Michael Scheuer | Non-Intervention

The Western reaction to the recent call by Al-Qaeda-in-the-Arab-Peninusla (AQAP) for the killing of those who have — in the eyes of Muslims — blasphemed against the Prophet Muhammad underlines the apparently unbridgeable gulf between the contemporary West and the Islamic world; indeed, between the West’s elites and any thoroughly religious community. The West’s reaction also highlights the self-righteous and self-defeating nature of Western cultural imperialism, a creed that brooks no challenge whatsoever toward any of the tenets it holds as universal absolutes, and arrogantly and foolishly assumes that those people the cultural imperialists offend will meekly accept the affront.

In Islam, blasphemy merits the death penalty — period. The blasphemer may be Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, an atheist, or a snake worshiper; it does not matter, to blaspheme Allah or His prophet is to put one’s neck squarely on the chopping block. And this is a universally known fact. Those in Europe who caricatured the Prophet knew this, and the American cartoonist who sponsored “Draw-a-picture-of-the-Prophet Day” likewise knew how Muslims would react. The bold-brave blasphemers who have taken on more than a billion Muslims now screech in horror, like the feckless cowards they are, over the call for their demise, and, I suppose, expect all of us to rally to their defense.

Well, I guess we are indeed obligated to at least defend the American cartoonist, although I myself believe any form of blasphemy is a despicable, unnecessary, and trouble-causing activity that contributes nothing to society except hatred, and bears testimony only to the blasphemer’s poor upbringing and vacuous education. But because I know of no acceptable short-term way of returning to what the Founders’ intended the First Amendment to protect in terms of speech, the great mass of adult Americans who would never blaspheme the beliefs of either their fellow countrymen or foreigners are forced to hold their nose and bear the burden of defending the putrid few who find their identity, their art, and their freedom in denigrating the faith of others.

That said, we also must accept that just because our elites have decided to call a thing a “human right” or a “universal right” does not make it so. Much of the world’s population is not ready for a picture of Jesus to be submerged in urine; the Torah to be pictured as a version of Mad magazine; or the Prophet Muhammad to be talked about and drawn as a pedophile bomb-maker. That is, several hundreds of millions of people outside Western Europe and North America take their religion very seriously and will almost reflexively react to defend it against blasphemers. And some will react with violence.

This is a reality. We may not like it, perhaps would should not like it, but, as my kids say, it is what it is. Does that mean we in the United States must silence those whose life would be a tragedy if they were not free to blaspheme? Certainly not. We must allow them to keep spewing their bile and protect them as best we can from reprisal.

But we must also realize that, at least in terms of the Muslim world, the blasphemers are playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter that has three of its six chambers loaded. One or more of the merry blasphemers is going to get blown up or have their brains blown out, but at least when they go out, they’ll go as a martyr to the right to blaspheme that made their life complete, if some what shorter than expected.

The more important aspect of the problem is for Americans, Europeans, and other folks is to recognize that blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad is nothing less than act of war in the eyes of untold numbers of Muslims. It also is a rather vicious form of cultural imperialism, amounting to a statement that in essence says: “Your religion and its attendant beliefs, personalities, traditions, and history are garbage, and we Westerners want you Muslims to know that this is what we think and that we expect you take our abuse and like it.” Again, if sadly, Western blasphemers have every right to say this, and, again, the rest of us are on the hook to protect them. But for our own safety we must not expect that Muslims will huff and puff and then simply walk away and pout, like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops whenever the mainstream U.S. and Western media practices that socially acceptable and virulent form of bigotry known as anti-Catholicism.

No, Muslims are going to strike back against what they view as an intellectual attempt to destroy Islam, one that goes hand-in-hand with the same goal they believe is inherent in the conduct and impact of U.S. and Western foreign policy toward the Islamic world. In a variant of that tired old slogan that declares “freedom isn’t free,” it probably is fair to say that we all will soon learn that “free speech isn’t free” when the speech at issue is blasphemy and the cost of it is death.

The suicide bombing in Uganda’s capital of Kampala by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab serves several agendas. While the facile and clueless Western media call it an “anti-World Cup attack” and the lame Obama White House says it proves al-Qaeda’s “racism” toward Africans, the reality is that from al-Sahbab’s perspective the attack is a logical and necessary response to the prolonged U.S.- and Western-backed intervention in Somalia. (How long, one wonders, will it take U.S. and Western officials to learn people don’t like being occupied?) The Kampala attack also is another episode in al-Qaeda’s ongoing campaign to lure the United States into more interventions in the Muslim world.

At the most basic level, there would be no al-Shabab in Somalia — at least not at its present strength, reach, and popularity — if Washington had not panicked several years ago at the thought of an Islamist organization known as the “Islamic Courts” taking power in Somalia. The Islamic Courts’ had all but displaced a feckless, corruption-ridden UN-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and was beginning to bring a harsh but effective law-and-order system to Somalia for the first time in decades. Under President Bush, however, Washington could not stand the thought of a working Islamic government and so labored overtly and covertly for its demise.

Ultimately, Washington supported Ethiopia’s late-2006 invasion of Somalia without thinking through that it would henceforth be seen as the sponsor of Christian Ethiopia’s invasion of Muslim Somalia. The invasion turned Somalis of most factions against the interloping Christian occupiers. The large and better-armed Ethiopian conventional forces prevailed, broke up what was left of the Islamic Courts, and protected the UN-backed TFG, which now appeared even more as the imposed creature of hostile Christian countries. The Ethiopians fought a growing guerrilla war against the Somali militias and insurgents until casualties became too heavy and Addis Ababa decided to withdraw its forces. The African Union then acted to supply the 5,000 military personnel from Uganda and Burundi who now are the peacekeepers and TFG-protectors in the capital of Mogadishu.

The sum of this complicated story is that al-Shabab was born, developed quickly, and now appears to have the manpower, political savvy, and military wherewithal to compete for control of much of the central and southern portions of Somalia. Al-Shabab’s quick evolution is the result of several factors, including foreign occupation, which historically radicalizes Somalia’s usually moderate form of Islam, and the availability of help from al-Qaeda, especially in the form of veteran fighters, who offer training and a leaven of combat experience, and media operatives whose expertise has dramatically improved the quality of al-Shabab media capabilities during the past two years. In addition, a substantial inflow of aid from Arab Peninsula countries who are nominally U.S. “allies” has allowed al-Shabab and other Somali Islamists to deliver food and health services to destitute Somalis and improve their weaponry.

Having helped destroy the less radical Islamic Courts regime and still backing the moribund TFG, Washington now confronts the potential of al-Shabab controlling two thirds of Somalia and — after the Uganda bombing — the specter of the group slowly destabilizing heretofore reliably pro-U.S. regimes in Ethiopia, Kenya, and elsewhere in East Africa.

Neither Ethiopia nor Kenya is as stable as it was before the Islamic Courts were destroyed. Ethiopia paid a high price for its invasion and occupation of Somalia not only in terms of funds and lives, but in earning the durable enmity of Somali Muslims and their Islamist allies in Africa and overseas. Kenya has likewise earned al-Shabab’s wrath for supporting the corrupt TFG regime and for its willingness to host the dozen or more UN agencies and multiple Western NGOs who are operating in Somalia with intentions that are perceived by many Somalis as anti-Islamic.

And here is where al-Qaeda is luring the United States into another potentially disastrous intervention. Even though it has expended a minimum and mainly media-focused effort to support al-Shabab, Washington’s abject fear of al-Qaeda — notwithstanding Obama’s cocky and denigrating words about the group — has made bin Laden’s al-Shabab ally a primary U.S. target and therefore yet another vehicle for luring America into an expensive fight on Muslim territory.

Even before all the causalities from the bombing were counted, for example, the FBI had sent investigators to the “crime scene” in Kampala — as if the Ugandans need help from the helpless — and yesterday Rudyard Obama said he would “redouble” U.S. efforts in Somalia, which certainly means more U.S. military involvement there and the pouring of more taxpayer money into the maw of the corrupt-to-the-bone TFG. And as it becomes clear that Ethiopian and Kenyan security are also threatened by al-Shabab, those countries too will be the recipients of Mr. Obama’s resolute eagerness to dig us ever deeper into expensive, Bush-like foreign adventures.

Overall, Bush and Obama took a problem that was on the periphery of top U.S. security issues and through mindlessness and intervention made it an agent of destabilization in East Africa and a growing drain on U.S. resources. Renewed U.S. efforts against al-Shabab, together with Washington’s efforts to undermine the Muslim government of Sudan and get U.S. military forces involved in the irrelevant-to-America Darfur civil war, will again do al-Qaeda’s work for it by validating for Muslims bin Laden’s claim that Washington intends to destroy all Muslim regimes except those of the Arab tyrants who supply oil to the United States and its allies.

Years ago Osama bin Laden said something akin to: “All we need to do is send two mujahideen anywhere on earth to wave a flag that has ‘al-Qaeda’ on it and the Americans will arrive the next day with their troops and an open wallet.” As Obama hungrily gobbles down this latest lure from al-Qaeda, one can only think that there truly is a sucker born every minute.

Al-Qaeda’s organization in Yemen — known as Al-Qaeda-in-the-Arab Peninsula (AQAP) — recently published the first issue of an English-language, electronic magazine called Inspire. The magazine is the project of Anwar al-Awalki, the U.S.-born and formally U.S.-based Muslim scholar who seems to be tied to several of the actual and would-be Islamist attackers arrested in America in 2009 and 2010. The magazine appears to be al-Qaeda’s first English-language periodical, although the group does regularly publish materials in languages other than Arabic. All of its leaders’ speeches, for example, are published in English translations.

While the content of Inspire is important, the fact that it has been published at all is more important. Al-Qaeda is a parsimonious organization; it never wastes money on a project that promises minimal potential impact. Therefore, AQAP leaders clearly believe there is a substantial market for the magazine in the English-speaking world, which is of course far larger than just the United States. While the U.S. media have focused on the journal as one aimed at U.S. Muslims, al-Qaeda’s target audience is much broader than the U.S. and its English-speaking allies.

In much of the non-Arab Muslim world, English is far more likely than Arabic to be the second language of Muslims. The intensity with which English is taught in China, for example, suggests that Chinese Muslims will find Inspire a readable journal. Likewise, the enormous Muslim populations of Europe, India, and Indonesia are likely to find the magazine very accessible. And what of the former British colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa, where Muslims are far more likely to speak English than Arabic? South African Muslims and others in the region clearly provide an audience for the magazine.

Inspire magazine, moreover, did not come out of the blue, but rather is part of a now six-year-old media campaign by al-Qaeda to court, instruct, and — yes — inspire U.S. Muslims and other English-speaking Muslims worldwide. The effort began with Osama bin Laden’s speech on the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, which omitted most Islamic adornments — quotations from the Koran, etc. — and was published in close-to-vernacular English. Then al-Qaeda began using Azzam al-Amriki — the former U.S. citizen Adam Gadahn — to speak in contemporary English to English-speaking Muslims in America and worldwide. And, as is now apparent, al-Qaeda also has been in contact and working with U.S.-based Islamic scholars like al-Awalki to spread its message. It must be assumed that al-Qaeda also is working with like-minded Islamic scholars in India, South Africa, China, and Indonesia who may not have mastered Arabic but who do speak and write English.

With such a substantial potential audience, the frivolous reaction of the U.S. media and the silence of U.S. political leaders is inexplicable. Humor of course has always been a vital part of American war-making; for example, animating Bugs Bunny’s victory over the Axis; writing an obscene a message to Hitler on a 500-pound bomb destined to be dropped on Berlin; or drawing a caricature of Hirohito on a torpedo meant to send one of the God-Emperor’s aircraft carriers to the bottom of the Pacific. But such humor was never the whole of U.S. war-making, only an adjunct to much more important efforts meant kill the enemy and wreck his economic wherewithal.

Against al-Qaeda, however, what passes for humor these days seems to be our main — if impotent — weapon. Those who are our comic-newsmen — Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Keith Olbermann, etc. — have made fun of Al-Qaeda media. And this is as it should be, if humor can advance America’s interests then pour it on.

But in this case, the humor of America’s sophomoric comic-newsmen only serves to disguise the growing U.S. and worldwide English-speaking Muslim audience for the content of al-Qaeda’s media operations generally, and for AQAP’s magazine in particular. Stewart, Colbert, and the rest of the latter-day court jesters speak to an ignorant-of-the-Muslim-world U.S. audience, and while their humor may get laughs, it does not inform. They are, moreover, the perfect and willing patsies for an Obama administration that no longer uses the terms “Islamist” or “jihad” and is delighted to have its surrogates among the comic-newsmen tell Americans that all is well in Obama’s diverse and multi-cultural nirvana and that laughter is a weapon sufficient to protect the republic.

As noted, laughing at the foe can be a useful accompaniment to a cloud of 500-pound bombs descending on the enemy and his supporters, but by itself it does nothing but immunize American laughers against a dangerous reality. Al-Qaeda’s media operations are a potent adjunct to the lead and explosives now killing our soldiers and Marines, and those media operations are engaging an ever-larger and increasingly responsive audience of English-speaking Muslims worldwide.

So, at the end of the day, Obama and his court jesters may be teaching Americans nothing more than how to laugh themselves to death.

The Founders foresaw many problems for the republic they created and tried to provide durable solutions for and protection against them. There is no evidence, however, that they thought the republic would one day be ruled by men who are arrogant and incompetent usurpers. On this July 4th, however, we are enduring the fourth consecutive presidential administration that can only be described in that way.

In the past week several events occurred which underline this sorry state of affairs. In what was billed as “town hall meeting” on June 30th in Wisconsin, President Obama proved that his arrogance keeps him living in a world that is every bit as unreal as the one George W. Bush inhabited. One would have thought that Obama’s responsibility for two lost wars in the Muslim world would have alerted his reputedly brilliant mind to the fact that interventionist and nation-building policies are counterproductive for U.S. interests. But one would have been dead wrong.

Having had 6,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines killed in two wars has taught Obama not that intervention causes wars, but rather that U.S. interventions need to be bigger, more expensive, and involve more unarmed U.S. citizens on the battlefield. “When you look at a place like Afghanistan or at a place like Iraq,” Obama said,

“so many of our military personnel are having to engage in work that really should be civilian work — helping to build schools, helping to build bridges, helping to set up the rule of law and courts… So what I am trying to say is, don’t put all the burden on the military. Make sure that we’ve got a civilian expeditionary force that when we go out into some village somewhere and the military makes it secure, let’s have the agricultural specialist right there, let’s have the person who knows how to train a police force right there. Let’s have all those personnel and let’s make sure we are giving them the support that they need in order for us to be successful on our mission.”

Now, if a casual review of reality in the last decade proves anything, it is that the U.S. occupations of Muslim countries cause hatred for the United States that translates into an anti-U.S. war that no number of agricultural- or police-training specialists — and the greenbacks-for-wasting they bring with them — can win or even contain. (It also shows the U.S. military is unable to secure any locale for more than short time because it is not allowed to destroy the enemy.) Why is this? Quite simply because so many of the activities Mr. Obama spoke of — building schools, establishing courts, installing the rule of law, etc. — are simply efforts to make poor, benighted Muslims more like us, or at least more like what Mr. Obama and his elite comrades want them and most Americans to be.

Obama’s “civilian expeditionary force” would be nothing more than a force of secular, taxpayer-paid busybodies intent on destroying any Muslim culture they find in favor of the talk-Christianity/install-paganism doctrine favored by the president and his party. They would cause more wars abroad, stimulate violence at home by young Muslim-American males, and probably be understandably butchered by those who neither need nor want some young, snot-nosed U.S. civil servant telling him what is wrong with his culture and faith and what he must do to fix it. A “civilian expeditionary force,” then, is just another manifestation of Obama’s Kiplingesque mind and his passion for taking up “the elite-man’s burden.”

On the incompetent side of the ledger comes the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) June 29th admission that five years into a program to prevent nuclear terrorism in the United States there has been no appreciable progress. The unit in charge of the program — the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office — has not even completed a strategic plan for completing its mission and in the meantime has spent nearly $250 million on advanced detection systems that have not worked. The Government Accountability Office concluded that the DHS unit has done virtually nothing to put in place viable methods of preventing nuclear smuggling by aircraft, small boats, or by vehicle or railroad across land borders.

As this dismal news was being released another DHS unit announced that Americans should be encouraged that security along the many thousands of miles of U.S. land borders is improving because 384 more federal border-control agents have been deployed and the number of K9 dog-patrol units along the borders had skyrocketed from 5 to 13. The two announcements put me in mind of what Casey Stengel is reported to have asked as he watched his Mets team practice for the first time: “Does anyone here know how to play this game?” Casey’s incompetent ball players went on to lose 120 games in their first season. DHS’s incompetent nuclear office stands to lose a city like Houston.

And then there is Iran. Media coverage clearly points to the increasing likelihood of a U.S.-Israel offensive war against Iran. Do Americans want war with Iran? Can their economy stand what will be another unending war? Do 300 million Americans want to take on 1.4 billion Muslims who will be at least temporarily united after Washington and Israel start a war on Iran? Do these same Americans really want the violence in their towns and cities that Iran will sponsor after it is attacked? Can Americans trust their generals to put U.S. interests first after seeing General Petraeus kiss the butt of the Israel-First Necon Max Boot and beg him to publish articles saying that he (Petraeus) is a good little sycophantic loyalist to AIPAC’s agenda?* Do American parents want their kids in the military to die in what would be a second war for Israel in less than a decade?

The way to answer these questions is provided in the Constitution, which assigns the task of declaring war exclusively to the U.S. Congress. Washington under Bush and Obama has been edging closer to war with Iran for nearly ten years, and both men have spoken and acted as if it is their decision whether to attack Iran. It is not. A decision by any president to wage an offensive war — and probably even a defensive war — minus a formal declaration of war by the Congress is unconstitutional. Just because Congress has decided to cede their sole power to make war to the president does not make that delegation of authority constitutional; indeed, the Congress has no constitutional power to delegate its power in this regard and our increasingly imperial courts have no power to unilaterally amend the constitution in this or any other regard. As in the case of the language used in the 1st and 2nd Amendments, the Founders assigned the war-making power only to the Congress in language far too clear to allow for any misunderstanding whatsoever.

This being the case, is there not one of the 535 members of the Congress who will introduce a resolution that says something like:

“The Executive Branch of the United States Government from this date forward will not launch an offensive war without a formal declaration of war passed by Congress after a full debate in both houses and the provision of a week’s time for U.S. citizens to make their views known to their elected representatives via e-mail.”

Whether or not the resolution is adopted, its mere introduction would give ordinary Americans a chance to gauge how far Congress has illegally abdicated its constitutional prerogatives and how far their own, their children’s, and their country’s futures and fortunes are bound tight to the whims of one man.

Are you out there Rep. Paul and Rep. Kucinich? Will you or anyone take on the usurpers by introducing such a short/clear resolution? Or are we too far gone even for that?

* On Petreaus see, http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/petraeus-fed-his-pro-israel-bona-fides-to-a-neocon-writer-including-pathetic-recitation-of-meeting-wiesel.html and www.tinyurl.com/PetraeusandNeocons

I am still getting the hang of manipulating all the tools for this website and so have been slow in responding to comments made at the bottom of articles. I have spent a good part of this day going over them and I must first thank all who have commented. I truly appreciate the comments, approving and critical alike.

Not being the smartest guy around, I have naturally learned and benefited from many of the comments, and some have caused me to rethink one or another of my ideas. Such exchanges are all part of a normal, open, and frank public debate, and vigorous, even testy debate on all issues is indispensable for the well-being of the republic. Again, I am most grateful to those of you who have taken the time to write via comments or e-mails.

There are three other points I want to make regarding the articles I have written so far:

First, the article I wrote regarding Rachel Maddow’s and MSNBC’s attack on Dr. Rand Paul has been described by some as an “advocacy of armed rebellion against the U.S. government.” It is of course no such thing. Rather, the article says that a taking up of arms would be a lamentable and absolutely last resort.

The point I was trying to make is that the Founders clearly saw the possibility of their republican creation being transformed into a tyranny. The Founders, after all, were extremely well read men who knew the history of republics, and that history, in short, was that all previous republics had gone belly up and become tyrannies. Thus, the Founders knew they were creating a republic in the teeth of what was then an iron law of history, and so in the the 2nd Amendment they provided citizens with an ability to defend their republic.

Building on the natural right to self-defense, the British Bill of Rights (1689), the Dickinson-Jefferson paper (1775), and the Declaration of Independence (1776), the 2nd Amendment is the Founders best effort to make sure there never would be a time when the federal government tended toward tyranny AND had control over all arms.

By creating a constitutional guarantee the Founders not only ensured the existence of a well-armed populace, but they also made sure that those who held federal office would always have the salutary knowledge that any move toward tyranny would find an armed populace that had been taught that their duty to posterity required them to resist tyranny by force. Those who argue or assert that I advocated armed revolt against the U.S. government are dead wrong. What I did and do argue is that Americans have both a right and a duty to resist tyranny by force if such action ever becomes necessary to protect their republic. Those who doubt the validity of this argument ought to read a bit about the founding of our country.

Second, in negative comment on the same article by folks at a site called “Dishwater” they identify me as an adviser to Dr. Rand Paul. That is an absolutely incorrect claim, and one that could have been easily checked. In any event, let me set the record straight. I have never met, talked to, or corresponded with Dr. Rand Paul or any member of his campaign. I admire Dr. Paul and his Dad, and I do hope that Dr. Paul wins a senate seat, but I am not tied to him or his campaign in any form whatsoever. The folks at “Dishwater” ought to do more fact checking and less drinking of the liquid after which they named their site.

Third, I continue to be defy those who equate comments about Israel and Israel-First U.S. citizens with anti-Semitism. Let me clear, I do not care what faith any American follows, or if he or she follows any faith at all. For all I care, Americans can worship, or not worship God, Yahweh, Allah, spirits, witches, Buddha, bags of lawn fertilizer, little blue plastic toys, or — heaven forbid — the Boston Red Sox. I simply do not care, and I have to say that it has never in my life occurred to me to care or ask about what religion any of my friends or acquaintances follow.

What I do care about and unreservedly oppose is any U.S. citizen or citizen group that wants America to spend its treasure and/or its young in another nation’s religious wars or disputes. I oppose any U.S. backing or participation in Israel’s war with Muslims, or with the Muslims’ war with Israel. I likewise oppose efforts by our Muslim Somali citizens to get America involved in settling Muslim Somalia’s problems with the Christian states in East Africa; our Irish Catholic citizens who want to us to support the Republic of Ireland against Protestants in Ulster and Britain; our Indian citizens who want us to side with Hindu India against Muslim Pakistan; our Armenian citizens who want us to back Christian Armenia against Muslim Turkey; and our Pakistani citizens who want us to back Muslim Pakistan against Hindu India.

My position has nothing to do with disliking Israel Firsters because they are Jews (many are not); disliking Armenian Americans because they are Christians; disliking Indian Americans because they are Hindus, etc. It has every thing to do with my belief that these citizens have no business trying to manipulate the U.S. government into intervening in other peoples’ wars or disputes.

Many people immigrate to America to avoid wars, tyranny, or other troubles in their homelands, and part of the contract implicit in their acceptance as U.S. citizens is that their primary loyalty belongs to the United States and not the country they fled. If this means anything, it means that the wars and disputes they left behind are no longer their wars and disputes, and so they ought not be seeking to get the rest of their new countrymen involved in them. If they cannot make this clean break — which is hardly a high cost given the benefits of U.S. citizenship — they ought to go back to the wars and disputes they left, fight to their heart’s content, and leave the rest of us in peace.

At the moment, Israel-First U.S. citizens are eager to involve the United States in a war with Iran, just as they promoted (caused?) the U.S. war on Iraq. This morning, for example, Israel First’s wholly own subsidiary known as the U.S. Congress passed additional unilateral sanctions on Iran’s economy. Sanctions, of course, are acts of war that the mighty use against weaker states who cannot respond. Sanctions also are often used to provoke the weaker state to shoot first so the ensuing war can be blamed on those who were sanctioned.

The sanctions and other actions promoted by the Israel Firsters are clearly meant to drag 300 million Americans into a war with Iran because Israel’s current government wants such a war. I oppose this because we — the United States — have no need for a war with Iran. We have Iran contained militarily and economically, and Tehran does not threaten us unless we attack it first.

So if the U.S.-citizen Israel Firsters want war between Israel and Iran, let them resign their positions here in America, pack their bags, empty their bank accounts, renounce their U.S. citizenship, and take their families to Israel. There they can join the war-wanting regime they so rabidly support, and, more important, they can manfully position themselves to take the same lethal consequences ordinary Israelis will endure if there is a war with Iran.

I must admit that I would absolutely love to see such war-mongering gas bags as John Bolton, Alan Dershowitz, Andrew McCarthy, Michael Bloomberg, Victor Hanson Davis, Eliot Cohen, Bill Kristol, the staffs of the National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal, most members of the U.S. Congress and Senate, the AIPAC big-wigs, and the rest of the stern but cowardly U.S.-based Israel-First gang just for once put their money where there big mouths are, and expose themselves and their families to the risks of war they have for so long and so callously salivated to cause for Israel’s citizens from the comfort and safety of their homes here in North America.

General McChrystal’s insubordinate but perfectly accurate words disqualified him from continuing to command U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Obama is a wimp, Holbrooke is a fool, and Biden is marooned in the Cold War. Still, if you take the king’s shilling and you must do the king’s bidding, and do it silently. The problem of McChrystral is over and will have no impact on the Afghan War. That war was lost more than a year ago by Obama, Biden, Holbrooke, McChrystal, and Petraeus and their fantasy counterinsurgency policy.

Four months after the first field test of their policy in a place called Majrah District in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province the forces of the U.S.-led coalition are still fighting an enemy they predicted would be easily removed. It has, however, succeeded in reopening the local market, improving the irrigation system, and building miles of new roads. What they have utterly failed to do is what the counterinsurgency experts — especially two men named John Nagl and David Kilcullen — asserted would be easy to do; namely, by “protecting the people against the Taliban” Western forces would win hearts and minds and thereby defeat the small number of Afghans who were Taliban extremists. This failure should come as a surprise to no one.

As a timeless truism one cannot find a better example than the phrase: “Afghans hate and will not tolerate their country being occupied by foreigner infidel.” This is verifiable over almost 24 centuries of history by referring to the Afghan experiences of Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union. It took varying periods for the Afghans to get rid of each occupier — the Greeks were particularly tough to root out as Alexander created Greek colonies in the country — but in time each was defeated and left with its tail between its legs. And so will we.

The really wonderful thing about those who designed and pushed the current counterinsurgency policy in Afghanistan is that reality and facts have no impact whatsoever on their fervor for failure. While U.S. military forces and their allies have done virtually nothing to defeat the Taliban, other Afghan groups, and al-Qaeda — the military’s preening over drone kills comes down to merely a body count — they have succeeded admirably in those things experts like Nagl and Kilcullen tell us mean ultimately victory for the West. More than 3 million more Afghan kids are in school now than in 2001. We have seen numerous Afghan elections; hundreds of miles of roads have been rebuilt; electricity is more generally available; there is more potable water and better primary health care; and the Soviet-destroyed irrigation systems are bein rebuilt. And none of it matters a lick.

As the positive trend line for these “hearts-and-mines” operations has steadily risen in the last several years, the positive trend line for the Taliban-led insurgency has risen even more sharply. The Taliban, its allies, and like-minded groups are now operating throughout Afghanistan, a marked geographic expansion of the war. U.S.-NATO casualties are rising sharply, the Taliban and others strike in the capital of Kabul at their pleasure; and Karzai’s government has a constituency only among those who can steal funds from the United states and other donor countries and/or profit from the heroin industry. The reality, quite simply, is that as the Nagl-Kilcullen list of indicators of victory in Afghanistan has been accomplished, the insurgents have become more popular among, supported by, or acquiesced in by the rural Afghan population.

Why is this case? Well let us go back to the above-mentioned truism: “Afghans do not like being occupied by foreigners.” Add to that Mao’s equally venerable truism that an insurgency dies without popular support, but cannot be killed if it has it, and you see what Obama, Biden, Holbrooke, McChrystal, Petreaus, Nagl, and Kilcullen have given America — utter failure, a thousand dead and untold numbers of wounded U.S. service personnel, and gargantuan waste of U.S. financial resources. Not to mention putting Pakistan on the road to implosion.

So by sending Petraeus to Afghanistan in McChystal’s place, Obama has decided to keep a disastrous counterinsurgency policy in place. He has simply exchanged an indiscreet man who preferred to see our soldiers and Marines killed than the enemy and its civilian supporters, with a man whose attitude is the same but is a past master at selling snake oil. The media, for example, still refer to the “Petraeaus victory” in Iraq although it is now in a slow-but-sure mode of unraveling. Instead of killing the enemy and his civilian supporters, Petraeus will keep flogging the foolishness about “protecting the people from the insurgents,” even as those people we claim to be a protecting are supporting those who are killing our soldiers and Marines.

All of this apparently is satisfactory to President Obama’s administration — as it was to Mr. Bush’s — and to most senior U.S. general officers; you know, those vague shadows of their old-fashioned predecessors who went to war to achieve military victory as quickly as possible and placed top priority on bringing home alive as many of their troops they could.

Call me a romantic, but I suspect — more accurately hope — that there are this morning Marine generals brooding over the Afghan issue in their bastions of sanity at Quantico, Camp Lejeune, and Camp Pendelton. These men and women know — perhaps uniquely in today’s U.S. military — that war means fighting, and fighting means killing, and that any other approach to war means wasted resources and lives, and will yield nothing but defeat and the need to fight the same war over again. This is why Obama should have sent a Marine to replace McChrystal. This is also why he did not.

How many votes do you think a candidate for the U.S. Senate would draw if he promised his state’s citizens more wars and a weakening of the separation of church and state? “Ladies and Gentlemen,” let us imagine such a candidate saying, “if you elect me as your Senator I pledge to do all that is humanly possible to involve the United States in other peoples’ wars and to end the ridiculous 1st Amendment prohibition on federal government support for religion. In fact I will promise each of you that in the Senate I will work without let up to make sure that one religion is favored by Washington over all others at home and abroad and that all Americans contribute whatever is necessary for its support.” On its face, this does not sound like a a campaign theme that would attract an awful lot of votes and might well be suicidal for any candidate signing on to it. Why would anyone vote for more war and a state-sponsored and supported religion?

And yet in last week’s take of odd e-mails comes one from Congressman Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) who is running for an Illinois senate seat on a platform that, according to the e-mail, calls for more U.S. intervention abroad, more U.S. involvement in the Israel-Muslim war, and more taxpayer funding for Israel’s theocracy. Herewith Congressman Kirk’s appeal:

“Dear Friend,

“Are you worried about the future of the State of Israel? Me too.

“From Gaza City to Damascus to Tehran, Islamic terrorists threaten the destruction of America’s greatest ally in the Middle East almost daily. Incitement against Israel continues while global anti-Semitism stands at its highest point since World War II.

“Support Mark Kirk. Will you stand with me to fight anti-Israel incitement and defend the Jewish State? Become a “Chai for Kirk” leader by joining my campaign for U.S. Senate today.

“For the last decade, I worked tirelessly in the House of Representatives to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship. I helped lead the campaign to stop America’s participation in the Durban II Conference — and I opposed U.S. membership in the anti-Israel Human Rights Council.

“Recently, I was the first member of Congress in America to reaffirm Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. Right now, I am leading the effort to cut off gasoline to Iran and stop the regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“We have accomplished much, but with so much at stake, I know there is more I can do from the United States Senate.

“Will you stand with me in my U.S. Senate campaign and help me confront the growing dangers to the U.S.-Israel relationship? Your donation of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000 or $2,400 will help put me over the top and send a pro-Israel champion to the United States Senate.

“Thank you for your strong support. Together, we will defend the State of Israel from those who seek her destruction — and celebrate another 62 years of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“Sincerely,

“Mark Kirk Member of Congress”

Now imagine for a moment that Congressman Kirk or any other candidate for the federal legislature wanted to win a seat so he could provide direct U.S. taxpayer funding and military ordnance and technology for the leaders of overseas communities of Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, or any of the Protestant dispensations? Or a candidate who wanted to supply federal funding and U.S. military personnel to protect the myriad Christian churches and their flocks that are being attacked by Islamists across the Muslim world? After all, many more Christians than Israelis have been targeted and killed by Islamists since 9/11. What if a Catholic senatorial candidate demanded taxpayer funding equal to that given to Israel for the “Catholic State” of the Vatican — which is a tiny but internationally recognized nation-state — and wanted the U.S. to pledge to use its military to support any action the Vatican took, even if the action was counter to genuine U.S. national interests? All such positions would increase Washington’s interventionism, make more wars more likely, and violate the 1st Amendment’s prohibition of federal support for religion. All would rightfully earn attack and scorn from most Americans.

But Congressman’s Kirk’s appeal for help to get elected to the Senate so he can lead and fund more intervention by Washington to “defend the state of Israel” and “defend the Jewish State” will elicit no comment from those who are the loudest defenders of the separation between church and state, those who have saved us from such existential threats as saying a public prayer before football games and wishing folks a “Merry Christmas.” Participation in a religious war on Israel’s behalf always is okay for these paragons of secularism.

Neither will he be criticized by that most two-faced of American organizations, the “peace lobby.” Rabid to the point of needing sedation under President Bush, they have been good little boy-and-girl hypocrites while President Obama has broadened U.S. military actions around the world. Big and brave against any president who seeks to defend genuine U.S. interests, these peace advocates are most unlikley to turn out and oppose Congressman Kirk and most of the other members of the federal legislature who support the “Jewish State” and thereby ensure endless U.S. war with the Muslim world.

Finally, I cannot help wonder why Congressman Kirk’s staff sent the e-mail to me. I live in northern Virginia and so cannot cast a vote in Illinois. Could it be that the Congressman Kirk and his AIPAC buddies have simply devised a way to get Israel First money from all over the United States deployed to Illinois to manipulate a Senate election in Israel’s favor? In the e-mail that I received, Kirk identifies neither his state nor his party affiliation, leaving one to surmise the message has nothing whatever to do with the concerns of Illinois voters and is meant to appeal to Israel supporters who apparently will vote for anyone — the devil himself perhaps — if he/she supports Israel without question. (NB: There is no way to tell how many non-U.S. citizens overseas received Congressman Kirk’s e-mail appeal, but that some did seems obvious as Kirk identifies himself in the e-mail as a “member of Congress in America.”)

It also is worth noting that the e-mail suggests donating small amounts of money. All are legal and none would attract the slightest bit of attention from the media. And even if reported by a journalist who asked why Israel First money is flowing into an Illinois election from across the country and the world, the mainstream media would identify the reporter who asked the question as another closet anti-Semite, like the media-lynched Helen Thomas. So silence will ensue and the people of Illinois may well see their election manipulated by Kirk and his Israel-First friends who seem to care nothing for local economic problems or other state-specific issues in Illinois but are eager to take Illinois taxes, soldiers, and Marines to war for Israel’s interests. [NB: To be fair to Congressman Kirk, I would be surprised if his Democratic opponent has failed to follow suit by sending a similar e-mail to would-be Israel-First donors.]

The old saying is that if you live long enough, you see just about everything. But I never really expected to see a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois run on a pro-religious war, anti-1st Amendment platform financed in part by donations from non-Illinois citizens apparently more concerned with Israeli than U.S. national interests. I guess we will just have to wait see if voters in Illinois warm to Congressman Kirk, who seems to ignore the state’s local concerns, suggests his first loyalty is to a foreign state, and champions more U.S. intervention in overseas religious wars.

This week the moderators of the National Journal’s national-security blog asked the following question: “Are America’s Alliances Fraying?” It seems to me the answer is yes, and that they ought to be fraying. Most were created to serve U.S. interests in America’s half-century confrontation with the Soviet Union, and so their main reason for existence ended in 1991. This fundamental change, however, has not been reflected in Washington’s diplomacy no matter which party is governing. Indeed, as noted below, our diplomats are still actively seeking new alliances and relationships for America, many of which seem more dangerous than beneficial.

For a nation born in a revolutionary war led by men who had an enormous amount to lose if the war was lost, our current political leaders are extraordinarily hidebound and averse to upsetting the foreign-policy status quo, even if such a disruption would benefit America. As I try to point out below, many of our enduring Cold War-era alliances are more burdens then blessings and surely merit reevaluation aimed at overhaul or termination. To leave America open to the chance of being obligated to fight in some other country’s war because of an alliance that has outlived its usefulness is not wise policy. It is time, I think, to consult the Founders and take a long and hard second look at our alliances.

(NB: The following piece is different in only one way from that which was posted at www.nationaljournal.com. In the piece below I added our alliance with Japan as one that is worth keeping at this point in time. I had forgotten to include it in the original draft.)

Let ’em fray, Let ’em fray to hell

For America, the keys to sovereignty, independence of action, and wars fought only for genuine national interests are to avoid formal alliances whenever possible and establish non-intervention as the country’s default response to international affairs. “Friends with all, allies with almost none” may well be a good synopsis of the conditions for which U.S. diplomats should aim.

As noted by other contributors, the Cold War put a premium on concluding alliances with as many countries as we could, with NATO as primus inter pares. But the reality is that Mutually Assured Destruction and skilled U.S. and British leaders, not NATO and the other alliances, prevented a war between the United States and the USSR. Nonetheless, we have since 1991 treated NATO and the others as somehow sacrosanct when they are really more burden than blessing. We are still in Afghanistan, for example, at least in part because we took the continental NATO countries with us and they proved for the most part militarily useless and eager to placate those in need of killing. Overall, America’s alliances today range from a few worth keeping for the long run — Britain, Canada, and Australia — to a few that are vital to U.S. interests at the moment — Pakistan, Japan, and South Korea — to a large number are that can only be attributed to the U.S. federal government’s spendthrift ways, moral cowardice, corruption, and immunity to reality.

In the latter category, for example, we find our alliances with Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf tyrannies. They give us access to oil and loans as long as we turn a blind eye to their spreading of an imperialistic and martial form of Islam that slowly but surely is undermining stability and social cohesion in countries around the world. We are also committed to defend the borders of any number of Eastern European countries for reasons that are far from clear. And we have something often referred to as an alliance with gangster-run Mexico that allows us to purchase oil while its government pushes its unwanted poor illegally across the border into the United States to torment and bankrupt the citizens of the Southwest, and then organizes them to support the U.S. political party most willing to do Mexico’s bidding.

The alliance with Israel, of course, is no such thing. The federal executive and legislative branches and much of the media are the owned by Israel and its U.S.-citizen supporters; note the shameful silence of Obama, his cabinet, and all 535 legislators as the Israel First crowd and its media shills lynched Helen Thomas for daring to use her 1st Amendment rights. As a result, America is consigned to follow a one-way path to endless war on Israel’s behalf with all the Muslim world. And besides these alliances, the men and women we elect are out their hunting for more crippling alliances and relationships, such as laboring to get Georgia into NATO, supporting the theft of land from Serbia to create an independent Kosovo; and a slobbering, pathetic pandering to India that does little but turn Pakistan against us and push South Asia closer to a nuclear confrontation.

The question can be asked, of course, is the problem with the idea of alliances or is it with the kind of alliances we choose to pursue? As noted there are alliances worth having, most especially those the United States has with the world’s major English-speaking countries. But the value of even those will erode as the politically correct governments of each cling ever more strongly to the poisons of multiculturalism and diversity. These crackpot theories do nothing but shatter social cohesion, negate the pursuit of excellence and achievement based on merit, reduce leadership to a constant subordination of political principles and national interests to the quest for votes from those who come to the America, Australia, Canada, and Britain without intent to assimilate, and instead inject their own long traditions of corruption, law-breaking, and sectarianism into once stable and productive economies and societies.

Generally speaking the American way of making alliances — mostly bribery outside the English-speaking world and pandering to oil-rich tyrants — is pointless. Those so-called partners are happy to take our protection and money but when push comes to shove — as when there is a necessary war to fight — they want to dig wells, build roads, and stay safely in their fortified compounds. But that is a lesson worth learning, and the reality is that the major reason we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan is not because our allies would not fight, but rather because our governing elite and general officers — all trained, as Colonel Lang says, in the best universities — know nothing of history, religion, the imperfectability of human nature, and what happens to dilettantes who dabble at war with no intention of winning. We will reap the whirlwind for that and when the reaping begins our allies will be nowhere to be found.

The greater danger, I think, is when we inevitably find that the shoe is on the other foot and we are obligated to fight exhausting/disastrous wars for one of another of our so-called allies and friends. What if the Georgians finally goad the Russians into a repeat invasion? What if the Serbs decide to retake the land that is lawfully theirs? What if the Turks and the “new” Iraq go at it over Kurdistan? What happens when the Israelis unite the Muslim world against the United States and the Arab regimes that abet Israel by attacking Iran (or Syria or Lebanon or …)? What happens when, in the ultimate nightmare scenario, China acts to reabsorb Taiwan? Do we really want our armed forces involved in wars that are none of our concern but on which our diplomats have ensured we will spend blood and treasure? Will the American people brook wars for Kosovo’s independence or for Israel’s territorial ambitions and self-imagined religious destiny? You can bet the day is coming when we will find out.

It always is wise, I think, to seek advice from men who knew what they were doing. These happen to be the same men our oh-so-smart political leaders ignore, when they are not denouncing them as dead white men. “My policy has been and will continue to be,” President Washington said, “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 war.” Looking at today’s world and the net result of U.S. alliance-making one must conclude that our leaders have scorned the Master of Mount Vernon, turning his advice on its head to ensure that we “share in the broils of all.”

After weeks of media stories, myriad photos of oil-coated birds and fish, the president throwing tantrums like a bewildered teenager nearing adulthood, and the Congress disguising its failures by venting its hypocritical spleen at British Petroleum (BP) executives, Mr. Obama will give Americans his views on the Gulf oil leak on Tuesday evening. Before the president speaks it might be helpful to fix blame for the Gulf mess where it belongs. Three questions and answers ought to turn the trick:

Question: When was the first Saudi-supported oil embargo aimed at crippling the U.S. economy?

Answer: 1973.

Question: What problem were Americans alerted to by the embargo?

Answer: The health and stability of their economy was in the hands of America-hating Arab tyrants and other Third World dictators.

Question: What did the U.S. Congress do about this national security threat in the ensuing 37 years?

Answer: The U.S. Congress moved Daylight Savings Time (DST) up three weeks.

There you have it. Both political parties have utterly failed to protect U.S. national security in the energy realm. Private industry has developed new fossil-fuel and alternative energy sources; car makers have improved gas efficiency and reduced emissions; and many millions of Americans are purchasing cars that use less fuel and are better for air quality. And the Congress? DST is three weeks earlier; no new nuclear energy plants have been built in 30-plus years; and, with two presidents, Congress has pandered for oil to a Libyan leader who killed U.S. citizens on Pan Am 103. As usual, all hands are contributing something to improvements on the energy front except the elected officials whose main job it is to defend America. Instead, they and their appointees have kept America vulnerable to foreign decisions about oil.

Regarding the current Gulf oil leak, BP should be held responsible for any regulation breaking that is proven. If there is criminality involved, those culpable should be prosecuted. But before scapegoating BP and driving it to bankruptcy, it is worth asking why BP was drilling by remote control in over 5,000 feet of water? Yes, part of the reason is that it is a profitable endeavor. And, yes, another part of the reason probably is that BP used campaign contributions to make federal offshore drilling regulations less stringent than they should be.

But the real reason BP and other companies are drilling in the Gulf is because U.S. national security absolutely requires them to do so. The Congress has left Americans and their economy in front of a gun pointed at them by OPEC leaders, some of whom are U.S.-hating tyrants. As discussed here before, the Congress for nearly four decades has kept the United States dependent on oil sources we do not control, and for which we will fight to secure if production is seriously disrupted or stopped. Among such vital-to-the-U.S. producers are Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Nigeria. In 2012, in fact, we will get 20-percent of our crude oil from the Niger Delta.

Given this reality it is hard to make heads or tails of President Obama. The correct response to the BP disaster, I think, would have been “accidents happen,” especially when you are drilling in 5,000 feet of water with robotic equipment. Obama should have reassured Gulf Coast citizens about clean-up and stressed that criminal activity contributing to the leak would be prosecuted.

But he should also have explained to Americans that offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Pacific coast, and elsewhere is mandatory because his political predecessors failed to wean America from energy sources we do not control and for which we will have to fight if they are shut by war or political decisions. Most of all, Obama should have made a powerful appeal for public support for alternative and nuclear energy to prevent wars for oil, gain more control over our energy supply, and eventually negate the need for offshore drilling. This is an accurate, credible position and it would have been politically advantageous for Obama. It also is about the full extent of Obama’s — or any president’s — capabilities.

But instead the president came out snarling like a clone of Rahm Emmanuel; that is, he acted as an attack-dog/punk. He savaged BP and its executives, apparently encouraged his party members to do the same in Congress (where they were joined by the me-too Republicans), called for “kicking ass” like a teen-age bully, rallied anti-BP sentiment in the Gulf states, and strolled the Gulf Coast beaches looking for oil balls, dead fish, oil-fouled birds, and photo opportunities. This adds up to nothing in terms of stopping the leak or putting America on the road to energy security.

Then, tragically, Mr. Obama decided the United States was not hurt enough by the BP leak and so suspended drilling in the Gulf. Again, drilling in the Gulf and elsewhere offshore is absolutely necessary and will remain so for decades as we work for greater energy self-sufficiency. By halting Gulf drilling Mr. Obama simply put off the day when drilling can be ended for good. He also gave the extremist environmental lobby a powerful tool for preventing the resumption of drilling. If we know anything about Congress, we know that Obama’s drilling ban will hold because the legislators can now have it both ways: They can blame him for the ban while cynically sympathizing with both environmentalists and oil companies. Overall, Mr. Obama took a disaster and with support from his party, the Republicans, and the environment-crazed media made it worse.

Whatever Mr. Obama tells the American people about the BP leak on Tuesday night ought to include the hard truth that we are in this fix because of the near total failure of both parties to remove the threat foreign oil producers pose to our economy and national security. He must not simply draw and quarter BP — that firm is responsible for profit not U.S. national security — and he must not take the cheap and media-pleasing politician’s way out by trying to parlay the leak into some kind of U.S.-led, U.S. taxpayer-funded global environmental campaign. Indeed, Obama would be well advised to tell Americans he will launch an FBI investigation into any U.S. scientist or professor who is accused of deliberately falsifying or manipulating data used to justify the actions proposed at the 2009 Climate Summit.

Mr. Obama has a chance to do what no president or federal legislator has had the courage to do in nearly 40 years. He has an opportunity to use the bully pulpit to force America onto the road toward energy self-sufficiency and away from potential wars for oil. Mr. Obama also has a historic opportunity to perform, as did Theodore Roosevelt per Douglas Brinkley’s brilliant book, The Wilderness Warrior, as an able defender of the environment and as a common-sense user and steward of America’s natural resources. We will all see tomorrow night whether Mr. Obama’s “vision” for America amounts to anything more than getting elected and reelected.

Israel-First’s media shills moved quickly to destroy another defenseless target in the form of the octogenarian journalist, Ms. Helen Thomas. Too bad she had not been on a relief boat, they could have just shot her in the head.

Let me say, that I carry no brief for Ms. Thomas. Listening to her consistently Liberal-biased questions at the White House was always a trial and often migraine inducing. But the liberal and conservative journalists who formed a lynch mob after she said the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home to Germany, Poland, and America” shows the complete unity of the “unbiased” U.S. press corps when it comes to the topic of Israel. Ms. Thomas was hung because Israel’s interests required her hanging — no debate about U.S. support for Israel is permitted among Americans — and the media’s Israel-First U.S. citizens (or do they carry Israeli passports, too?) eagerly did the lynching.

About this event, people should read a story by Howard Kurtz called “Out of Questions” in the Washington Post (8 June 10). Kurtz says Ms. Thomas’s “hostility toward Israel has been no secret inside the Beltway,” which seems to mean the mass of Israel-First journalists with whom she shared a profession resented her opinion of Israel but lacked the manliness to confront her. They waited for a skulking Long Island Rabbi and his candid camera to set up Ms. Thomas and then slither home to put the tape on his website. They then piled on like the girly-men they are. For her fellow journalists, of course, Ms. Thomas’s views toward Israel were biased and hate-filled, whereas their own abject fawning over Israel is the way God planned things, and anyone who disagrees is preordained to get kicked by the boot the U.S.-citizen Israel-Firsters lick.

With his own skewering of Ms. Thomas, Kurtz adds quotes from a couple more first-team, Israel-First grovelers who had stepped to the plate to take swings at Ms. Thomas. From the so-called conservative side, the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg claimed “She’s [Ms. Thomas] always said crazy things,” insinuating Ms. Thomas always has been an enemy of Israel and/or that you have to be crazy not to love Israel and want America to fight its wars. From the liberal camp came the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg saying that “Helen Thomas offered the official Hamas position” — apparently accusing Ms. Thomas of being a terrorist is part of the lynchers’ toolkit. Kurtz finishes by quoting the New Republic’s Jonathan Chait who wrote in 2006 that Ms. Thomas was prone to “unhinged rants” such as asking “Why are we killing people in Iraq? Men, women, and children are being killed there. … It’s outrageous.” One would think it hard to judge this as a rant in that half of all Americans in 2006 were asking the same question. But then again the Iraq War was waged to protect Israel’s interests at the cost of thousands of dead Americans, and so, for Kurtz and Chait, anyone who questions the wisdom or cost of the Iraq war clearly is “ranting.” For all these Israel-First shills the bottom line is “Free speech be damned when it comes to Israel.”

Now, there is no reason that anyone should agree with Ms. Thomas’s words about Israel, or even pay any attention to them. But there is no basis for or justice in the way she was treated for speaking her mind. Having your ears seared and your stomach turned by things you do not want to hear is what free speech is about. Until the 1970s America’s public square was a wide open, raucous, intelligent, and fun. Today, however, it is hedged around by hate-talk police like Mr. Kurtz, et al who think if they can suppress the speech they find offensive and lynch the offenders we will have a much better world, or, more likely, a world which they in their genius approve.

Well, they are wrong. Efforts to suppress free speech, as in Ms. Thomas’s case, always backfire on the society they are mistakenly meant to perfect. That is why the Founders — who knew man cannot be perfected — wrote the First Amendment, and why they manfully absorbed attacks on themselves that far surpassed in venom anything that Ms. Thomas said about Israel. Anti-free speech efforts — like those the Israel-First fifth column specializes in — may for a time quiet people who prefer to avoid public vilification by the media’s lynching teams, but over time they will only harden minds and hearts. Indeed, the debates the hate-speech police and their laws mean to prevent will inevitably resurface in a more dangerous form, for when all issues cannot be openly, frankly, and even harshly debated and settled in the public square, violence always ensues.

Finally, in case you wondered who calls the shots in Washington, did you notice that neither the president, his cabinet, nor a single one of the 535 members of the federal legislature said a word in support of Ms. Thomas’s right to say what she thinks? Didn’t all these U.S. officials swear to “preserve, protect, and defend” the U.S. Constitution? Well, maybe they are just following orders.