International Law

One Last Post On Chas Freeman

By Stan

Earlier this week, I posted about the withdrawal by Chas Freeman for the position of head of Obama’s National Intelligence Council. I originally became interested in this story because of Freeman’s sterling China credentials, and then as a storm of protest arose over his opinions about Middle East policy.

The story is over at this point, but I can’t help but comment on this ridiculous Op/Ed in the Washington Post by Congressman Frank Wolf.

Here’s the stupid part:

For almost four years, Freeman served on the advisory board of the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), receiving $10,000 a year for his service. The communist government of China, along with other state-owned companies, are majority stakeholders in CNOOC. Yet Freeman claims that he never received money from a foreign government. The connection may not be direct, but it is certainly there. The same can be said of the paycheck he received from the Middle East Policy Council, which received ample funding from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia — whose regime is responsible for funding madrassas around the globe that have given rise to Islamic fundamentalists such as Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban.

CNOOC’s investment in Sudan’s oil sector is part of the lifeline that has sustained the regime of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court this month on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

What is Wolf saying here?

1. Freeman should be barred from the U.S. government because he was on the BOD of a State-owned company.

2. Freeman should be barred from the U.S. government because he was on the BOD of a “communist government” State-owned company.

3. Freeman should be barred from the U.S. government because he was working for an organization that received funding from Saudi Arabia.

4. Freeman should be barred from the U.S. government because he was on the BOD of a company that did business with the Sudan?

I’m not sure which of these is most pertinent for Wolf, but I have a feeling that a lot of other U.S. government folks fall into one or more of these categories. The one concerning Saudi Arabia alone would rule out just about every international law firm in the world, not to mention a whole lot of Republican organizations and think tanks.

Wolf is setting up a very peculiar standard for appointees, essentially saying that they cannot be too close to Saudi Arabia, China or (I would guess) a lot of other nations that Wolf doesn’t like.

I understand that Wolf has done some good work with respect to the Darfur crisis and may have a personal stake in all this, but despite his good deeds in the human rights arena, his comments in the Post just don’t make sense. His additional comments in the Op/Ed regarding China make it clear what his opinions are about the Middle Kingdom, as if we didn’t know after his gratuitous use of the word “communist.”

In Frank Wolf’s world, one doesn’t do business with Saudi Arabia or China because they are “bad,” and he defines “doing business with” quite broadly, it seems to me. Wolf doesn’t like it that Freeman was on the BOD of CNOOC because of CNOOC’s Sudan investments. Despite the fact that Freeman was not in the U.S. government at the time and was not working for a U.S. company, Wolf apparently thinks that Freeman’s employment choices should somehow be influenced by U.S. foreign policy. To wit:

Congress voted unanimously in December 2007 to authorize state and local governments to divest assets in companies that do business in Sudan. President Bush signed this legislation into law on Dec. 31, 2007. Yet Freeman’s appointment to this high-level post would have undermined the policy of U.S. divestment from the genocidal regime of Sudan.

This is strange, to say the least. Exactly how would Freeman’s appointment have undermined this policy? Wolf is desperately pulling together a lot of unrelated issues here and appears to be accusing Freeman of supporting certain policies of foreign governments through indirect associations. Speaking as a lawyer to my fellow attorney Wolf, that is a poor sort of argument to make.

One could easily go after Wolf for his own associations with private companies. It’s a very simple exercise to do these days when one has Google, Wikipedia and non-profit watchdog groups to draw upon. Here’s a quickie:

1. Of the top 20 contributors to Frank Wolf during the 2007-2008 cycle, at least four were major U.S. defense contractors (perhaps more, I’m not familiar with all the names). (Opensecrets.org)

2. Wolf is a member of the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. Among other things, this sub-committee supervises the Foreign Military Financing Program. (House Appropriations Committee)

3. The Foreign Military Financing Program is in charge of giving money to foreign government for purchase of American-made weapons. (Federation of American Scientists)

To summarize: Wolf sits on a committee that gives money to folks who want to buy U.S. weapons, and he receives lots of campaign contributions from U.S. companies that make weapons.

See how fun this game is?

Remind me again why Freeman should be disqualified for service because he was on CNOOC’s board. At least he wasn’t involved in the international weapons trade, right?

Look, I’m not trying to play gotcha here. Every member of the U.S. House or Senate, and probably most of the political appointees in the Executive Branch have “associations” that might appear to be conflicts of interest. My point is that Wolf’s use of such tenuous items as Freeman’s membership on the CNOOC board is weak at best, and probably hypocritical coming from a member of Congress. I’m not surprised by this, but I did feel obliged to point it out.

© Stan for China Hearsay, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us

Full post as published by China Hearsay on March 14, 2009 (boomark / email).