That would be Chas Freeman, the man the current President of the United States has picked to head the National Intelligence Council. As Andy McCarthy notes, “This is a post which will profoundly affect what intelligence Obama consumes and how it is framed.” And what have we got? “An Israel-bashing, Saudi apologist who shills for the butchers of Tiananmen Square.” Here he is in 2002:
[W]hat of America’s lack of introspection about September 11?Instead of asking what might have caused the attack, or questioning the propriety of the national response to it, there is an ugly mood of chauvinism. Before Americans call on others to examine themselves, we should examine ourselves.
Got that? One of the first duties of the Commander in Chief is to safeguard the physical integrity of the United States. He has just tapped as one of his chief intelligence lieutenants a man who has been bought and sold by the Saudis. (Remember the Saudis? Remember 9/11? Hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11: Mohamed Atta al Sayed (Egyptian), Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian), Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian). Hijackers on United Airlines Flight 175: Marwan al-Shehhi (from the United Arab Emirates), Fayez Banihammad (from the United Arab Emirates), Mohand al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Hamza al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian). Hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian), Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian), Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian), Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian), Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian). Hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93: Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese), Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi Arabian), Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian). See a pattern here?)
I thought selecting tax cheats for Cabinet positions was bad. At least that put some money back into the government coffers.
This choice, which goes undebated by Congress, is truly frightening (http://smokebreak.blogshevik.com/2009/02/26/who-said-it/). The President is apparently bound and determined to throw Israel under the bus.
The quoted Freeman statement alone, independently of his long career of flackery for the Saudis, his role in demonstrably bad intelligence evaluation, and his history of visceral, irrational hatred of the Israelis, makes this the most atrocious appointment decision yet of the new administration.
Nursery moralising of the kind on display here is not rare – it’s a habit of “progressives”, and stems from a combination of ignorance and oversimplification (and usually marks out the moraliser as morally obtuse). It’s appalling that this person will head the Intelligence Council, but what is truly horrifying is that Obama appointed him. Does it betray Obama’s view of 9/11, that some part, even a small part, of the blame for it lies with the US? Could he think that? The idea, beloved of “progressives” is, of course, preposterous, thoughtless, lowbrow and facile, but my God, if the President has some sympathy with it . .
Hmm..I wonder if our bow-tied blogger would ever complain about an appointment who was bought and paid for by the Israelis. I tend to doubt it. He is probably one of those who thinks to even mention the Israeli lobby (much less its power) is a sign of anti-Semitism. As another blogger speculated, close ties to Israel is probably a prerequisite for government service for such people.
Btw Roger, I’d cut the “current President of the United States” bit. Using it over and over again just makes you sound petty.
ref: “… our bow-tied blogger …”
in your own words: “Using it over and over again just makes you sound petty.”
ref: “Instead of asking what might have caused the attack …”
i wonder if Mr Freeman applies the same perverse logic to women who are gang-raped in accordance with a fatwah, or rape victims stoned to death for “adultery”?
To think they attacked us because they simply hate our freedom (and I’m not sure how free we really are anyway) is to live in a fantasy. Sensible people know that 9/11 was what they call ‘blowback.’
Having said that, I’m still all in favor of finding and killing the likes of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri.
What WHO calls “blowback”?
What about cutting the sloganeering and attempting to articulate why the US deserved the butchery on 9/11? I doubt that you can – but we’ll all enjoy reading it.
@8
Who has used the word blowback? Well, Ron Paul for one.
But, of course, I forgot that the US is always blameless. We are always a force for good in the world and never do any wrong. We haven’t propped up thuggish criminal regimes in the Mideast in the past. We weren’t behind the coup in Iran in 1953 that overthrew a democratically elected government and brought in an autocrat. No, again, we are never at fault. To even think we make mistakes (or worse) in our foreign policy is completely unpatriotic!
Those Palestinians who celebrated after 9/11 only did so because we watch a lot of porn and the like and thought we had it coming because of that.
To be clear and cut the sarcasm you deserve, whatever mistakes and worse we have made, 9/11 was an attack on us. We continue to have every right to find and kill those behind it.
I forgot to add that ‘blowback’ is a term the CIA uses.
To be clear, Paul has used the term ‘blowback’ but I don’t know that he has specifically for 9/11. Probably not, I’d guess.
Ah yes, 1953 in Iran. That’s why a whole bunch of psychpaths blew up the WTC and murdered 3000 people in 2001. Of course.
Oh, and they did it because they were upset about the US propping up “thuggish criminal regimes” in the middle east. Yes, of course. That’s why Osama and his pals regularly commit terrorist atrocities in Syria and Sudan, and Afghanistan when it was controlled by the Taliban. Because what upsets them is thuggish criminal regimes. Good point.
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? You still haven’t explained how the US deserved, by its conduct, what happened on 9/11. You haven’t because you can make no such rational case.
I’ll readily admit to being a bit out of my depth on this. I’m not an expert. On the other hand, your blithe dismissal of our engineering the overthrow of a democratically elected government in that region indicates the same of you. I’d wager that your average Iranian knows something about that subject.
And your point about terrorist attacks in those other countries was meant to indicate what exactly? Of course, bin Laden and his fanatics (and I don’t dispute that is what they are) have attacked secular-ish regimes in the region in the past. They hate them. I’m not sure which attacks you meant in Afghanistan. To my knowledge Al Qaeda, lol, never attacked the Taliban. Perhaps you meant they attacked areas then held by the so-called “Northern Alliance.,” that fought against the Taliban. I don’t know.
And I’ll now await you brilliant and ‘rational’ argument that it was all because we have “freedom” and listen to rock n roll, etc. Perhaps you’ll also defend the war in Iraq and a coming one in Iran. Though one good thing about our worsening-by-the-minute financial situation is that it will help to disabuse people of the deranged fantasy that Iran is a threat we should go to war over.
OK this is my last contribution to this thread. You’re confusing “why they did it” with “did the US deserve it”.
My point is a very simple one. I’m not arguing about the terrorists’ reasons for perpetrating 9/11, I’m contesting your unthinking assumption that the terrorists’ reasons are a justification for 9/11. We all know the catalog of US freign policy iniquities, the US is far from perfect, no-one suggests otherwise. But the proposition you seem to be advancing, which, forgive me, you haven’t thought through at all, is that US shortcomings in the conduct of its foreign policy mean that the attack was morally justifiable because of something the US did. It is that proposition that you haven’t defended. I don’t think you can. US foreign policy iniquities, real or imagined, do not provide a moral justification for 9/11. I haven’t heard you say otherwise. Like I said, you are not separating your view of american conduct, and the terrorists’ own reasons for the attack, from the question whether the US deserved it.
I think you missed the point about “thuggish criminal regimes”. Of course Osama has not attacked Syria, Sudan or Afghanistan (under the Taliban). He was succoured by the last two regimes. They are the archetypal “thuggish criminal regimes” in the middle east. Why hasn’t Osama attacked them, if he is so upset about the existence of “thuggish criminal regimes” in the middle east?