case, Rosen allegedly gained access to classified information on a U.S. policy document on Iran, also in its draft stage, and also for the purpose of more effectively influencing that policy as it was being developed.

To Bill Mateja, an ex-federal prosecutor who ran the Justice Department's task force on white-collar crime, the '83 memo suggests that federal prosecutors may have reason to conduct a wider probe despite public assurances they have offered others at AIPAC that they are not at risk.

"I think it does have an impact on things," Mateja said. "It indicates AIPAC was aware Rosen was trading in confidential and sensitive information. It seems to show his superiors knew this, contrary to what they have been saying."

Mateja cautioned that statute of limitations issues could limit prosecutors' ability to use such an old memo. But under the conspiracy charges that are part of the indictment, there are circumstances in which it could be deployed, he said.

"If there is any kind of evidence [others] acquiesced in Rosen's conduct, there could be legal liability for those individuals," he said.

On the other hand, Mateja added, a prosecutor could use his discretion and decide not to pursue individuals he deemed highly cooperative with his investigation.

It is not known how the FBI obtained the memo, but the agency in its investigation has executed search warrants of AIPAC's offices and Rosen's residence.

In the memo Rosen — then only recently hired to a senior position with AIPAC — informed Dine and Glazer that he had recently obtained access to a draft of National Security Decision Directive 99, a document classified as "Top Secret," the government's highest level of restriction.

Attempt to Influence U.S. Policy

Rosen said his access to this secret draft would enable AIPAC to influence U.S. policy toward the Middle East as it was developing, with unprecedented new effectiveness, according to Dine and the second source.

National Security Decision Directive 99, dated July 12, 1983, which was obtained by The Jewish Week from the Reagan Library archives in Simi Valley, Calif., was a comprehensive review by the National Security Council of U.S. Middle East policy ordered by then-President Reagan.

The final document, which was signed by Reagan and has since been declassified, marked a crucial victory for those promoting strategic military cooperation between the United States and Israel. In the document, Reagan ordered a resumption of "cooperative planning with Israel."

Eighteen months earlier, Reagan had cut off such military cooperation in reaction to Israel's passage of a law that moved it toward annexing the Golan Heights. A formal strategic "Memorandum of Understanding" between the two countries was suspended by Reagan's order. Subsequent tensions over Israel's invasion of Lebanon increased the estrangement between the U.S. and Israel.

But NSDD 99 not only restored the military understanding, it ordered an intensive internal review, to be completed in six weeks, with an eye toward "expanding on the work begun earlier" in order to counter "Soviet involvement and aggression which threaten vital Western interests in the Near East and South Asia."

"Thereafter we will develop an interagency plan to implement the findings of this review as feasible and appropriate," Reagan's order concluded.

"It was a new beginning," said Avraham Ben-Zvi, a Tel Aviv University historian who concentrates on U.S.-Israel relations.

He said Reagan's directive resuming and expanding on the earlier Memorandum of Understanding "is important because it was the second official document. It laid the groundwork, set the threshold upon which the relationship continued to expand."

Ben-Zvi said he could not comment knowledgeably on what influence, if any, AIPAC or Rosen had on the breakthrough. In general, he believed political factors played an important role in the administration's decision — particularly its interest in giving Israel incentives to move out of Lebanon.

In other sections of the indictment, the government alleges that Rosen shared classified information he received from Franklin, a Pentagon Iran specialist, with other AIPAC officials. According to one report, this included AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr.

Kohr has denied he was aware the information Rosen gave him was classified, according to JTA. In the part of the indictment that appears to refer to this episode, Weissman is alleged to have described the information as having come from "an American intelligence source."

Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for eastern Virginia, at his Aug. 5 news conference announcing the indictment seemed to support AIPAC's position that others had no prior knowledge Rosen was trafficking in classified intelligence.

"AIPAC as an organization has expressed its concern on several occasions with the allegations against Rosen and Weissman," said McNulty. "In fact, after we brought some of the evidence that we had to AIPAC's attention, it did the right thing by dismissing these two individuals." n

8/19/2005 07:45:00 AM  

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