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**Hovik** · 07-17-2007, 07:37 PM

K Street Cashes In On The 1915 Armenian Genocide

Joseph, I thought this article might be a fitting addition to this topic:

THE NEW REPUBLIC

K STREET CASHES IN ON THE 1915 ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.

Final Resolution

by Michael Crowley
Post date: 07.12.07
Issue date: 07.23.07

A RISING St. Louis politician in the mid-1970s, Richard Gephardt
was among a dynamic group of aldermen dubbed "The Young Turks." So
perhaps it's not surprising that, 30 years later, the former
Democratic minority leader of the House of Representatives has aged
into an Old Turk. This spring, Gephardt has been busy promoting his
new favorite cause--not universal health care or Iraq, but the
Republic of Turkey, which now pays his lobbying firm, DLA Piper,
$100,000 per month for his services. Thus far, Gephardt's
achievements have included arranging high-level meetings for
Turkish dignitaries, among them one between members of the Turkish
parliament and House Democratic leaders James Clyburn and Rahm
Emanuel; helping Turkey's U.S. ambassador win an audience with a
skeptical Nancy Pelosi; and, finally, circulating a slim paperback
volume, titled "An Appeal to Reason," that denies the existence of
the Armenian genocide of 1915.

Few people would place the Armenian genocide on their top ten--or
even top 1,000--list of the day's pressing issues. In fact, many
Americans would likely be at a loss to explain who or what the
Armenians are, much less what happened to them 90 years ago. Not so
in Washington. For the past several years, U.S. representatives,
lobbyists, and foreign emissaries have been locked in a vicious
struggle over a resolution in Congress that would officially deem
as genocide the massacre of up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish government has fought this effort
with the zeal of Ataturk--enlisting a multimillion-dollar brigade
of former congressmen and slick flacks, as well as a coterie of
American Jews surprisingly willing to downplay talk of genocide.
But the Armenian-American community has impressive political clout-
-enough that a majority of House members have now co-sponsored the
resolution. And that means a ferocious final showdown is looming,
one so charged that this arcane historical dispute could even
interfere with the war in Iraq.

Even more striking than the historic Turkish-Armenian hatred
festering in the halls of Congress, however, is the way
Washington's political elites are cashing in on it. Take Gephardt.
While the Turks and Armenians have a long historical memory,
Gephardt has an exceedingly short one. A few years ago, he was a
working-class populist who cast himself as a tribune of the
underdog--including the Armenians. Back in 1998, Gephardt attended
a memorial event hosted by the Armenian National Committee of
America at which, according to a spokeswoman for the group, "he
spoke about the importance of recognizing the genocide." Two years
later, Gephardt was one of three House Democrats who co-signed a
letter to then House Speaker Dennis Hastert urging Hastert to
schedule an immediate vote on a genocide resolution. "We implore
you," the letter read, arguing that Armenian-Americans "have waited
long enough for Congress to recognize the horrible genocide."
Today, few people are doing more than Gephardt to ensure that the
genocide bill goes nowhere.

It's one thing to flip-flop on, say, tax cuts or asbestos reform.
But, when it comes to genocide, you would hope for high principle
to carry the day. In Washington, however, the Armenian genocide
industry is in full bloom. And xxxx Gephardt's shilling isn't even
the half of it.

REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SCHIFF may be the first person elected to
Congress through the politics of the Armenian genocide. Back in
2000, Schiff was a California state senator challenging Republican
incumbent Jim Rogan. The Burbank-area district is home to 75,000
Armenian-Americans, or about 10 percent of the population, many of
them desperate to see Washington brand the Turks as genocide
artists. In September of that year, Hastert paid a campaign visit
to the district and delighted Armenians by vowing to call a vote on
a genocide resolution (which Rogan had co-sponsored). It's possible
Hastert was stirred by questions of historical guilt. But, as one
GOP campaign official admitted, the vote would also happen to offer
Rogan "a very tangible debating point" against Schiff.

Mass murder may be strange fodder for a debating point. But in
America's tight-knit Armenian community, it can seem that people
want to debate little else. Most Armenian-Americans are descended
from survivors of the slaughter and grew up listening to stories
about how the Turks, suspecting the Orthodox Christian Armenians of
collaborating with their fellow Orthodox Christian Russians during
World War I, led their grandparents on death marches, massacred
entire villages, and, in one signature tactic, nailed horseshoes to
their victims' feet. (The "horseshoe master of Bashkale," the
Ottoman provincial governor Jevdet Bey was called.) Turkey's
refusal to acknowledge the guilt of their Ottoman forbears
infuriates Armenians, leaving them feeling cheated of the sacred
status awarded to Jewish Holocaust survivors.

It wasn't until the mid-1970s that the Armenian community, which
today numbers up to 1.4 million, grew active enough to press its
case in Washington. At first, few people here took them seriously.
After a fruitless House debate about the genocide in 1985, for
instance, one Republican scoffed at "the most mischief-making piece
of legislation in all my experience in Congress." But the cause
gained traction in the 1990s, thanks largely to thenSenate
Republican leader Bob Dole, who never forgot the Armenian doctor
who treated him after he was severely wounded in World War II.

With Rogan's seat on the line in 2000, a first-ever vote on a
genocide resolution seemed a sure thing--that is, until the Turkish
government mobilized its lobbying team, led by former Republican
House Speaker Bob Livingston, its $700,000 man in the field. In a
state of affairs one furious Republican described to Roll Call as
"ridiculous," Livingston found himself battling a measure meant to
protect the very House majority he had briefly presided over just
two years earlier. A Turkish threat to cancel military contracts,
including a $4.5 billion helicopter deal with a Fort Worthbased
company, ensured the op- position of powerful Texas Republicans
like Tom DeLay. Hastert was cornered. But he found cover in Bill
Clinton, who warned that Turkey might shut down its American-run
Incirlik air base, from which the United States patrolled the no-
fly zone over northern Iraq. Citing Clinton's objections, Hastert
pulled the bill. Rogan tried to accuse Clinton of playing politics,
and someone sent out a last-minute mailer featuring Schiff next to
a Turkish flag. But it wasn't enough, and Schiff beat Rogan by nine
percentage points.

The episode--by showcasing crass partisan politics, expensive
access-peddling, sleazy political attacks, corporate lucre, and the
specter of geostrategic calamity--opened a new era in Armenian
genocide politics. "That was sort of the first introduction to how
aggressive the Turks are," says one former Republican congressman.

For the next six years, Turkish lobbying mostly kept the Armenian
genocide resolution off the Washington agenda. Then came a calamity
for the Turks: the 2006 midterm elections. Suddenly, Democrats, who
had always been more supportive than Republicans of the Armenian
cause, were in power. Even worse, California Democrats with
Armenian-American constituencies ascended to senior leadership
positions. Among them was the new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who,
with thousands of Armenian-Americans in her Bay Area district, has
spoken passionately on the subject. "This Armenian genocide is a
challenge to the conscience of our country and the conscience of
the world. We will not rest until we have recognition of it," she
declared in 2001. Likewise, one of Pelosi's closest confidantes,
California Democrat Anna Eshoo, is the granddaughter of an Armenian
who resents the notion that her grandma's memories of genocide
amount to "a fairy tale." And even Democratic Party chairman Howard
Dean, not previously known for his interest in Transcaucasian
affairs, paid a recent visit to the Armenian capital of Yerevan and
toured a national genocide memorial, where he declared that "[t]he
facts are that a genocide occurred."

It's little wonder, then, that proponents of the genocide
resolution like Adam Schiff have never been so optimistic. "This is
the best opportunity we've had for a decade," the tanned and mild-
mannered Harvard Law graduate told me in his Capitol Hill office
recently. Which is also why, warns Schiff, "we're seeing the
strongest pushback from the Turkish lobby that I've ever seen."

FEW WEEKS AGO, I called the Turkish Embassy to request an
interview. A couple of days later, I heard back--not from the
embassy, but from an American p.r. consultant employed by the
Turks. He suggested we meet the next day at a Starbucks. I found
him in a corner behind a glowing white iBook. He had long slicked-
back hair, a, seersucker suit, and a blinking Bluetooth earpiece,
and looked ready for a power lunch with the sharky agent Ari Gold
from "Entourage." He informed me our conversation would be off the
record, before launching his well-honed argument against the
genocide resolution.

My Starbucks contact wasn't the only Turkish emissary who prefers
to operate in the shadows. Another D.C.-based operative, who spoke
to me from a hotel room in Ankara, where he was chaperoning a very
prominent Democrat, also insisted that the substance of our
conversation be off the record. He asked that I not even reveal his
identity. "I don't have a dog in this hunt," he insisted, despite
his place on the Turkish payroll. "My only hunt is for truth."

The truth, as the Turks see it, is simple: There was no genocide.
The Armenian death toll is exaggerated, and most died from exposure
or rogue marauders during mass relocations. (One Turkish activist
even cheerily assured me that, after the relocations, "everyone was
invited back.") The Turks say that the G-word implies an intent
that can't be proved. This stance is more than just a matter of
fierce national pride. The Turks are terrified at the prospect of
huge financial and territorial reparations for the
Armenians.("[C]ash," drools one Armenian nationalist blogger, "lots
of cash.")

So, instead of doling out lots of cash to the Armenians, Turkey
showers Washington with political operators more than happy to
argue their case--for the right price. Few niches of Washington
lobbying are as lucrative as the foreign racket, which explains why
more than 1,800 lobbyists are currently registered to represent
more than 660 overseas clients. Thus the Turks have found no
shortage of willing pitchmen. Turkey currently maintains expensive
contracts with at least four different Washington lobbying and p.r.
firms. The result is that unsuspecting congressmen and staffers
frequently find themselves badgered by well-heeled Turkish
emissaries. Not long ago, one lobbyist invited a senior
congressional aide to dinner at his suburban mansion. When he
arrived, the aide was surprised to find himself surrounded by Turks
keenly interested in his views on the genocide bill. (This time,
the hard sell backfired; the staffer indignantly retorted that he
believed a genocide had taken place, causing the lobbyist's face to
go "ashen.")

The Turks insist that they need these expensive fixers and
aggressive tactics to counter America's relentless Armenian
grassroots lobby. In addition to Gephardt (who did not respond to a
request for comment), Turkey contracts the services of David
Mercer, a connected Democratic fund-raiser and prot�g� of the late
Democratic Party chairman Ron Brown. The Turks also pay $50,000
monthly to the Glover Park Group, a powerhouse Democratic firm
stocked with connected former Clinton White House aides Joe
Lockhart and Joel Johnson, for p.r. services. That work included
advice on shaping an April full-page New York Times advertisement,
which called for a new historical commission (which the Armenians
call a sham) and urged Washington to "support efforts to examine
history, not legislate it."

But the kingpin of Turkish advocacy is Bob Livingston, whose
lobbying firm, the Livingston Group, has hauled in roughly $13
million in Turkish lucre since 2000. Livingston, best remembered
for his comically brief stint as House Speakerelect at the height
of the Clinton impeachment debacle (before he tearfully admitted
his own extramarital affair and resigned from Congress in
disgrace), has lobbied on a range of issues dear to Turkey's heart.
But it's his tireless fight against the genocide resolution that
makes him a hero in Ankara. Back in 2000, Livingston's team
personally contacted 141 different members of Congress in the five-
week run-up to the aborted vote. And on October 19, the day the
vote was canceled, Livingston met personally with Hastert to ensure
its demise. Mission accomplished.

Likewise, when Adam Schiff tried to pass a symbolic House amendment
related to the genocide in 2004, Living- ston's firm again sprang
into action. As detailed in a recent Public Citizen study of
foreign-agent public lobbying records, the firm immediately
barraged GOP leaders like DeLay and Hastert with e-mails and faxes.
Its team also badgered everyone from top House aides to officials
at the National Security Council, the State Department, the
Pentagon, and Vice President xxxx Cheney's office. Living- ston's
office even called the House parliamentarian, apparently hoping to
throw a procedural wrench into Schiff's gears. Against this
onslaught, Schiff's puny amendment didn't stand a chance. For its
work in 2004, Turkey paid the Livingston Group $1.8 million.

But, while Bob Livingston may be the winner of the Turkish lobbying
lottery, the prize for biggest hypocrite is still up for grabs.
xxxx Gephardt isn't the only lobbyist who has flip-flopped on the
genocide (though he gets points for having his firm distribute "An
Appeal to Reason," the genocide-denying pamphlet that offers a
strangely postmodern assessment of the imprecise nature of history-
-a convenient stance if your forbears committed mass murder--
including a quotation attributed to philosopher Karl Popper,
contending that "our knowledge is always incomplete"). There's also
former Democratic representative Steve Solarz of New York. Solarz
was one of the first backers of a genocide resolution way back in
1975. By 2000, he was working with Livingston to defeat it, raking
in $400,000 for his efforts.

It's not just the lobbyists whose stance on the genocide seems
suspiciously malleable, however. Seven House members who have co-
sponsored the resolution this year have already changed their
positions. One is Louisiana Republican Bobby Jindal, who on January
31 added his name to the co-sponsor list--but then withdrew his
support the same day. Lobbying records show that, also on January
31, Livingston called Jindal and spoke to him about the resolution.
(Jindal's office didn't respond to requests for comment.) Others
have seemingly positioned themselves less on the basis of
historical or moral considerations than on good old pork politics.
G�nay Evinch, a representative of the Assembly of Turkish American
Associations, recalls how one House resolution supporter privately
explained his position: "I don't believe it was technically
genocide," the congressman said. "But I need highway funds."

Earning a special commendation for dubious behavior is Washington's
Jewish-American lobby. In one of this tale's strangest twists, the
Turks have convinced prominent Jewish groups, not typically
indifferent to charges of genocide, to mute their opinions. In
February, Turkey's foreign minister convened a meeting at a
Washington hotel with more than a dozen leaders of major Jewish
groups. Most prominent groups now take no official position on the
resolution, including B'nai B'rith, the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the American Jewish Committee. The
issue "belongs to historians and not a resolution in Congress,"
explains Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman, who outright
opposes the resolution. "It will resolve nothing." But it's also
clear that Turkey's status as Israel's lone Muslim ally counts for
a lot, too. "I think a lot of Israelis agree," Foxman told me. (One
person involved in the fight offers a more cynical explanation:
"Jewish groups don't want to give up their ownership of the term
genocide.'")

The Turks have also conspicuously hired some lobbyists with strong
Jewish ties. Their payroll includes a Washington firm called
Southfive Strategies, which bills itself as "a Washington D.C.
consulting boutique with access to the White House, congressional
leadership, and influential media organizations." Southfive is run
by Jason Epstein, a former Capitol Hill lobbyist for B'nai B'rith,
and Lenny Ben-David, an Israeli-born former deputy chief of mission
at Israel's Washington embassy and a longtime AIPAC staffer whose
previous firm, IsraelConsult, also worked for Turkey.

Some Jewish leaders, to be sure, find such realpolitik less than
tasteful. "It is obscene for us, of all people, to quibble about
definitions," one prominent California rabbi recently told the
Jewish Journal. But, when I asked one Jewish-American aligned with
the Turks whether he truly believes that genocide didn't take
place, he stammered that "the verdict" is not in, before adding,
"If you're asking do I sleep at night, I do."

(con't in next post)

**Hovik** · 07-17-2007, 07:38 PM

part 2

STRANGE AS IT may be to find a World War I massacre on the 2007
Washington agenda, even more bizarre is the possibility that it may
precipitate an international crisis. At one March House
subcommittee hearing, Adam Schiff got a rare opportunity to grill
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Angry over the Bush
administration's opposition to the Armenian genocide resolution,
Schiff pressed Rice: "Is there any doubt in your mind that the
murder of a million and a half Armenians between 1915 and 1923
constituted genocide?" Schiff even pointedly appealed to Rice's
background in "academia." But the ever-disciplined Rice wouldn't
bite. "Congressman, I come out of academia. But I'm secretary of
state now. And I think that the best way to have this proceed is
for ... the Turks and the Armenians to come to their own terms
about this."

What Rice didn't say is that the Turks, should their lobbying
firepower fail to stop the genocide bill from moving forward, have
an even mightier weapon to brandish: the war in Iraq. As they did
in 2000, the Turks are hinting they will shut down Incirlik, a far
more dire threat now that Incirlik supplies U.S. forces occupying
Iraq. Administration officials also fear Turkey might close the
Habur Gate, a border point through which U.S. supplies flow into
northern Iraq. In an April letter to congressional leaders, Rice
and Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly warned that a House
resolution "could harm American troops in the field [and] constrain
our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That prospect may even be dragging U.S. troops themselves into the
Turkish counteroffensive. Or so says Frank Pallone, a New Jersey
Democrat and lead co-sponsor of the genocide resolution. "[The
Turks] have had American soldiers call members of Congress and say,
Don't vote for this, because I am going to be threatened in Iraq,'"
Pallone says. (A Turkish embassy spokesman denied knowledge of
this.)

The Turks also warn that branding them as Hitleresque is sure to
enrage Turkish nationalists and heighten tensions on the closed
Turkish-Armenian border. If the resolution is passed, "it's going
to be a heavy, heavy blow," says Murat Lutem, a Turkish embassy
official. "The upheaval will be so significant that the government
won't be able to say, Let it be.'" That's one reason some Turkish
newspapers, with their sudden interest in Capitol Hill politics,
have recently read like Ottoman versions of Roll Call. The Turks
are especially fixated on the Armenian ally Nancy Pelosi, whom one
Turkish columnist disdained as "an uncompromising iron lady."

Faced with such intense Turkish opposition, however, Pelosi may
prove less iron lady than diplomat. Democratic aides say the
potential for geostrategic mayhem weighs heavily on her--never mind
her 2005 declaration that "Turkey's strategic location is not a
license to kill." And after she rebuffed earlier meeting requests
from such Turkish dignitaries as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, her
recent willingness to meet the Turkish ambassador may be revealing.

Still, senior Democratic aides say Pelosi could press ahead--
possibly in early fall. Meanwhile, a Senate counterpart to the
House bill already has 30 co-sponsors, including Harry Reid and
Hillary Clinton. And so xxxx Gephardt has his work cut out for him.
But not without a growing toll on his reputation. Even in modern
Washington, where it's taken for granted that everyone has their
price, flip-flopping on genocide has the ability to shock. One
person dismayed by Gephardt's reversal is Anna Eshoo. Eshoo says
she was recently in an airport with former Connecticut
Representative Sam Gejdenson, one of the three co-signers on
Gephardt's 2000 pro-resolution letter to Hastert, when the pair
spotted Gephardt. "Look who's here!" Eshoo mockingly exclaimed.
"Hey xxxx, the Kurds are looking for you!" Gejdenson sardonically
chimed in--referring to another foe of Gephardt's Turkish client.
Eshoo says it was just teasing among old friends. But, she
pointedly adds of the former House Democratic leader: "Clearly this
is not a principle of his. This is business."

MICHAEL CROWLEY is a senior editor at The New Republic.

**Joseph** · 07-26-2007, 01:07 PM

Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)

Describing itself as "the most influential group on the issue of U.S.-Israel military relations," the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) is a rightist Washington-based advocacy and research institution that promotes "strategic cooperation" between the United States and Israel on a plank of issues, including missile defense, high-tech conventional weapons, radical movements, terrorism, weapons export controls, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to "rogue" nations. Founded as a study group in the mid-1970s aimed at learning the lessons of the 1973 Yom Kippur War�which included ensuring the that United States would come to the assistance of Israel in a conflict�JINSA transformed itself into a "defense education group" in 1979 that endeavors to create strong ties between the U.S. and Israeli militaries. It operates as a 501(c)(3) organization that receives most of its funding through private donations, including from what it claims are 17,000 paid members.

According to JINSA, the group "communicates with the Jewish Community and the national security establishment on behalf of the role Israel can and does play in bolstering American interests, as well as the link between American defense policy and the security of Israel." It has a two-fold mandate: "To educate the American public about the importance of an effective U.S. defense capability so that our vital interests as Americans can be safeguarded;" and "To inform the American defense and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East."

JINSA's president is Norman Hascoe, a financier and former engineer who was at one time included on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. JINSA's chairman is Mark Broxmeyer, a New York-based real estate mogul. JINSA's board of advisers includes a passel of hawkish and neoconservative foreign policy elites as well as a number of retired military officers, including Anne Bayefsky, Stephen Bryen (whose wife, Shoshana, is a JINSA director), retired Adm. David Jeremiah, Michael Ledeen, former congressman Jack Kemp, former ambassador Max Kampelman, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, and Kenneth Timmerman. xxxx Cheney, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, and the late Jeane Kirkpatrick are past advisers.

In a discussion of JINSA's influence, as well as that of another like-minded outfit, the Center for Security Policy, journalist Jason Vest compared the two groups and their overlapping advisory councils to the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a Cold War-era letterhead group that in the 1970s championed rolling back d�tente and implementing a confrontational anti-Soviet agenda. Wrote Vest: "Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a shadow defense establishment during the Carter administration, so, too, did the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues�support for national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey, and American unilateralism in general�into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core" ("The Men from JINSA and CSP," Nation, September 2, 2002).

According to its website, JINSA's core annual activities include "sponsoring a trip for retired United States Flag and General Officers to Israel and a study program in Israel for cadets and midshipmen from the Naval Academy, the Military Academy at West Point, and the Air Force Academy. JINSA also arranges interchanges between Pentagon officials and Jewish community leadership and sponsors lectures and conferences at the national military academies and leading national security think tanks. These programs are aimed at facilitating dialogue between security policy makers, military officials, diplomats, and the community at large to increase the understanding of national security issues."

In addition to its regularly published opinion and reporting pieces appearing on its website, JINSA maintains a number of publications. These include the Observer, "a quarterly review of U.S.-Turkey-Israel cooperation" copublished by JINSA and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations; the Journal of International Security Affairs, a biannual academic-style journal edited by Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and a contributing expert for the Israel-based Ariel Center for Policy Research; and the Islamic Extremism Newswatch, a rundown of media stories covering the activities of everyone from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to al-Qaida.

Of these three publications, only the Journal of International Security Affairs appears to be regularly published. The Journal's Spring 2007 edition contained articles by a number of hawkish foreign policy scholars and former officials. Henry Sokolski, a former fellow at both the National Institute for Public Policy and the Heritage Foundation, wrote a piece on the politics of nonproliferation; Henry Cooper, a former head of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization and an early champion of the Reagan-era Star Wars missile defense initiative, wrote on the need for Washington to vigorously pursue missile defense in order to protect the American people; and John Wobensmith and Jeff Smith, both scholars associated with AFPC, wrote on the need to dramatically overhaul the nation's intelligence services. The two writers pointed to the creation of the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG), a controversial outfit in the State Department that many observers have likened to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, as "an example of the type of approach that provides hope for those of us worried that the bureaucratic, politically correct atmosphere which governs our intelligence services has become radical Islam's greatest ally and asset." They did not mention how similar outfits run by the likes of Douglas Feith in the Pentagon during the run-up to the Iraq War were seriously criticized for producing highly politicized intelligence products that, although not fully vetted by the intelligence services, were used to provide faulty justifications for invading Iraq (John Wobensmith and Jeff Smith, "Reinvigorating Intelligence," Journal of International Security Affairs, Spring 2007; see also, Right Web Profile: Office of Iranian Affairs).

Many observers regard JINSA as a core element of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, including realist scholars Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who, in their controversial 2006 paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," highlighted JINSA as one of several influential policy institutes that constitute the "think tank" arm of the Israel lobby. They wrote: "Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks are decidedly pro-Israel, and include few, if any, critics of U.S. support for the Jewish state."

JINSA plays a unique role in the pro-Israel lobby. Whereas other more traditional lobbying groups, like the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, focus on influencing congressional figures' votes on legislation critical to U.S. support of Israel, JINSA works on military-to-military ties between the countries and pays special attention to weapons issues�especially missile defense�while maintaining close ties to the military-industrial complex.

According to journalist Mark Milstein, the broad contours of JINSA's work were originally crafted by Ledeen, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the husband and wife team Stephen and Shoshana Bryen. In 1979, Stephen Bryen replaced Ledeen as JINSA's executive director, after Ledeen and other early directors had successfully worked to distance the organization "from the rest of the pro-Israel establishment, and methodically [create] close ties with the U.S. defense community." Ledeen later was implicated by some Reagan officials for having helped facilitate what would become the Iran-Contra scandal. According to Milstein, under Bryen, JINSA became "fully operational, finally shedding its study group title in December 1979." When Bryen left JINSA to take a post in the Reagan administration, where he helped shape a decidedly pro-Israel line within the administration, he handed the reigns of the organization over to his wife in 1981 (Mark Milstein, "Strategic Ties or Tentacles?" Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 1991).

Wrote Milstein: "Bryen became a consultant for Richard N. Perle, the Reagan administration assistant secretary of defense-designate. After Perle was confirmed by the Senate, Bryen was named deputy assistant secretary of defense in charge of regulating the transfer of U.S. military technology to foreign countries. Critics at the time cited the placement of Bryen in one of the most sensitive positions at the Pentagon as evidence of the tilt in U.S. policy toward Israel under Reagan. 'They don't say no anymore to Israel at the Pentagon,' said a former high-ranking Defense Department official. 'Israel is the 51st state.' It was during the Reagan era that U.S. economic aid to Israel rose to $1.2 billion annually, and military aid to $1.8 billion annually. Bryen had a role in choosing not only what U.S. weaponry Israel would be allowed to purchase with those funds, but also what sensitive U.S. military technology would be made available to Israel for use in its own burgeoning arms industry."

Many individuals with defense industry backgrounds and affiliations have served on JINSA's board of advisers and have been involved in numerous contracts with Israel. Leon Edney, David Jeremiah, and Charles May, all retired U.S. military officers, have been consultants to Northrop Grumman, which has built Israeli ships and planes. JINSA advisers May, Paul Cerjan, and Carlisle Trost have also worked for Lockheed Martin, which has sold F-16s, flight simulators, and rocket systems to Israel. Trost has served as a member of the board of General Dynamics, whose subsidiary Gulfstream has a $206 million contract with the Pentagon ("The Men from JINSA and CSP," Nation, September 2, 2002).

Immediately after 9/11, JINSA joined other neoconservative-aligned groups like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in calling for an expansive U.S. military response that would not be limited to attacking al-Qaida. In a September 13, 2001 press release entitled "This Goes Beyond Bin Laden," JINSA joined a chorus of neoconservatives in and out of the Bush administration, like former Pentagon number two Paul Wolfowitz, in arguing that Iraq should be a target of the war. It argued: "A long investigation to prove Osama bin Laden's guilt with prosecutorial certainty is entirely unnecessary. He is guilty in word and deed. His history is the source of his culpability. The same holds true for Saddam Hussein. Our actions in the past certainly were not forceful enough, and now we must seize the opportunity to alter this pattern of passivity." Among its recommended list of actions to be take by the U.S. government were: "Halt all U.S. purchases of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil for Food Program and ... provide all necessary support to the Iraq National Congress, including direct American military support, to effect a regime change in Iraq"; "revoke the Presidential Order banning assassinations"; "overturn the 1995 CIA Directive limiting whom the United States can recruit to aid counterterrorism in an effort to boost our human intelligence"; "demand that Egypt and Saudi Arabia sever all remaining ties with Osama bin Laden, including ties with Saudi-sponsored nongovernmental organizations and groups abroad that raise money for bin Laden and other terrorist organizations"; "suspend U.S. military aid to Egypt while reevaluating Egypt's support for American policy objectives"; and "reevaluate America's security relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States unless both actually join in our war against terrorism."

More recently, Shoshana Bryen, in a JINSA "Viewpoint" posted on the group's website in September 2006, addressed the fallout from the Summer 2006 war between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel. In contrast to other neoconservative pundits, like the Hudson Institute's Meyrav Wurmser, Bryen argued that it was too early to declare the war a failure from the Israeli point of view. Instead, she argued that "the Summer War was, in fact, a battle in the larger war against terrorists and the states that harbor and/or support them. There was no possibility of a final military victory in August; long-term success or failure in the process remains at issue."

Every year, JINSA awards its favorite policy or military elite the Henry "Scoop" Jackson Distinguished Service Award. The award honors "those leaders whose careers have been distinguished by the principle that is the foundation of JINSA's work: the belief that the United States requires a strong military capability for both its own security and for that of trustworthy friends and allies. This was the cornerstone of the late Senator Jackson's visionary policy and it guides JINSA today. Senator Jackson helped define our mandate and our programming is designed to further it." Among the recipients have been Sen. John McCain (2006), Paul Wolfowitz (2002), former Rep. Curt Weldon (1999), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (1997), xxxx Cheney (1991), and Jeane Kirkpatrick (1984) ("The Henry 'Scoop' Jackson Distinguished Service Award History and Past Recipients," JINSA, September 21, 2004).

After receiving the award in December 2006, McCain told his JINSA audience: "I'm grateful to receive an award and have my name associated in any way with a great leader and one of the architects of our victory in the Cold War." He added: "Tehran's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons clearly poses an unacceptable risk. Protected by a nuclear deterrent, Iran would feel unconstrained to sponsor terrorist attacks against any perceived enemy." The senator also had strong words for Palestinian leaders who say they desire peace but wage a terror war against Israel and for U.S. leaders who would push Israel to engage with such terrorists. "No American leader should be expected to sell a false peace to our democratic ally, consider Israel's right to self-defense less legitimate than ours, or insist that Israel negotiate a political settlement while terrorism remains its adversaries' favored bargaining tool" ("JINSA Bestows Distinguished Service Award Upon Senator John McCain" JINSA press release, February 9, 2007.)

Between 2001 and 2004, JINSA received nearly $8 million in gifts, grants, and contributions (see 2005 Form 990). Thomas Neumann, JINSA's executive director since 1991, once boasted: "We receive 99.9, no, 100% of our funding from private donations." He added, "We receive no money from Israel or any defense contractors." At the time of his comments (1991), donors included Ronald Lauder (of Estee Lauder cosmetics), DC lobbyist Donald Agger, Atlantic Research Corporation, a defense contractor, the Smith-Kogod family, the Air Force Association, Armed Services Foundation, and Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (see Milstein, "Strategic Ties or Tentacles?"). According to data collected by MediaTransparency. org, between 1998 and 2005, JINSA received nearly $200,000 from several major rightist donors, including the Smith Richardson Foundation, which gave a $100,000 grant to JINSA in 2003 aimed at facilitating exchanges between U.S. and Israeli law enforcement officials involved in combating terrorism threats. Another regular JINSA donor is Irving Moskowitz, a California magnate whose controversial donating activities include aiding right-wing settler groups in the Occupied Territories. According to the 2005 Form 990 of the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation, the bingo magnate donated $20,000 to JINSA in 2005 for "work against Islamic funded terrorism." JINSA president Norman Hascoe is also a substantial donor, having given hundreds of thousands to JINSA through his Hascoe Family Foundation (FoundationSearch.com).

Contact Information

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 515
Washington, DC 20036
Office: (202) 667-3900
Fax: (202) 667-0601
E-Mail: [email protected]
Web: http://www.jinsa.org

**Joseph** · 07-26-2007, 01:09 PM

Washington Institute For Near East Policy (WINEP)

Washington Institute For Near East Policy (WINEP)

In their controversial 2006 paper about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy, the respected realist scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote that part of the �Lobby's� success stems from its efforts to extend its reach beyond Beltway politics and into the domain of policy institutes. �The Israeli side also dominates the think tanks which play an important role in shaping public debate as well as actual policy. The Lobby created its own think tank in 1985, when Martin Indyk [who would later become an influential Mideast adviser to President Bill Clinton] helped to found the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel, claiming instead to provide a �balanced and realistic' perspective on Middle East issues, it is funded by individuals deeply committed to advancing Israel's agenda� (�The Israel Lobby,� London Review of Books, March 23, 2006).

They continue: �The Lobby's influence extends well beyond WINEP, however. Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks employ few, if any, critics of U.S. support for Israel.�

Touting bipartisan credentials, WINEP's �Mission� page on its website features prominent quotes from Al Gore and neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who was blurbed as saying: �The Washington Institute has become the number one center for information and analysis in Washington.� As WINEP puts it, the institute promotes �an American engagement in the Middle East committed to strengthening alliances, nurturing friendships, and promoting security, peace, prosperity, and democracy for the people of the region.� Its activities include annual conferences, a Presidential Study Group composed of a �bipartisan blue-ribbon commission charged with drafting a blueprint for the next administration's Middle East policy,� closed-door policy forums, and various publications and research programs.

Like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and other like-minded policy institutes covering Mideast issues, WINEP aims to cultivate close ties among senior military officials in the United States and Israel, as well as in Turkey and Jordan. The main mechanism for this outreach is its Military Fellows Program, which �brings together senior officers from the armed forces of the United States and key Middle Eastern allies.�

Through their overlapping staffs, WINEP is closely associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. The longtime director of the Jaffee Center was Maj. Gen. Aharon Yariv, former Israeli government minister and director of intelligence who died in 1994. Funds for the Jaffee Center were �provided mainly by members of Jewish communities of the United States who have proved aware of and sensitive to the need for such an institution in Israel.� According to Jaffee's website, the center conducts research on Israeli national security and aims �to contribute to the public debate and governmental deliberation of issues that are�or should be�at the top of Israel's national security agenda.�

WINEP's staff and directors include: Executive Director Robert Satloff; Deputy Director for Research Patrick Clawson; Counselor and Zieglar Distinguished Fellow Dennis Ross; Director of the Turkish Research Program Mark Parris; Senior Fellows Michael Eisenstadt and David Makovsky; Associates Zeev Schiff and Ehud Yaar; Soref Fellow Emily Hunt; Adjunct Scholars Hirsh Goodman, Joshua Muravchik, Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, Harvey Sicherman (of Foreign Policy Research Institute), and Raymond Tanter; and Visiting Fellow Martin Kramer.

WINEP's Board of Advisers includes: Warren Christopher, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Max M. Kampelman, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Samuel W. Lewis, Edward Luttwak, Michael Mandelbaum, Robert McFarlane, Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, James Roche, George P. Shultz, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, and Mortimer Zuckerman. Wolfowitz and Roche resigned from the board when they entered the Bush administration in 2001, although WINEP still proudly lists them.

WINEP boasts of an extensive presence in the media, an achievement aided in part by the presence of major media figures on its advisory board, including Zuckerman of U.S. News & World Report and Peretz of the New Republic.

Among WINEP's in-house publications are PolicyWatch and PeaceWatch. Both publications and the institute have been strong defenders of the fence that Israel is building along its borders and into the occupied territories. For example, in April 2004 WINEP published Policy Focus #47, The West Bank Fence: A Vital Component in Israel's Strategy of Defense, written by Maj. Gen. Doron Almog of the Israel Defense Forces.

More recently, WINEP's publications have been largely uncritical of Israel's war against Lebanon, weighing in with a number of analyses regarding the sort of multinational force necessary to produce an end to the conflict, whether Syria can be brought on board in negotiations, and �the opportunities� a ground invasion might bring to Israel's negotiating position.

In 1985, Martin Indyk, former research director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), founded WINEP. While AIPAC focused its lobbying on Congress, WINEP was founded as a think tank that would primarily interact with the executive branch to set U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East. In contrast to the obviously partisan character of AIPAC, WINEP has projected itself, at least until the administration of George W. Bush, as an objective institute.

During the Bush Senior and Clinton administrations, WINEP was undoubtedly the most influential think tank on Mideast policy. Its 1998 report, Building for Peace: An American Strategy for the Middle East, helped shape the George H. W. Bush administration policy toward the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The report advocated that the incoming administration �resist pressures for a procedural breakthrough until conditions have ripened.� Writing for the Middle East Report, Stanford University professor Joel Beinin stated: �Six members of the study group responsible for the report joined the first Bush administration, which adopted this stalemate recipe not to change until change was unavoidable. Hence the United States acceded to Israel's refusal to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization despite the PLO's recognition of Israel at the November 1988 session of the Palestine National Council� (April 6, 2003).

WINEP followed up its 1988 policy blueprint in 1992 with its Enduring Partnership report, which recommended a policy of dual containment to isolate Iran and Iraq. Eleven signatories of the 1992 report joined the Clinton administration, which adopted the dual containment framework. Indyk joined the administration as special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council.

At the onset of the George W. Bush administration, WINEP's influence dimmed as neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute and Project for the New American Century successfully pushed for a complete break from previous policy frameworks toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East. WINEP, which also had several leading neoconservatives on its advisory board, including Perle and Wolfowitz, has over the past several years moved even further to the right and toward the hardline positions of the Likud Party militarists, a move that has been buttressed by the inclusion of a number of additional neoconservatives among its ranks, including Rubin, Kramer, Pipes, and Muravchik.

In Spring 2002, WINEP sponsored a 52-member group of experts and congressional members who declared that �circumstances were not ripe for high-level efforts to restart the peace negotiations, and that the most urgent task was to prevent a regional war while fighting terrorism and weapons proliferation,� as Beinin phrased it. Such a policy, observed Beinin, �allows Israel to assert its overwhelming military advantage and to continue to create facts on the ground, especially settlements, which will make peace all the more difficult to achieve in the future.� WINEP later rejected the Bush administration's �road map� for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Echoing those opposed to any negotiations with the Palestinians, WINEP Executive Director Satloff dismissed the proposal as a �sham� since it was based on an �indecent parallelism between Israeli and Palestinian behavior� ( PeaceWatch, February 2003).

WINEP provides no information about its funding sources on its website, though it does solicit contributions. According to the latest research by MediaTransparency.org, the institute received $574,500 from two right-wing foundations in the 1991 to 2000 period: Smith Richardson Foundation and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Right Web Links

Individuals

Max Kampelman
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Joshua Muravchik
Daniel Pipes
James Roche
Michael Rubin
Paul Wolfowitz
Organizations

Foreign Policy Research Institute
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Middle East Forum
Project for the New American Century
Contact Information

1828 L Street NW, Suite 1050
Washington, D.C. 20036
Voice: (202) 452-0650
Fax: (202) 223-5364
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.washingtoninstitute.org

**Joseph** · 08-09-2007, 01:20 PM

Neo-Cons

amconmag.com

The American Conservative

April 24, 2006

By Philip Giraldi

Sibel Edmonds, the Turkish FBI translator turned whistleblower who has been
subjected to a gag order could provide a major insight into how
neoconservatives distort US foreign policy and enrich themselves at the same
time.

On one level, her story appears straightforward: several Turkish lobbying
groups allegedly bribed congressmen to support policies favourable to
Ankara.

But beyond that, the Edmonds revelations become more serpentine and appear
to involve AIPAC, Israel and a number of leading neoconservatives who have
profited from the Turkish connection.

Israel has long cultivated a close relationship with Turkey since Ankara's
neighbours and historic enemies - Iran, Syria and Iraq - are also hostile to
Tel Aviv. Islamic Turkey has also had considerable symbolic value for
Israel, demonstrating that hostility to Muslim neighbours is not a sine qua
non for the Jewish state.

Turkey benefits from the relationship by securing general benevolence and
increased aid from the US Congress - as well as access to otherwise
unattainable military technology. The Turkish General Staff has a particular
interest because much of the military spending is channeled through
companies in which the generals have a financial stake, making for a very
cozy and comfortable business arrangement. T

he commercial interest has also fostered close political ties, with the
American Turkish Council, American Turkish Cultural Alliance and the
Assembly of Turkish American Associations all developing warm relationships
with AIPAC and other Jewish and Israel advocacy groups throughout the US.

Someone has to be in the middle to keep the happy affair going, so enter the
neocons, intent on securing Israel against all comers and also keen to turn
a dollar. In fact the neocons seem to have a deep and abiding interest in
Turkey, which, under other circumstances, might be difficult to explain.

Doug Feith's International Advisors Inc, a registered agent for Turkey in
1989 - 1994, netted $600,000 per year from Turkey, with Richard Perle taking
$48,000 annually as a consultant. Other noted neoconservatives linked to
Turkey are former State Department number three, Marc Grossman, current
Pentagon Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, Paul Wolfowitz
and former congressman Stephen Solarz. The money involved does not appear to
come from the Turkish government, and FBI investigators are trying to
determine its source and how it is distributed. Some of it may come from
criminal activity, possibly drug trafficking, but much more might come from
arms dealing. Contracts in the hundreds of millions, or even billions of
dollars provide considerable fat for those well placed to benefit.

Investigators are also looking at Israel's particular expertise in the
illegal sale of US military technology to countries like China and India.
Fraudulent end-user certificates produced by Defense Ministries in Israel
and Turkey are all that is needed to divert military technology to other,
less benign, consumers.

The military-industrial-complex/neocon network is also well attested. Doug
Feith has been associated with Northrup Grumman for years, while defense
contractors fund many neocon-linked think tanks and "information" services.
Feith, Perle and a number of other neocons have long had beneficial
relationships with various Israeli defense contractors.

**Joseph** · 08-16-2007, 09:15 AM

Turkish Caucus in the US Congress

http://www.turkishcoalitionofamerica.com/caucus.html

**Joseph** · 08-16-2007, 09:27 AM

Originally posted by Joseph View Post

http://www.turkishcoalitionofamerica.com/caucus.html

Finally, a comprehensive list of the Congressional Turkish lobby. Interesting though, a few of the members are also part of the Armenian Caucus, such as Jim Moran.

**Joseph** · 08-26-2007, 06:16 AM

Sondakik Haber

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=81739

Explore the latest Turkish news, including Turkey news, politics, political updates, and current affairs. Stay informed with our top headlines and in-depth anal

Turkey looks to Israel to influence Jewish lobby

Friday, August 24, 2007

Turkey annuls the lobby contract

Shocked at the ADL's decision, Turkey decided to annul a contract with the lobbying firm DLA Piper and stay with Livingstone firm. The lobby firms are supposed to use their influence on the members of Congress and some other high-level administration officials. DLA Piper is known to be close to the Democrats in the United States.

**Joseph** · 08-28-2007, 04:42 AM

Originally posted by Joseph View Post

Finally, a comprehensive list of the Congressional Turkish lobby. Interesting though, a few of the members are also part of the Armenian Caucus, such as Jim Moran.

This site also provides a comprehensive list of Turkish organizations in the US and links to denialist literature and other items that support Turkeys fascist regime.

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