Posts Tagged ‘MUSLIMS’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 4, 2016 at 12:04 am
For America to avoid permanent military entanglements in the Middle East, it must learn to mind its own business.
So says Michael Scheuer, a 20-year CIA veteran who, from 1996 to 1999, headed Alec Station, the CIA’s unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden at the agency’s Counterterrorism Center.
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 has repeatedly warned: The United States must not deploy troops in Syria.
More than 310,000 people have been killed in Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war. The conflict began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
And many members of Congress are demanding that “we must do something” to stop all that killing.
Three reasons have already been given for why America should steer clear of the Syrian tar-baby. Among the others:
Fourth, the Assad regime is backed by–among others–the Iranian-supported terrorist group, Hezbollah (Party of God). Its enemies include another terrorist group–Al Qaeda.
Hezbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims. 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. Besides plotting 9/11, It has attacked the mosques and gatherings of liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other non-Sunnis.
Examples of these sectarian attacks include the Sadr City bombings, the 2004 Ashoura massacre and the April, 2007 Baghdad bombings.
Flag of Al Qaeda
When your enemies are intent on killing each other, it’s best to stand aside and let them do it.
Fifth, intervening in Syria could produce unintended consequences for American forces–and make the United States a target for more Islamic terrorism.
President Obama has repeatedly said American warplanes are targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). But bombing is never as accurate as its proponents insist.
An accidental American strike on Syrian government forces could lead the country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to attack Israel–perhaps even with chemical weapons.
Assad could do this simply because he hates Jews–or to lure Israel into attacking Syria.
If that happened, the Islamic world–which lusts to destroy Israelis even more than “apostate” Muslims–would rally to Syria against the United States, Israel’s chief ally.
Sixth, the United States cannot defeat ISIL through air power alone.
President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes against ISIL in September, 2014. Since then, the United States Air Force has dropped thousands of bombs on ISIL convoys.
This has not, however, destroyed ISIL. And its failure to do so has only led to demands by hawkish Republicans and Democrats for “boots on the ground.”
This was in fact predictable. Air power alone failed to secure victory over Nazi Germany during World War II and Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Nor did it “shock and awe” the Iraqis into surrendering during the 2003 Iraq war.
Seventh, while Islamic nations like Syria and Iraq wage war within their own borders, they will lack the resources to launch attacks against the United States.
When Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, then-Senator Harry Truman said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis and vice versa.”
That should be America’s view whenever its sworn enemies start killing themselves off. Americans should welcome such self-slaughters, not become entrapped in them.
Eighth, China and Russia are fully supporting the Assad dictatorship–-and the brutalities it commits against its own citizens.
Any move by the United States to directly attack the Assad regime could ignite an all-out war with Russia and/or China.
What happens if American and Russian forces start trading salvos? Or if Russian President Vladimir Putin orders an attack on Israel, in return for America’s attack on Russia’s ally, Syria?
It was exactly that scenario–Great Powers going to war over conflicts between their small-state allies–that triggered World War l.
Ninth, America’s past efforts in the Middle East have usually gone horribly awry.
Two examples should suffice:
Iran: Mohammad Mosaddegh was the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953. His decision to nationalize the Iranian oil industry led to his overthrow in a CIA coup.
He was replaced by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled until 1979 when a national upheaval forced him to flee. Iranians have never forgiven the United States for subjecting them to the 25-year reign of a brutal despot.
Shah of Iran
Afghanistan: In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. America began supplying shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan Mujahideen fighters. These shifted the balance of the war to the Afghans, who brought down countless Soviet airplanes and helicopters.
Deprived of air supremacy, the Soviet Army lost 14,453 killed and 53,753 wounded, and withdrew by 1989.
Americans congratulated themselves on their Realpolitic. But many of the Stingers remained in the hands of jihadists–who decided that America was now “The Great Satan.” One of those jihadists: Osama bin Laden.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 3, 2016 at 12:02 am
According to Micheal Scheuer, for all their ideological differences, Republicans and Democrats share one belief in common:
“An unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
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.
And he’s convinced that if America wants peace, it must learn to mind its own business.
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; and
- 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: “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.
On September 28, 2014, President Barack Obama provided an example of this “unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
In an appearance on 60 Minutes, Obama spoke about his recent decision to commit American troops to fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Steve Kroft: I think everybody applauds the efforts that you’ve made and the size of the coalition that has been assembled.
But most of them are contributing money or training or policing the borders, not getting particularly close to the contact. It looks like once again we are leading the operation. We are carrying…
President Obama: Steve, that’s always the case. That’s always the case. America leads. We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world.
And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don’t call Beijing. They don’t call Moscow. They call us. That’s the deal.
President Barack Obama
Steve Kroft: I mean, it looks like we are doing 90%.
President Obama: Steve…when there’s an earthquake in Haiti, take a look at who’s leading the charge making sure Haiti can rebuild. That’s how we roll. And that’s what makes this America.
Scheuer believes that America shouldn’t be the world’s 9-1-1 number. And that the place to start is by not deploying troops to Syria.
More than 470,000 people have been killed in Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war. The conflict began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Among the reasons why America should steer clear of the Syrian bloodbath:
First, since 1979, the U.S. State Department has listed Syria as a sponsor of terrorism.
Among the terrorist groups it supports: Hizbollah and Hamas. For years, Syria provided a safehouse in Damascus to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–-the notorious terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal.
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–“Carlos the Jackal”
Second, there are no “good Syrians” for the United States to support–-only murderers who have long served a tyrant and other murderers who now wish to become the next tyrant.
Third, the United States doesn’t know what it wants to do in Syria, except “send a message.”
Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theorist, wrote: “War is the continuation of state policy by other means.” But President Barack Obama hasn’t stated what his “state policy” is toward Syria–or what he intends to gain by attacking it.
Obama has said he’s “not after regime-change.” If true, that would leave Assad in power–-and free to go on killing those who resist his rule.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 22, 2016 at 12:04 am
Americans are suckers for children.
Even if many of them might come wrapped in suicide vests.
On September 2, 2015, the body of a three-year old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey.
He and his family had boarded a small rubber boat to reach Europe amid the carnage of the Syrian civil war. The boat capsized.
The resulting photo flashed around the world and triggered international demands by humanitarian organizations that the West “do something.”
Drowned Alan Kurdi lies on a Turkish beach
Only eight days later, on September 10, 2015, the Obama administration announced that it would take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrian refugees over the next year.
That was in addition to the 2,000 Islamic refugees the United States had already accepted.
Almost one year later–on August 17, 2016–another photo captured the world’s attention.
It depicted a five-year-old Syrian boy named Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance. Covered head to toe in dust, his face bloodied, he seemed dazed. He had been pulled out of a building hit by an airstrike in Aleppo, Syria.
Once again, demands arose among liberal interventionists, especially in the United States: “We must do something.”
All of which overlooks the increasing threat posed to the United States by Islamic terrorism.
According to U.S. Census data, America legally welcomes about 100,000 Muslim immigrants each year. This represents the fastest growing segment of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are 2.5 million Islamics in the United States. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts the figure at seven million.
The Troubling Math of Muslim Migration | National Review Online
Meanwhile, the FBI is being overwhelmed by the demands of countering Islamic terrorism against the United States.
On July 8, 2015, FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the increasing burdens his agency faces in combating terrorism.
“We are stopping these things [Islamic terror plots] so far through tremendous hard work, the use of sources, the use of online undercovers.
“But it is incredibly difficult. I cannot see my [agency’s] stopping these [plots] indefinitely.”
The FBI has only 35,000 agents and analysts–against seven million potential suspects. And only a portion of those agents and analysts are charged with investigating terrorism.
And even children, for all their supposed innocence, are not to be ignored as potential weapons of Islamic terrorist organizations.
On August 20, a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 attacked a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey, killing at least 51 people.
Preliminary evidence indicates that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was behind the attack.
Palestinian child suicide bomber
America may well become a similar target for child suicide bombers.
How did all of this come to be?
On March 15, 2011, protests broke out in Syria, with demonstrators demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
These protests, met with government repression, continued to grow into a wholesale civil war.
By April 23, 2016, the United Nations estimated that 400,000 Syrians had so far died in the conflict.
Put another way:
- More than 400,000 potential or actual Islamic terrorists will never again pose a threat to the United States or Western Europe.
- Additional thousands are certain to follow their example.
- And the United States cannot be held in any way responsible for it.
But Americans and Europeans have chosen to see these positives as negatives.
The United Nations refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates that 366,402 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in 2015.
And while the West has thrown open its doors to fleeing Syrians, the reaction of neighboring Islamic nations has been entirely different.
This was brutally but accurately depicted in a cartoon of wealthy Arab rulers looking on indifferently at the body of Alan Kurdi.
While European nations are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of these uninvited “guests,” the Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing almost nothing for Syria’s refugees.
According to Amnesty International, the “six Gulf countries–Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain–have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”
These nations are far closer to Syria than are Europe and the United States. And they contain some of the Arab world’s largest military budgets and its highest standards of living.
Note the contradiction: Democratic, non-Islamic countries are exposing themselves to increasing numbers of potential–if not actual–Islamic terrorists.
Meanwhile, the Arab world–awash in petrodollars and land–is closing its own doors to Syrian refugees
The Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing next to nothing for Syria’s refugees – The Washington Post
* * * * *
During the 1980s, the United States waged a cold war against Islamic nations. Their acts of anti-American terrorism were seen as simply crimes, and not acts of war.
The September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center changed that. For the last 15 years, the United States military has actively fought Islamics in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. And now Syria.
To be admitting huge numbers of a population with which the United States is now waging all-out war is worse than stupid. It is a guarantee of national suicide.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2016 at 12:42 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohem, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohem
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohem, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohem’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohem–or they would get rid of him.
So Rohem died in a hail of SS bullets–as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
At least one member of the Republican Party has now learned that an apparently useful weapon can become a liability.
Ever since Barack Obama became a Presidential candidate in 2008, Republicans have accused him of being ineligible to hold office.
Without a political scandal (such as Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky) to fasten on, the Republican Party opted for slander: Obama had been born in Kenya–and thus was not an American citizen.
From this there could be only one conclusion: That he would be an illegitimate President–and should be removed from office if elected.
And this smear campaign continued after he won the election. Right-wingers like real estate billionaire Donald Trump insisted that Obama had been born in Kenya, not Honolulu.
During his first two years in office, Obama tried to ignore the charge.
But polls repeatedly showed that large segments of the country believed it. Finally, even Obama’s closest advisers warned him: You must address this and put it to rest.
So, on April 27, 2011, the President released the long-form of his Hawaii birth certificate.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
For the vast majority of Americans, this settled the issue. In 2012, they re-elected Obama to a second, four-year term.
Nevertheless, for many Right-wingers, even the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate meant nothing.
Joseph Arpaio, the Right-wing sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, claimed that his “investigators” were certain that Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent.
Responding to Arpaio’s claims, Joshua A. Wisch, a special assistant to Hawaii’s attorney general, said: “President Obama was born in Honolulu, and his birth certificate is valid. Regarding the latest allegations from a sheriff in Arizona, they are untrue, misinformed and misconstrue Hawaii law.”
Fast forward to 2015.
Donald Trump, who had threatened to run for President in 2012, announced his candidacy on June 16. He quickly became–and remained–the front-runner for Republican voters.
But then Texas’ United States Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz entered the race. As radical and ruthless as Trump, he quickly became the billionaire’s most dangerous competitor.
Rafael “Ted” Cruz
What to do?
Then Trump–or someone in his campaign–had an inspiration. Why not use against Cruz the same “he’s-not-an-American” charge that had been used against Obama?
Cruz, born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was not a natural-born American citizen–and was thus ineligible to be President. His mother was an American, but his father was Cuban.
The U.S. Constitution states specifically that “No person except a natural born Citizen …shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Cruz argued that because his mother was an American, he became an American citizen at birth.
But courts have never ruled on the issue of what constitutes a “natural-born” citizen.
At first, the issue seemed confined to Republican politicians and those likely to vote for them. But then others outside the Right began investigating it.
Mary McManamon, a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School, concluded in an Open Editorial for The Washington Post:
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.”
Cruz got an even bigger slap in the face from Laurence Tribe, the celebrated professor of Constitutional law at Harvard University. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court 36 times.
Writing in The Boston Globe, Tribe stated:
“…The kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the Supreme Court is an ‘originalist,’ one who claims to be bound by the narrowly historical meaning of the Constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption.
“To his kind of judge, Cruz ironically wouldn’t be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and ’90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a “natural born” citizen.” [Italics added.]
So long as Cruz stayed in the race, Trump continued to use the “birther” charge against him. And it continued to dog him, as it did Obama.
Thus, the evil that politicians do lives after them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 3, 2016 at 12:05 am
Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump recently attacked the integrity of the parents of an Army captain who died heroically in Iraq in 2004.
For this, he has taken heavy fire from Democrats, veterans organizations and even his fellow Republicans.
But an even more damning assessment comes from Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesman whose two great works on politics–The Prince and The Discourses–remain textbooks for successful politicians more than 500 years later.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Consider Trump’s notoriety for hurling insults at virtually everyone, including:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Muslims
- Blacks
- The Disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-War
These insults delight his white, under-educated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.
Machiavelli, on the other hand, advises leaders to refrain from gratuitous insults:
- “I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
- “For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy–but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
And Trump’s reaction to the criticism he’s received?
“I can be Presidential, but if I was Presidential I would only have–about 20% of you would be here because it would be boring as hell, I will say,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Superior, Wisconsin.
For those who expect Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli has a stern warning:
- “…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure.
- “No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it…
- “For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.”
Then there is Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied;
“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
This totally contrasts with the advice given by Machiavelli:
- “A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.
- “But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”
And Machiavelli offers a related warning on the advising of rulers: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.
During the fifth GOP debate in the Presidential sweepstakes, host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump this question:
“Mr. Trump, Dr. [Ben] Carson just referenced the single most important job of the president, the command and the care of our nuclear forces. And he mentioned the triad.
“The B-52s are older than I am. The missiles are old. The submarines are aging out. It’s an executive order. It’s a commander-in-chief decision.
“What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?”
[The triad refers to America’s land-, sea- and air-based systems for delivering nuclear missiles and bombs.]
Nuclear missile in silo
Trump’s reply: “Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important.”
He then digressed to his having called the Iraq invasion a mistake in 2003 and 2004. Finally he came back on topic:
“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame.
“The biggest problem we have today is nuclear–nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. I think to me, nuclear, is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”
Which brings us back to Machiavelli:
- “…Some think that a prince who gains the reputation of being prudent [owes this to] the good counselors he has about him; they are undoubtedly deceived.
- “It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”
All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn, if he could witness American politics today: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 2, 2016 at 12:02 am
“He appeared to need enemies the way other men need friends, and his conduct assured that he would always have plenty of them.”
So wrote William Manchester about General Douglas MacArthur in his monumental 1978 biography, American Caesar. But he could have written just as accurately about Donald Trump, the businessman-turned-Republican-Presidential-nominee.
Since July 28, Trump has found himself embroiled in a no-win war-of-words with the parents of an American Army captain killed in Iraq in 2004. And the battle shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
Humayun Khan served as a captain in the U.S. Army. On June 8, 2004, a vehicle packed with explosives approached his compound in Iraq.
Khan ordered his men to seek cover as he ran toward it. Suddenly, the car exploded, killing Khan instantly. He was awarded the Bronze Star posthumously.
On July 28, his father, Khizr, was a featured speaker at the Democratic National Convention. With his wife, Ghazala, standing at his side, he made a blistering attack on Trump:
“We are honored to stand here as the parents of Captain Humayun Khan, and as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.
Khizr Khan
“If it was up to Donald Trump, [Humayun] never would have been in America,” Khan said. “Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country.
“Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.”
Pulling a copy of the Constitution from his pocket he said: “In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law.’
“You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”
On July 29, the Khans appeared in an interview on MSNBC’s The Last Word. Khan appealed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to “repudiate Trump.”
Trump predictably responded during a July 30 interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
“Who wrote that?” he demanded of Khan’s speech. “Did Hillary’s script writers write it?”
(According to Politico, Khan declined the use of a speechwriter.)
Donald Trump
“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” said Trump. “I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs.”
“Those are sacrifices?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“Sure. I think they’re sacrifices. I think when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things.”
Trump implied that Khan’s wife may not have been allowed to speak because of her religion.
Ghazala Khan subsequently retorted in an interview that she had been invited to speak but was too upset to do so.
On July 31, Khizr Khan said on CNN’s State of the Union that Trump had a “black soul.”
That same day, Trump took to Twitter:
“Captain Khan, killed 12 years ago, was a hero, but this is about RADICAL ISLAMIC TERROR and the weakness of our ‘leaders’ to eradicate it!”
And: “I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!”
On August 1, Khan appeared on NBC’s Today Show: “This candidate amazes me. His ignorance–he can get up and malign the entire nation, the religions, the communities, the minorities, the judges and yet a private citizen in this political process. … I cannot say what I feel?”
The same day, Trump responded on Twitter:
“Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same – Nice!”
And again: “This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart!”
The exchange hasn’t hurt the Khans. But it has inflicted heavy damage on Trump.
Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain–himself a seven-year prisoner of North Vietnam during the Vietnam war–said:
“In recent days, Donald Trump disparaged a fallen soldier’s parents. He has suggested that the likes of their son should not be allowed in the United States–to say nothing of entering its service.
John McCain
“I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trump’s statement. I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates.”
The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), one of the largest and oldest veterans organizations in the country, released its own statement:
“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression. There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed.
“Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard.”
ABC NEWS, ANCIENT GREECE, ASIANS, AUBREY DE SELINCOURT, BERNIE SANDERS, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CIA, CNN, CYBERSECURITY, DALLAS MORNING NEWS, DEBBIE WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ, DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, DONALD TRUMP, ELIZABETH WARREN, FACEBOOK, GEORGE W. BUSH, HERODOTUS, HILLARY CLINTON, HUBRIS, MARCO RUBIO, MEXICANS, MICHAEL HAYDEN, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PAUL RYAN, PRISONERS OF WAR, RUSSIA, TED CRUZ, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WIKILEAKS, WOMEN
In History, Military, Politics on August 1, 2016 at 1:13 am
Donald Trump has changed Presidential campaigning–perhaps forever.
First, He has made angry and brutal attacks on a wide range of persons and organizations–including his fellow Republicans, journalists, news organizations, other countries and even celebrities who have nothing to do with politics.
Among those groups–and the insults Trump has leveled at them:
- Mexicans
- Prisoners-of-War
- Blacks
Second, he has weaponized social media. He has made Twitter an essential arm of his campaign, swiftly insulting his opponents and keeping them constantly off-balance. He has proved himself a master at the tabloid news culture and thoroughly in tune with his target audience.
Third, since announcing his candidacy on June 16, 2015, he has gotten a year’s worth of free media publicity. This has nothing to do with a networks’ conspiracy to favor Trump.
Instead, it owes to the media’s lust for sensational copy. And scenes of conflict–such as making brutal attacks on others–generate huge viewership.
This has been most apparent in debates, during which he belittled his Republican opponents with insulting nicknames.
- “Little Marco” – Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
- “Goofy” – Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
- “Lyin’ Ted” – Texas U.S. Senator Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz
And looking beyond the Republican primary cycle, he created one for his future Democratic antagonist: “Crooked Hillary”–Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State.
Political pundits have marveled at Trump’s ability to cast aside the long-held niceties of political discourse and not have to pay an electoral price for it. But that time may be coming to an end.
On July 22, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Cyber-security experts believe the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may well have authorized it.
The emails revealed the DNC’s bias for Clinton for President. And they showed clear animosity toward her lone challenger, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
Sanders’ supporters had long charged that the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, were plotting to undercut his campaign. Now thousands of them were descending on the Democratic nominating convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as furious protesters.
Five days later, on July 27, Trump held a press conference in Doral, Florida. Always ready to pounce on any perceived sign of weakness, he aimed yet another attack on Clinton:
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Trump hoped to score points on Hillary Clinton’s using a private email server as Secretary of State. Instead, he ignited criticism–of himself–on both Left and Right.
“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” said Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s chief foreign policy adviser. “This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was equally quick to react: “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug,” said Brendan Buck, Ryan’s spokesman. “Putin should stay out of this election.”
“If he is talking about the State Department emails on her server, he is inviting a foreign intelligence service to steal sensitive American government information,” said Michael Hayden, head of the CIA under President George W. Bush.
“In addition to its implications for national security today,” wrote Benjy Sarlin, political reporter for MSNBC, “the incident raised disturbing questions about how Trump would govern as president. If a leader is willing to turn to ask foreign spy agencies to target a political opponent, what would he ask of his own spy agencies?”
The avalanche of criticism has led Trump to claim: “I was only being sarcastic.”
Only his most hardcore followers seem to believe it.
Since the end of World War II, the Republican party has taken an intensely anti-Communist stance. Now its nominee for President has not only exchanged compliments with an ex-KGB agent but has even invited him to target his Democratic opponent.
For at least one normally conservative newspaper, that’s simply too much. In a July 27 editorial, The Dallas Morning News declared:
“Words have meaning. The world is listening. And what the world is hearing is a man demonstrating that he is unfit to sit in the Oval Office.”
The ancient Greeks believed hubris–overweening pride–to be the greatest of sins. And, they warned, it was usually punished by divine wrath.
In his book, The World of Herodotus, Aubrey de Selincourt writes that the Greek historian filled his book, The Histories, with “stories of the perils of pride–pride of wealth, pride of power, pride of success, and, deadliest of all, the pride which leads a man to forget that he is a nothing in the sight of the gods.”
Trump has long boasted of his wealth, power and success. Perhaps his time of reckoning has finally arrived.
2001 ATTACKS, ABC NEWS, AFGHANISTAN, ALAN KURDI, CBS NEWS, CNN, DRIVER'S LICENSES, FACEBOOK, FBI, IRAQ, ISALM, ISLAMICS, JAMES COMEY, KUWAIT, LIBYA, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PENTAGON, PEW RESEARCH CENTER, QTAR, REAL ID ACT, RELIGION, SAUDI ARABIA, SEPTEMBER 11, SYRIA, TERRORISM, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRANSPORTATION SAFETY ADMINISTRATION, TWITTER, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UPI, USA TODAY, WORLD TRADE CENTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 15, 2016 at 12:02 am
Starting in 2016, traveling by air in the United States became more complicated.
In 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act as a counter-terrorism measure. Its goal was to set security standards for government-issued IDs.
The Act started to be introduced in late 2013. Now in the last phase of its implementation, its enforcers have decided that some states haven’t complied with its requirements.
As a result, driver’s licenses from those states will no longer suffice to pass through airport security. And that includes domestic flights as well as international ones.
Those states: New York, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Louisiana and American Samoa.
The reason: Licenses issued by those states don’t contain enough identifying information to pass muster with the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA).
So how are residents of these states supposed to cope? The Federal Government is advising them to get a passport.
Your old New York driver’s license may make it harder for you to fly in 2016 | syracuse.com
And this, in turn, carries an illogic all its own. As one soon-to-be affected New York traveler outlined:
“To get a passport I’ll first need to get a certified copy of my birth certifcate.
“And to get a copy of my birth certificate I need only to submit a copy of my driver’s license. A copy, no face-to-face, is-that-really you?
“So a New York driver’s license isn’t good enough for flying but it is good enough to get a birth certificate, whch gets me a passport, which allows me to fly.”
Got all that?
Sample state ID card that’s acceptable under the Real ID Act
And while TSA is beefing up security at the back door, the Obama administration is casting aside the front door.
On September 10, 2015, the administration announced that it would accept at least 10,000 displaced Syrians over the next year.
That is in addition to the 2,000 Islamic refugees the United States has already accepted.
According to U.S. Census data, America welcomes about 100,000 Muslim immigrants legally each year. This represents the fastest growing segment of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are 2.5 million Islamics in the United States. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts the figure at seven million.
The Troubling Math of Muslim Migration | National Review Online
And while all this is happening, the FBI is being overwhelmed by the demands of countering Islamic terrorism against the United States.
On July 8, 2015, FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the increasing burdens his agency faces in combating terrorism.
“We are stopping these things [Islamic terror plots] so far through tremendous hard work, the use of sources, the use of online undercovers.
“But it is incredibly difficult. I cannot see my stopping these indefinitely.”
Consider the math: The FBI has only 35,000 agents and analysts–against seven million potential suspects.
And only a portion of those agents and analysts are charged with investigating terrorism.
How did all of this come to be?
To start at the beginning: On March 15, 2011, protests broke out in Syria, with demonstrators demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
These protests, met with government repression, continued to grow into a wholesale civil war. Since then, more than 470,000 Syrians people have been killed.
Put another way: More than 470,000 potential or actual Islamic terrorists will never again pose a threat to the United States or Western Europe.
But European nations and the United States have chosen to see this truth as a negative, not a positive.
More than a million Islamic migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015.
And all it took to make this happen was a photo that’s been seen the world over: A photo of a three-year old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi, lying dead on a Turkish beach.
A cartoon parody of this picture showed a group of wealthy Arab rulers looking on indifferently at Kurdi’s body.
It also highlighted a Politically Incorrect truth:
While European nations are being swamped by hundreds of thousands of these uninvited “guests,” the Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing almost nothing for Syria’s refugees.
According to Amnesty International, the “six Gulf countries–Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain–have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”
These nations are far closer to Syria than are Europe and the United States. And they contain some of the Arab world’s largest military budgets and its highest standards of living.
Note the contradiction: Democratic, non-Islamic countries are exposing themselves to increasing numbers of potential–if not actual–Islamic terrorists. Meanwhile, the Arab world has closed its own doors to Syrian refugees
The Arab world’s wealthiest nations are doing next to nothing for Syria’s refugees – The Washington Post
* * * * *
During the 1980s, the United States government considered Islamic acts of anti-American terrorism as simply crimes, and not acts of war.
The September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center changed that. For almost 15 years, the United States military has actively fought Islamics in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.
To be admitting huge numbers of a population with which the United States is now waging all-out war is worse than stupid. It is a guarantee of national suicide.
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PETE SEEGER, PROPAGANDA, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SCAPEGOATING, SHARIA LAW, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 23, 2016 at 12:05 am
Republicans and their Rightist allies have repeatedly compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. But their propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H1216-0500-002 / CC-BY-SA, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
In recent years, the GOP has targeted gays and lesbians as America’s subversive enemies.These attacks have come as thinly disguised as efforts to “restore religious freedom.”
In December, 2014, Republicans in the Michgan House of Representatives passed “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
The bill would allow public agencies and private businesses to refuse service to anyone under the claim that their “religious beliefs” had been affronted.
And the State government would be legally prevented from intervening if a person claimed that his/her “deeply-held religious beliefs” was the reason for acting–or not acting–in a certain way.
Thus:
- An emergency room doctor could refuse service to a gay or lesbian needing medical care.
- A pharmacist could refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control, or HIV medication.
- A DMV clerk could refuse to give a driver’s license to someone who’s divorced.
- An employer could deny equal pay to women.
The bill seems modeled on a proposed law that the Republican House and Senate in Arizona sent to Governor Jan Brewer in 2014.
Under threat of a nationwide boycott of Arizona if the bill became law, Brewer vetoed it.
Republicans have introduced similar “right-to-discriminate” legislation in other states as well:
- On March 26, 2015, its governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This will allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
- In Kansas, lawmakers voted to exempt individuals from providing any service that was “contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
- That bill passed the state’s House chamber on February 11, 2014, triggering national backlash. It stalled in the Senate and didn’t advance beyond that body.
- In January, 2014, South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to let businesses refuse to serve same-sex couples on the grounds that “businesses are private and that their views on sexual orientation are protected to the same extent as the views of private citizens.”
- The South Dakota bill–which was killed in February, 2014–would have made it illegal for a gay person to file a lawsuit charging discrimination.
Republicans claim they want to “get the government off the backs of the people.” But their fixation on regulating the sexual lives of Americans ensures government intrusions of the most intimate kind.
Since 9/11, Republicans have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.
Ironically, Right-wing legislators, in elevating religion above the secular law, may have laid the legal foundations for making that possible.
What will happen when some Muslims claim their right–guaranteed in Islamic religious law–to have as many as four wives?
And when they claim that the “religious freedom” laws protect that right?
Republicans have defended such legislation by equating gays with child predators.
In fact, the Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute states that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are men married to women.
Yet Republicans and their Rightist allies have refused to condemn such heterosexual–and Right-wing–child molesters as Dennis Hastert and Josh Duggar.
Josh Duggar, the “all-American” child molester
On May 21, 2015, responding to press leaks, Duggar resigned as director of the Family Research Council, a Right-wing organization dedicated to fighting sexually-oriented issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and pornography.
In 2002-3, as a 14-15 year-old, Duggar had fondled the breasts and vaginas of five underage girls–four of whom were his own sisters.
And on October 28, 2015, Hastert–Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007–pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.
Dennis Hastert
The reason: To conceal the truth about his past as a child molester. Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their high school wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.
Despite such setbacks, the politics of “smear and fear” have been good to Republicans–and their Right-wing allies.
The Republican “base” refuses to learn that those who portray themselves as morally superior are:
- Hypocrites, who are in effect saying: “Do as I say, not as I do,” or
- Fanatics, who intend to force their version of morality on others.
So long as millions of hate-filled Right-wingers support the endless succession of “two minute hates,” Republicans will continue to target an endless series of victims.
The good news: As blacks, Hispanics, women, gays and others become a significant political force, Republicans will stop attacking them and court them for votes.
The bad news: Republicans will move on to find other still-helpless scapegoats for America’s troubles.
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PETE SEEGER, PROPAGANDA, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SCAPEGOATING, SHARIA LAW, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 20, 2016 at 12:01 am
In 1953, Red-baiting Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy finally overstepped himself.
He attacked the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convened an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Joseph McCarthy
But the hearings backfired, exposing McCarthy as the bullying demagogue he was. A Senate committee voted to condemn his behavior, charging that he had “acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Although McCarthy remained in the Senate another two and a half years, his political influence had ended.
Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992.
After holding the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.
They elected Richard Nixon, who promised to end the Vietnam war and crack down on “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators.
The same strategy re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Republicans held the White House until 1992.
During the 1970s and 1980s, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents–or at least unwitting pawns–of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchurian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas–one of America’s poorest states–and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Republicans continued to accuse their opponents of being “Communists” and “traitors.” But these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans–and their right-wing supporters–at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
Two highjacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
Consider:
- Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn.): On July 13, 2012, she sent letters to the Inspectors General of the Departments of Defense; State; Justice; and Homeland Security, demanding a “a multi-department investigation into potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the United States Government.”
- Rick Santorum: On supporting the racial profiling of Muslims: “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you look at, absolutely.”
- Mitt Romney: “Based on the numbers of American Muslims in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position [for a Muslim] would be justified.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
The following titles vividly reveal the hates, fears and ambitions of their authors–and audience:
- Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
- Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation by Jason Mattera
- How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore
- The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
- The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
- Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies by Michelle Malkin
- Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer
- To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich
- Obama’s Radical Transformation of America: Year One by Joshua Muravchik
- Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
- America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades by Glenn Beck
- The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi
- Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio by Brian Jennings
- The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
- Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steven Milloy
- Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions by Michael Savage
- Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
- Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter
- Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming…a Slump into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster into a Catastrophe….And How to Fight Back by Dick Morris
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AMERICA AS THE WORLD’S 9-1-1: TIME TO HANG UP: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 4, 2016 at 12:04 amFor America to avoid permanent military entanglements in the Middle East, it must learn to mind its own business.
So says Michael Scheuer, a 20-year CIA veteran who, from 1996 to 1999, headed Alec Station, the CIA’s unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden at the agency’s Counterterrorism Center.
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 has repeatedly warned: The United States must not deploy troops in Syria.
More than 310,000 people have been killed in Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war. The conflict began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
And many members of Congress are demanding that “we must do something” to stop all that killing.
Three reasons have already been given for why America should steer clear of the Syrian tar-baby. Among the others:
Fourth, the Assad regime is backed by–among others–the Iranian-supported terrorist group, Hezbollah (Party of God). Its enemies include another terrorist group–Al Qaeda.
Hezbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims. 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. Besides plotting 9/11, It has attacked the mosques and gatherings of liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other non-Sunnis.
Examples of these sectarian attacks include the Sadr City bombings, the 2004 Ashoura massacre and the April, 2007 Baghdad bombings.
Flag of Al Qaeda
When your enemies are intent on killing each other, it’s best to stand aside and let them do it.
Fifth, intervening in Syria could produce unintended consequences for American forces–and make the United States a target for more Islamic terrorism.
President Obama has repeatedly said American warplanes are targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). But bombing is never as accurate as its proponents insist.
An accidental American strike on Syrian government forces could lead the country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to attack Israel–perhaps even with chemical weapons.
Assad could do this simply because he hates Jews–or to lure Israel into attacking Syria.
If that happened, the Islamic world–which lusts to destroy Israelis even more than “apostate” Muslims–would rally to Syria against the United States, Israel’s chief ally.
Sixth, the United States cannot defeat ISIL through air power alone.
President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes against ISIL in September, 2014. Since then, the United States Air Force has dropped thousands of bombs on ISIL convoys.
This has not, however, destroyed ISIL. And its failure to do so has only led to demands by hawkish Republicans and Democrats for “boots on the ground.”
This was in fact predictable. Air power alone failed to secure victory over Nazi Germany during World War II and Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Nor did it “shock and awe” the Iraqis into surrendering during the 2003 Iraq war.
Seventh, while Islamic nations like Syria and Iraq wage war within their own borders, they will lack the resources to launch attacks against the United States.
When Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, then-Senator Harry Truman said: “I hope the Russians kill lots of Nazis and vice versa.”
That should be America’s view whenever its sworn enemies start killing themselves off. Americans should welcome such self-slaughters, not become entrapped in them.
Eighth, China and Russia are fully supporting the Assad dictatorship–-and the brutalities it commits against its own citizens.
Any move by the United States to directly attack the Assad regime could ignite an all-out war with Russia and/or China.
What happens if American and Russian forces start trading salvos? Or if Russian President Vladimir Putin orders an attack on Israel, in return for America’s attack on Russia’s ally, Syria?
It was exactly that scenario–Great Powers going to war over conflicts between their small-state allies–that triggered World War l.
Ninth, America’s past efforts in the Middle East have usually gone horribly awry.
Two examples should suffice:
Iran: Mohammad Mosaddegh was the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953. His decision to nationalize the Iranian oil industry led to his overthrow in a CIA coup.
He was replaced by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled until 1979 when a national upheaval forced him to flee. Iranians have never forgiven the United States for subjecting them to the 25-year reign of a brutal despot.
Shah of Iran
Afghanistan: In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. America began supplying shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan Mujahideen fighters. These shifted the balance of the war to the Afghans, who brought down countless Soviet airplanes and helicopters.
Deprived of air supremacy, the Soviet Army lost 14,453 killed and 53,753 wounded, and withdrew by 1989.
Americans congratulated themselves on their Realpolitic. But many of the Stingers remained in the hands of jihadists–who decided that America was now “The Great Satan.” One of those jihadists: Osama bin Laden.
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