I have my problems with Michael Scheuer. “Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004; he served as the chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999.” I don’t think he is an honest man. I think he has put a lot of disinformation into the pipeline. But, let me ask you if what he has to say about our foreign policy sounds familiar? I think you’ll find it indistinguisable from what I have been writing for over a year.
1. We’re coming up on the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Is the country safer or more vulnerable to terrorism?
On balance, more vulnerable. We’re safer in terms of aircraft travel. We’re safer from being attacked by some dumbhead who tries to come into the country through an official checkpoint; we’ve spent billions on that. But for the most part our victories have been tactical and not strategic. There have been important successes by the intelligence services and Special Forces in capturing and killing Al Qaeda militants, but in the long run that’s just a body count, not progress. We can’t capture them one by one and bring them to justice. There are too many of them, and more now than before September 11. In official Western rhetoric these are finite organizations, but every time we interfere in Muslim countries they get more support.
In the long run, we’re not safer because we’re still operating on the assumption that we’re hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we’re hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. There’s our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world’s oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our own support for Arab tyrannies. The deal we made with Qadaffi in Libya looks like hypocrisy: we’ll make peace with a brutal dictator if it gets us oil. President Bush is right when he says all people aspire to freedom but he doesn’t recognize that people have different definitions of democracy. Publicly promoting democracy while supporting tyranny may be the most damaging thing we do. From the standpoint of democracy, Saudi Arabia looks much worse than Iran. We use the term “Islamofascism”—but we’re supporting it in Saudi Arabia, with Mubarak in Egypt, and even Jordan is a police state. We don’t have a strategy because we don’t have a clue about what motivates our enemies.
Why is it so hard to get people to understand this?
And what freedom could they hate us for? Bush’s freedom not to follow the law? Now there’s a freedom any good person could hate…
I’m with you on your analysis of Scheurer, btw. But as the saying goes, even a stopped watch is correct twice a day. No one is all good or all bad or all truthful or all full of it. Well, almost no one. Don’t get me started on the President in Thief.
Answer to your closing question– Why can’t……
Simple- the people are not recieving the information needed to make an educated judgement. When the major media sourcs continue to spew out the gop talking points such as- Lamont supports IMMEDIATE withdrawl from Iraq- what the hell do you expect? Both Liebergoper and Mccaingoper both stating that talking point!
Simple answer! billjpa
Why is it so hard to get people to understand this?
Maybe because our American media censors the news, and whether they self censor at the level of anchor/pundit/reporter, or they are intimidated by their corporate bosses or the Bush administration to censor, it still means that the American public, and especially those who rely on TV News to learn about the day’s events, are hopelessly mis- and under-informed about what is really going on.
When the CIA Agrees With Me
Even a broken clock is right 2 times a day.
Link on Digg: http://digg.com/political_opinion/Michael_Scheuer_US_is_more_vulnerable_on_national_security_than_pr
e_9_11
What has always astounded me, and continues to astound me is the ease with which our current President can tell a complete and total whopper to our public. Our President is not only willing to use the bully pulpit, he’s more than happy to shovel boatloads of BS out for public consumption. Our public inherently trusts what the President says especially when it comes under protecting the country – the jobs most important role.
To some degree this has also confounded the Dems and the press. No minority party or the press expects to have to continually rebut complete and total fabrications from the President. There used to be an unwritten rule which had the President respecting the office AND the people beyond such total and outright lies. This is not to say that everything ever uttered by a President is the truth, there have been some notable exceptions, and indeed if the Clintonian Repub Congressional standards would also apply to Bush, he would have long been impeached for most grievous offenses, all revolving around the most incredible lies to the people.
I guess, in hindsight, knowing better now the extent to which Bush has abused the powers of the President, I supposed telling big fat ones is much lower on the list, but really, once Bush decided to treat his office AND the people with such contempt everything else just came naturally.