On the September 28, 2014 edition of 60 Minutes, President Barack Obama spoke about his recent decision to commit American troops to fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“When trouble comes up anywhere in the world,” said Obama, “they don’t call Beijing. They don’t call Moscow. They call us.”
And, according to former CIA agent Michael Scheuer, that’s the problem: America can’t learn to mind its own business.
Scheuer is a 20-year CIA veteran–as well as an author, historian, foreign policy critic and political analyst.
Michael Scheuer
From 1996 to 1999 he headed Alec Station, the CIA’s unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden at the agency’s Counterterrorism Center.
He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies.
He’s also the author of two seminal works on America’s fight against terrorism:Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (2003) and Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq (2008).
Scheuer says that Islamics don’t hate Americans because of “our way of life”–with its freedoms of speech and worship and its highly secular, commercialized culture.
Instead, Islamic hatred toward the United States stems from America’s six longstanding policies in the Middle East:
- U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments
- U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula
- U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis’ thrall
- U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low
- U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan
- U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants
Scheuer contends that no amount of American propaganda will win “the hearts and minds” of Islamics who can “see, hear, experience, and hate” these policies firsthand.
But there is another danger facing America, says Scheuer, one that threatens “the core of our social and civil institutions.”
And in Marching Toward Hell he bluntly indicts that threat: The “profound and willful ignorance” of America’s “bipartisan governing elite.”
Scheuer defines this elite as “the inbred set of individuals who have influenced…drafted and conducted U.S. foreign policy” since 1973.
Within that group are:
- politicians
- journalists
- academics
- preachers
- civil servants
- military officers
- philanthropists.
“Some are Republicans, others Democrats; some are evangelicals, others atheists; some are militarists, others pacifists; some are purveyors of Western civilization, others are multiculturalists,” writes Scheuer.
But for all their political and/or philosophical differences, the members of this governing elite share one belief in common.
According to Scheuer, that belief is “an unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
And he warns that this “bipartisan governing elite” must radically change its policies–such as unconditional support for Israel and corrupt, tyrannical Muslim governments.
Otherwise, Americans will be locked in an endless “hot war” with the Islamic world.
During his September 28 appearance on 60 Minutes, President Obama admitted that the mostly Sunni-Muslim Iraqi army had refused to combat the Sunni army of ISIS.
Then followed this exchange:
Steve Kroft: What happens if the Iraqis don’t fight or can’t fight?
President Obama: Well…
Steve Kroft: What’s the end game?
President Obama: I’m not going to speculate on failure at the moment. We’re just getting started. Let’s see how they do.
It was precisely such a mindset that led the United States, step by step, into the Vietnam quagmire.
As in the case of Vietnam, the United States lacks:
- Real or worthwhile allies in Iraq or Syria;
- A working knowledge of the peoples it wants to influence in either country;
- Clearly-defined goals that it seeks to accomplish in that region.
America rushed to disaster in Vietnam because its foreign policy elite felt it had to “do something” to fight Communism anywhere in the world.
And it is continuing to rush toward disaster in the Middle East because its foreign policy elite once again feels is must “do something.”
During his interview with the “Today” show, Carl Mueller–the father of Kayla, who went to Syria to help Syrians caught up in their own civil war–said:
“How many mistakes have we all made in life that were naïve and didn’t get caught at? Kayla was just in a place that was more dangerous than most. And she couldn’t help herself. She had to go in there and had to help.”
But there were plenty of communities within the United States that could have used the help of a truly caring social activist. And plenty of organizations–such as Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), Habitat for Humanity and Catholic Relief Services–that would have been thrilled to have her services.
And she could have made lives better without constantly facing the dangers of kidnapping by Islamics determined to humiliate and slaughter Americans.
Michael Sheuer is right: The United States should learn to mind its own business and quit intervening in the affairs of Middle Eastern governments and peoples.
Kayla Mueller is proof of the rightness of that assertion.
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ILLEGAL ALIENS = UNRELIABLE ALLIES
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 26, 2015 at 3:07 pmSome Republicans–like Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah–want their new majorities in the House and Senate to make “producing legislation” a top priority.
But others will soon make the impeachment of President Barack Obama their top priority.
Here’s how it will happen.
“We now have the votes and we have the ability to call the agenda, so stop name-calling and let’s actually produce some legislation that helps jobs and the economy and moves our country forward,” Chaffetz said in an interview after Republicans captured the U.S. Senate on November 4, 2014.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz
“I think the country has figured that out, and they’ve given us the mandate to do it, and we better produce, or they’ll kick us out too.”
Obama has vowed to act unilaterally before year’s end to reduce the number of deportations and grant work permits to millions of illegal aliens living in the United States.
After promising to take executive action on immigration by the end of the summer of 2014, Obama delayed his plans until after the elections. Democrats–especially Senators from conservative states–had warned him that such administrative moves could threaten their reelection.
Illegal aliens crossing American borders by the millions
But on November 4, most of those Democrats lost anyway, leaving immigration advocates–and their millions of illegal alien constituents–feeling that the delay was needless.
“What I’m not going to do is just wait,” the president said as immigration legislation that the Senate passed in June 2013 remained stalled in the House.
Kentucky’s U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell–who became Senate Majority Leader in January–warned that this would be an in-your-face affront to the new majority GOP:
Mitch McConnell
“I think the president choosing to do a lot of things unilaterally on immigration would be a big mistake,” McConnell said. “It’s an issue that most of my members want to address legislatively and it’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull to say, ‘If you guys don’t do what I want, I’m going to do it on my own.’ …
“I hope he won’t do that because I do think it poisons the well for the opportunity to address a very important domestic issue.”
To which Obama responded: “I have no doubt that there will be some Republicans who are angered or frustrated by any executive action that I may take.
“Those are folks, I just have to say, who are also deeply opposed to immigration reform in any form and blocked the House from being able to pass a bipartisan bill.”
Barack Obama
Republicans could use spending bills to restrict or stop such executive action, by cutting appropriations to those agencies that would be tasked with carrying out Obama’s directives on immigration.
Several Republicans hold the deep-seated view that Obama already has been abusing his constitutional authority.
“Abuse of power” is an impeachable offense under the United States Constitution. So making this assertion would provide Republicans with the weapon they’ve long sought to drive Obama from the White House.
Republicans, in fact, have a tainted history of using impeachment to remove a President who dared to thwart their agenda.
After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, in 1865, Republican President Andrew Johnson tried to carry out Lincoln’s humane policies to reunify the nation after the Civil War.
He issued a series of proclamations directing the former Confederate states to hold conventions and elections to re-form their civil governments. In response, Southern states returned many of their old leaders, and passed Black Codes to deprive freed slaves of many civil liberties.
Andrew Johnson
Congress refused to seat legislators from those states and advanced legislation to overrule the Southern actions. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congress overrode him, setting a pattern until he left the White House in 1869.
As the conflict grew between the executive and legislative branches of government, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, restricting Johnson in firing Cabinet officials. Johnson then tried to fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton–with whom he had an antagonistic relationship.
An enraged Congress impeached Johnson in the House of Representatives. He avoided conviction and removal from office in the Senate–by one vote.
If President Obama tries to end-run Congress on immigration policy, history will likely repeat itself with another round of impeachment hearings.
It was Mitch McConnell who infamously vowed–immediately after Obama’s election in 2008–to make him “a one-term President.”
Moreover, there is actually no reason for Obama to risk his Presidency by granting the privileges of American citizenship to millions of illegal aliens.
Democrats–and especially Obama–had counted on millions of illegal aliens to retain Democratic control of the Senate. But those masses of Hispanic voters never showed up at the polls, thus giving Republicans control of both houses of Congress.
If Obama practiced ruthless “Chicago politics” as charged by his enemies, his response would be: “You [illegal aliens] didn’t live up to your end. Therefore, I have no further responsibility to you.”
Unfortunately for the President, he seems unable to break with his past of backing unpopular causes for little in return.
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