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[casi] "Richard Perle sends thanks to the Daily Telegraph"




Dear List,

This take is spot on, I think - if tongue-in-cheek.
The fact that the Telegraph, owned by Conrad Black,
is part of the Hollinger group makes this Galloway
_discovery_ all the more miraculous. And Richard
Perle is a director of Hollinger, and a friend
of Black. Both are friends of Ariel Sharon.
(Conveniently Black also owns the Jerusalem Post.)

The Guardian too has pointed the Perle-Hollinger-
Telegraph (neo-con) connection: "US thinktanks give
lessons in foreign policy", August 19, 2002. I am
going to attach this article in full.

In another article the Guardian discusses Hollinger's
(and Black's) financial plight. Again Perle is
mentioned: "Fears about the financial health of
Lord Black's empire - a regular employer of the
great and the good, such as Richard Perle, the US
defence adviser, and former secretary of state
Henry Kissinger..."

("Hollinger telegraphs distress as its paper is
downgraded to junk status"
http://media.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4649158,00.html )

Regards,
Elga Sutter


So here are the two articles, first Auntie Beeb's:

<START FWD>
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1602890.php

Richard Perle sends thanks to the Daily Telegraph by
Auntie Beeb Tuesday April 22, 2003 at 12:52 PM

   Among the smouldering rubble of a large city, a Daily
   Telegraph journo finds documents incriminating George
   Galloway MP. He's one of the few opponents of UK
   militarism and advocate of justice for the Palestinians
   in the House of Commons.

Shades of the hijackers passport found in the WTC rubble,
methinks.

The Daily Telegraph, owned by Conrad Black, is part of the
Hollinger Group, which also owns the Jerusalem Post, a
right wing Israeli newspaper. (Tip: Ha'aretz is more
liberal and objective, plus of course there's all the
Israeli peace group websites which totally reject the
Sharon vision). Their share value is doing very badly, as
the financial press reveal, so a boost in sales would be
warmly welcomed.

Influential chickenhawk Richard Perle is also a director
of Hollinger and a personal friend of Conrad Black. Both
are chums of Ariel Sharon.

Black's wife, Barbara Amiel, frequently writes for the
Telegraph and has been described as "a zionist fanatic".
Read her work and make your own conclusions. Certainly the
Telegraph is pro-Sharon and reserves its bile for
Zimbabwe. Had Mugabe's goons killed a British UN worker
the Telegraph would have had pages of scathing
condemnation. When Israel shot Briton Iain Hook, a senior
worker in the Occupied Territories, the Telegraph briefly
reported and then moved on.

While the Daily Telegraph is more fusty old colonel than
neo-Labour, Blairs' and Conrad Blacks views on the Middle
East mesh perfectly. The Telegraph was a prime cheerleader
for invading Iraq, a policy strongly supported by Ariel
Sharon. Israel will now get to siphon oil from a new
pipeline straight from Iraq. Neighbouring Syria loses out
now that the Iraq/Syria pipeline has been blown up.
Israel's position as regional superpower (complete with
huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction) will be
cemented for the near future.

Blairs position on the Middle East is surely influenced by
his Middle East advisor, Lord Levy. After all, that's what
he's for. Lord Levy is one of the most important
fundraisers for the Labour Party, and he gained his title
right after the '97 election. Levy also acted as
fundraiser for Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister,
with whom he has close ties. He has a luxury villa in Tel
Aviv and his son Daniel worked for Israeli Justice
Minister Yossi Beilin.

All these people share a very common vision of an expanded
Israel, which is rejected by many Israeli's and much of
the rest of the world - rather like the invasion of Iraq.

The Galloway smear is a sinister example of the depths to
which they will sink to achieve that vision.
<END>


And here is the Guardian article from August 19, 2002:

<START FWD>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html

World dispatch

US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy

Brian Whitaker reports on the network of research
institutes whose views and TV appearances are
supplanting all other experts on Middle Eastern issues

Monday August 19, 2002

A little-known fact about Richard Perle, the leading
advocate of hardline policies at the Pentagon, is that
he once wrote a political thriller. The book,
appropriately called Hard Line, is set in the days of
the cold war with the Soviet Union. Its hero is a male
senior official at the Pentagon, working late into the
night and battling almost single-handedly to rescue the
US from liberal wimps at the state department who want
to sign away America's nuclear deterrent in a
disarmament deal with the Russians.

Ten years on Mr Perle finds himself cast in the real-
life role of his fictional hero - except that the
Russians are no longer a threat, so he has to make do
with the Iraqis, the Saudis and terrorism in general.

In real life too, Mr Perle is not fighting his battle
single-handed. Around him there is a cosy and cleverly-
constructed network of Middle East "experts" who share
his neo-conservative outlook and who pop up as talking
heads on US television, in newspapers, books,
testimonies to congressional committees, and at
lunchtime gatherings in Washington.

The network centres on research institutes - thinktanks
that attempt to influence government policy and are
funded by tax-deductible gifts from unidentified donors.

When he is not too busy at the Pentagon, or too busy
running Hollinger Digital - part of the group that
publishes the Daily Telegraph in Britain - or at board
meetings of the Jerusalem Post, Mr Perle is "resident
fellow" at one of the thinktanks - the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Mr Perle's close friend and political ally at AEI is
David Wurmser, head of its Middle East studies
department. Mr Perle helpfully wrote the introduction to
Mr Wurmser's book, Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to
Defeat Saddam Hussein.

Mr Wurmser's wife, Meyrav, is co-founder, along with
Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military
intelligence - of the Middle East Media Research
Institute (Memri), which specialises in translating and
distributing articles that show Arabs in a bad light.

She also holds strong views on leftwing Israeli
intellectuals, whom she regards as a threat to Israel
(see "[44] Selective Memri", Guardian Unlimited, August
12, 2002).

Ms Wurmser currently runs the Middle East section at
another thinktank - the Hudson Institute, where Mr Perle
recently joined the board of trustees. In addition, Ms
Wurmser belongs to an organisation called the Middle
East Forum.

Michael Rubin, a specialist on Iran, Iraq and
Afghanistan, who recently arrived from yet another
thinktank, the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, assists Mr Perle and Mr Wurmser at AEI. Mr Rubin
also belongs to the Middle East Forum.

Another Middle East scholar at AEI is Laurie Mylroie,
author of Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against
America, which expounds a rather daft theory that Iraq
was behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.

When the book was published by the AEI, Mr Perle hailed
it as "splendid and wholly convincing".

An earlier book on Iraq Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in
the Gulf which Ms Mylroie co-authored with Judith Miller,
a New York Times journalist, became the New York Times's
No 1 bestseller.

Ms Mylroie and Ms Miller both have connections with the
Middle East Forum. Mr Perle, Mr Rubin, Ms Wurmser,
Ms Mylroie and Ms Miller are all clients of Eleana Benador,
a Peruvian-born linguist who acts as a sort of
theatrical agent for experts on the Middle East and
terrorism, organising their TV appearances and speaking
engagements.

Of the 28 clients on Ms Benador's books, at least nine
are connected with the AEI, the Washington Institute and
the Middle East Forum.

Although these three privately-funded organisations
promote views from only one end of the political
spectrum, the amount of exposure that they get with
their books, articles and TV appearances is
extraordinary.

The Washington Institute, for example, takes the credit
for placing up to 90 articles written by its members -
mainly "op-ed" pieces - in newspapers during the last
year.

Fourteen of those appeared in the Los Angeles Times,
nine in New Republic, eight in the Wall Street Journal,
eight in the Jerusalem Post, seven in the National
Review Online, six in the Daily Telegraph, six in the
Washington Post, four in the New York Times and four in
the Baltimore Sun. Of the total, 50 were written by
Michael Rubin.

Anyone who has tried offering op-ed articles to a major
newspaper will appreciate the scale of this achievement.

The media attention bestowed on these thinktanks is not
for want of other experts in the field. American
universities have about 1,400 full-time faculty members
specialising in the Middle East.

Of those, an estimated 400-500 are experts on some
aspect of contemporary politics in the region, but their
views are rarely sought or heard, either by the media or
government.

"I see a parade of people from these institutes coming
through as talking heads [on cable TV]. I very seldom
see a professor from a university on those shows," says
Juan Cole, professor of history at Michigan University,
who is a critic of the private institutes.

"Academics [at universities] are involved in analysing
what's going on but they're not advocates, so they don't
have the same impetus," he said.

"The expertise on the Middle East that exists in the
universities is not being utilised, even for basic
information."

Of course, very few academics have agents like Eleana
Benador to promote their work and very few are based in
Washington - which can make arranging TV appearances ,
or rubbing shoulders with state department officials a
bit difficult.

Those who work for US thinktanks are often given
university-style titles such as "senior fellow", or
"adjunct scholar", but their research is very different
from that of universities - it is entirely directed
towards shaping government policy.

What nobody outside the thinktanks knows, however, is
who pays for this policy-shaping research.

Under US law, large donations given to non-profit,
"non-partisan" organisations such as thinktanks must be
itemised in their annual "form 990" returns to the tax
authorities. But the identity of donors does not need to
be made public.

The AEI, which deals with many other issues besides the
Middle East, had assets of $35.8m (#23.2m) and an income
of $24.5m in 2000, according to its most recent tax
return.

It received seven donations of $1m or above in cash or
shares, the highest being $3.35m.

The Washington Institute, which deals only with Middle
East policy, had assets of $11.2m and an income of $4.1m
in 2000. The institute says its donors are identifiable
because they are also its trustees, but the list of
trustees contains 239 names which makes it impossible to
distinguish large benefactors from small ones.

The smaller Middle East Forum had an income of less than
$1.5m in 2000, with the largest single donation
amounting to $355,000.

In terms of their ability to influence policy,
thinktanks have several advantages over universities. To
begin with they can hire staff without committee
procedures, which allows them to build up teams of
researchers that share a similar political orientation.

They can also publish books themselves without going
through the academic refereeing processes required by
university publishers. And they usually site themselves
in Washington, close to government and the media.

Apart from influencing policy on the Middle East, the
Washington Institute and the Middle East Forum recently
launched a campaign to discredit university departments
that specialise in the region.

After September 11, when various government agencies
realised there was a shortage of Americans who could
speak Arabic, there were moves to beef up the relevant
university departments.

But Martin Kramer, of the Washington Institute, Middle
East Forum and former director of the Moshe Dayan Centre
at Tel Aviv university, had other ideas.

He produced a vitriolic book Ivory Towers on Sand, which
criticised Middle East departments of universities in
the US.

His book was published by the Washington Institute and
warmly reviewed in the Weekly Standard, whose editor,
William Kristol, was a member of the Middle East Forum
along with Mr Kramer.

"Kramer has performed a crucial service by exposing
intellectual rot in a scholarly field of capital
importance to national wellbeing," the review said.

The Washington Institute is considered the most
influential of the Middle East thinktanks, and the one
that the state department takes most seriously. Its
director is the former US diplomat, Dennis Ross.

Besides publishing books and placing newspaper articles,
the institute has a number of other activities that for
legal purposes do not constitute lobbying, since this
would change its tax status.

It holds lunches and seminars, typically about three
times a week, where ideas are exchanged and political
networking takes place. It has also given testimony to
congressional committees nine times in the last five
years.

Every four years, it convenes a "bipartisan blue-ribbon
commission" known as the Presidential study group, which
presents a blueprint for Middle East policy to the
newly-elected president.

The institute makes no secret of its extensive links
with Israel, which currently include the presence of two
scholars from the Israeli armed forces.

Israel is an ally and the connection is so well known
that officials and politicians take it into account when
dealing with the institute. But it would surely be a
different matter if the ally concerned were a country
such as Egypt, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

Apart from occasional lapses, such as the publication of
Mr Kramer's book, the Washington Institute typically
represents the considered, sober voice of American-
Israeli conservatism.

The Middle East Forum is its strident voice - two
different tones, but mostly the same people.

Three prominent figures from the Washington Institute -
Robert Satloff (director of policy), Patrick Clawson
(director of research) and Mr Rubin (prolific writer,
currently at AEI) - also belong to the forum.

Daniel Pipes, the bearded $100,000-a-year head of the
forum is listed as an "associate" at the institute,
while Mr Kramer, editor of the forum's journal, is a
"visiting fellow".

Mr Pipes became the bete noire of US Muslim
organisations after writing an article for the National
Review in 1990 that referred to "massive immigration of
brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not
exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene".

Since he usually complains vigorously when the words are
quoted outside their original context, readers are
invited to view the full article at www.danielpipes.org.
He is also noted for his combative performances on the
Fox News channel, where he has an interesting business
relationship. Search for his name on the Fox News
website and, along with transcripts of his TV
interviews, an advert appears saying "Daniel Pipes is
available thru Barber & Associates, America's leading
resource for business, international and technology
speakers since 1977".

The Middle East Forum issues two regular publications,
the Middle East Quarterly and the Middle East
Intelligence Bulletin, the latter published jointly with
the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon.

The Middle East Quarterly describes itself as "a bold,
insightful, and controversial publication".

Among the insights in its latest issue is an article on
weapons of mass destruction that says Syria "has more
destructive capabilities" than Iraq, or Iran.

The Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, which is sent out
by email free of charge - but can never-the-less afford
to pay its contributors - specialises in covering the
seamy side of Lebanese and Syrian politics. The ever-
active Mr Rubin is on its editorial board.

The Middle East Forum also targets universities through
its campus speakers Bureau - that in adopting the line
of Mr Kramer's book, seeks to correct "inaccurate Middle
Eastern curricula in American education", by addressing
"biases" and "basic errors" and providing "better
information" than students can get from the many
"irresponsible" professors that it believes lurk in US
universities.

At a time when much of the world is confused by what it
sees as an increasingly bizarre set of policies on the
Middle East coming from Washington, to understand the
neat little network outlined above may make such
policies a little more explicable.

Of course these people and organisations are not the
only ones trying to influence US policy on the Middle
East. There are others who try to influence it too - in
different directions.

However, this particular network is operating in a
political climate that is currently especially receptive
to its ideas.

It is also well funded by its anonymous benefactors and
is well organised. Ideas sown by one element are watered
and nurtured by the others.

Whatever outsiders may think about this, worldly-wise
Americans see no cause for disquiet. It's just a coterie
of like-minded chums going about their normal business,
and an everyday story of political life in Washington.

Email
[45] brian.whitaker@guardian.co.uk

Useful link
[53] al-bab.com - Brian Whitaker's website
53. http://www.al-bab.com/
<END>




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