@@ Poor Jew-lover 'Larry Franklin' @@
Arash
September 1, 2004
It Will All Blow Over Soon
Poor Larry Franklin
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Poor Larry Franklin. For some years, the line between Israel and the U.S.-in
terms of policies, of perceived national interests, of patriotic fervor-has
been slowly disappearing, and in the circles Franklin travels, among the
coterie of neocons inside and outside the Bush administration, there never
was a line at all. Aren't Israel's interests U.S. interests? Isn't it true
that what's good for the U.S. is good for Israel? (Or maybe that should be
the other way around.) Why shouldn't he give classified documents to Israel?
Why shouldn't he traffic in secret material with Israel's principal
lobbyists in Washington? It's really all the same country anyway.
Isn't it?
Yet here is Franklin, just doing what comes naturally, minding his own
business (Israel's business is his business, as it is the business of his
boss Douglas Feith and of his boss's boss Paul Wolfowitz) caught up in an
anachronistic bureaucratic snafu by some FBI agents who actually still seem
to believe that Israel is different from the U.S.
What's a guy to do?
But not to worry, Larry. You'll undoubtedly be rescued by the boss of those
FBI agents. John Ashcroft knows there's no line between Israel and the U.S.
What God-fearing, bible-thumping, Christian fundamentalist wouldn't? If
Ashcroft doesn't come through, there are all your bosses: Feith and
Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld himself. And Dick Cheney knows what's what.
And don't misunderestimate George Bush's own fealty to his buddy Ariel
Sharon.
And if John Kerry somehow gets himself elected and all those Bush
administration defenders flee the scene, you'll still probably be safe.
Kerry himself regularly swears loyalty to Israel. Kerry gets it. He calls
himself a friend of Israel "by conviction and at the deepest personal
level." The cause of Israel, he says, "must be the cause of America." What
more could a double agent want? Who needs the neocons?
Don't worry, Larry. You'll get off.
Note: The Christisons are scheduled to be on a local Santa Fe, New Mexico
radio station from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 2, which
will be broadcast on the internet. The show is the Diego Mulligan Show on
KSFR, Santa Fe's public radio station. (Since they are in the U.S. Mountain
time zone, that would be 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 3:00 to
5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. In Europe and the Middle East, this would be quite
late: 11:00 p.m. in the UK, midnight in France, 1:00 a.m. Friday in Amman
and Jerusalem.)
They will talk about rebuilding a Palestinian home demolished by Israel in
the West Bank village of Anata and about U.S policies toward Israel and
Palestine.
Since the radio station puts all shows on the internet in "real time,"
anyone who has the Windows Media Player on his or her computer can listen to
the show at http://www.ksfr.org at the correct time. When the website comes
up on your screen, click on "Listen Live," and then again on "Click to
Launch Stream."
* Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National
Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and
Political Analysis. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades, CounterPunch's
new history of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.
* Kathleen Christison, a former CIA political analyst, is the author of
Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy and
Wound of Dispossession: Telling the Palestinian Story. They can be reached
at: chris...@counterpunch.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison09012004.html