[Swiftwater Gazette] Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles Freemanto be director of the National Intelligence Council

[Michael D. Weisner]

Brad,

It seems that we all have heard his name too many times before.  I just 
wasn't aware that he was joining the "boyz" in the "Have it their way" 
world.

Mike

From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com> Sunday, March 08, 2009 8:23 PM
> Mike,
>
> Freeman is real popular in my house -
>
> -    "[T]he truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was
> the failure to intervene on    a timely basis to nip the
> demonstrations in the bud, rather than -- as would have been both wise
> and efficacious -- to intervene with force when all other measures had
> failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major
> urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo's response to the
> mob scene at 'Tian'anmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious
> behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash
> action". . . . Chas Freeman -
>
> HopenChange brother!
>
> Brad
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> 
> wrote:
>> There seems to be no end to the problems with this new administration:
>> http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09067/953727-373.stm
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> With friends like this ...
>> Obama schmoozes Israel but will he be there when it counts?
>> Sunday, March 08, 2009
>> By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
>>
>> Few did more to reassure Jews it was "safe" to vote for Barack Obama than
>> Martin Peretz, financier and editor-in-chief of The New Republic since 
>> 1974.
>>
>> "Can friends of Israel -- and Jews -- trust Obama?" he asked in an 
>> article
>> in January of last year.
>>
>> His answer was yes. "Obama's points, which he has made many times, should
>> reassure anyone who is concerned about what his presidency would mean for
>> the security of Israel," Mr. Peretz wrote then.
>>
>> In May of last year, Mr. Peretz assured Jews concerned about the 
>> endorsement
>> of Mr. Obama by Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef that "Obama's own personal 
>> history
>> and his political convictions predisposed him towards Israel."
>>
>> Harvard professor Samantha Power has accused Israel of war crimes, and 
>> once
>> recommended U.S. troops be sent to impose upon the Israelis a peace
>> settlement by force. She's been appointed by President Obama to a senior
>> foreign policy job at the White House. Mr. Peretz assured his readers in
>> December that Ms. Power "truly, truly loves Israel and the people of
>> Israel."
>>
>> But Mr. Obama's appointment of Charles "Chas" Freeman to be director of 
>> the
>> National Intelligence Council is causing Mr. Peretz second thoughts.
>>
>> Mr. Freeman is a former diplomat who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from
>> 1989 to 1992. He also was an assistant secretary of defense in the first
>> Clinton administration. Since 1997, he's been president of the Middle 
>> East
>> Policy Council, a lobbying group funded mostly by Saudi Arabia.
>>
>> As director of the National Intelligence Council -- a post which does not
>> require Senate confirmation -- Mr. Freeman would be the official most
>> responsible for preparation of National Intelligence Estimates -- the
>> classified documents that give the president and Congress the 
>> intelligence
>> community's assessments of the medium- and long-term threats to the 
>> security
>> of the country.
>>
>> Mr. Freeman is a man of strong opinions. He thinks Hamas is a key to 
>> peace
>> in the Middle East and Israel the chief barrier to it. He's been effusive 
>> in
>> his praise of the Saudi king, whom he has described as "Abdullah the 
>> Great,"
>> and of a book by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer on the "Israeli 
>> lobby,"
>> which has been denounced as riddled with factual errors and by some as
>> anti-Semitic.
>>
>> Mr. Freeman's fondness for tyrants goes beyond the Middle East. He 
>> supported
>> the disabling of the "democracy movement" in Tiananmen Square in 1989. 
>> "The
>> truly unforgivable mistake by the Chinese authorities was the failure to
>> intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud," Mr.
>> Freeman said in a 2006 e-mail uncovered by the Weekly Standard.
>>
>> "Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic
>> administration," Mr. Peretz wrote Feb. 25. "He has never displayed a 
>> liberal
>> instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and
>> tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the 
>> streets
>> quiet ... That Freeman would be chosen to be the president's gatekeeper 
>> to
>> national intelligence is an absurdity."
>>
>> Another who assured Jews that Mr. Obama is their friend is Jeffrey 
>> Goldberg
>> of the Atlantic magazine. "Obama and I spoke over the weekend," he wrote
>> last May. "He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish 
>> community,
>> and about the influence Jews have had on his life."
>>
>> More troubling than Mr. Freeman's hostility towards Israel is "the 
>> obvious
>> inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of
>> Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for
>> the Obama administration," Mr. Goldberg wrote Feb. 23.
>>
>> Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg treat the Freeman nomination as if it were an
>> aberration. But placed within the context of the Obama administration's
>> flirtation with the idea of attending the Durban II "Zionism is racism"
>> "human rights" conference and the administration's plan to provide $300
>> million in aid for Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Freeman
>> nomination may be a more accurate reflection of the president's innermost
>> feelings than the assurances he gave to Mr. Peretz and Mr. Goldberg 
>> during
>> the campaign.
>>
>> Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade
>> (jkelly at post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476).
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