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America 911, American Liberty, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, Michael Sheuer, Muslims, Pamela Geller, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
If you’re interested in terrorism and the Western response to it, ‘Michael Scheuer’ is a name you’ll probably be familiar with.
Scheuer used to run the Bin Laden unit at the CIA, and has since penned two bestselling books critical of US policy in the Middle East. The first – ‘Imperial Hubris’ – was published anonymously. The second – ‘Marching Towards Hell: America and the World After Iraq’ – was published under Scheuer’s own name.
I have only read the second of these books, and having done so, have no intention of reading the first. In case you don’t know, Scheuer is an extreme product of the ‘Paleo-Conservative’ trend in American republicanism. This is the tendency that often questions whether fascism was worth engaging militarily in World War 2, campaigns against American interventions around the world, and violently opposes immigration. Perhaps the most famous exponant of this trend of thought is former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
Like Buchanan, Scheuer disagrees passionately with US foreign policy in the Middle East. Unlike Buchanan, Scheuer doesn’t tend to mince his words, especially when Jews are concerned. The following for example, is a direct quote from ‘Marching Towards Hell’:
“I care not a whit whether Israel survives or not.”
In a later interview with comedian Bill Maher, Scheuer remarked that the Jewish State was ‘not worth an American life or an American dollar’, and, when Maher replied that Israel was a liberal democracy worth defending, remarked (astonishingly) that “It doesn’t matter from an American point of view, whether any one votes again anywhere in the world’.
In sync with these mad sentiments, Scheuer believes American foreign policy is directly to blame for the modern Islamist phenomenon in its totality, and even goes so far as to regard Bin Laden as a’ freedom fighter’.
The solution to the issue of Islamism then is not to engage it, but to allow the Muslim world to do whatever it likes, cease financial and military support of Israel, and apologise for past acts of ‘aggression’ (such as Gulf Wars 1 & 2..).
Needless to say, Scheuer is fast becoming one of the radical Left’s favourite Conservatives. His books and outbursts have also secured him a fanbase in the Arab world, and he has appeared numerous times on the Al-Jazeera propaganda network. Most recently, a video of Scheuer recommending America ‘drop’ Israel has gotten over 100,000 views on youtube.
I’m not going to waste my time addressing the defective logic Scheuer uses to come to his conclusions.
I’ll just say, that he provides an interesting case study of how the Conservative wing too has its share of quislings, and also of how the ‘right’ can quickly degenerate into the ‘left’ under the stressful historic conditions we currently face.
D, LDN.
Yes, I had heard recently through reliable sources that Pat Buchanan is Anti Semitic. Is his anti Semitic stance only ‘Political’ or is a ‘Racial’ thing? Thanks.
Its a mixture of the two. Buchanan doesn’t say it explicitly, but I think he believes the War in Iraq was organized for Israel’s benefit by shady lobbyists. He also probably subscribes to the Macdonald thesis, according to which Jews are the cheerleaders for high immigration. Both Buchanan and Scheuer promote these ill-founded theories, but Scheuer is markedly more extreme.
But what about the misguided multiculturalist zealot Barbara Lerner Spectre and her Paideia?
It depends on what is meant by ‘Multiculturalism’. If it means US-style Multiculturalism, I don’t feel threatened by it. If it means our laws and way of life have to change, then I oppose it. This clip is unclear as to which kind the lady means. I don’t believe Jews would want a Muslim Europe. It’s completely illogical.
It’s true that many Jews are Left-wing and politically influential, but there are also influential Jews on the anti-Immigration Right-wing who exercise similarly great influence. The Macdonald thesis suggests an organized conspiracy. If it is one, then it seems badly organized.
What does the lady say?
“Jews will be resented because of OUR leading role”.
I personally don`t believe in any organized conspiracy of Jews but it is hard to disprove such assertions with persons such as lady Spectre, Mr. Soros etc.
As I say, I don’t deny there are Jews who play a leading role on both the Left and Right. I don’t think this particular lady speaks for all Jews. There are numerous Jews (Mark Steyn and Debbie Schlussel being two examples) of Jews who are fierce defenders of the West, and who mostly oppose immigration.
It’s worth remembering that Jews have traditionally been a Left-leaning people out of necessity. The Right-wing of Europe always wanted to kill them.
D, your post here on Scheuer is excellent. Scheuer, like Buchanan is an angry Jew-hating nut job. Like Buchanan, he was educated in Jesuit schools and his attitudes reflect a prejudice that is common in that environment. His attitudes towards Muslims, Jews and Israel seem to be along the lines of: if it hurts the Jews, I’m for it — even if it also hurts Catholics.
Catholics in Islamic countries (such as Pakistan) are regularly victimized in the worst ways — yet Scheuer (and I suspect Buchanan) could not care less. Hmmm….maybe because they are not white.
While this is a discussion of Scheuer and not Buchanan, it is worth mentioning (since I suspect both have such similar views on so many issues — including immigration) that in a discussion on Mel Gibson’s film on Jesus (which portrayed Jews in the worst way), Buchanan, in a discussion with Evangelical Protestants where they all praised the film, was careful to make it clear that he, a “Catholic” was in full agreement with the “Christians” on this “excellent” film. That is to say, he made the distinction between Catholics and Christians. This ordinarily would be insulting and outrageous to most Catholics, yet I suspect he wanted so much to please his Protestant co-panelists in praising a film which demonized the Jews that he happily placated them by making this odd distinction himself. Either that, or he does not consider himself to be a Christian but rather a Catholic — which in his mind may be something entirely different.
Both Scheuer and Buchanan appear to be in a state of perpetual rage and arrogance. I’m surprised they have lived as long as they have since such feelings generally take their toll on one’s health. On the issue of immigration, I suspect their feelings are a lot different if the immigrants in question are white, Catholic and Jesuit in their philosophy.
As far as Barbara Lerner is concerned, she too is an individual obsessed with her own agenda — no matter how irrational and stupid it is. This is a woman who, I suspect, has an ax to grind that stems not from present circumstances but far back in her past.
God save us from all of them.
The Congress’s “womanish attachment” to Foreigners is bringing the Islamists’ war to North America
The material below the dotted line is the written version of my part in a five-member panel’s presentation to the House’s Homeland Security Committee on 9 October 2013. I ran late on 8 October 2013 and so failed to provide the committee’s members with a typed-up version of my opening statement before the hearing. I submitted it to them on 10 October 2013.
As things turned out, my tardiness did not really matter. The committee’s Chairman was knowledgeable, polite, and interested in what each panel member had to say, agreeing with some and challenging others. The rest of the Committee — at least those who showed up — was a train wreck or ignorance, arrogance, partisanship, and incompetence.
The Democratic members used most of their allotted time to chastise the Republicans for the government’s shutdown. The three Republicans who spoke to me — especially one from New York — had no interest in what I said about the growing certainty that the Islamists’ war soon will be fought, in part, in North America. Instead, the Republicans used most of their time to satisfy their AIPAC paymasters by praising and defending Israel, for whom they have what Alexander Hamilton would describe as a “womanish attachment.”
One lad from South Carolina also added a short homily on how the religion of Moses and Abraham made the United States and Israel one and the same. And another fellow from Utah was bent on getting me to name the names of people at the CIA who know what is blisteringly obvious to all but the 535 members of Congress — that our ties to Israel are a clear and increasingly mortal threat to U.S. security, its economy, and the lives of Americans because it is one of the central motivations of our Islamist enemies. I refused to play ball. Utah’s contemporary version of Tail-gunner Joe McCarthy also added that he “knows” all Muslims hate all Americans, their freedoms, and women’s rights and that is why they are attacking us. He must have been briefed by that preacher from South Carolina, or by Senators Graham and McCain, the Knesset members masquerading as U.S. Senators. (1)
Finally, in what has been a genuine and touching surprise, I have received several dozen e-mails from Americans who said they appreciated what I had to say to the committee. I want to thank them publicly for their kind words, and say that while they encourage me to continue speaking out, I must confess that I think there is little hope of preventing combat against Islamist forces in the United States in the years ahead. The quite large Homeland Security Committee probably is a pretty good microcosm of the attitudes of both the House and the Senate on these issues, and, if this judgment is correct, most of these ladies and gentlemen do not give a damn about the safety of American lives and property here at home.
Indeed, after listening to some of the members of this committee, as well as to the last three presidents and many others in Congress and the media for the last fifteen years, it seems likely that many would silently welcome attacks in the United States so they could say “we and Israel and now in the same a boat.” They then could go on with their daily businesses of war, taxing, and graft as usual.
What this means for Americans is that time is running out, and that there is every reason for them to exercise their rights under the 2nd Amendment as soon and as fully as possible. It seems likely that within the foreseeable future Americans will be called to defend themselves against Islamist fighters and/or an oppressive federal government that too-late sees that its deliberate lies about Islamist motivation, its willingness to facilitate U.S. military defeat overseas, its failure to control U.S. borders, and its groveling to Israel and the Saudi police-state have combined to bring war to our shores and that the only response it has is severe martial law — which is better known as tyranny.
One hopes that Phillip Bobbitt was right in his fine new book about Machiavelli’s thought when he argues that, in times when a republic’s leaders “become unsuitable,” one of the great strengths of a republic lies in “the ruthlessness of the public, which can replace its leaders according to the demands of circumstances.” (2)
Notes:
–1.) http://homeland.house.gov/hearing/hearing-al-shabaab-al-nusra-how-westerners-joining-terror-groups-overseas-affect-homeland
–2.) Phillip Bobbitt. The Garments of Court and Palace. Machiavelli and the World He Made. New York: Grove Press, 2013, p. 90
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NOTES ON U.S. AND WESTERN JIHADIS RETRUNING HOME
9 October 2013
Michael F. Scheuer
–(1.) As America enters the seventeenth year of the war that much of Islam formally began waging against it in 1996, American and other Western Muslims have been traveling to support and/or fight alongside the mujahedin since the mid-1980s.
–The first Western jihadis went to fight with the Afghan mujahedin against the Red Army in the mid-1980s.
–Westerners continued to trickle into the jihads in such places as the North Caucasus, Somalia, and the Balkans in the 1990s, but the big increase in their numbers occurred after Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States in August, 1996, and especially after al-Qaeda’s impressive victories on 9/11.
–Today, Syria and Somalia seem to be the most prominent destinations for U.S. and Western Muslim fighters, although some have turned up in North Africa and the Sahel as well.
–(2.) From the 1980s through today, U.S. Muslim citizens who go overseas to fight jihad return to America with several attributes, some old and some knew, but all strongly held.
–They return home, of course, with the same religious faith that motivated to travel abroad to fight, but it will be strengthened by the simple fact that they were on the winning side.
–Since 1996, America has been engaged in what is preeminently a religious war for those who are waging it, not withstanding the deliberately misleading protests against this reality by our last three presidents.
–That American Muslim fighters have traveled, fought, survived, won, and returned home safely proves two things to themselves, their families, and their religious communities:
–God was pleased by their actions and ensured they were successful.
–And for the younger people in the U.S. Muslim community — especially for young males — they will become role models in terms of an individual fulfilling his religious responsibility to defend Islam.
–They also will return with increased talent in the use of small arms and explosives — a teachable talent — and with increased skills at building covert organizations. They will likewise return with confidence that victory is possible. They and their colleagues know that they inflicted humiliating defeats on the U.S. and NATO militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that knowledge will boost morale and recruitment.
–Finally, the American fighters will return with a greatly enhanced knowledge of and contacts with other similarly minded men from across the Muslim world. All of the jihads to which American Muslims travel are fought by locals and an assortment of other men from countries that span the globe. The Americans will come home fully aware that the movement bin Laden started and led is now truly international in scope, and is quickly growing in numbers and geographical reach. They also will come home with a list of contacts among their fellow mujahedin from whom they can seek advice or more material forms of assistance.
–(3.) As I noted at the start, the subject of our discussion today is about a phenomenon that is nearly 40 years old. It is clearly more dangerous today than ever before, but the factors that cause the problem — the factors that motivate young Muslim Americans to jihad — have been the same over time.
–And while there are a number of factors that motivate these young people — including Saudi-sponsored and funded religious education in the United States, and the bonds of family, clan, tribe, and nationalism that remain strong and vibrant even after immigration — the first and most important motivation for these American Muslims to go to war is the bipartisan and interventionist foreign policy of the U.S. government and the existence of Israel and numerous un-Islamic tyrannies in the Arab world, all supported by the United States.
–Indeed, since Laden declared war on America in 1996, al-Qaeda and its allies have had — from their perspective –only two indispensable allies: Allah and U.S. and Western interventionism.
–(4.) To conclude my opening statement, I would say that while what American Muslim mujahedin bring back with them from jihad is important, what they find in the United States upon returning is will be much more important in motivating what I believe will become combat situations — like the recent event in Nairobi and others much worse — in the United States over the next decade.
–And what they will find on their return will be a steady-as-she-goes interventionist U.S. foreign policy which has been a constant for more than thirty years.
–We will be continuing to unquestionably arm, support, and justify Israel.
–We will continue to support tyranny in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
–We will continue preaching democracy but stand ready to immediately intervene to undermine fairly elected governments in places like Palestine and Egypt.
–And certainly most dangerous for U.S. national security, we will continue to prosecute the clash of civilizations, initiated by President Bush and accelerated by President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, designed to impose secularism, democracy, and women’s rights on an Islamic world ready and willing to fight forced Westernization to the death.
–In terms of the length of our war with Islam, this attempt to teach our little, brown Muslim brothers to be just like us will lengthen the war every bit as much as the unprovoked and unnecessary military interventions in Libya, Mali, and Iraq.
–(5.) And if you think that I place too much emphasis on the motivation provided to U.S. citizens and other Western mujahedin by U.S. and Western interventionism, 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 in the Islamic world and U.S. and Western support for Israel and various Muslim tyrannies.
Mr Scheuer,
Thank you for the comment. The argument that the US (and the West more broadly) has brought Islamist aggression on itself is still flawed in my estimation. While it was true – as you were, I believe, trying to say at the hearing – that no Islamist has ever blown themselves up to avenge an American woman wearing a skirt – it is true that they are following a plan whose end goal is the subjugation of the world.
I assume you have read Qutb’s ‘Milestones’ which lays out the global extent of the Islamist project. Bin Laden was an ideological child of Qutb’s thought and we have no reason to believe he didn’t share the goals outlined in that famous volume. Another good source on the nature of Qutbist Islamism is ‘Terror and Liberalism’ by Paul Berman.
I don’t believe the US attachment to Israel is a ‘womanish’ one, or a strategically self-defeating one, though I appreciate the contrary arguments. The biggest threat to Europe (perhaps less so the US) at the moment is Iran. Here, the security of the West and Israel overlaps, and not only here… Israel is more generally a frontline ally, daring and willing to do the work the West doesn’t (yet) have the stomach for.
Finally, I completely agree that our sponsorship of Muslim tyrannies (most notably Saudi Arabia) is a massive mistake and has encouraged (though not caused) much of the Terrorism the West currently faces.
David.