The piece below the broken line appeared today on the National Interest’s foreign affairs blog. It is a reflection on the costs Americans pay for their elite’s relentless interventionism, as well as for the failure of the U.S. educational system. I suggest at the end of the piece that we all could stand to closely reread George Washington’s Farewell Address; indeed, I suspect that Obama, Clinton, McCain, Cantor, Biden, and most of the Congress and media would benefit from an initial reading.
On leaving the presidency, Washington provided a clear and concise guide for what America should not do overseas; namely, (1) do not intervene in affairs in which you have no genuine national interest; (2) do not intervene in issues you do not understand; and, above all, (3) do not intervene in the name of imposing America’s political system on others as we are the model, not the war-causing installer of republicanism and/or democracy.
Had any in our governing class been familiar with Washington’s guidance, the makers of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East for the past half-century would have been preparing always to be ready to ask one simple question and answer it with another simple question:
Question: Who rules in Cairo? (Or Amman, Tunis, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Damascus, etc.)
Answer: Who cares?
Alas, the America-protecting path delineated by President Washington was not taken. As a result, we have just seen Obama’s administration and the Republicans not only intervene in Egypt, but intervene on both sides, just as it and its predecessors have mindlessly intervened in the Israel-Muslim war by frenetically funding and arming Israel, while simultaneously arming and providing for the defense of Saudi Arabia.
The wages of both intervention and historical ignorance are quite painful.
Osama bin Laden thought the mujahideen had seen the last of Marxist-like thinkers in 1980s Afghanistan where the “inevitability” of communism’s world mastery proved illusory. To his surprise and joy, however, this sort of mental malady reappeared with a vengeance this month as the woefully uneducated West cheered democracy’s “inevitable” advance in Egypt.
From CNN to FOX to BBC, journalists performed as weepy, ahistorical cheerleaders, describing crowds of Jeffersonian Egyptians filling Tahrir Square to replicate the events of Philadelphia in 1776 and 1787. And then — Mubarak left and democracy was installed! The unfinished republican project Americans have labored on for 800 years since Runnymede was completed in Egypt in only 18 days. We live in an age of wonders.
Is this analysis flawed? Is the argument’s logic weak? Well no, certainly not. Egypt is what it is, as the saying goes. In a time of economic crisis, political chaos, and looming violence, 80 million Egyptians grasped an alien, long-detested ideology called “secular democracy,” turning their collective back on the Islam that heretofore graced and ordered their lives, and gave them the will and courage to patiently resist Mubarak’s tyranny and rely on God’s promise of victory. They swapped Allah for paganism in just eighteen days. Why, my goodness, Katie Couric said so, didn’t she?
Well, back in his Afghan cave Osama bin Laden knows better, not having benefited from an Ivy League education. Indeed, if Salifism allows such things, Brother Osama is doing the Happy Dance. Bin Laden, his lieutenants, and their allies know that after the Western media returns to what it does best — isn’t Lindsey Lohan due in court? — Muslim Egyptians will be reaching for Allah’s rope, not Facebook’s self-deification. And the Islamists also will know the stout wall of U.S.-and-Israeli-supported Arab tyranny they have long attacked is cracking.
When the West sees pious Egyptians moving toward Islam, not secular democracy, bin Laden will have thanked God for His gifts to the mujahideen. Having designated Arab police states and Israel as Islam’s main enemies — brain-dead America simply being in the way due to its money and guns — bin Laden et. al. now see the ruins of the strongest Arab tyranny, as well as the most loyal, least demanding ally secured by Washington‘s relentless intervention in the Muslim world. They know whatever regime follows Mubarak will be weaker, more influenced by those demanding a form of Sharia law — including General Clapper’s Kiwanis-in-waiting, the Muslim Brotherhood — and, being a democracy, more representative of Egyptians’ deep, abiding hatred for Israel.
With one tyranny dished, bin Laden also will know Israel is thigh deep in disaster. Israel’s physical security long depended on repression by the Levant’s three border-controlling tyrannies: Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. After all, look at the trouble Israel gets from Lebanon’s fitfully representative political system. Now, Israel faces Jeffersonian Egypt, which, to reflect the popular will, must be less “friendly” toward it, less willing to seal its Gaza border, and unwilling to kill Egyptians trying to aid Palestinians. Perhaps the West missed the anti-Mubarak posters showing David’s star burned into his forehead. And perhaps that’s because few Western journalists explained the hard truth that Mubarak was hated not just for repression and joblessness, but because he dealt with Israel and persecuted Egyptians for their faith.
So for bin Laden and all Islamist leaders, happy days are here. Through no actions of their own, their most potent Arab foe disappeared at the hands of their other erstwhile enemies, the United States, and its allies. They can now exploit the Egyptian debacle knowing that, as they do so, Washington will be further weakened economically as the new Egyptian regime begs funds to rebuild — and hints it will take Saudi money if U.S. taxpayers are not shaken down — and the Israel-suborned Congress ships great batches of taxpayer funds to Israel for a military and border-control build-up to cope with Egyptian democracy and prepare for Israel’s other two indispensable tyrants — Jordan’s Abdullah and Syria’s al-Asad — going Mubarak‘s way.
As ever, the wages of U.S. intervention are dire. After intervening for 30-plus years to support Mubarak and allow Israel’s every whim, Washington now finds itself headed toward more intervention in a probably useless attempt to rebalance the Potemkin political “system” its intervention helped create. Like an umpire trying to make up for a bad call, Washington’s forthcoming intervention will spread the Egyptian disaster and undermine U.S. security; only bin Laden and the Islamists will benefit.
Perhaps a reading of General Washington’s Farewell Address is in order?
In a series of media appearances this week on the issue of Egypt it was again driven home to me that non-interventionism and nationalism are two positions that are outside of what Tocqueville called the circle of acceptable free speech in America. Indeed, to argue that Washington’s intervention on the side of Arab tyrannies for 30-plus years has hurt the United States makes one an America-basher; to argue that Israel is a central and increasingly lethal problem for the United States in its relations with the Arab world makes one an anti-Semite; and to argue that Washington should be banned from reaching into its citizens’ pockets, stealing their income, and giving it to Israel, Egypt, or any other foreign nation when unemployment is at 9-percent, 43 million Americans are on food stamps, the country’s infrastructure is crumbling, and 15-percent of American kids go to bed hungry makes one an anachronistic isolationist — and an anti-Semite.
We have apparently gotten to a point in American history where our governing elite, in order to feel good about themselves, prefer funding tyranny and defending theocracies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, while Americans are out of work and their kids are hungry. It seems apparent that the wages of Washington’s unrelenting interventionism are steep and bloody, and that those who lust to intervene care virtually nothing about the welfare of non-elite Americans and their families.
As an aside, whether you hate FOX News or love it, I am continually impressed by the channel’s willingness to host points of view — like mine — which are outside both its own and Tocqueville’s circle of acceptable free speech. FOX hosts seldom agree with what I say, but they seem to always seek different points of view. This is in sharp contrast to, say, the uniformity of pro-intervention and anti-nationalist views usually presented by Ms. Couric, Mr. Matthews, Mr. Blitzer, Ms. Maddow, and others cut from exactly the same cloth. And in terms of compassion for guests, no one takes better care of guests than FOX. Last night, for example, Erich Bolling was good enough to have a Rabbi on the panel who helpfully explained that to question the worth of the U.S.-Israel relationship showed not only that I was “ignorant,” but that there is “something wrong inside of me,” this last of course simply code for identifying me as an anti-Semite. Allowed to articulate my views and afforded a free, Rabbi-provided psychiatric analysis — you can’t do much better than that!
Egypt and al-Qaeda
While the ahistorical Western media, President Obama, and Secretary Clinton chirp on, like clueless clones of the lamentable Woodrow Wilson, about a “quick transition to democracy” in Egypt — where the mass of people neither recognize nor will abide a church-state separation — the big winners of the unrest in the Muslim world are, without question, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and other Islamic and Islamist groups. These entities always have identified the Muslim world’s tyrannies — and Israel — as their main enemies. (NB: The United States is attacked first because it has put itself in the way by funding, arming, and defending both.) Anything that weakens or destroys Washington’s Islamofascist allies, therefore, advances the militants’ agenda — especially al-Qaeda’s — by weakening the police states they oppose and by creating the certainty that, if those states fall, their successors will be less cooperative with Israel if they aim at all to implement their peoples’ views. For al-Qaeda, new regimes in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria would be a particular bonanza because weaker successor governments would pay less attention to keeping their borders with Israel closed, and would be less willing to kill those of its citizens seeking to aid the Palestinians.
While it clearly is wrong to say that al-Qaeda, its Islamist allies, and other Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are the “cause” of current unrest, it is just as wrong to ignore the fact that over time they will be its greatest beneficiary.
Afghanistan-Pakistan
The following was published in The Hill’s blog on 4 February 2011:
President Obama’s State of the Union Speech cited a light at the Afghan tunnel’s end, and General Petraeus said a few hours earlier that conditions are improving in Afghanistan. For readers of Google News on Afghanistan and Pakistan these statements hit a discordant note; journalists are describing steady deterioration in both countries. While it is perhaps disrespectful to question the veracity of Messangers Obama and Petraeus, a look some facts can help assess their claims.
In Afghanistan, since 2007, the tempo of the Taliban insurgency has increased, notwithstanding U.S. reinforcements and frequent drone attacks. This period, in fact, has seen the insurgency spread from southern and eastern Afghanistan to all areas of the country, including the north where the allies of Washington and President Karzai are based. Insurgencies, of course, wax and wane, but the import of this dispersion lies in it occurring as nation-building measures meant to check Taliban appeal have had success. Three million more Afghan children are in school; more reliable supplies of potable water, electricity and medicine are available; and many miles of road have been built. There seems, then, no correlation between nation-building successes and defeating the Taliban.
Likewise, U.S.-NATO military operations have initial success, but little lasting impact. The campaign in Helmand Province last spring, for example, drove Taliban forces underground or from the province. But when operations shifted to adjacent Kandahar this fall, Taliban forces returned to Helmand. There is every reason to think this pattern will repeat when the coalition moves to its next target. Indeed, the Taliban’s leave-wait-and-return strategy is identical to that Afghans used to drive British and Soviet armies out of Afghanistan in, respectively, the 1880s and 1980s.
The Afghan political system built by the West, the UN, and India also has not gained traction. Karzai’s reelection featured questionable vote counts; the new parliament reportedly is alienating all ethnic groups; and Mr. Karzai’s mood swings — one day praising the West’s support, the next damning its militaries — raise concern about his competence and reinforces his reputation as merely Kabul’s mayor. Also troubling for regime stability is Karzai’s backing of former-mujahideen leader Abdul Rasul Sayyaf as the parliament’s speaker. Sayyaf is a Pashtun leader with a private army, a staunchly pro-Saudi Wahabi, and the facilitator of al-Qaeda’s assassination of Ahmed Shah Masood, the icon of the northern, non-Pashtun Afghans who are the West’s only (to date) reliable Afghan allies.
In Pakistan, too, difficulties abound. President Zadari’s government has made little headway against daunting economic problems or the fierce civil war it is fighting against Islamists. The still unalleviated impact of massive flooding, spiking costs for internal security and military operations, and rampant corruption — for which Zadari is legend — all prevent the regime from improving employment rates and social services. The failure reinforces the already crucial role of Arab Peninsula-sponsored Islamic NGOs in providing education, health care, and jobs.
Pakistan’s military chief, General Kayani, also faces a deteriorating security environment. His forces continue to battle Pashtun militants in a destabilizing fight in the tribal belt; other army units are aiding internal security forces against Islamists and criminals in Karachi and elsewhere in the Punjab. Kayani also is being pressed by Washington and NATO to increase army operations in the border area. This request puts Kayani in a potentially disastrous quandary: Such action will worsen Pakistan’s civil war, do little to aid the West’s Afghan war, and ultimately leave Pakistan with messes along the border and in Afghanistan when U.S. withdrawal begins later in 2011.
Also pressing negatively on Kayani is India’s presence in Afghanistan. For Pakistani leaders, as Kayani said publicly, India is enemy number one, and for the first time in Pakistan’s history New Delhi has — in Islamabad’s eyes — can now threaten Pakistan from the west. Kayani and his corps commanders believe India’s Western-backed Afghan presence puts Pakistan in a mortal strategic vice. This helps explain why Pakistan has quietly but quickly doubled its arsenal of nuclear warheads.
The world is always one of troubles, but Afghanistan and Pakistan have more than their share. And none, on its face, offers light at the tunnel’s end. Perhaps the light President Obama and General Petraeus claim to see can only be seen by a hopeful beholder’s eye.
Scheuer is Adjunct Professor of Security Studies, Georgetown University, and author of Osama Bin Laden, (Oxford, 2011).
The bankruptcy of America’s ideological and unrealistic educational system — especially its universities — has seldom been on better display than during this period of unrest in the Muslim world. For the most part, the well-educated folks offering analysis on television seem befuddled that anyone could think that the mass protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen have anything remotely to do with religion. No, say they, the unrest is the result of poverty, oppression, and a dozen other things, but it has nothing to do with Islam.
Well, no. While the immediate spark for events in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen came from poverty, oppression, etc, the ultimate cause is the unIslamic nature of the dictatorial governments that long have ruled the three states in question. Each regime has used the rhetoric of Islam in public statements and the methodology of European Fascism as its instrument of government. On this point the Neoconservatives were absolutely right: The Muslim world is rife with Islamofascists. What the Necons deliberately failed to add to this truism is that the Islamofascists are not found among the mujahideen, but rather man the Arab regimes that Washington, many of its Western allies, and Israel have supported for several decades.
Thus the uprisings now occurring are anti-fascist, but they are a nowhere near pro-democracy, at least in the Western sense. The international media’s propensity — especially strong in the BBC and CNN — for finding what it lusts to find is on prominent display as they seek out protesters in Cairo and elsewhere who speak English, are middle-class professionals, and wax eloquent with admiration for the West. Having found this “evidence” the media then extrapolate from what must be regarded as a rather small sample and declare that Americans are watching “We the people” movements on the Arab streets. (We have seen this absurd species of extrapolation frequently in recent years when U.S.-led military coalitions have success in one small- or medium-sized Iraqi or Afghan village and it is portrayed by the media as a nationwide trend.)
From Chris Matthews to Katie Couric to General Wesley Clark flows the nonsense they were trained to believe at university: The triumph of secularism, democracy, and globalization are inevitable and those that stand in the way are anachronistic expendables. General Clark, on Saturday, went so far as to tell FOX viewers that after Mubarak leaves Egypt there will be “some kind of an election” — presumably with Western observers — and that an international commission must be established to investigate the Egyptian government’s corruption.
In other words, the U.S. and Western interventionism that has supported Islamofascists for 50 years should now be revved up to intervene to teach our unwashed Arab brothers how to vote, be honest, and allow power to be passed from the dictator Mubarak to an unIslamic, unrepresentative, and tiny group of secularized Muslims who shave, admire Jefferson, and have little truck with that Islam stuff.
From Matthews on the left, to Clark on the right, to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in the ever-hopeful-if-reality-defying heart of the Obama-Clinton fantasy world, the answer to a problem that has been partially wrought by U.S. and Western intervention on the side of tyranny is more and more intervention to again deny power to the majority. We should all be wondering how long the United States can survive the handiwork of the professors who “educated” this generation of U.S. leaders to be certain of the blessed inevitability of universal, pagan, and non-violent Westernization of the entire globe, a sort of a leftist, atheist, libertine Khalifate.
What seems lost in the wishing-makes-it-so fog of this “analysis” is the fact that nearly one-hundred percent of the Tunisians, Egyptians, and Yemenis we see on the street — indeed, all except the Westernized handful Matthews, Couric, and Clark want power passed to — are Muslim believers who not only want to improve their living and political conditions, but likewise want Islam to play a far larger role in governance, a role they believe will be lead to far less oppressive regimes. It is absolutely true that the Tunisian, Egyptian, and Yemeni dictators are hated by their peoples from imposing brutal repression, but they are also hated for limiting the role of Islam in government and their persecution of those Islamic scholars, preachers, and militants who have struggled to defend their faith. (Parenthetically, the government of our Republic under both parties long has used taxpayer funds to intervene in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen to encourage regime stability and so has facilitated both varieties of oppression. This may limit the pro-U.S. sentiment of any successor regime in these three states.)
At day’s end it is unclear whether Egypt’s Mubarak or Yemen’s Salih will fall, or whether the new Tunisian regime will be anything other than a more efficient dictatorship than the one it replaced. Fascist regimes, after all, have protected themselves by systematically disarming their citizenry and have little concern for anything save holding onto power. (NB: On the last point, they are like the two U.S. political parties.)
The Islamofascist regimes also know that the pro-democracy bark of Washington and its NATO allies is likely to be far worse than their bite because the existence of the regimes is necessary for the survival of Israel. It is the vigorously brutal oppression of the Mubaraks, Abdullahs (Jordan and Saudi Arabia), and Bashirs of the Arab world that controls borders contiguous with Israel and keeps a lid on hundreds of millions of Muslims who seethe with a desire to exact wide and lethal retribution for what they see as Israel’s theft, on-going occupation, and unfolding annexation of Muslim land.
The hearings that Congressman Peter King (R-NY) has called to discover what factors “radicalize” U.S. Muslims are a chance for non-interventionists to make an obvious point that so far has escaped the notice of almost all of the 535 federal legislators, the last four presidents, much of the media, and the academy; namely, that the United States is at war with an increasing portion of the Muslim world because of its interventionist foreign policy, especially its support for Israel and tyrannical Muslim regimes. More plainly, ongoing U.S. intervention in the Muslim world is the major engine of radicalization for young Muslims in the United States and abroad. [NB: As always, this is not to say U.S. policy either “caused” the war — America was attacked first, after all — or was made by mad policymakers. It is said to to suggest the worth of “knowing the enemy” by recognizing his motivation.]
To recognize this reality should not require congressional hearings. Nearly all of the Islamist militants captured in the United States have said, or have revealed in their paper and electronic documents, that there motivation for turning to violence was the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington’s unqualified support for Israel, and U.S. backing for Muslim tyrannies, especially in the Arab world. Similarly, most Islamists captured in Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and elsewhere have likewise identified their motivation as U.S. and Western interventionism in the Muslim world.
Because it is unlikely in the extreme that Rep. King, his committee colleagues, or their aides will take the time to read the just-noted evidence or that Rep. King will call any non-interventionists to testify in his hearings, it seems likely that this opportunity to educate Americans about why they are fighting a growing religious war at home and abroad will go a glimmering.
This said, there is one group of U.S. citizens who could force their way onto Rep. King’s stage and that group is composed of the leaders of the U.S. Muslim community. To date, what we have heard from U.S. Muslim leaders about Rep. King’s hearings amounts to whines, hand-wringing, and a sort of nascent victim-hood not unlike that always assumed by the leaders of Israel-First whenever they, their actions, or their country of first loyalty are criticized. U.S. Muslim leaders, the media have reported, fear that the King hearings will feature Islam haters and pro-Israeli testifiers who will demonize Muslims and Islam by portraying Islam as an always violent religion that hates Christians and Jews and intends to impose Sharia law from Kennebunkport to La Jolla.
Well, I think that this could well be the result of Rep. King’s hearings — although the list of testifiers seems far from set — unless U.S. Muslim leaders show a little manliness and tell Rep. King and his mostly Israel-First colleagues what they know to be the truth in two broad areas:
1.) The radicalization of young U.S. Muslim males is less radicalization than a simple decision by some of them to act on the basic tenets of their faith and do what they can to defend Islam against what most of the Muslim world perceives as an attack on Islam and Muslims; namely U.S. and Western interventionist foreign policies. Through appearances at these hearings, U.S. Muslim leaders must have the moral courage to alert their fellow citizens to the fact that status quo U.S. foreign policy is driving Muslims at home and abroad to hate the U.S. government and its actions. They must speak clearly and explain that the major motivating engine for what Rep. King has described as “radicalization” is — and long has been — Washington’s intervention in the Muslim world, especially its unqualified support for Israel, military presence in Muslim lands, and protection of Muslim tyrannies.
All Americans desperately need to hear this from the leaders of the U.S. Muslim community. Indeed, it is in the vital interest of that community — if it is truly committed to integrating into U.S. society — and all Americans that this genie be let out of the bottle in an effort to promote countrywide debate on U.S. policy, as well as to prevent the further solidification of the Muslims-hate-us-for-our-freedoms dogma which otherwise may be all that is preached at Rep. King’s hearings by Neoconservatives, Israel-Firsters, Christian Evangelicals, journalists, and zany academics bent on securing taxpayer funds for their useless de-radicalization projects.
2.) Muslim leaders must also be honest about their faith and refrain from simply telling the hearings that “Islam is a religion of peace.” U.S. Muslim leaders know their faith does not have a tradition of turning the other cheek when it perceives itself to be under attack, which is the worldwide Muslim perception at the moment. (NB: Historically, few major world religions have had a turn-the-other-cheek tradition; witness Catholicism’s armed, crusading response to the provocation of Islam’s aggressive military expansion in the 11th and 12th centuries, and the unrelenting military actions of the theocratic state in Israel. The decision of contemporary Christian sects to defend their faith with whines as their brethren are being murdered is an anomaly in history of major religions.)
U.S. Muslim leaders know that all Muslims are required by God’s revelations to defend Islam against attack from within or without. They also know this action can in no way described as a “radical” response to such things as the Western occupations of Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, and Afghanistan; the Western-abetted theft of land and oil resources from Muslim Sudan to create a new Christian state; or Western support for unIslamic police states across the Arab world. U.S. Muslim leaders must tell all Americans through the venue of Rep. King’s hearings that status quo U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world is not only the main motivation but the irrefutable religious predicate for a scripturally legitimate defensive jihad. They should also state the obvious: That Islamic preachers trained and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood are encouraging young U.S. Muslims to embrace the most extreme and violent interpretation of this religious duty imaginable.
By acknowledging this reality, as we previously have discussed on this site, the above prescription for action by U.S. Muslim leaders is one that calls on them to take a risk that will make them targets for enormous criticism. Such testimony will earn for them such thundering slurs as America-basher, anti-Semite, Christian-hater, and numbers of other epithets. But U.S. Muslim leaders are in a lose-lose situation; if they do not manfully present the truth to Rep. King’s committee, they will give the entire game away to the Muslims-hate-us-for-our-freedoms crowd, which can only yield more violence by young Muslims against U.S. interests at home and abroad. In my own view, this is exactly what some Neocons, Israel-Firsters, and Christian evangelicals want.
In conclusion, I would add that all of the foregoing is based on my current acceptance, at face value, of the assertions repeatedly made by U.S. Muslim leaders that they intend to lead the U.S. Muslim community into becoming a viable, respected, peaceful, and integrated part of America’s social fabric and that they support the U.S. effort to defeat al-Qaeda and its allies. The hard reality, however, is that they cannot get to those goals from where they now stand; they have too many powerful and malevolent enemies in the U.S. governing and media elites, and they have been knowingly derelict in telling the truth to their fellow citizens. To refrain from speaking the truth in Rep. King’s hearings in order to avoid the vitriolic/hateful consequences of that truth-telling can mean one of only two things: (1) U.S. Muslim leaders abjectly lack moral courage or (2) they do not intend to integrate or want al-Qaeda defeated and see some advantage in allowing their opponents and critics to demonize Muslims as freedom-haters and so pave the way for more violence.
So far, those killed and wounded in Arizona seem to have been the victims of a mentally unstable young man. He is in custody and in all likelihood will be convicted of murder or incarcerated in an institution for the insane for the rest of his life. This is, it seems to me, as it should be.
The tragedy in Arizona, however, has started self-serving debates over gun control, the vitriol in political rhetoric, and any number of other issues on which their advocates believe they can make cynical political hay by exploiting the nation’s grief and sympathy. We all, I think, must keep in mind that the evidence now indicates a man motivated by his odd perception of the world, and perhaps by mental illness, is responsible for the attacks. There is no credible cause here for actions that either would undermine the 2nd Amendment or further limit free speech on the basis of the unsupportable claim that the violence of political rhetoric is at an all-time high and contributed to the shootings. For those indulging in the latter analysis-by-assertion, they might want to read the scathing attacks on George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt by their political opponents, as well as by some of their own supporters.
One thing that does stand out in the aftermath of the Arizona shootings, however, is a bill to be introduced by Rep. Peter King (R-New York) which would keep legally armed Americans a thousand feet away from elected federal politicians and senior U.S. government officials. That is, Rep. King wants to put distance between himself and his colleagues and the legally armed people that he and his colleagues work for and are paid by. Seemingly, Rep. King assumes that there is a good chance that all legal American gun-owners share the apparent derangement of the Arizona shooter.
While I believe that Rep. King’s bill implicitly defames and discriminates against legally armed Americans, there is a chance that he is onto something if he senses that voters’ patience is running out with a federal government that seems incapable of doing anything worth doing. For much of our lives, Washington has failed to act effectively on most of the big issues; indeed, elected officials often seem unaware that such issues are key concerns for those who employ them.
Over the past thirty years, for example, Americans have been told repeatedly that the federal government was going to fix the social security and medicare systems that it consciously wrecked. They have been assured that a national energy policy would be implemented to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil producers. They have been told that border control and infrastructure reconstruction would be priority goals that would be achieved. They have been told that the growing federal debt is a threat to their childrens’ future and would be fixed. They have been told U.S. foreign policy is good for America and will benefit the world by greatly reducing the chance of war.
These promises have not been kept; indeed, all the problems cited have gotten much worse, and there is no genuine improvement in sight. Tom Paine once wrote — and I paraphrase here — that no people can put up with a government that is as bad as or worse than having no government at all. It may be that ordinary, sane Americans across the country are coming to this conclusion, whether or not they have ever read Mr. Paine on the subject.
Rep. King perhaps senses a despair among Americans on the subject of their government ever successfully addressing the problems noted above and many others. Indeed, Rep. King may be catching on to the fact that we — his employers — have ourselves caught on to the fact that he and his elected colleagues have no real interest in acting to benefit ordinary Americans, and promise to fix serious problems only to secure reelection. He may well be worried that more than thirty years of frustration among voters could lead to unforeseen and very ugly kinds of responses, and so distancing non-achieving politicians from their legally armed employers is now necessary.
Historians have written that the regimes of ancient Rome armed citizens because they trusted them, and that elected Roman officials and even — after the republic’s end — the emperor were expected to be accessible to the Roman people presenting their concerns. And in the 16th century, Nicolo Machiavelli wrote that wise and effective rulers trusted and armed their people. He also wrote that if rulers disarmed their people; put physical distance between themselves and the people; and/or spent most of their time in palaces or castles heavily guarded by their security forces, they were acting in a way that would turn the people against them.
It may well be that Rep. King’s bill will go nowhere, and that legally armed voters will still be able to approach and petition their elected federal employees. That would be, I think, a good thing. But access alone will not negate the frustration and anger of voters who seem increasingly to perceive their federal government as adrift, feckless, and amazingly spendthrift, and its elected officials as people who seek office only to stay in office as long as possible to make sure they get as much of the taxpayer-provided swag as they can grab. This is not a situation or a perception that bodes well for the future tranquility of the republic.
This is just a short follow-up on the last piece I posted. I thought there might be some interest in what has transpired since I first wrote. For those who are not interested, I apologize.
On 10 January 2011 and through the day on 11 January I received a long series of e-mails from Mr. Marc Grayson (British18@earthlink.net). The e-mails addressed my many failings: bad education, bad civil servant, and chief incompetent guy responsible for 9/11. I responded to each, stressing my strong belief that Mr. Grayson is a slug, an Israel-Firster, and an opponent of free speech.
As the e-mails rolled in, it became clear that Mr. Grayson was trying to goad me into getting angry so I would use an ethnic slur of some sort that he could use against me with Georgetown and/or another of my employers. I did not take the lure and instead stressed his slug-and-Nazi-like behavior in my responses. I was interested, however, in seeing what he would do with my e-mails.
Interestingly, the subjects of this flood of e-mails were the same sort of abuse Mr. Grayson sent me in the first half of 2010. And his early 2010 e-mails, moreover, mirrored almost perfectly the kind of abuse delivered against me by a man named Gabriel Schoenfeld in the Weekly Standard and Commentary Magazine several years ago. At that time, Mr. Schoenfeld went so far as to establish a “Scheuer Watch” in his blog for the latter journal. Oddly enough, Mr. Grayson’s attacks on me in the past few used frequent quotes from Schoenfeld’s work, quotes that employed the same themes he was using: Scheuer is bad guy, with bad education, and is friend of Osama. He also placed links to two of Schoenfeld’s anti-Scheuer articles in several of his 10-11 January 2011 notes.
Well, these crafty Israel-Firsters have sprung the trap that this elderly country bumpkin never saw coming! Here’s an e-mail I received a few hours ago:
From: Frank Elliot <fjphares@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:42:15 -0800 (PST)
To: <mfs47@georgetown.edu>
Subject: Blog
I came across your blog and noticed your preference for posting private emails and email addresses. I’m sure you won’t mind then that I’ve posted on various popular blogs and websites your private emails to various people in which you make some very inappropriate statements including your email address, too.
Cheers!
What a shock? These Israel-Firsters are just too smart for poorly educated me! And now you and I are suppose to believe all of this is just a coincidence: Schoenfeld attacks me; then Mr. Grayson attacks me with the same themes; and then a third party — Frank Elliot — arrives out of the blue to post my e-mail responses to Mr. Grayson. Mr. Elliot also has sent me a second note saying that he has sent my responses to Mr. Grayson to — you’ll never guess!!! — Georgetown University. (Interestingly, Mr. Elliot’s e-mail address includes the name “Phares,” which is the last name of another Israel-First terrorism analyst, Walid Phares. I have no idea if Mr. Schoenfeld, Mr. Grayson, Mr. Elliot, and Mr. Phares are connected. I am sure it is just another coincidence.)
Well, that’s all the news. While I hope this doesn’t bore readers too badly, I do think all Americans should be a bit concerned when so much Israel-First effort is expended to silence a minor and mostly insignificant voice in the debate over U.S. foreign policy.
Finally, I am going to post separately a piece that contains about 40 of the e-mails that passed between myself and Mr. Grayson in the past 48-hours. I want call readers attention especially to note #39 in which Mr. Schoenfeld flays my integrity for claiming an award he says I did not receive.
As readers of this site know, I always admit and then try to correct my mistakes. In regard to Mr. Schoenfeld’s claim, I admit to making a mistake in a note I sent to Commentary Magazine several years ago. In that note, I mixed up the dates of two awards I was honored with during my career. To set the record straight: I received the CIA’s Intelligence Commendation Medal in 1995 for my unit’s role in capturing Ramzi Ahmed Yusuf, the bomber of the World Trade Center in 1993, and I received an award citation from from the Department of Justice/Southern District of New York for the data my unit provided to the Southern District’s attorneys that allowed them to indict Osama bin Laden in federal court.
1.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:25:26 -0800 To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX@georgetown.edu> Cc: <mfs47@georgetown.edu> Subject: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
XXXXXXXX, I followed up with Georgetown Univ. General Counsel Stephanie Tsacoumis regarding the matter of Georgetown Univ. and your Center For Peace & Security Studies being associated with public comments made by Mr. Scheuer that can be construed as anti-Semitic, in my opinion.
US State Department guidelines on anti-Semitism classify as anti-Semitic any statement suggesting Jewish control of the US government or the American media, which is the nature of Mr. Scheuer’s remarks. I await Ms. Tsacoumis’s point of view on the appropriateness of Georgeton Univ. being associated with such sentiments articulated by Mr. Scheuer.
Sincerely, Marc Grayson
2.) From: scheuermf@aol.com To: british18 Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 11:28 AM Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson:
Don’t miss the most recent article at www.non-intervention.com. I’m doing my best to make you famous. No thanks are necessary.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
3.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:21:58 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
6.) From: scheuermf@aol.com To: british18 Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 5:33 PM Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
You would be surprised how many of your e-mails the readers of my blog have sent me in the last 36 hours. They give an interesting if revolting picture of your filthy slug-ness.
Oh, yes, many readers asked me to ask you if you ever scored well enough on the LSAT to get into what you termed a “fourth-tier law school.” Did you?
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
7.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:41:27 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Given your degree from a farming school and your total incompetence at the CIA while bin Laden planned 9/11 completely unfettered, you would be a laughing stock were your total cluelessness about bin Laden not responsible for 9/11 unfolding.
8.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Mon, Jan 10, 2011 6:22 pm
9.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 18:23:57 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Pathetic is graduating from farm school and being put in charge of bin Laden, and, being completely out to lunch while he planned 9/11. More than anyone else in the US govt, you are responsible for permitting 9/11 to occur, in my opinion
10.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:10:35 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Members of my family have fought in WW I, WW II, the Korean War and the Viet Nam War. You, on the other hand, are a coward with no military experience.
And, try as you desperately might, you can’t deflect from your extraordinary incompetence while at the CIA in permitting bin Laden to plan 9/11.
11.) From: scheuermf@aol.com To: british18 Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 7:02 AM Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
Oh goodness, you are becoming repetitive arn’t you? You said all of these things during last summer’s campaign. Please find something new to say.
And perhaps I was to hasty in an earlier note. What side did your family fight on in all those wars? Your attitude toward the 1st Amendment makes me think you and yours might well be found in the ranks of National Socialism and Communism.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
12.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:34:54 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
The incompetent crowd you run with were cluelessly out to lunch while bin Laden was planning 9/11. Having a degree in obscure Canadian diplomats from Univ. of Manitoba, best known for its grain storage program, didn’t help.
“the UBL Station, a sub-unit of the counterterrorism department, was a bureaucratic backwater. Unsurprisingly, therefore, as the report subsequently makes plain, it was not staffed with the CIA’s savviest spies. Indeed, the OIG report states bluntly that “most of its officers did not have the operational experience, expertise, and training necessary to accomplish their mission in an effective manner.
Is that scathing assessment in any way connected to the mismatch between Scheuer’s mission and his academic career? In 1986, Scheuer earned a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. This school has earned an international reputation in the field of grain-storage technology, but it is not exactly known for its contribution to the study of foreign policy. In any event, given the wholly irrelevant nature of Scheuer’s doctoral research—his dissertation traced the comings and goings of an obscure Canadian diplomat in the years before World War II—assigning him to run the bin Laden section was of a piece with, indeed, can be taken as a symbol of, the entrenched neglect of Islamic terrorism within the agency.
it is completely clear that while Scheuer was running the UBL Station, the unit was producing shoddy work.”
13.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:46:14 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Oh, dear … No wonder bin Laden was able to carry out 9/11 …
“Although Michael Scheuer shows up frequently on TV and in print as an authoritative commentator on matters pertaining to torture and terrorism, a careful look at his career and his writings raises serious questions about his competence. His latest oeuvre in the Washington Post is typical Scheuer. As I have pointed out in previous postings about Mr. Scheuer, he did not enter the CIA as operations officer. Rather he came in as an analyst. He was just a run of the mill analyst. He was not selected for the elite Career Trainee program and went to work in the European Division. He was not considered a talented analyst and, after a few years, wound up in the Counter Terrorism Center, which tended to be a dumping ground for middling analysts.
Scheuer did not go thru either the CIA paramilitary course or the CIA Ops course. Despite this lack of training and experience he was put in charge of the Counter Terrorism Center’s effort to find and get rid of Osama Bin Laden. How did he do? Well, let’s just say that Osama was able to organize and carry out the 9-11 attacks.”
14.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:14:07 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Israel was recently accepted into the elite Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development signifying Israel as a global economic power. Israeli anti-terrorism intelligence and military assistance helps keep America safe, while, your complete incompetence at the CIA led to 9/11
Today, Israel is a world leader in information technology, nanotechnology, medical technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, solar power, electric transportation, chemicals, agriculture and military technology.
You, on the other hand, are a failed CIA analyst and would-be author with singularly unremarkable academic credentials whose complete incompetence at the CIA led to 9/11.
15.) From: scheuermf@aol.com To: british18 Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 9:15 AM Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Sputter, sputter, sputter!
16.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:24:49 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Deflect, deflect, deflect from your failed CIA career and your incompetence that led to 9/11.
17.) From: scheuermf@aol.com To: british18 Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 9:26 AM Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Golly, you are a repetitive slug!
18.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:29:51 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
It cannot be repeated enough that your abject incompetence at the CIA and laughable academic credentials, coupled with your total cluelessness about the Middle East, contributed to 9/11.
(19.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:40:36 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Blather would be a failed CIA analyst lacking any academic credentials with no paramilitary or Special Ops training whose total incompetence at the CIA resulted in 9/11 actually trying to portray himself as a terrorism authority.
20.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 9:54 am
Had you fixated on bin Laden instead of your paranoid delusions about Jews, perhaps, 9/11 would not have happened. Incompetence has its consequences.
Then, again, you were only equipped with a degree in obscure Canadian diplomats from the University of Manitoba, best known for it grain storage program.
“the UBL Station, a sub-unit of the counterterrorism department, was a bureaucratic backwater. Unsurprisingly, therefore, as the report subsequently makes plain, it was not staffed with the CIA’s savviest spies. Indeed, the OIG report states bluntly that “most of its officers did not have the operational experience, expertise, and training necessary to accomplish their mission in an effective manner.”
“Is that scathing assessment in any way connected to the mismatch between Scheuer’s mission and his academic career? In 1986, Scheuer earned a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. This school has earned an international reputation in the field of grain-storage technology, but it is not exactly known for its contribution to the study of foreign policy. In any event, given the wholly irrelevant nature of Scheuer’s doctoral research—his dissertation traced the comings and goings of an obscure Canadian diplomat in the years before World War II—assigning him to run the bin Laden section was of a piece with, indeed, can be taken as a symbol of, the entrenched neglect of Islamic terrorism within the agency.
“it is completely clear that while Scheuer was running the UBL Station, the unit was producing shoddy work.”
“All told, the lapses committed by the UBL unit were so egregious that the OIG report recommends that the CIA formally consider taking disciplinary action against the chiefs of the counterterrorism section—Scheuer’s superiors—for “the manner in which they staffed the UBL component.” A plausible inference, but one difficult to confirm without further declassification, is that putting and keeping the negligent Scheuer in charge was one element of their malfeasance”
21.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:04:24 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
But, you were a failed CIA analyst with no military or Special Ops experience whatsoever and no relevant educational training, and, you were asleep at the CIA while bin Laden planned 9/11, thus, you’re really uninformed about Israel and the Middle East. You’re a laughing stock
Four Star General and former National Security Advisor James Jones knew much better than you …
“We will never forget that since the first minutes of Israeli independence, the United States has had a special relationship with Israel. And that will not change. Why? Because this is not a commitment of Democrats or Republicans; it is a national commitment based on shared values, deep and interwoven connections, and mutual interests. I can also say from long experience that our security relationship with Israel is important for America. Our military benefits from Israeli innovations in technology, from shared intelligence, from exercises that help our readiness and joint training that enhances our capabilities and from lessons learned in Israel’s own battles against terrorism and asymmetric threats”
22.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:27:53 +0000 To: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
Those brave people must be terribly ashamed to be related to a slug like you.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
23.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 11:35 am
The incompetent crowd you run with were cluelessly out to lunch while bin Laden was planning 9/11. Having a degree in obscure Canadian diplomats from Univ. of Manitoba, best known for its grain storage program, didn’t help.
“the UBL Station, a sub-unit of the counterterrorism department, was a bureaucratic backwater. Unsurprisingly, therefore, as the report subsequently makes plain, it was not staffed with the CIA’s savviest spies. Indeed, the OIG report states bluntly that “most of its officers did not have the operational experience, expertise, and training necessary to accomplish their mission in an effective manner.
Is that scathing assessment in any way connected to the mismatch between Scheuer’s mission and his academic career? In 1986, Scheuer earned a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. This school has earned an international reputation in the field of grain-storage technology, but it is not exactly known for its contribution to the study of foreign policy. In any event, given the wholly irrelevant nature of Scheuer’s doctoral research—his dissertation traced the comings and goings of an obscure Canadian diplomat in the years before World War II—assigning him to run the bin Laden section was of a piece with, indeed, can be taken as a symbol of, the entrenched neglect of Islamic terrorism within the agency.
it is completely clear that while Scheuer was running the UBL Station, the unit was producing shoddy work.”
24.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 10:06 am
What side are you on, given your complete incompetence contributed to 9/11, so much so that you desperately try to deflect attention away from your cluelessness about bin Laden and the Islamic doctrine driving him by inventing delusional conspiracies involving Jews?
25.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 11:46 am
Oh, dear … No wonder bin Laden was able to carry out 9/11 …
“Although Michael Scheuer shows up frequently on TV and in print as an authoritative commentator on matters pertaining to torture and terrorism, a careful look at his career and his writings raises serious questions about his competence. His latest oeuvre in the Washington Post is typical Scheuer. As I have pointed out in previous postings about Mr. Scheuer, he did not enter the CIA as operations officer. Rather he came in as an analyst. He was just a run of the mill analyst. He was not selected for the elite Career Trainee program and went to work in the European Division. He was not considered a talented analyst and, after a few years, wound up in the Counter Terrorism Center, which tended to be a dumping ground for middling analysts.
Scheuer did not go thru either the CIA paramilitary course or the CIA Ops course. Despite this lack of training and experience he was put in charge of the Counter Terrorism Center’s effort to find and get rid of Osama Bin Laden. How did he do? Well, let’s just say that Osama was able to organize and carry out the 9-11 attacks.” http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2009/05/25/does-michael-scheuer-represent-the-cia/
26.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 12:14 pm
Israel was recently accepted into the elite Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development signifying Israel as a global economic power. Israeli anti-terrorism intelligence and military assistance helps keep America safe, while, your complete incompetence at the CIA led to 9/11
Today, Israel is a world leader in information technology, nanotechnology, medical technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, solar power, electric transportation, chemicals, agriculture and military technology.
You, on the other hand, are a failed CIA analyst and would-be author with singularly unremarkable academic credentials whose complete incompetence at the CIA led to 9/11.
27.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 12:24 pm
Deflect, deflect, deflect from your failed CIA career and your incompetence that led to 9/11.
28.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 12:30 pm
It cannot be repeated enough that your abject incompetence at the CIA and laughable academic credentials, coupled with your total cluelessness about the Middle East, contributed to 9/11.
29.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 12:40 pm
Blather would be a failed CIA analyst lacking any academic credentials with no paramilitary or Special Ops training whose total incompetence at the CIA resulted in 9/11 actually trying to portray himself as a terrorism authority.
30.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 12:49 pm
Israel provides the US with critical anti-terrorism intelligence and important military assistance.
You, in sharp contrast, contribute not a thing.
31.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:15:51 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
Like your prose, more dated Israel-first crap. Slither on old slug!
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
32.) From: british18 <british18@earthlink.net> To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 1:31 pm
Your delusions about Israel can’t deflect from your abject incompetence as a failed, marginal analyst at the CIA, totally lacking any military or Special Ops training, leading to 9/11.
You’re reduced to the blogosphere. You’d be a laughing stock were you not so pathetic. –
33.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:44:32 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
My what a carefully articulated and argued position from a fourth-tier slug.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
34.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:54:43 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
And you, Mr. Grayson, are both pathetic and hilarious!
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
35.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 02:26:58 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
And, Mr. Grayson, your opinion is worth just as much as any other disloyal Israel-Firster, precisely nothing.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
36.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:39:27 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
Do you really think that anything Israel-First slugs like you and Goebbels Schoenfeld say bothers me? People like you and Herr Schoenfeld are both comical and Israel’s very worst enemies.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
37.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:02:38 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
Oh goodness, you are becoming repetitive arn’t you? You said all of these things during last summer’s campaign. Please find something new to say.
And perhaps I was to hasty in an earlier note. What side did your family fight on in all those wars? Your attitude toward the 1st Amendment makes me think you and yours might well be found in the ranks of National Socialism and Communism.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
38.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:27:25 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson,
My gracious, you are one angry slug, arn’t you? Please calm down. I would not want to see you slip from the surface you are adhering to. Given the crowd you run with you are liable to be stomped by one of your book-burning, jack-booted associates.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
39.) From: “british18” <british18@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:23:48 -0800 To: <scheuermf@aol.com> Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
The competent people in the government must be ashamed of you for being asleep while bin Laden planned 9/11.
“The Scheuer Charade” “Who is to blame for the intelligence disaster of September 11? The sixth anniversary of the attacks is upon us, and the finger-pointing continues unabated. Last month the CIA reluctantly made public a summary of a 2005 report prepared by its Office of Inspector General (OIG) undertaken to determine if any agency employees “should be held accountable” for failing to forestall the worst attaWho is to blame for the intelligence disaster of September 11? The sixth anniversary of the attacks is upon us, and the finger-pointing continues unabated. Last month the CIA reluctantly made public a summary of a 2005 report prepared by its Office of Inspector General (OIG) undertaken to determine if any agency employees “should be held accountable” for failing to forestall the worst attack on our homeland in our history. Among others, the report harshly judges the performance of former CIA director George Tenet, and the media have understandably focused on that. But how do other lower-level CIA officers come out? That is a question about which the press has been remarkably incuriousck on our homeland in our history. Among others, the report harshly judges the performance of former CIA director George Tenet, and the media have understandably focused on that. But how do other lower-level CIA officers come out? That is a question about which the press has been remarkably incurious
One important figure is Michael Scheuer, who served as chief of the Osama bin Laden unit, or the “UBL Station” as it was called, within the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) from 1996 to 1999 and then assumed other related positions until his resignation from the agency in 2004. Since leaving the CIA, Scheuer has become one of the nation’s most visible counterterrorism experts. He has served as an on-air “consultant” to both CBS and ABC News, is sought after for comment by leading journalists, and teaches a course on terrorism at Georgetown University.
He has also been caught up in controversy, asserting for example that Israel has been conducting clandestine operations to influence American politics. Pressed to provide an example, he has cited, bizarrely, the establishment of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on the National Mall. So high-profile has Scheuer become that even Osama bin Laden has been taking note. In his newly released video, the leader of al Qaeda singles Scheuer out as one of two writers—the other is Noam Chomsky—worth reading about world and Islamic affairs.
the UBL Station, a sub-unit of the counterterrorism department, was a bureaucratic backwater. Unsurprisingly, therefore, as the report subsequently makes plain, it was not staffed with the CIA’s savviest spies. Indeed, the OIG report states bluntly that “most of its officers did not have the operational experience, expertise, and training necessary to accomplish their mission in an effective manner.”
Is that scathing assessment in any way connected to the mismatch between Scheuer’s mission and his academic career? In 1986, Scheuer earned a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. This school has earned an international reputation in the field of grain-storage technology, but it is not exactly known for its contribution to the study of foreign policy. In any event, given the wholly irrelevant nature of Scheuer’s doctoral research—his dissertation traced the comings and goings of an obscure Canadian diplomat in the years before World War II—assigning him to run the bin Laden section was of a piece with, indeed, can be taken as a symbol of, the entrenched neglect of Islamic terrorism within the agency.
it is completely clear that while Scheuer was running the UBL Station, the unit was producing shoddy work.
All told, the lapses committed by the UBL unit were so egregious that the OIG report recommends that the CIA formally consider taking disciplinary action against the chiefs of the counterterrorism section—Scheuer’s superiors—for “the manner in which they staffed the UBL component.” A plausible inference, but one difficult to confirm without further declassification, is that putting and keeping the negligent Scheuer in charge was one element of their malfeasance
If the full OIG report does indeed contain far more detailed criticism of Scheuer’s performance, it would not come as a surprise. Significant questions have been raised in the past not only about Scheuer’s competence as a manager and an analyst, but also about his probity.
Scheuer testified at length before the 9/11 Commission. Serious doubts have emerged about the veracity of the information he provided. Two of the 9/11 report commissioners, Jamie Gorelick and Slade Gorton, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, have described “thoroughly and exhaustively” interviewing Scheuer in the course of the commission’s investigation. Their conclusion did not mince words: “On a number of factual issues, he was of real value. But much of what he had to say was not borne out by our investigation.”
Scheuer’s integrity is more radically called into question by his own false statements about his career, including his 2005 claim in the correspondence section of Commentary that he was awarded the CIA’s Intelligence Commendation Medal in part for “supply[ing] all of the information used in the federal indictment of Osama bin Laden.” Osama bin Laden was indicted in 1998. Scheuer was given his CIA medal in 1995, three years before the indictment and one year before he was assigned to the UBL Station.
On top of incompetence, such résumé embellishment does not form a pretty picture. As the prime plotter of September 11, Osama bin Laden would seem to have good reason to heap praise now on Michael Scheuer. Be that as it may, it would be wrong for us to place blame for the great intelligence failure on any one individual. The more dots one connects about the CIA, the more Scheuer appears to be a representative figure. Along with the continuing respect accorded this counterterrorism expert by the media, that is the real scandal revealed by the OIG report.
40.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:41:09 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Mr. Grayson:
Please! Enough repetition of your year-old ravings! Get Herr Schoenfeld to write a new set of rants for you.
In the meantime, take a sedative, go buy some fancy new clothes, and then lie down and listen to some Wagner and dream of the good times you and your associates once had at the Eagle’s Nest.
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
41.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:04:50 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Now, now, Mr. Grayson, please, you’ll give yourself a stoke and die without seeing the results of all you and your Israel-First have done to destroy Israel!
Always respectfully,
M.F. Scheuer
42.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:54:33 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Israel is an unnecessary piece of baggage that the United States carries to the detriment of its national security, but hopefully not for much longer.
43.) From: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:24:21 +0000 To: british18<british18@earthlink.net> ReplyTo: scheuermf@aol.com Subject: Re: Follow-up With Stephanie Tsacoumis
Keep waving that foreign flag, Mr. Grayson. Rep. King’s hearings will soon educate Americans about what a potentially fatal cancer U.S. support for Israel is for America’s security. You and your fellow Israel-Firsters have had your way for a long time, but even criminals can only suppress the truth for so long. So long, slug.
I usually refrain from using this site for personal reasons, but I am writing the following because I think it demonstrates a point I have made repeatedly; namely, that U.S. citizen Israel-Firsters will do most anything to shut up and damage people who criticize them or their country of first loyalty, Israel.
As readers know, I have written on this topic on multiple occasions on this site, and also wrote a piece for AntiWar.com when I was fired by the Jamestown Foundation for criticizing President-to-be Obama’s subservience to Israel. As you will likewise know, some people who have been kind enough to comment on my Israel-First-related articles have said — more or less — that I was imagining things. For those folks, I hope the following gives them pause for thought.
For most of 2010, I have been the subject of what I regard as libeling e-mails from a lawyer — yes, a lawyer! — named Mr. Marc Grayson (E-mail: British18@earthlink.net). He has sent numbers of e-mails to Georgetown University, where I teach two courses each year on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The e-mails are clearly intended to force Georgetown to dismiss me for my criticism of the Israel-Firsters and my description of Israel’s very effective covert political-action operations in the United States. Mr. Grayson has, in essence, said that he would make sure what happened to me at the Jamestown Foundation would happen again at Georgetown. My responses to him have been to suggest that he is a bit — and perhaps more than a bit — of a slithering slug.
The first batch of Mr. Grayson’s e-mails came in 2010, and a new batch began arriving on 7 January 2011. Here is the text of the first; I have taken out the name of the person Mr. Grayson addressed, who is my superior.
1.) Subject: Michael Scheuer From: british18 To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Cc: mfs47@georgetown.edu Date: Fri, Jan 7, 2011 8:43 pm
XXXXXXXX, your Michael Scheuer makes statements about Israel that flirt with anti-Semitism, in my opinion, using his affiliation with Georgetown University, below. Does Georgetown University approve of its good name being associated with such distorted views of reality? I look forward to your response on the matter.
Marc Grayson
“By Michael F. Scheuer
Adjunct Professor of Security Studies, Georgetown University
This question and especially this forum provides a great opportunity for calmly educating Americans about what their elected leaders think on this issue. This blog’s list of contributors includes 3 U.S. Congressmen and one U.S. Senator. I am positive that all contributors to and readers of this blog would benefit from hearing from them about: (a) Why they do or do not go up and genuflect on the stage of each year’s AIPAC gathering? (b) If they approve of the Mayor of New York City and Congressman Ackerman going to Israel during the Gaza war to applaud Israel’s offensive and thereby ensure that all Muslims know and hate the fact that American leaders are egging Israel on to kill more Muslim civilians? (c) What they think about Rahm Emanuel — a man who chose the IDF over the U.S, military in wartime — serving as President Obama’s chief of staff and being privy to the nation’s most sensitive information? (d) And if they agree with Senator Joseph Liberman that America has a responsibility to use its tax money and the lives of its soldier-children make sure God’s promise to Abraham about Israel is kept? Detailed answers to these and other questions would surely give all readers an inside view of how the U.S.-Israel relationship works.
Mr. Grayson cc’ed me on this note, and I responded as follows:
2.) From: scheuermf@aol.com To: british18@earthlink.net; XXXXXXXXXXX Cc: mfs47@georgetown.edu Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 3:58 AM Subject: Re: Michael Scheuer
Mr. Grayson,
I was so relieved to hear from you again! The world can surely be a very difficult place for slugs like you, and I was worried that you had not written to threaten me in the last six months. You are, I know, always in danger of getting stomped by human creatures who walk on two legs as you slither across the floor looking for a filthy surface to adhere to. It is good to know you are safe! Have you found a nice, safe garbage can to adhere to, or perhaps the warm underside of a manhole cover?
If you liked the article cited in your note, please have a look at www.non-intervention.com. There is much more there for you to enjoy.
Always respectfully,
Mike Scheuer
After receiving my note, a now-aggrieved Mr. Grayson — who, you will recall, is the person who is trying to deny me employment and income — sent the following two notes. (NB: Please believe that I did not make up the second note.)
3.) From: british18 To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Cc: mfs47@georgetown.edu Date: Sat, Jan 8, 2011 8:55 am
XXXXXXXXXX, it is rather disturbing that Mr. Scheuer, a member of the otherwise esteemed Georgetown Univ. faculty, would send the ill-tempered email, below, merely for pointing out that he has made irrational, anti-Semitic remarks, in my opinion, while associating himself with Georgetown Univ.
4.) From: “british18” Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 05:47:06 -0800 To: Subject: Re: Michael Scheuer
Cease and desist sending me harrassing emails or I will contact the FBI.
For me, Note #4 was too good to resist and so I responded as follows:
5.) From: scheuermf@aol.com To: british18@earthlink.net ; mfs47@georgetown.edu Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 8:19 AM Subject: Re: Note To Joshua Speiser
Mr. Grayson,
I hope you spelled my name correctly. If you didn’t, I’ll inform the RCMP, and you know they always get their slug!
Always, respectfully,
Mike Scheuer
This note seemed to set Mr. Grayson into a terrible tizzy and he now started writing to all sorts of officials at Georgetown University.
6.) Note To Joshua Speiser From: british18 To: mfs47@georgetown.edu Date: Sat, Jan 8, 2011 11:07 am
I’ve forwarded your remarks to Joshua Speiser, Dir. of Communications at Georgetown Univ.
7.) Re: Note To Joshua Speiser From: british18 To: scheuermf@aol.com Date: Sat, Jan 8, 2011 12:46 pm
Your harrassing emails and your remarks about Israel that associate you and your remarks with Georgetown Univ. have been forwarded to Georgetown’s legal department.
8.) From: “british18” Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 10:31:31 -0800 To: Subject: Re: Note To Joshua Speiser
I’ve heard of Stephanie Tsacoumis, VP of Legal Affairs at Georgetown Univ. I’m interested in her response to GU being affiliated with your anti-Semitic remarks, in my opinion.
As you’ll note, Mr. Grayson is a pathetically poor speller, even worse than me, and a coward, always using the qualifier “in my opinion” when libeling me. The last note above — #9 — is reference to a note I sent asking him if he ever heard of the American Bar Association, inferring that I thought his libeling attacks on me were a tad unlawyerlike and that I would ask the ABA if his actions were acceptable to their ethical standards. I then told Mr. Grayson that I was asking the ABA for guidance regarding his libeling attacks, and sent the following e-mail to the ABA:
10.) Subject: Regarding harassment from ABA member Mr. Marc Grayson From: scheuermf@aol.com To: askaba@abanet.org Date: Sat, Jan 8, 2011 1:28 pm
Sir,
For the past year a lawyer named Marc Grayson (email: British18@earthlink.net) has sent repeated messages to me and to Georgetown University — my employer — claiming that I am an anti-Semite and urging the university to dismiss me on the basis of my published writings. He also argues that my facial features show that I am mentally impaired. I have responded to Mr. Grayson by suggesting quite plainly that he is a slug and more than a bit whacky, but he continues to persist in libeling me to my employer and has threatened to go to the FBI because I am harassing him. I know this sounds like something out of People magazine, but it is true and members of my department at Georgetown can confirm receipt of messages from Mr. Grayson. I have also appended his most recent note to Georgetown below.
I am wondering if this is acceptable behavior for a lawyer and an ABA member? I would just like Mr. Grayson to cease his libel against me. My only other recourse is to publish all of his e-mails on my website (www.non-intervention.com).
I would most appreciate a response when you have time.
Respectfully,
Michael F. Scheuer
The cocky Mr. Grayson then responded by suggesting the ABA could not touch him:
10.) From: “british18” Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 14:50:58 -0800 To: Subject: Re: Note To Joshua Speiser
Oh, dear. Did the ABA assist you with the Jamestown Foundation?
And that is where things stand this morning. I must admit that I expect Georgetown’s lawyers to dismiss me — this though Georgetown sanctioned a debate on playing hardball with Israel that I participated in — and for the ABA to fail to respond. Still, life is about learning and I’ll have to take what comes. Whatever happens, the actions of Mr. Grayson and his Israel-First debate-silencers will have no impact on what I think or say.
For those of you who are interested, I will relate further developments in this story as they occur.
“My policy has been and will continue to be … to be on friendly terms with, but independent of, all nations on earth. To share in the broils of none. To supply their wants, and be carriers for them all; being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so; and that nothing short of self-respect, and that justice which is essential to a national character, ought to involve us in.” — George Washington
Dr Michael Scheuer & Colonel Mike co-host Two Mikes, a show that discusses current events from a Pro-America, Constitutional perspective.
