ZGram - 8/28/2002 - "America's Fifth Column at work!"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

August 28, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

This is the kind of research the Revisionist community ought to be 
doing - or, at the very least, dispersing! - which is what I am doing 
now.  You're welcome!  My pleasure!

[START]

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
The Guardian

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 "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
=46orum.

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
=46orum. 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.

=46ourteen 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 (=A323.2m) 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.

[END]