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As Gareth Porter and I write in today’s Miami Herald, the specter of such a strike takes on more reality with Netanyahu as prime minister. He, too, is taking the measure of our young president and may draw very dangerous conclusions from his subservience to the Lobby, as well as the key role played by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in the White House.
Impact on Intelligence
The effect of the Freeman affair on the intelligence community is easy to predict. Those who were looking forward to a fearless integrity will be deeply disappointed. They may seek honest work elsewhere, if they perceive that Blair is only titular head of intelligence and that pro-Lobby political operatives like Emanuel are calling the shots.
On the other hand, those managers and analysts who were pleased as punch to be sent over to brief the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), created by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will be delighted. This briefing practice, encouraged by the Bush/Cheney administration, was highly irregular for a non-partisan intelligence community to be engaged in. It can be expected to flourish now, with the abject object lesson of Freeman’s demise.
Unconscionable Timidity
On October 5, 2007 I published an article on Israel’s deliberate attempt, on June 8, 1967, to sink the USS Liberty in international waters off the Sinai, killing 34 of the Liberty crew and wounding over 170 in the process.
The lead was:
“So Who’s Afraid of the Israel Lobby? Virtually everyone: Republican, Democrat—Conservative, Liberal. The fear factor is non-partisan, you might say, and palpable. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee brags that it is the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol Hill, and has demonstrated that time and again, and not only on Capitol Hill.”
The point? In June 1967, the Israelis learned that they could get away, literally, with murder and still not endanger their influence in Washington.
Events of the past weeks demonstrate that they and their Lobby are equally good at character assassination. It is embarrassingly shameful to watch President Obama acquiesce in all of this.
This article first appeared at Consortiumnews.com.
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