CLARE LOPEZ Diana West

GATESTONE INSTITUTE FIRES CLARE LOPEZ FOR FAVORABLY MENTIONING ‘AMERICAN BETRAYAL’…….

 

Something is seriously afoul here, a ‘Conservative Betrayal’.

I wondered yesterday whether more ill will was around the corner upon hearing that former CIA operations officer and expert on the Middle East, Clare Lopez, had an essay of hers pulled from the pages of the Gatestone Institute. The gut feeling proved right as I read from the Gates of Vienna (mirrored below) that Ms.Lopez was fired from her position at the institute.

It looks like a blacklisting of public figures approving of Diana’s book ‘American Betrayal’ is underway, a real Right-wing blacklist, unlike the one imagined during the Joe McCarthy years.

 Only Ms. West’s book about the very same events seemed to irritate the Board, whose recently-appointed Chairman is former UN Ambassador John Bolton.

Gatestone fires clare Lopez over american betrayal 6.9.2013

So, what in the world is going on at Gatestone Institute? Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna has an in-depth piece detailing the inside skinny from an anonymous source, read it in full, I’m mirroring the entire post.

gates-totalitarian impulse 5.9.2013

I just received this information from a source close to Clare Lopez:

In late August 2013, Clare Lopez, then a Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, submitted an article for publication at the Gatestone Institute’s website. It was entitled “Recognizing the Wrong People”, and drew on the U.S. government’s 1933 formal diplomatic recognition of the USSR as described in Diana West’s bookAmerican Betrayal to form an analogy with the U.S.’s present day recognition and/or support of other fundamentally-anti-American entities, such as the AQ/MB-dominated rebel and opposition forces in places like Egypt, Libya, and Syria.

As with all of Ms. Lopez’ previous articles, this one was well-received by Gatestone’s editor, Nina Rosenwald, who praised it as “so far-sighted.” The article was duly published the morning of Tuesday 3 September 2013 at Gatestone and was sent out to an email list of subscribers. Sometime shortly after that, however, it was pulled from the website, with no notice or explanation.

Word spread quickly as regular Gatestone readers realized something odd had happened.

The real shock came the following morning, though, on September 4, when Ms. Lopez received an email from Nina Rosenwald notifying her that her relationship with the Gatestone Institute had been terminated at the request of the Gatestone Board of Directors. On September 5, Ms. Rosenwald confirmed in an email sent to Ms. Lopez and others what some had already suspected, that her firing was due to her “choice of books to promote…,” a clear reference to Ms. Lopez’ citation of historical events from Ms. West’s book. Although Ms. Lopez also had cited about the same 1933 events to a second book, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest, for some reason, that reference did not seem to pose any issues for the Board. Only Ms. West’s book about the very same events seemed to irritate the Board, whose recently-appointed Chairman is former UN Ambassador John Bolton.

It would seem that the legacy of Stalin lives on. The anti-anti-communist movement is alive and well in 21st century America, and so are the vicious public smear tactics of personal vilification to which Diana West has been subjected.

For shame, for shame.

Clare Lopez has not yet been entirely airbrushed out of existence at the Gatestone Institute. Her author archive is still available at the website, and below is a screen cap of her bio, in case it disappears down the same memory hole as did her article (or Mark Tapson’s favorable review of American Betrayal at FPM, for that matter):

(Click to enlarge)

A text version of the bio:

Clare M. Lopez
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Gatestone Institute

Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on national defense, Islam, Iran, and counterterrorism issues. Currently a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, the Center for Security Policy and the Clarion Fund and vice president of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.

Already an advisor to EMP Act America, in February 2012 Ms. Lopez was named a member of the Congressional Task Force on National and Homeland Security, which focuses on the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) threat to the nation. She is deputy director of the U.S. Counterterrorism Advisory Team for the Military Department of the South Carolina National Guard and serves as a member of the Boards of Advisors/Directors for the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, the Clarion Fund, the Institute of World Affairs, the Intelligence Analysis and Research program at her undergraduate alma mater, Notre Dame College of Ohio, and United West. She has been a Visiting Researcher and guest lecturer on counterterrorism, national defense, and international relations at Georgetown University. Ms. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran and the Middle East and the co-author of two published books on Iran. She is the author of an acclaimed paper for the Center, The Rise of the Iran Lobby and co-author/editor of the Center’s Team B II study, “Shariah: The Threat to America”.

Ms. Lopez received a B.A. in Communications and French from Notre Dame College of Ohio and an M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. She completed Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia before declining a commission, in favor of joining the CIA.

So these are the credentials of the woman who was fired for writing favorably about a book that someone else disapproves of. A scholar of her quality and expertise had to be suppressed, not just by having her article pulled, but by losing her status as a senior fellow.

Well…

Gatestone is a private foundation. It is fully within its rights to exercise editorial discretion and terminate any of its fellows as it sees fit. Front Page Magazine may also claim the same prerogatives vis-à-vis its own articles.

Still, one cannot help but observe the sheer juvenility of such behavior. These people are intelligent, well-educated adults — what prompts their descent into junior-high style bullying? Not just incompetence, but maliciousness. What’s going on here?

The impulse to suppress what someone else has to say, using any and all tactics available, is a totalitarian one.

The ferocious personal attacks on Diana West emerged from numerous quarters at more or less the same time, which suggested a concerted effort to apply Saul Alinsky’s Rule #12 — referred to in another context as “the politics of personal destruction”.

It seems that no matter how far to the “right” an old Stalinist moves, he still carries his own private Lubyanka around with him, ready to be dusted off and reoccupied whenever the occasion warrants.

11 Responses

  1. This whole thing is so bizarre that it must be about money. Both FP and Gatestone Institute depend on private donations. It is likely that the board is afraid of losing funding or some major benefactor has threatened to withdraw funding if West’s book is in any way endorsed.

    There is no other credible way to explain this kind of behavior.

    1. There is no other credible way to explain this kind of behavior.

      Existential threat to the belief system they operate under?
      Granted, not very credible but still within the realm of possibility.

    2. I agree Vasarahammer, it’s got to be about money, and I’ll add, ego.

  2. I’m glad that I found this blogpost, despite that I just tweeted at the Gatestone Institute, asking them what happened to the essay. I know what happened now if they don’t reply…

    Thankfully, I saved it off-line. That kind of insight and scholarship will be useful and necessary in discussion and debate. It was the kind of evidence I was looking for, in response to all the conspiracy theories around events in Egypt right now.

    1. Thank you Mina, I’ll pass that along to Diana and Clare.

  3. re:

    “Existential threat to the belief system they operate under?”

    Wow. With John Bolton serving as Chairman of Gatestone, one cannot help but be confused as to what Gatestone’s ‘belief system’ is morphing into.
    Over the last couple of days I was searching for Clare’s contact information to ask her directly, ‘why’ her review was pulled. None was readily found.
    This incredible revelation of Ms. Lopez being fired triggers that increasingly familiar déjà-vu-whirlwind-of-emotion reminiscent of the betrayals of Charles Johnson/LGF, and that of Hesham Islam ‘s faux credentials trumping Stephen Coughlin at the Pentagon.
    When one imagines the proverbial [prayer?] rug being pulled out from underneath, one never anticipated witnessing it slip under the door “Iron Curtain” of AMERICAN National Security.

  4. It might be a while before we learn the whole story about this.

    A lot of people get fired from their jobs these days for stuff they say on facebook, twitter, emails etc. I’m not saying this happened here, but it happens a lot.

    Sit tight and keep your eyes and ears open. I think you’ll find out more as time goes on.

    I’ve met Claire. She’s a member of Frank Gaffney’s (sp?) Center for Security Policy. I don’t think she’ll be hurting for employment unless she did something a lot worse than publish one essay that someone disagreed with.

    1. Perhaps there is more to the story, but the information presented above specifically states:

      On September 5, Ms. Rosenwald confirmed in an email sent to Ms. Lopez and others what some had already suspected, that her firing was due to her “choice of books to promote…,” a clear reference to Ms. Lopez’ citation of historical events from Ms. West’s book.

    2. There is more i’m hearing through back channels that I can’t relay here, Clare hasn’t done anything wrong, except give kudos to a book ”that shouldn’t have been written (David Horowitz), there is more soon to be released.

  5. Isn’t this obvious, of course it is about money. Government money, the institute is a think tank and the government does not want people to think like Ms. West or Mrs. Lopez.

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