News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12
“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a [...]]]>
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12
“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a safehouse in the coastal city of Benghazi.
The attack, which occurred shortly after the US embassy in Cairo was stormed by a mob, was ostensibly staged over an anti-Islamic film that has been publicized in the US. It is also possible that the demonstration in Benghazi over the film served as “cover” for a pre-planned assault on the compound:
The attack was believed to have been carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda-style Sunni Islamist group that has been active in Benghazi, a Libyan security official said. Witnesses said the mob also included tribesmen, militia and other gunmen.
The Islamist militia denied it had taken part in the assault on the compound, which AFP suggests was strangely well-coordinated given the fact that the film cited as the reason for the demonstration had not been publicized for very long. Unknown persons set up a firebase in a nearby farm to support the men who breached the walls and set fire to the buildings:
Ansar al-Sharia cars arrived at the start of the protest but left once fighting started, Hamam said. “The protesters were running around the compound just looking for Americans, they just wanted to find an American so they could catch one.”
“U.S. Suspects Libya Attack Was Planned”: The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration has reason to believe the attack in Libya was preplanned – it is not clear if the assault in Egypt is also being investigated for premeditated actions – by al Qaeda sympathizers. The US announced it was pursuing an investigation but had no firm evidence yet:
If it were established that the deaths of the American diplomats resulted not from the spontaneous anger of a crowd about an insult to Islam but from a long-planned Qaeda plot, that might sharply shift perceptions of the events. But officials cautioned that the issue was still under urgent study.
The White House would not comment. “At this stage, it would be premature to ascribe any motive to this reprehensible act,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.
But according to comments reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Libya’s Deputy Minister of the Interior Wanis al-Sharif has suggested that there was a link between the attack and the announcement yesterday –posted on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 by al Qaeda’s official As-Sahab news outlet – that Ayman al-Zawahri’s deputy, the Libyan national Abu Yahya al-Libi, was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan.
Al-Zawahri, the Associated Press reports, “urged Libyans — al-Libi was born in the north African country — to attack Americans to avenge the late militant’s death, saying his ‘blood is calling, urging and inciting you to fight and kill the Crusaders.’”
The Deputy Minister of the Interior has subsequently blamed the American government for not taking precautions over this announcement. The US government has yet to respond to this apparent attempt by al-Sharif to deflect blame for the attack’s successful penetration of the embassy grounds after the outnumbered and outgunned Libyan guards stationed there abandoned their posts.
“Romney Campaign Denies Acting Rashly on Libyan Situation”: The National Journal reports that the Republican Party is deflecting criticism from both parties over their presidential nominee’s assertions that Obama was “sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions.”
Romney’s comments referred to a statement, now since walked back, by the US embassy in Cairo condemning the anti-Islamic film for inciting hate. The statement was released shortly before a mob converged on the compound and scaled the wall, but at a press conference in Jacksonville, Florida, Mitt Romney painted the embassy’s statement as a response to the attack after it happened rather than to the film before the protest took place.
Ben Smith reports that in addition to cited condemnations coming from Democrats, Republican foreign policy experts have voiced dismay over Romney making his remarks before more reports were available to judge what had happened in Cairo.
But the campaign has hit back on the criticism of its actions, with Romney not retracting his initial remarks and instead telling reporters that “it’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”
Statements published by Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post – whose editorial board strongly criticized Romney’s remarks – show that several of Romney’s hawkish advisors, most notably former UN ambassador John Bolton, are rallying to his defense and blaming the media for mischaracterizing their candidate’s remarks.
And according to the National Journal, other “senior Romney advisers, who would not speak on the record,” are practicing damage control by presenting the remarks as part of:
]]>“[t]he larger point of Romney’s statement, which accused the administration of initially siding with protesters in Cairo, was that Obama is misreading the violent underbelly of the Arab Spring and jeopardizing U.S. interests in the region.
“This was a story that was building the entire day,” a senior Romney official said of the developments that took place late on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. …. [a]nd the statement was about the consistent failure of this administration to engage constructively with the aftermath of the Arab Spring.”
Former AIPAC spokesman and Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow Josh Block backed down this afternoon from his earlier accusation that ThinkProgress and its institutional home, the Center For American Progress (CAP), are anti-Semitic — a smear that was picked-up by, among others, Jennifer Rubin at the Washington [...]]]>
Former AIPAC spokesman and Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow Josh Block backed down this afternoon from his earlier accusation that ThinkProgress and its institutional home, the Center For American Progress (CAP), are anti-Semitic — a smear that was picked-up by, among others, Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post. (Tell the Post to retract that standing accusation here.)
Speaking to Politico’s Ben Smith for an article released on Wednesday, Block said that CAP “allow(s) people to say borderline anti-Semitic stuff.” In an effort to coordinate and “AMPLIFY” smears of ThinkProgress and CAP based on this claim and others, Block enlisted members of a secretive right-wing e-mail list serve. Salon’s Justin Elliott obtained and published a copy of the e-mail, where Block said CAP engages in “vilification of… Jews.” In the same document, he insinuated that CAP and ThinkProgress’s work constitutes “the words of anti-Semites.”
CAP and ThinkProgress categorically deny these allegations, and took exception to the mischaracterizations of our work.
Now, again speaking to Politico’s Smith, Block says he never claimed CAP engaged in anti-Semitism:
I’ve been accused of leveling the charge of anti-Semitism against the Center for American Progress. That is not true, and suggesting so is an attempt to distract from what I am actually saying.
As shown above, Block certainly did make such accusations about CAP. Nevertheless, his retreat from his initial charges against ThinkProgress and CAP is welcome.
Instead of engaging in divisive rhetoric aimed at silencing those who disagree with his approach, we look forward to having a substantive, rational discourse about the best ways to pursue the U.S. interests of a safe and secure Israel living side-by-side and at peace with her neighbors.
]]>Leahy, a Democrat and senior member of the U.S. Senate, wants assistance withheld from the Israel Navy’s Shayetet 13 unit, the undercover Duvdevan unit and the Israel Air Force’s Shaldag unit.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a long-time friend of Leahy’s, met with him in Washington two weeks ago to try to persuade him to withdraw the initiative.
According to a senior Israeli official in Jerusalem, Leahy began promoting the legislation in recent months after he was approached by voters in his home state of Vermont.
That same day Ben Smith from Politico posted part of an email from a spokesperson for Leahy who noted that:
By way of general background about the Leahy Amendment, the law applies to U.S. aid to foreign security forces around the globe and is intended to be applied consistently across the spectrum of U.S. military aid abroad. Under the law the State Department is responsible for evaluations and enforcement decisions and over the years Senator Leahy has pressed for faithful and consistent application of the law.
Concludes Smith:
Whatever the facts behind the story and however this plays out, Leahy’s official response to the article is not surprising. But his initiative proves that there are still some congress members that are willing to resist the powerful “Israel Lobby” especially when Israel continues to defy the U.S despite it’s generous annual aid.
]]>Arch-Islamophobe Frank Gaffney was booted from the Conservative Political Action Conference agenda. At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner spoke with Suhail Khan, a Muslim conservative and board member of the group that hosts the annual CPAC, who said:
“Frank has been [...]]]>
Arch-Islamophobe Frank Gaffney was booted from the Conservative Political Action Conference agenda. At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner spoke with Suhail Khan, a Muslim conservative and board member of the group that hosts the annual CPAC, who said:
“Frank has been frozen out of CPAC by his own hand, because of his antics. We need people who are credible on national security . . . but because of Frank’s just completely irresponsible assertions over the years, the organizers have decided to keep him out.” That, Khan added, is similar reaction to current and former members of Congress, including Bobby Jindal, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and the late Henry Hyde, who distanced themselves from Gaffney.
The conservative shunning of Gaffney, said Khan, is not “because of any pressure from Muslim activists but because they didn’t want to be associated with a crazy bigot.”
Naturally, Gaffney, the president of the defense industry-funded Center for Security Policy (CSP), said it was all the doing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Posner:
Frank Gaffney, the Islamophobic activist bent on getting Congress to investigate “creeping shari’ah,” talked to the conspiracy web site World Net Daily, claiming “that CPAC has come under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is working to bring America under Saudi-style Shariah law.”
Gaffney has played this game of demagoguery about his critics before: When PBS delayed the airing of a documentary put together by Gaffney and requested editorial changes, he took the creative dispute public, charging that the Nation of Islam was taking over public broadcasting. (Don’t worry, the doc aired on Fox News.) He’s now, of course, brought his filmmaking prowess to the Clarion Fund, the well-funded producers of “Obsession,” and a forthcoming movie on Iran.
Gaffney’s CSP is involved in many efforts Islamophobic. The center’s COO, Christine Brim, has spoken at European far-right conferences as well as those of Pamela Geller.
CSP also released a report last year about ‘creeping sharia.’ But, as Matt Duss demonstrated at the Wonk Room, the authors didn’t bother to speak to any Muslims or Islamic scholars who might actually know something about Sharia. (Duss also noted the long, public record of Islamophobia from one of the report’s co-authors. One sample: “Islam was born in violence; it will die that way.”)
What substantiates Gaffney’s charge about ‘creeping sharia’ at CPAC is that CPAC is still hosting a panel on — you guessed it — ‘creeping sharia’! Ben Smith reports for Politico:
“The fact is that we will have a panel tentatively titled ‘Defining and Debating Shariah in America’ at this year’s CPAC moderated by Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,” emailed the American Conservative Union’s CPAC director Lisa DePasquale.
So the conservative fête retains its anti-Sharia credentials after all (despite, perhaps, Muslim Brotherhood infiltration). And FDD‘s Cliff May quietly takes a step up — and brings Gaffney down a notch — in the ongoing race to be America’s number one counter-Jihadi.
]]>First, Rosner’s attempt to be coy and deny any ideological slant on his own part is unconvincing. No one except Rosner can tell us who he votes for, but anyone with any familiarity whatsoever with Rosner’s writing knows that he leans strongly to the right. Similarly, Rosner touts the fact that Smith cites three members of Kadima, the opposition party, as evidence that he is giving voice to Israeli doves. But of course, Kadima (the party founded in 2005 by Ariel Sharon) is “dovish” only in the most minimal sense of the word. To frame the entire debate as one between Kadima and Likud is to restrict it to a debate between the center-right and hard-right.
Rosner also notes that Smith has (quite generously, he implies) cited not one but two Palestinians in the article — in this case, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat and Ghaith al-Omari of the strongly establishmentarian American Task Force for Palestine. According to the count that Rosner himself gives, this makes two Palestinians as opposed to thirteen Israelis. Moreover, both Erekat and al-Omari are given only a couple brief sentences each, while various Israelis are given much more extended quotes. By my count, Palestinian voices account for 87 words of this 2663-word article — that is, less than 3%. Given that Palestinians make up around half of the population between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, this is simply inexcusable.
Most misleading of all is Rosner’s claim that Smith’s article simply states what everyone knows to be true — that Obama’s policies in Israel/Palestine have been a failure. I, for one, would not dispute this characterization, but Smith’s “view from the Middle East” gives the impression that people “in the region” feel that Obama has failed because he has pressed Israel too hard. In actuality, of course, virtually everyone in the region outside of Israel — not to mention virtually everywhere else in the world — feels that Obama has failed because he has been afraid to press Israel hard enough.
I would have no problem with Smith’s article if, instead of being titled “View from the Middle East,” it had been accurately titled “View from the Israeli Political Establishment.” As is, however, the article is deeply misleading, and Sullivan was right to call out its bias. Smith can be a good reporter, but he unfortunately seems to have internalized the Politico ethos that strives to conform as closely as possible to Washington conventional wisdom.
]]>Guardiano, a contributor to neoconservative blogs and former Marine, derides Donilon’s ability to competently focus on Iran:
Donilon may not know [...]]]>
Guardiano, a contributor to neoconservative blogs and former Marine, derides Donilon’s ability to competently focus on Iran:
Donilon may not know much, but he possesses the surefire cockiness of a lifelong pol; and he is determined to set policymaking in a far-left direction.
Thus, according to the New York Times, Donilon “has urged what he calls a ‘rebalancing’ of American foreign policy to rapidly disengage American forces in Iraq and to focus more on China, Iran and other emerging challenges.”
But of course, China isn’t killing our soldiers and Marines; Iraqi Islamic extremists are. Iran also has American blood on its hand; however, there is absolutely no reason to think that Donilon has even the foggiest notion about how to address this problem. And, if the past is prologue — and it is — his dovish instincts are not reassuring; they are cause for alarm.
Other publications and journalists think little will change.
Ben Smith, Glenn Thrush, and Laura Rozen write at Politico:
Former and current administration officials say that that Jones’s long-anticipated departure won’t have much impact because Donilon and National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough — who has just been elevated to Donilon’s old job — were running things anyway.
At Slate, Fred Kaplan added that “Donilon has been de facto national security adviser for many months now, while Jones has been, to a startling degree, a West Wing wallflower.”
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