Charles Freeman

Let's get one thing straight: Charles Freeman most certainly did express support for Chinese repression of the Tiananmen protests:

I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the 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. [...]

I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China, allowing students to occupy zones that are the equivalent of the Washington National Mall and Times Square, combined. while shutting down much of the Chinese government's normal operations. I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang's dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing with domestic protesters in China.

And in another email Freeman said that the lesson of Tiananmen is that "one should strike hard and strike fast rather than tolerate escalating self-expression by exuberantly rebellious kids."  I've seen multiple articles claiming that Freeman was just describing the dominant view in China rather than stating his own views, but as the fragments I've emphasized above make clear, he was doing both.  This doesn't mean that Freeman was happy about the massacre, of course, but he explicitly supports the repression of dissent by China.

Setting that aside, I never understood the euphoria over Freeman's appointment to the National Intelligence Council.  Yes, it's very nice that he said 9/11 was in part caused by U.S. support of Israel and that Israeli violence against Palestinians is a barrier to peace.  But how excited should we really be that someone with relatively sane (though avowedly amoral) views would be summarizing intelligence reports for the emperor and his coterie?  I'd be just as enthused to hear that Obama was mandating waterless urinals in all government buildings.

And while I'm always happy to see the Israel lobby getting kicked in the groin as Freeman made a point of doing after his resignation, I'd have more respect for him if he'd either 1) stuck it out, if it was in fact his own choice to resign, or 2) blown the whistle on the Obamaites if they asked him to leave.  But he decided to do the usual Washington good soldier routine instead.

Overall I find it odd and even a bit discouraging that progressives spent any time considering the significance of the Freeman appointment*.  There's no doubt whatsoever where Obama stands on Israel/Palestine (and many other foreign policy issues)—and the appointment of one somewhat less doctrinaire person to a mid-tier bureaucratic position makes not the slightest difference in that.  I honestly couldn't give a rat's ass who Obama ends up appointing instead, and I don't see why any other progressive should either.

* (Yes, I'm aware of the hilarious irony here.)

Comments

[Donald Johnson]

I agree with much of this, but it'd be nice if we started seeing mainstream people saying "Yes, there are ridiculous taboos that surround the discussion of the Israel/Palestine debate" and what happened to Freeman's nomination was an example of this. This started to happen, at least to some extent. It complicates the argument if it turns out Freeman supported the suppression of Chinese dissent and has been distorting his own record. You know how this works--if he is discredited, as he apparently deserves to be, then it also means that all those people yelling about the power of the Lobby were just being anti-semites. Oh well.

On a personal note, I believed those folks who said he was unfairly condemned on the China issue. I guess I was wrong.

And on a less personal note, it is lesson number 5384 in why one should be extremely cautious about making a hero out of someone in mainstream political circles. They almost never deserve it. If they're good on one issue, they're probably horrific on others.

[LA Confidential Pantload]

He's sort of implicitly supporting repression of dissent here in the US, too.

[John Caruso]

Actually he was unfairly condemned, somewhat, based on the criticisms I saw. He certainly didn't endorse the massacre, and his usage of "restraint" in reference to the Chinese government is perfectly understandable and even reasonable in context. But just as the criticisms went too far, the defenses have as well; I had a good laugh over Justin Raimondo saying it was obvious "to any literate person" that Freeman wasn't describing his own views, and that you'd have to be stupid to think otherwise.

And yeah, Freeman is more than implicit in his support for repression of dissent here as well (in the parts of his email I didn't quote). As a "realist", I suppose he doesn't bother with fuzzy notions of right and wrong. And he's spot on when he says that the U.S. government would have acted far more quickly than the Chinese government did (although the violence wouldn't have been so extreme).

It's true that it may help to have such a high-profile example of the lobby's (abuse of) power, but then again, it's not like there's any shortage of those....

[SteveB]

People who live under repressive regimes get very good at identifying small cracks in the edifice of power. "Did you see who was on top of Lenin's tomb reviewing the troops at the last May Day parade? The reformers were slightly closer to the center of the dais! Hooray!"

And so those of us who live under the thumb of AIPAC (or at least some of us) look for small hints that AIPAC's power may be waning and for tiny indications of possible fissures in the alliance between the U.S. and Israeli national-security states. The fact that Freeman was even nominated, and held on as long as he did, is seen as a hopeful sign (hey, it's not much, but it's all we've got.)

Plus there's the exciting possibility that, each time the Israel lobby throws its weight around in an obvious way, it alienates some segment of the U.S. power elite, and the public generally (hey, it's not much, but...)

Of course, there's always the question of how much AIPAC really controls the US government, and how much the US government uses AIPAC as a convenient excuse for doing things it wants to do anyway, but that's separate discussion.