The New Republic Pummels Joe Wilson

Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, has some thoughts on the Joe Wilson story:

The tale spun by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson that Iraq did not ever try to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger is now in the process of unraveling. And, of course, the phalanx of anti-war journalists is desperately trying to stop the bust-up. But it can't be done.

...Moreover, the U.S. Senate report undercuts Wilson's very believability. I myself had wondered why the CIA had been so dumb--such dumbness is something to which we should have long ago become accustomed!--as to send a low-level diplomat to check on yellowcake sales from Niger to Iraq when it should have dispatched a real spook. Well, it turns out that a "real spook" had recommended him to her boss, that spook being Valerie Plame, who happens also to be Wilson's wife. He has long denied that she had anything to do with his going to Niger and that, alas, was a lie. It appears, in fact, that this is the sole reason he was sent. Still, in a lot of dining rooms where I am a guest here, there is outrage that someone in the vice president's office "outed" Ms. Plame, as though everybody in Georgetown hadn't already known she was under cover, so to speak. Under cover, but not really. One guest even asserted that someone in the vice president's office is surely guilty of treason, no less--an offense this person certainly wouldn't have attributed to the Rosenbergs or Alger Hiss, Daniel Ellsberg or Philip Agee. But for the person who confirmed for Robert Novak what he already knew, nothing but high crimes would do.

We will mark this down as "Wilso-phobic". Although it does not directly respond to the dart tossed by Jonah Goldberg of the NRO - did The New Republic deliberately misquote Joe Wilson or is Joe Wilson simply lying again?, as discussed here - Mr. Peretz's response certainly suggests that they intend to stand by their reporting.

Mr. Peretz also shares his thoughts on Sandy Berger and anti-semitism in France. Read it all.

MORE: I'm counting on you! If you don't read it all, you'll miss gems like this:

[Sandy Berger] clearly still has McGovernite politics, which means, in my mind, at least, that he believes there is no international dispute that can't be solved by the U.S. walking away from it.

Comments

[Jeff]

"He clearly still has McGovernite politics, which means, in my mind, at least, that he believes there is no international dispute that can't be solved by the U.S. walking away from it."

Anyone with a rough sense of Clinton's foreign policy -- say, from having read Halberstam's account in _War in a Time of Peace_ -- knows that Peretz' accuracy re Berger's POV is similar to the accuracy of his analysis supporting the invasion of Iraq.

Why -- (a) Bosnia and (b) Kosovo. [and, although I'm fuzzier herer and don't own the book,... quite possibly Haiti as well]

[Mitch H.]

I can't figure Peretz out. He says all the right things, and seems to be a stand-up guy, and yet he's surrounded himself with bullshit artists like Lee Siegel, Spencer Ackerman, Jonathan Chait, and the rest of that sour, bitchy, dishonest crew infesting the New Republic's pages.

[Don Williams]

If Peretz's claims about Valeria Wilson's cover are true, then why did the CIA DIrector ask the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute the leak? Why has the Justice Department been doing so?

Pro-Israel New Republic is attacking Joe Wilson for the same reason that Pro-Israel S Daniel Abraham's Slimfast fired Whoopi Goldberg recently: Bush's extreme attempts to court the pro-Israel lobby --the billionaires who largely fund the Democratic Party -- are bearing fruit.

Actually , the real target of New Republic is probably the money man behind Joe Wilson --
Elias Aburdene.

I posted the following over on Roger L Simon's blog back in Oct 2003 (See http://rogerlsimon.com/archives/00000404.htm
and scan for my name )
---------------------
"
1) If I understand him correctly, Roger has indicated that he thinks this is a war between the CIA and White House. I think it is a war between the Saudi advocates and the Neocon Likud advocates....
...
On the other side:

1) The news media keeps listing Joseph C
Wilson as "CEO of JC Wilson International Ventures"

Their ignorance is hilarious. As of May 2003, Joseph Wilson's email address was
[email protected]
(See the May 2003 symposium on Africa at www.sahel-club.org/doc/conflict_sem0305_en.doc )

2) Mr Wilson's affiliation at several recent foreign policy conferences was listed as Rock Creek Corp. See ,e.g.,
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/forums_chcs/30.asp
and
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/forums_chcs/30.asp
(Search for "Wilson" --e.g Iraqi Town Hall seminar on April 2003

3) If you look at Saudi Net's list of firms doing business in Saudi Arabia, you see Rock Creek Corporation--
see http://www.the-saudi.net/business-center/links-usa.htm

4) According to the Center for Contempory Arab Studies, a member of their Board is the President of Rock Creek Corporation --Mr Elias Aburdene . see
http://www.ccasonline.org/events/Board.htm

5) Rock Creek Corporation is what is tactfully called a "private equity firm" See
http://www.cohengroup.net/team-amb.html

6) An October 1996 article in the Washington Business Journal notes re Mr Elias Aburdene:
"Franklin National Bank in Washington has hired the former head of Palmer National Bank's international private banking unit, in an effort to attract deposits from well-heeled foreign investors.

Since opening Sept. 1, Franklin's new international private banking division has garnered about 50 customers and $15 million in deposits. Elias Aburdene, advisor to the division, headed a similar department for five years at Palmer, which became a subsidiary of George Mason Bankshares in May.

Franklin, with $450 million in assets, has started a foreign exchange operation to accommodate the new business. But mostly, Aburdene said, international private banking means plain-vanilla services like checking, delivered with personal service.

"They [international clients] are looking for intangibles -- discretion, confidentiality, competence," Aburdene said. Clients also like to have access to top executives at the bank, giving smaller institutions like Franklin an edge, he added. "

Who the "well-heeled foreign investors" are and the nature of the "intangibles" they want is left as an exercise for the reader.

7) However, the name "Palmer National Bank" of Washington DC should make any spooks out there grin knowingly.
See http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/S&L_Scandal_CIA.html
and search for "Palmer".

It certainly seems as if
Mr Wilson's boss has ..er.. been around the track a few times. Certainly enough times to know how to poke the Likud Neocons in the butt with a very sharp stick.

Posted by Don Williams @ 10/01/2003 11:20 AM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lest some of you don't get the point re Elias Abur

consider this blurb at the bottom of
an October 1997 article by
the "Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs" :
"National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) President Khalil Jahshan and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) co-chaired a fact-finding visit to the Middle East between March 22 and April 5. The group, which also consisted of NAAA Board Chairman George Gorayeb

and Executive Vice-Chairman Elias Aburdene,

visited Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Lebanon and Syria, after which Jahshan went on his own to Jordan, Israel and Palestine....."
Ref: Bottom of page at
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0697/9706014.htm

Those wanting to find out more about the National Association of Arab Americans are invited to Google. "

------------

[Forbes]

The story I haven't seen any follow up on is that Joe Wilson was sent to Niger in 1999, at the behest of the CIA. Apparenetly that is (partly) how he knew the PM and minister of mines--contacts of value in his yellowcake trip. Does anyone know why he was sent in 1999? Isn't the question of the visits/inquiry regarding expanding commercial interests by the Iraqis in the 1999 time frame? I'm curious.

[thibaud]

Mitch,

Peretz is not schizophrenic. The New Republic under his watch has consistently been as scornful of the Democrats' cluelessness on national security as they are disdainful of the Christian Right's grip on the Republicans. The opposite position on the political circle is held by Pat Buchanan: religious and isolationist politics.

TNR in the Peretz era has offered a variety of voices, but one theme that comes through consistently is a longing for a return to traditional JFK/Truman-style hawkish liberalism. Given the dreadful alternatives that are proferred us every four years--between religious wackos on one side and clueless Vietnam-traumatized dupes on the other-- I think the country would benefit greatly from a politics of the sort favored by Peretz.

[Mitch H.]

thibaud: you mistake me. I said that Peretz talks a good game - I agree that hawkish liberalism is the line to take. Believe it or not, but I'm a registered Democrat. I just don't think that the mean-spirited, credulous, gotcha bullshit peddled by Ackerman, Chait and Scheiber is a good example of the genre "hawkish liberal opinion". This was particularly obvious during the primary season, when the columnists seemed to trend Kerry/Dean, and yet the "Editors" quixotically endorsed Lieberman.

I suppose it's partially a function of the disappearance of Easterbrook that's gotten me annoyed with TNR. Easterbrook was a sloppy, erratic loose cannon, but he balanced the ship on the starboard. Without him around, the masthead strikes me as somewhat tilted to the portside. I'm not particularly inclined to renew my subscription, which is due.

[sophy]

Please do not hesitate to have habbo credits . It is funny.

[Atlantica online money]

At last, you can get more Atlantica online money!