According to Micheal Scheuer, America needs to end its role as Israel’s permanent bodyguard.
Scheuer is a 20-year CIA veteran–as well as an author, historian, foreign policy critic and political analyst.
Testifying before the House Committee on Homeland Security on October 9, 2013, Scheuer warned:
“If it was up to me, I’d dump the Israelis tomorrow. All I worry about is that continuing preaching of American politicians to the American people that our relationship with the Israelis doesn’t cause us to have dead Americans and extraordinary expenses in fighting the Muslim world.”
Michael Scheuer
For decades, the United States has pursued two policies in the Middle East, one based on relations with the Arab world and the other based on relations with Israel.
Policy 1: Maintaining access to vast amounts of Arab oil at low prices.
Policy 2: Maintaining the security of Israel.
Since the Arabs and Israelis hate each other, each side constantly tries to sway American support in its direction.
Every step the United States takes to defend Israel–diplomatically or militarily–ignites hatred of Americans among Islamics.
And every step–diplomatically or militarily–the United States takes to improve its relations with Islamic countries convinces Israelis that they’re being “sold out.”
President George W. Bush tilted strongly toward Israel. That convinced Israelis to go on building settlements in occupied Arab territory–and alienated the Arabs.
President Barack Obama, seeking a balanced approach, leaned heavily on Israel to stop building settlements. Israel has continued doing so–thus alienating the Israelis while leaving the Arabs enraged.
In short: The United States is like a giant who has one foot stuck in Israel and the other stuck in any Islamic country–leaving his private parts fully exposed to whichever side wants to take a shot at them.
This is not to deny that Israel has a right to exist. Every nation--including Israel–has the absolute right to defend itself from aggression.
But no nation–including Israel–should have the right to expect another nation to act as its permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust. America, however, was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.
But there is another reason many Americans feel committed to Israel. And it has nothing to do with concern for the fates of Israelis.
It lies in the mythology of the Christian Right: Many fundamentalist Christians believe that, for Jesus Christ to awaken from his 2,000-year slumber, Israel must first re-conquer every inch of territory it supposedly held during the reign of Kings David and Solomon.
Right-wing Christian fantasy: Dead man hovering
After Christ returns, they believe, the Jews will face a choice: Become Christians or go to hell. For evangelical Christians, Jews remain the eternal “Christ killers.”
And if Jews must assume temporary control of the Middle East to bring about the return of a man who died 2,000 years ago, so be it.
This is also the view of many Right-wing members of the House of Representatives and Senate. Clearly, people who hold such totally irrational views shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office.
Unfortunately, such unbalanced views are shared by millions of equally irrational evangelical Christians.
During his appearance before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael Scheuer absolutely rejected the conservatives’ assertion that jihadists wage war on us because they “hate us for our freedoms.”
SCHEUER: These people are fighting for something substantive, for something religious. ….They are not going to fight us because we have women in the workplace.
That is an insanity. What they are fighting us about is what we do.
…I would draw your attention to the reality that, to the best of my knowledge, neither we nor any of our NATO partners have yet to capture a Western Islamist fighter whose words or documents have shown a motivation to attack based on hatred for liberty, elections or gender equality.
Invariably, they attribute their motivation to U.S. and Western military intervention and support for Israel and Muslim tyrannies.
Scheuer’s take on Israel brought him into direct conflict with Rep. Peter T. King (R-New York).
Congressman Peter T. King
KING: I would just say we would have more dead Americans if we didn’t stand by our allies in the Middle East. We would just be encourage al-Qaeda to take advantage of us.
SCHEUER: You know, you are presiding over a bankruptcy. What can be worse? What has been the goal of al-Qaeda since it was formed? To bankrupt the United States.
Who is winning today, sir? We are done like dinner.
KING: We are winning and we will continue to win unless we take the advice of people like you.
SCHEUER: Sir, you are exactly wrong. We are losing. Two U.S. field armies were defeated by men in the field with weapons from the Korean War.
KING: The fact is we have not been successfully attacked since September 11.
SCHEUER: The fact is, sir, we have had two military defeats overseas, which is far more important.
And, warns Scheuer, more defeats–domestic and international–lie ahead unless the United States radically changes its policies toward the Middle East.
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GETTING HELP FROM YOUR ENEMIES: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 20, 2015 at 1:00 amSometimes your worst enemies aid you in ways you could never help yourself.
From July 10 to October 31, 1940, hundreds of badly-outnumbered pilots of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) fought off relentless attacks by Germany’s feared Luftwaffe.
For Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, it was a major setback.
He was forced to concede that he lacked the strength to destroy the British air force–thus making it possible for his navy to land German troop on English soil.
But Hitler wasn’t prepared to give up. He believed he could so terrorize Britons that they would demand that their government submit to German surrender demands.
From September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe subjected England–and especially London–to a ruthless bombing campaign that became known as The Blitz.
The undamaged St. Paul’s Cathredal, December, 1940
More than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities. During 267 days (almost 37 weeks):
Between 40,000 and 43,000 British civilians were killed. About 139,000 others were wounded.
“London can take it” went the British slogan. But, in the United States, Americans–including President Franklin D. Roosevelt–wondered: For how much longer?
Clearly, what Great Britain desperately needed most was a miracle.
Exactly that happened on June 22, 1941.
With 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin, the longtime Soviet dictator, was stunned. The invasion had come less than two years after Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
Hitler had turned on his partner-in-crime. The two dictators had greedily split Poland between them when Hitler launched his invasion on September 1, 1939.
Now they were locked in a fight to the death.
People in England were also surprised–but also suddenly hopeful. Britain now had an ally whose resources might tip the balance against Hitler.
In the United States, then-Senator Harry S. Truman spoke for many Americans when he said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis and vice versa.”
Today the United States faces just such an opportunity.
In Syria, two of America’s most deadly enemies are now waging war–with each other.
Yes, it’s Hezbollah (Party of God) vs. Al-Qaeda (The Base).
United Nations officials estimate that more than 70,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war since conflict began on March 15, 2011. The trigger: Protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Hezbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims, who form a minority of Islamics. A sworn enemy of Israel, it has kidnapped scores of Americans suicidal enough to visit Lebanon and truck-bombed the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 299 Americans.
Flag of Hezbollah
Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, is made up of Sunni Muslims, who form the majority of that religion. It is intolerent of non-Sunni Muslims and has instigated violence against them. It denounces them as “takfirs”–heretics–and thus worthy of extermination.
Al-Qaeda has attacked the mosques and gatherings of liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other non-Sunnis. Examples of sectarian attacks include the Sadr City bombings, the 2004 Ashoura massacre and the April, 2007 Baghdad bombings.
Flag of Al-Qaeda
On one side is the Ba’ath regime of Bashir al-Assad, whose allies include Russia, Iran, Hezbullah, and elements in the Iraqi government.
On the other side are a host of Syrians and thousands of foreign Sunni fighters some of whom have affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
And now that civil war has spread into neighborhing Lebanon.
On January 2, 2014, at least four people were killed and 77 injured when a car bomb exploded in a residential neighborhood in southern Beirut.
The Shiite-dominated district, Haret Hreik, is known as a Hezbollah stronghold.
Two days later, an Al-Qaeda linked group claimed responsibility for the attack.
At a press conference for President Barack Obama on March 20, 2013, a reporter asked:
“Morally, how is it possible that for the last two years, tens of thousands of innocent civilians [in Syria] are being massacred and no one–the world, the United States and you–are doing anything to stop it immediately?”
That is entirely the wrong way to view this conflict.
There are solidly practical reasons why the United States should avoid this bloodfest–while cheering on each of its mortal enemies to do its worst.
First, the United States only recently disengaged from Iraq.
On Dec. 15, 2011, the American military formally ended its mission there. The war–begun in 2003–had cost the lives of 4,487 service members, with another 32,226 wounded.
Second, the war in Iraq fell victim to the law of unintended consequences.
The Bush administration invaded Iraq to turn it into a base–from which to intimidate its neighboring states: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Syria and Iran.
But while Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had been a counter-weight to the regional ambitions of Iran, the destruction of the Iraqi military created a power vacuum. Into this–eagerly–stepped the Iranian mullahs.
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