House Speaker Pelosi just weighed in against US military action against Iran, but the PR push for a US attack on that country continues to gather steam...

If I had bothered to label Freedom's Watch an "extremist political group" that would have raised all sorts of problems, because that term might apply to an entire menagerie of organizations working to build up a PR climate conducive to a US military attack on Iran :

"Christians United Israel", AIPAC, Focus On The Family, The Institute On Religion and Democracy, The Trinity Broadcasting Network, The DayStar Broadcasting Network, The Family Research Council...

If I thought about it a bit, I'm sure I could generate a list of dozens or more nationally known entities promoting the idea that the survival of both the United States and Israel depends on US military action against Iran.

But $200 million dollars [note: that figure from NYT front page story on Freedom's Watch referenced by Bill Berkowitz], the fund raising target of Freedom's Watch, is nothing to sneeze at given the fact that that pot of money will be dedicated to promoting one goal:

A US attack on Iran or, to put it blackly, more - and better ( or worse, depending on one's perspective ) - war in the Middle East.

Guess who is running the operation ?

Ari Fleischer, the man who helped sell the US invasion of Iraq.

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Bill Berkowitz, one of my favorite journalists covering the religious-right, covers the genesis of Freedom's Watch for Media Transparency, in a piece entitled Freedom's Watch targeting Iran.

Here is Berkowitz's lead in (sans links):

If the U.S. undertakes military action against Iran, you can credit such longtime neoconservatives as Norman Podhoretz, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen and the swarm of ideologues buzzing about Washington's right wing think tanks. You can also credit Pastor John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel, a Christian Zionist outfit with unbending support for Israel. And credit also the billionaire and multimillionaire founders of Freedom's Watch for helping smooth the way.... Later this month, Freedom's Watch will sponsor a forum of some 20 experts on "radical Islam" that, according to a front page story in the New York Times, "is expected to make the case that Iran poses a direct threat to the security of the United States." The forum is being "organized with the American Enterprise Institute" [note: link to new dKos post on AEI paper by Michael Ledeen claiming Iran was responsible for 9-11]

Berkowitz quotes PR Watch's John Stauber on the new group's top shelf PR managerial talent:

"It should be remembered that Freedom's Watch is run by a White House PR flack [Ari Fleischer] who was key to selling that last war. It is the same script, same images, same messages, and same players. And it is likely to provoke the same response from the mainstream media."

Freedom's Watch is no paper tiger. The group already has run a $15 million dollar ad campaign to rally American public support for the Bush Administration's (now failed) "Surge" in Iraq, and those ads features the same sort of shamelessly deceptive propagandistic TV ads that make a strong case for new legislation that would prevent nonprofit groups ( Freedom's Watch is a 501c(4) from promoting blatant lies ) ;

Freedom's Watch's "pro-surge" TV ad showed a wounded American soldier who, commenting on a picture of one of the hijacked planes ready to strike on of the World Trade Center towers, states "They attacked us, and they will again. They won't stop in Iraq."

Berkowitz's article also notes that Freedom's Watch's President, has likened Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to Hitler.

First Came CUFI....

We have previously seen, in the last year and a half, the advent of Pastor John Hagee's "Christians United For Israel", a 501c(3) "non-lobbying" nonprofit that teaches its members to lobby their political representatives to support "pro-Israel" policies and also buses thousands of them each year, during the summer, to Washington DC for a conference, lobbying junket, and high profile "Night To Honor Israel" event. CUFI has extensive high-level Washington connections (see 1, 2, 3.

Pastor John Hagee blames the holocaust on Jews and CUFI board members have stated their expectation that another, perhaps even worse, immanent Holocaust will decimate the nation of Israel but John Hagee has built his career on noisy proclamations of love for Jews, and CUFI represents a strategic alliance between the Israeli and American Jewish hard right (the sort who have founded Freedom's Watch) and American evangelicals who want to "force God's hand" and provoke apocalyptic war in order to force the "Rapture" and Jesus' Second Coming.

In theory, CUFI can politically mobilize tens of millions of American evangelical Christian zionists to lobby for war on Iran and, generally, policies to provoke expanded conflict in the Middle East (one could also reasonably term CUFI a "Pro-Holocaust" lobby though the lobby would say the point is actually the "Rapture").

Now, hot on the heels of CUFI, probably the first dedicated pro-war Christian political lobby in history, comes Freedom Watch, a propaganda powerhouse to whip up the proper magic pro-war support percentage among the American public (40%, or whatever the Bush Administration deems to be the magic number) that will allow American bombs and missiles to bring the miracle of American-style democracy to Tehran.

Senator John McCain, who could be found last April singing "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran" at a VFW hall appearance, stated about one year earlier, on "Meet The Press", that a US attack on Iran could set off Armageddon. This is one sad case study in the political and lobbying power of the Christian right and the apocalypse lobby - that a man such as John McCain who, in 2000 Presidential election GOP primary race, decried leaders of the Christian right as "agents of intolerance", now openly associates with a group whose leaders have fantasized, in public, about the destruction of the Dome of Omar, 3rd holiest site in Islam. We'll never know what went through John McCain's head as he went in roughly 6 years from slamming to embracing the Christian right, but it would be fair to say he thought his shift to be expedient

That's a quick case study in the political heft of the Christian right, and now - augmenting the equation, we have a dedicated pro-war advertising (propagandizing actually) powerhouse that can dump money - quite a lot of it - into upcoming political races to unseat insufficiently pro-war politicians. What CUFI seeks to do that via direct lobbying by its membership, Freedom's Watch will seek to do with absurdly dishonest TV ads.

Given the group's shameless disregard for facts, let's hope history sees "Freedom Watch" flushed down the same hole as "Freedom Fries".

As a postscript ;

Sometimes it can be quite hard to separate the apocalyptic Christian zionists associated with CUFI from the 'secular' NeoConservative crowd. Take Michael Ledeen, now with the American Enterprise Institute, who just published a paper alleging that Iran was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (linked previously in this post).

"One can only hope that we turn the region [the Middle East] into a cauldron [of war], and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today."

--Michael Ledeen

"God willing, Judgment Day is coming to the Middle East."

--Michael Ledeen