Quickly on Chaz Freeman

Although it's just now getting mainstream coverage, I've been following the story of Charles Freeman for a little while now. Retired Navy Admiral David Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, appointed Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council. It's an important post, probably more important now after the debacle of intelligence gathering which led us to the Iraq War. But ultimately, it's rather inconsequential as far as newsworthiness. It's not a Senate confirmed appointment, most of the time the nominee flies through quite effortlessly. But not this time, because Freeman crossed AIPAC, the Israel lobby The fight went on for about a week, but ultimately Freeman voluntarily withdrew his name.

I hate to say this, but the Obama adminstration went out like a bunch of ho's. How do you think David Blair feels, having to fight for his appointment with no back up from the adminstration he works for. Now AIPAC and their roster of political thugs that holler "anti-Semetic" anytime someone does something they don't like know that they will continue to control the debate, just like they've done in the past. Perhaps the administration thought the fight for a relatively minor post was not worth the effort, but if you blink once....

Now, Freeman did have some other issues. He's a Kissinger-lite style realpolitiker; which bugs the hell out of human rights activists, and justifiably so. Some of his statements on China and Saudi Arabia have caused some alarm, not nearly as much as his statements on the Israel/Palestine conflict, but they do provide good cover for those that oppose him. But honestly, I don't see too much that is controversial. His views on China and Saudi Arabia are pretty much in line with everyone elses, if we were to judge our government on its actions rather than words. We may bloviate on Chinese human rights atrocities at certain times to try and maintain our moral superiority, but a) we don't have as much leverage since they're bankrolling our deficit spending and have been for some time, and b) we, as a country, don't actually care about Chinese human rights. Yeah it'd be nice if they'd stop arresting people for political reasons, freed Tibet, cleaned up their air, and opened up their internet. But it'd be a lot better if they continued to buy up all of our T-bills and continued to churn out low cost products to ship to our Wal-Marts. And as far as Saudi Arabia is concerned- just substitute oil in for T-bills and low cost goods. I'm not doubting that It's important that people who are in intelligence posts to deal with the world how it is now how they want it to be and leave the lofty optimistic goals to the elected administration. It goes back to the Wilson vs. Jefferson debate; those who have to deal with the details of advancing to our lofty goals have to have a much more realistic frame of mind than those who set up the grand vision. It wouldn't be his job to set up policy, rather he would be interpreting the data collected for the policymakers to act on. Furthermore, Freeman, as an avowed contrarian would help to curtail the dangerous group-think that can infect any organization. Overall, every person that knew Freeman and commented on his aptitude and qualifications for the job said that he was the right man, even if they disagreed with some of his conclusions. Shame that he won't get a chance to serve.

PS- One more thing. I've read some comments on blogs that I frequent that talk about a "conspiracy theory" when it comes to the Israel lobby, saying that it doesn't actually exist. As Andrew Sullivan said, there is no conspiracy. There is an Israel lobby. And there's nothing wrong with having an Israel lobby, all foreign governments have some kind of lobby. There are plenty of firms that specialize in lobbying for dictatorships. I'm not saying that there's some nefarious plot where Israel actually runs our government. Like all lobbying groups they present their case, lean on officials that owe them favors, and spend their political and social capital as best they see fit in order to implement their agenda. And I'm not saying that the Israel lobby shouldn't carry more weight in the American government than say, the government of Azerbijan. I just personally think the lobby carries a little too much weight, and that our interests don't always align with Israel's the way that some people say they do.