AIPAC's Big, Bigger, Biggest Moment

[norml]

AIPAC's Big, Bigger, Biggest Moment

By Dana Milbank

Tuesday, May 24, 2005; Page A13

How much clout does AIPAC have?

Well, consider that during the pro-Israel lobby's annual conference yesterday, a fleet of police cars, sirens wailing, blocked intersections and formed a motorcade to escort buses carrying its conventioneers -- to lunch.

The annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has long produced a massive show of bipartisan pandering, as lawmakers praise the well-financed and well-connected group. But this has been a rough year for AIPAC -- it has dismissed its policy director and another employee while the FBI examines whether they passed classified U.S. information to Israel -- and the organization is eager to show how big it is.

Reporters arriving at the convention center yesterday were given a list of "Food Facts" for the three-day AIPAC meeting: 26,000 kosher meals, 32,640 hors d'oeuvres, 2,500 pounds of salmon, 1,200 pounds of turkey, 900 pounds of chicken, 700 pounds of beef and 125 gallons of hummus.

Another fact sheet announced that this is the "largest ever" conference, with its 5,000 participants attending "the largest annual seated dinner in Washington" joined by "more members of Congress than almost any other event, except for a joint session of Congress or a State of the Union address." The group added that its membership "has nearly doubled" over four years to 100,000 and that the National Journal calls it "one of the top four most effective lobbying organizations."




snip



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301565.html

[MisterP]

1. good thing George wasn't there:

ham sandwiches for everyone!

[FlemingsGhost]

2. Exhibit (A): This is what is wrong with our system.

$pecial interest groups should not be this powerful.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Let me get this straight: my tax dollars paid for a fleet of police cars

for a lobbying group?

:mad:

[tinanator]

5. you must have missed the RNC?

The way they blocked traffic and streets while buses of delegates en route to parties and shows (and occasionally arrested protestors en route to RNC detention centers) went about 75 mph down city streets was a sight to behold.

[burythehatchet]

4. watching that travesty on CSPAN was especially revealing

the uninhibited praise for the chimperor's "leadership" in the middle east, followed by the inflammatory statements against Iran, and topped of by condi the vampire addressing the group was enough to make one vomit in disgust

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. In 1992 head of AIPAC and Sec of State cut a deal for US aid

to Israel "for the Jewish vote." (In the words of David Steiner the head of AIPAC at the time who later resigned when his statement became public knowledge)

In 1992, Harry Katz phoned the President of AIPAC, David Steiner, to offer contributions. Steiner proceeded to make several claims, including negotiating with then-candidate Bill Clinton over who would be Secretary of State, and had already "cut a deal" with Baker for more aid to Israel.

Unknown to Steiner, Katz taped the phone call and gave the recording to the media, worried that AIPAC's influence had grown to dangerous levels.

Following the release of transcripts of the phone conversation, David Steiner was forced to resign the Presidency of AIPAC.

The following is a transcript of the Oct. 22, 1992 conversation with President David Steiner of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recorded without his knowledge by New York businessman Haim (Harry) Katz. Its existence was first revealed to the Washington Times and its release triggered Steiner's resignation.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/AIPACClinton.html

[JohnyCanuck]

8. AIPAC spy scandal, more than 'mishandling' classified information

The Franklin Affair:
A Spreading Treason
There's more to the AIPAC spy scandal than 'mishandling' classified information

by Justin Raimondo

<snip>

Franklin, a longtime Defense Intelligence Agency analyst and fervent neoconservative, was observed by FBI agents in the summer of 2003 imparting top secret information to two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the spearhead of Israel's amen corner in the U.S. What is striking about this story is that Franklin's perfidy was discovered only because these two top officials – Steve Rosen, AIPAC's longtime policy director, and Keith Weissman, their Iran specialist – were already under surveillance by law enforcement agencies. As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency put it in a recent report:

<snip>

When Franklin was finally arrested, however, reflexively pro-Israel neocons like Joel Mowbray and Kate O'Beirne sneered that the charges didn't rise to the level of espionage, and averred that the whole thing was merely a mater of "mishandling" classified information: a tempest in a teapot. And on the left, an otherwise excellent piece by Laura Rozen in The Nation downplayed the charges in a less obvious way.

Rozen, a perceptive reporter who has been following this story from the start, gives us the essential context of the Franklin affair by showing that he was very much a part of a small, tightly-knit network inside the Pentagon dedicated to provoking war not only with Iraq but also igniting a regional conflict including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond. She does a very good job, in her piece, of showing how Franklin was at the center of this group's covert machinations: he had a penchant, as she puts it, for "showing up at critical and murky junctures of recent history":

"He was part of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which provided much-disputed intelligence on Iraq; he courted controversial Iraqi exile politician Ahmad Chalabi, who contributed much of that hyped and misleading Iraq intelligence; and he participated with a Pentagon colleague and former Iran/contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar in a controversial December 2001 meeting in Rome – which, in a clear violation of US government protocol, was kept secret from the CIA and the State Department."

More at:
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6068

[JohnyCanuck]

9. The Neocon Power Grab at the NSA

The neocon power grab at NSA and an attempt to stifle the press

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

<snip>

Although contractors are required to have the same high level security clearances as government personnel at NSA, there are close connections between some NSA contractors and countries with hostile intelligence services. For example, CACI's president and CEO visited Israel in early 2004 and received the Albert Einstein Technology Award at ceremony in Jerusalem attended by Likud Party Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. The special ceremony honoring CACI's president was sponsored by the Aish HaTorah yeshiva fund. The ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party's Jerusalem Mayor, Uri Lupolianski, was also in attendance. The U.S. delegation included a number of homeland security officials and businessmen.

CACI has also received research grants from U.S.-Israeli bi-national foundations. A few months after the award ceremony for CACI's president, the Taguba Report cited two CACI employees as being involved in the prison torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The U.S. military commander for the Iraqi prisons, General Janis Karpinski, reported that she witnessed Israeli interrogators working alongside those from CACI and another contractor, Titan.

When the Taguba Report was leaked, the office of Deputy Defense Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith issued an order to Pentagon employees not to download the report from the Internet. Feith is a well-known hard-line supporter of Israel's Likud Party.

<snip>

But NSA is also aware of an incident where Israelis used a contractor, RCA, to gain access to yet additional NSA sources and methods. In the 1980s, against the wishes of NSA, the Reagan administration forced NSA to permit RCA, one of its major contractors, to develop a tethered aerostat (balloon) signals intelligence and direction finding system for the Israeli Defense Force. According to NSA officials, the Israeli-NSA joint project, codenamed DINDI, was established at a separate facility in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and apart from the main NSA developmental center at RCA's facility in Camden, New Jersey. Although NSA and RCA set up a strict firewall between the contractors national intelligence contract work and the separate DINDI contract, Israeli engineers, who were working for Mossad, soon broke down the security firewall with the assistance of a few American Jewish engineers assigned to the DINDI project. The security breach resulted in a number of national intelligence developmental systems being compromised to the Israelis, including those code named PIEREX and MAROON SHIELD. DINDI was quickly cancelled but due to the sensitivity surrounding the American Jewish engineers, the Reagan Justice Department avoided bringing espionage charges. There were some forced retirements and transfers, but little more. But for NSA, the duplicity of the Israelis added to the enmity between Fort Meade and Israeli intelligence.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052405Madsen/052405madsen.html

[JohnyCanuck]

10. AIPAC's agenda is not America's. Full page ad in NY Times

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN TO CONTAIN AND CONSTRAIN THE ISRAEL LOBBY,
ESPECIALLY THE AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
(AIPAC), AND ITS ALLIES, INCLUDING CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS.


<snip>

The Israel lobby is out of control. It shuts down any rational
debate or even any discussion of Israel’s actions. Three past heads of Israel’ssecurity service, Shin Bet, have said that the actions of the present Israeli government are self-destructive, yet those views are not heard by the American public.

The many organizations that make up the Israel lobby include several whose main effort is to intimidate editors and producers in the media and prevent an open discourse about Israeli policies and our uncritical support for those policies.

<snip>


Join the campaign to support legislation that will apply to all lobbies working on behalf of foreign governments. We propose a Foreign Lobby Registration Act (FLORA), an act designed to make lobbies supporting foreign governments more transparent and accountable to the American people. It will also make clear that those lobbies do not work on behalf of American interests but, in fact, work to
support the narrow interests of a foreign government.

More than 60% of American voters according to a Zogby International poll believe AIPAC should be registered as the agent of a foreign government. If implemented under a FLORA, this would mean transparency in resources used by AIPAC dedicated to furthering the right-wing government of Israel. Contributors would have to be publicly listed. It would also put an end to the undeserved tax-exempt status

http://www.antiwar.com/rep/AIPACs-Agenda.pdf

The ad is signed by two former Congressmen, Paul Findley (R-Illinois), Paul “Pete” McCloskey (R-California), and former Senator James Abourezk (D-South Dakota).

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P2130

[bobthedrummer]

11. It's the shadow government of Bush/Cheney criminals, traitors and spies.

All folowing PNAC, really-then there is the simple expediency of the dual citizenships for some of these shadows:grr::banghead: