Ken Hanly wrote,
> This ass sits on a freedom chair?
>
> Cheers Ken Hanly
>
>
> New York Sun March 19, 2003
>
> After Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh
>
> Michael A. Ledeen*
This ass, Ledeen, is a scary character. To some extent, it may be that his function is
to run up trial baloons of how much the
administration can get away with. He's "independent" but very, very well connected --
Perle, Wolfowitz, Abrams, et.al. He was the
consultant sent by McFarlane during Iran-Contra to meet with Peres to coordinate
intelligence cooperation between Israel and U.S.
on making back channel overtures to Iran.
"In early May of 1985, Michael Ledeen, a part-time consultant to the NSC, obtained
National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane's
approval to meet in Israel with Prime Minister Shimon Peres to explore whether Israel
would share information on Iran with the
United States.
"According to Ledeen, Peres expressed displeasure with Israel's intelligence on Iran
and suggested that the United States and Israel
should work together to improve their information about and policies toward Iran. He
also mentioned a recent Iranian request to buy
artillery shells from Israel. Israel would grant the request, Peres said, only if the
United States had no objection. Ledeen agreed
to relay the question of the proposed weapons sale to McFarlane. (Footnote: For a more
detailed discussion of these events, see
McFarlane chapter.)"
Ledeen's wife Barbara was a key player in the astro-turf battle to win confirmation
for Clarence Thomas, her organazation
subsequently morphed into the "Independent Women's Forum" and reportedly played a
major role in promoting the Clinton impeachment
thingy that Hillary referred to as a "right-wing conspiracy". There are a number of
reports on Ledeen's exploits that I won't repeat
because I have no idea about the reliability of some of the sources and others are
ones I wouldn't be caught dead citing, Anyone
who's interested can satisfy themselves with Google searches on Ledeen and P2 or Billy
Carter or Achille Lauro.
Ledeen studied fascism and wrote several books on it in the 1970s. One that I'm
reading, The First Duce: D'Annunzio at Fiume, seems
almost adulatory of the poet-warrior. I would go out on a limb and say that Ledeen's
"politico-aesthetic vision" as reflected in his
study of D'Annunzio is the most coherent, if blood curdling, rationale I've seen for
current Bush policy. It doesn't reduce down to
"war is beautiful", but that's probably close enough.
Ledeen is a contributing editor to National Review. A guest contribution to NRO is
Gabriel Ledeen, who I would hazard a guess is his
son and would speculate is named after Gabrielle D'Annunzio. I suppose when the AEI
endows a freedom chair, they have in might a
certain kind of aesthetic freedom exemplified by the phrase, Fiat ars -- pereat mundus.
Tom Walker