Michael Scheuer
Wikipedia, Google, Google News
his web site non-intervention.com
the first post on his web site:
2005-02-07 “Imperial Hubris: An Author Reviews the Reviews of His Book”
Here are excerpts from two commercially published books
which discuss Michael Scheuer and his career at the CIA.
First is a self-assessment from
the 2005 epilogue to the paperback edition of Imperial Hubris,
the second is from Steve Coll’s 2004 Ghost Wars.
The epilogue to the 2005 paperback edition
of Michael Scheuer’s Imperial Hubris
has a section discussing his personal background and CIA career.
[E.1.1]
My name is Michael Scheuer.
Born in 1952 in Buffalo, New York,
I hold a B.A., two masters degrees, and a Ph.D., all in history.
I worked for Union Carbide Corporation and the Central Intelligence Agency.
My CIA career lasted from 1982 until November 2004,
when I resigned of my own accord on cordial terms.
Since 2002, I have under the pseudonym “Anonymous”
published two books focused on Osama bin Laden,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes and Imperial Hubris.
I wrote the books because I believed—and still believe—that
U.S. leaders have not squared with Americans
about our enemies’ motivations or
about the potentially devastating dimensions of the war we are fighting.
I also wanted to show Americans that though this war is complex,
it can be understood using documents in the public domain.
By writing the books, I made a bet that,
if U.S. leaders would not be frank with citizens,
the latter could use the books, libraries, and Internet sites
that provided source material for my books
[to get the information that they need to understand the issues].
So far, I have won the bet.
The books’ substance and predictions have proved solid,
suggesting Americans need little classified data
to understand the fix their country is in.
[E.1.2]
The appearance of Imperial Hubris brought speculation about
why the CIA permitted its publication
Speculation ran from
the Agency trying to influence the 2004 presidential election, to
the Agency’s need to let the “ranting Scheuer” vent steam
by publishing “a work they [senior CIA managers] viewed as partly ludicrous.”
Both speculations are probably wrong.
I say “probably” because I was never told why the CIA permitted publication.
[E.1.3 is omitted; it basically summarizes “why they hate us”.]
[E.1.4]
Also nonsense is the idea that the Agency as an institution—
as distinguished from
Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and his lieutenants and advisers—
used my book to influence the 2004 election.
The media’s initial coverage of Imperial Hubris portrayed it
as a work of focused criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
notwithstanding that only two pages of the book are devoted to that topic.
The book was not an attack on President Bush, but
it would have been intellectually dishonest and professionally negligent of me
to ignore
the tremendous benefits the U.S. invasion provided
Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and worldwide Sunni militancy.
A thorough reading of my book by its initial reviewers
would have made it clear that
my criticism focused on the senior leadership of the U.S. intelligence community
for not having adequately supported Presidents Bush and Clinton
in the war against al Qaeda.
It is worth noting that
when the media focused on this main theme,
DCI Tenet’s public affairs chief forbade me to speak to the media,
suggesting, perhaps, that Mr. Tenet, et al. found
criticism of the president more acceptable than
criticism of the intelligence community’s leadership.
[E.1.5]
My own, more pedestrian speculation is that
former DCI Tenet and his lieutenants allowed publication of Imperial Hubris
because they had deliberately frozen my career
after I documented in 1999
numerous fixable problems in the intelligence community,
and they now feared being called to account for failing to fix those problems.
I had attacked their treatment of my career vigorously inside the Agency
and had considered legal action,
but I had no intention of raising this issue in public
until Senator [John] McCain and others accused the CIA
of using my book to try to help get Senator Kerry elected president.
[E.1.6]
Here is a thumbnail sketch.
In 1997–99,
I was pressed to the point of harassment—
via accusations of nonexistent bureaucratic problems and orders to fix them—
by senior Agency managers
in an effort to get me to leave voluntarily as chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit.
I twice reported this verbally to Mr. Tenet
and the CIA’s Executive Director, Mr. A. B. Krongard;
they asked me to stay but did nothing to stop the harassment.
In May 1999, then-Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) Jack Downing
fired me as the Bin Laden Unit chief.
He said did so
because I was “mentally burned out” and
because my recent written criticism of my FBI subordinate
had angered senior FBI leaders.
Downing said the criticism was warranted
but “should not have been put on paper.”
He then shook my hand and
asked me to tell my officers that it was my decision to leave
so they would not leave the unit.
He also said not to worry about my reputation
because I would be given a medal and a monetary award.
I refused to lie to my officers,
suggested where he should store the medal, and
signed a memorandum stating I would not accept a cash award.
Soon afterward, I sent the CIA’s ten senior officers a report
reiterating intelligence community problems that, if left unfixed,
would prevent the community
from optimally defending America against al Qaeda.
The original report is classified, but
an unclassified version was published in the 2004-12 issue of the Atlantic.
I spent most of the rest of 1999 reading in the CIA’s library.
[E.1.7]
From 2000 to 2004-11
I was denied a job commensurate with my rank, experience,
and accomplishments.
I was sent to the Bin Laden Unit on 2001-09-12—
serving there until I resigned—
and given a title but no official duties.
My services were often sought, but, I was told,
James Pavitt (Downing’s successor as DDO) vetoed each request.
Pavitt refused to let me help debrief senior al Qaeda detainees.
The CIA knew that Through Our Enemies’ Eyes was respected by Islamists
and that, as the author, I would be an effective debriefer.
Mr. Pavitt, however, put burying my career above
using me to elicit information to defend America.
[E.1.8]
In my view, therefore,
the CIA’s politically motivated critics should rethink their accusations.
Imperial Hubris was published, I believe,
because Tenet, et al. feared I would expose
the well-documented record of a deliberately frozen career,
their earlier fifteen-month-delay (March 2000–October 2001)
of the publication of Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
(a book written to warn pre-09-11 America
about the high chance of a domestic al Qaeda attack
and which the CIA used as a training manual while delaying publication),
and
their negligent approach to fixing intelligence community failings.
It is a tawdry record, and I detail it here
to refute the idea that
the CIA used my book to manipulate presidential politics.
In my view, the book was published for a traditional reason:
Mr. Tenet and his lieutenants were trying to cover their bureaucratic butts—
and in Tenet’s case, political aspirations—
after having broken their own regulations
on discrimination and workplace harassment,
and to avoid taking bureaucratically difficult actions
that would have better protected America.
The cost of hypocrisy is always high.
It is especially so when petty men allow damaging attacks on the CIA—
an institution vital to U.S. defense—
rather than explain their actions or see a Medal of Freedom go a’ glimmering.
that deal with Michael Scheuer.
Note that he is identified in that book only as “Mike.”
(The book was published in 2004 before his real name was revealed.)
Emphasis has been added.
[GW, page 415]
At the bin Laden unit of the Counterterrorist Center, [as 1998 wore on,]
cynicism about the Saudis only deepened.
The bin Laden unit’s leader, an officer known to his colleagues as Mike,
argued with rising emotion that the CIA and the White House
had become prisoners of their alliances
with Saudi Arabia and Pakistani intelligence.
America was in a war against a dangerous terrorist network.
As it waged that war, it was placing far too much faith in unreliable allies.
The CIA needed to break out of its lazy dependence
on liaisons with corrupt, Islamist-riddled intelligence services
such as the ISI and the Saudi General Intelligence Division,
he argued.
If it did not, he insisted, the CIA and the United States would pay a price.
His arguments cut against the grain
of prevailing CIA assumptions and long-standing practice.
Some of his colleagues feared that he was campaigning
so emotionally and vociferously against the Saudis and the Pakistanis
that he was beginning to jeopardize his agency career.
[GW, pages 449–50]
Around this time [mid-1998]
the leader of the Counterterrorist Center’s bin Laden unit,
known to his colleagues as Mike, fired off frustrated emails
protesting the agency’s heavy reliance on its liaison
with untrustworthy allies in the Persian Gulf.
The bin Laden unit leader personified the single-minded passion
that prevailed inside the Counterterrorist Center’s partitioned office suite.
He was a disheveled, blunt, undiplomatic career officer
who felt the United States ought to kill Osama bin Laden
as a matter of the greatest urgency.
The White House sometimes complained to [CIA Director George] Tenet
that Mike was not well suited to manage the bin Laden group;
he was too myopic in his approach.
The email exchanges Mike generated after the hunting camp incident
[when senior U.S. leadership rejected a proposal to try and kill bin Laden]
were angry, unusual, and widely circulated,
according to one person who read them.
During his three years in the bin Laden unit, Mike said later,
he believed the CIA’s Directorate of Operations
“was the only component of the Intelligence Community
that could be said to have been waging
the war that bin Laden declared against the United States in August of 1996.
The rest of the CIA and the Intelligence Community
looked on our efforts as eccentric and, at times, fanatic.”
Afterward Mike transferred to another position at Langley headquarters.
In the heavily compartmented CIA,
where by careful design officers knew little about one another’s work,
his colleagues could not be sure exactly what had happened,
but among at least a few of them a belief settled in
that Mike had been exiled, in effect, for becoming
too passionate about the bin Laden threat,
too angry about the failure to attack
at Tarnak Farm and at the desert hunting camp.
Tenet did not widely explain his reasoning.
[Wait for his book to come out!]
He made clear years later that in every case
where [President Bill] Clinton’s Cabinet discussed cruise missile strikes,
a decisive problem was the lack of absolute certainty that bin Laden was present.
Tenet concluded that the CIA’s strategy against bin Laden had to be reexamined.
Early in 1999, Tenet ordered the Counterterrorist Center
to begin a “baseline” review of the CIA’s operational strategy against bin Laden.
He wanted the entire operation turned upside down, looked at from fresh angles.
From the White House, [Richard] Clarke lobbied Tenet for change,
arguing that
neither Mike at the bin Laden unit nor senior mangers such as Paul Pillar
were the right leaders for a campaign against bin Laden.
Whether influenced by these arguments or not,
within months Tenet had dispatched
a fast-track executive assistant from the seventh floor—
a traditional breeding ground of CIA leadership—
to replace Mike in the bin Laden unit.
When the Counterterrorist Center’s director, Jeff O’Connell,
rotated out of his position (he soon became the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv),
Tenet had another opportunity to shake things up….
· Closure of unit ‘wasted 10 years experience’
· Al-Qaida reasserting its influence, says ex-chief
Guardian, 2006-07-08
Patrick Lang quoting and commenting on Scheuer
Sic Semper Tyrannis, 2007-04-29
interview with Michael Scheuer
Antiwar.com Blog, 2007-05-10
30,000 Troops Deploy In Militant Stronghold
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post, 2009-10-18
[My reason for including this citation is
it gives an example of the mainstream news stories
that would have been so much enhanced by
getting a quote from Mr. Scheuer.]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 17 --
The Pakistani military launched a major ground offensive Saturday
in the insurgent haven of South Waziristan,
starting a much-awaited fight that could define
the nation's increasingly bloody domestic struggle against Islamist extremism.
...
securingamerica.com, 2010-01-03
[Some interesting comments here;
this an excerpt from this 2010-01-03-SOTU transcript.
Some excerpts:]
SCHEUER:
No. I think we tend to forget that
one of the first people here with his begging bowl after 9/11
was Yemeni President Salih.
We’ve been dumping money and ordinance into Yemen since 2001.
Al Qaida has done nothing but grow there.
Mr. Brennan said there are perhaps 300 Al Qaida operatives in Yemen.
I would say, if you -- if you doubled, tripled or quadrupled that number,
you might get a tenth of what’s there.
Yemen is bin Laden’s ancestral home.
More Yemenis than any Arab nationality fought against the Soviets.
There would have been more Yemenis in the 9/11 attacks,
except they couldn’t get visas as easily as the Saudis.
Yemen is an Al Qaida country.
And more than that, Al Qaida helped put President Salih in power
back in the ‘90s when there was a civil war in Yemen.
There is no way Salih can exist if he moves to crush Al Qaida.
...
SCHEUER:
[O]ne of the officers who got killed had arranged an operation in 1998
that would have killed or captured Osama bin Laden.
And
Mr. Brennan was instrumental in preventing that operation from occurring.
Instead he said the Americans should trust the Saudis to take care of bin Laden.
So it’s a painful-- it’s a painful death,
but more importantly it’s a death that didn’t need to occur had Mr. Clinton --
Mr. Brennan, George Tenet, and Mr. Berger
had the courage to try to defend Americans.
by Adam Holland
adamholland.blogspot.com, 2010-01-05
[This was cited by Jeffrey Goldberg in
“Adam Holland on Nutty Michael Scheuer” at the MSM site The Atlantic.]
Antiwar.com Radio, 2010-01-07
[In this interview, Scheuer says that
he definitely believes bin Laden is still alive (29:45).
Further, starting about 26:55 Scheuer says:]
We had that idiot in Kabul yesterday say that
“We don’t need to collect intelligence against
the people who are attacking us and killing us,
we need to collect information about
how the Afghan farmers live and the rest of it
so we can build a nation here.”
[That would seem to almost surely be a reference to the report
“Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan” by
Major General Michael T. Flynn, USA,
Captain Matt Pottinger, USMC, and
Paul Batchelor, DIA.
It was a disappointment to me that Scheuer in the interview
did not seem to comment on the probability of success of
the McChrystal plan for Afghanistan that Obama endorsed on 2009-12-01,
nor on what would be the likely outcome of
the on-going attempt to implement that plan.]
I want to make some comments on
the situation described by Michael Scheuer in the posts cited below.
I am making these comments here so that I can extend and expand them
as the situation warrants.
First, and key to my point, let us recall how Jewish pressure
caused DePaul University to deny tenure to
its assistant professor and strident critic of both Israel
and unconditional American Jewish support thereto, Norman Finkelstein.
Numerous American Jews argued that Finkelstein’s comments
were both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic,
and, as with the criticism of Scheuer,
that DePaul should not provide a platform for such speech.
DePaul, as you may know, proceeded to deny Finkelstein tenure.
Now I want to compare and contrast
the reason given by the DePaul administration for denying Finkelstein tenure
with what I believe to be the real reason.
(Both have definite parallels in the current case, of Scheuer and Georgetown.)
The reason given by DePaul for denying Finkelstein tenure
was not the substantive criticism he had undeniably made
of Israel and powerful American Jews,
but rather of some intemperate and frankly juvenile statements
that could be linked to him.
In the letter from DePaul’s president,
the president quoted from the report of the relevant university panel
as follows:
The university president then wrote the following:
Now, one may argue with various parts of that reasoning
(and many supporters of Finkelstein indeed have done just that).
But the point here is that
it was not the content of Finkelstein’s writings
that provided the smoking gun that denied him tenure,
but rather their tone.
Now let us note the main part of
the email Scheuer sent on January 08, 2011 3:58 AM:
It is a very human one, one I am guilty of as well.
Further, in the cases of both Finkelstein and Scheuer
some of their critics made equally intemperate and ad hominem attacks on them,
and so Finkelstein and Scheuer were just responding in kind.
Nonetheless, it provides ammunition for their critics
and diverts attention from the substantive issue at hand
(which of course is a prime objective of
many those who criticized Finkelstein and Scheuer).
So much for discussion of the given reason for the dismissal of Finkelstein.
Let me now move on to what I believe to be real reason
(after all, in the most important sense substance is what matters,
and Finkelstein, like Scheuer, indeed provided a rather unique point of view).
Here is what I believe:
Every university values several things, among them
truth (maybe),
contribution to the scholarly dialogue and the national interest,
money, and reputation.
Finkelstein and Scheuer both contribute, in the eyes of many,
to truth, scholarly dialogue, and the national interest.
As to money and reputation, maybe not so much.
The issue of donations to the university is significant for many universities,
which mine the Jewish community for contributions,
but not so much at Catholic institutions such as DePaul and Georgetown
(yeah, I know there are arguments about how Catholic Georgetown is).
But the issue of national reputation is certainly of the highest interest
to any university of which I am aware.
[To be continued.]
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2011-01-09
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2011-01-12
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2011-01-12
By Michael Scheuer
Washington Post Op-Ed, 2011-03-04
[1]
The rush in the West to proclaim the advance of democracy in the Arab world
has led to the propagation of an ill-conceived and dangerous corollary:
that the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa also mark
the irrelevance of al-Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups.
[2]
"Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By," declared the New York Times.
"Uprisings Put al Qaeda on Sidelines," asserted the Wall Street Journal.
And Western politicians, academics and even intelligence specialists
appear to agree that,
with peaceful and pro-democratic change afoot in the Middle East,
the world has moved beyond al-Qaeda,
leaving Osama bin Laden writhing in the dust.
[3]
If only that were true.
Since bin Laden declared war against the United States in 1996,
al-Qaeda's main goals have included the destruction of the Arab world's tyrannies and of Israel.
The events of recent weeks
only move al-Qaeda closer to those objectives.
[4]
Today, the dictatorships of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia
and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt are gone.
Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is little more than
the mayor of his capital city of Sanaa.
And Col. Moammar Gaddafi may be on his way out in Libya,
unless some knee-jerk U.S.-led intervention saves him
by refocusing Libyan and other North African Islamists
on what they consider an infidel threat greater than Gaddafi.
[5]
As for Israel, the fall of Mubarak - and the unsealing of Egypt's border with Gaza -
pose a security disaster equal to the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
Israel's two anti-Islamist shields to the east and to the west
are now history.
[6]
All of this amounts to an enormous strategic step forward for al-Qaeda.
That these victories have come with virtually no investment
of manpower or money by the terrorist network,
and with self-defeating applause from
the Facebook-obsessed, Twitter-addled West,
only makes them all the sweeter for bin Laden.
[7]
Peering into the future, the autocrats' probable successors
likewise offer abundant good news for al-Qaeda and kindred groups.
In Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and any other nation with a U.S.-supported tyranny
that sinks in the weeks and months ahead,
the role of Islamist groups will become larger - and over time perhaps dominant -
if only because the populations in play are almost entirely Muslim
and because Islamist groups have the most effective nationwide infrastructures to replace the old guard.
And most do and will receive funding, openly or covertly,
from always generous donors in Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Sunni gulf states.
[8]
Each new regime is likely to host a more open, religion-friendly environment
for speech, assembly and press freedoms than did Mubarak and his ilk.
So it will be easier for media-savvy Islamist groups - whether peaceful or militant -
to proselytize, publish and foment without immediate threat of arrest and incarceration.
Indeed, Washington and its Western allies
will dogmatically urge the new governments
to maintain such freedoms, even as the Islamists capitalize on them.
[9]
The Islamists will follow the formulas for gaining power and then governing
that are detailed in the Koran and the Sunnah, the prophet Muhammad's sayings and traditions.
Western experts have long failed to recognize these documents
as Islam's equivalent to the Declaration of Independence,
the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
In Egypt, for example, governance based on them
would be far more familiar, comfortable and culturally appropriate
than anything opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei and his followers could offer.
[10]
The blessing of the Arab revolts for al-Qaeda and its allies
also can be seen in the opening of prisons across Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
In Egypt alone, the news media are reporting that at least 17,000 prisoners have been freed.
Many of those released are not thieves and murderers,
but Islamist firebrands that the regimes had jailed
to protect their internal security -
at times even at the request and with the funding of Washington and its allies.
Indeed, many were incarcerated as a result of
quiet cooperation between Western and Arab intelligence services;
their release is a major setback for these efforts.
[11]
So al-Qaeda and like-minded groups are now being replenished by
a steady flow of pious, veteran mujaheddin,
each of whom will never forget that U.S. and other Western funds
helped keep them jailed by Arab tyrants.
[12]
The revolts also mean that the United States and its Western allies must take on
a far greater share of the counterterrorism operations
that they previously conducted with the help of Arab regimes.
The days of Mubarak, Saleh, Gaddafi and Ben Ali doing the dirty work
for American, European and Israeli counterterrorism efforts are over.
Soon it will be U.S. and Western special forces and intelligence services
that will be ordered to capture or kill militants in Muslim lands -
individuals that our tyrannical friends used to dispose of for us.
[13]
How tragic that
in the war being waged against the United States by al-Qaeda and its allies
precisely because of Washington's relentless intervention in the Islamic world,
the U.S. government will now be forced to intervene even more -
or sit on the sidelines and watch al-Qaeda build or expand bases from which to threaten U.S. security.
[14]
Of course, open and vociferous participation by Islamists
in the demonstrations in Cairo, Tunis, Tripoli and elsewhere
would have earned a lethal and Western-supported response
from Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi.
So al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups
simply used a talent that long ago atrophied in the West -
the ability to keep their mouths shut.
As usual, the West wrongly concluded that silence connotes not strategy,
but impotence and irrelevance.
[15]
Bin Laden and his peers are counting on the fact that
the uprisings' secular, pro-democracy Facebookers and tweeters -
so beloved of reality-averse Western journalists and politicians -
are a thin veneer across a deeply pious Arab world.
They are confident that these revolts are not about democratic change
but about who, in societies where peaceful transfers of power are rare,
will fill the vacuum left by the dictators and consolidate power.
These men also know that the answer to that question
will ultimately come out of the barrel of a Kalashnikov, of which they have many,
along with the old tyrants' weapons stockpiles, on which they are now feasting.
Michael Scheuer vs. CNN’s War Cheerleaders (Antiwar.com, Eric Garris)
“You’re Just Carrying the Water for Mr. Obama!”
(describes CNN anchor Christine Romans's actions)
Here is the controversial part of the last:
[W]hen Kiran [Cherty] asked Scheuer
whether America’s aid for the Libyan rebels
was actually support of “Islamic democracy…tired of totalitarian rule,”
he acidly asserted,
“If we were supporting Islamic democracy, that would be one thing.
But, if you listen to Ms. Clinton and, especially,
the rather crazed Ms. Rice at the U.N.,
this is all about democracy in a world
were democracy is not going to take hold.”
As Christine listened to Scheuer’s increasingly cutting criticism
of the U.S. involvement in Libya,
she appeared to become agitated in tandem with his answers
(as she repeatedly put her hand on her hip, crossed her arms,
and furrowed her eyebrows).
When the interview concluded, Christine dismissively interjected,
“I think it’s very clear, Michael Scheuer,
that you are no fan of this policy and this administration.”
[Dismissive? Sounds like an accurate summation of Scheuer's view,
at least with regard to Obama's Libya policy.]
Then, looking at Kiran repeatedly (as if for succor), Christine scolded,
“I think calling Ambassador Rice crazed is certainly a significant charge.”
Unrepentant, Scheuer acerbically retorted,
“Oh, I don’t know! I’ve just listened to her!
That’s only my impression.”
Elaborating, he remarked,
“[T]his is not a Democratic problem: this is a Republican problem, too.
Both parties love to intervene in other people’s business
where there are no U.S. interests at stake
and where we spend enormous amounts of money
at a time when we’re nearly bankrupt.”
With her arms crossed defiantly
(and Kiran looking down at the desk demurely),
Christine sharply disagreed, declaring,
“And, that’s a whole nother [sic] story.
To call the United States bankrupt–
the United States is running humongous deficits, yes.
But, the economy and this mission is Libya are two separate issues.”
Smiling, Scheuer sneered,
“They’re not separate issues, ma’am.
You’re just carrying the water for Mr. Obama.”
Bristling at Scheuer’s slam, Christine retorted,
“I’m certainly not carrying anyone’s water!
And, I will assure you of that.”
Then, after thanking him for his time, Christine icily concluded,
“You, know, we’ve had a very long, exhaustive interview.
You’ve had plenty of time to give your point of view on that.”
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2013-08-08
While the frequent, dastardly lies of
President Obama, CIA Chief John Brennan, and their media acolytes
about the demise of al-Qaeda and its allies unravel,
Obama, Susan Rice, John Kerry, John McCain, and Lindsay Graham also are
knowingly stoking the flames of Islam’s religious war against the United States
by intervening in the Palestine-Israel war and Egyptian politics.
Take, for example, the newly begun Israel-Palestine “peace talks.”
There is, of course, no chance of peace,
unless all Palestinians are forever willing to be
Israel’s obedient, impotent, and forelock-tugging subjects.
First, the PLO represents half of Palestinians
and the democratically elected Hamas government —
which represents the rest —
has not been invited to the talks.
Second, no viable Palestinian state is possible because
(a) for decades Israel has deliberately cut up Palestinian territory
with roads, military positions, and settlements
that leave little contiguous territory with which to compose a “state,” and
(b) because it keeps seizing Palestinian land
to build security walls and settlements.
Third, more than half of Palestinians — and most of the Muslim world —
will never accept peace with the Israelis,
whom they regard as the U. S-protected enemies of their God and faith,
as well as plundering and murderous land thieves.
In addition, Hamas and other Palestinian Islamists —
not to mention al Qaeda and its allies —
know the Arab Spring has created an enormous, if still potential opportunity
to draw large quantities of Israeli blood
because it toppled or weakened the Arab tyrannies that border Israel
and long helped the Israelis keep their borders secure.
...
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-07-02
...
Western leaders have lied and deceived their peoples
about the nature, size, and endurance of the Islamists
for so long that
the entire problem has resolved itself into four clear options,
one easy and the other three brutally difficult:
...
The Western world today is led by self-deceivers of Paine’s description
[Referencing a previous quote from Thomas Paine].
For twenty years the current crop of Western leaders and their predecessors
have faced one of the easiest possible foreign policy problems to solve since 1900,
and yet they have only whined about its bewildering complexity,
lied about it being insusceptible to a military solution,
and preached about the consequent need for
a prudent, multifaceted, culturally sensitive, and highly intelligent response.
This is horse hockey.
Since Osama bin Laden first publicly spoke in 1996,
it has been blindingly clear that
the Islamists are going to keep killing Westerners
until Western governments stop intervening in their world or
until the West kills all or almost all of the Islamists.
The Islamists have never altered this message —
though they have intensified it with words and deeds —
and Western leaders, by not listening,
have wasted twenty years and thousands of military lives
but have yet to begin to defend the West.
[I would modify that last to
"effectively, for the long term, defend the West."]
...
The Islamist problem should not even have taken an hour to solve
when it was in its infancy.
But today it stands a steadily increasing chance of finishing off
the long-dying entity called Western civilization.
[Not to worry.
Hyper-immigration (now Obama wants to welcome even the illegal invaders),
multi-culturalism, and feminism will do that
even if Islam does not.]
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-09-02
...
[O]n this occasion I am going to publish a commendation that was given to me by the Department of Justice, on its behalf and that of the FBI, for the work that my unit “Alec Station” — staffed mostly by female CIA officers, but also with excellent female officers from NSA and FBI — did against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida between November, 1995, and May, 1999. I am doing so for two reasons.
First, in his recent book, The Great War of Our Time, the former Acting Director of CIA, Michael Morell, and his co-author — the latter shill also co-wrote George Tenet’s deceitful book — published a number of deliberate lies about me and the people who I was honored to serve with in the 1995-1999 era of the battle against al-Qaeda.
...
The second reason is an August, 2015, article by an Israel-First cheerleader named Gabriel Schoenfeld ...
...
CNN, Michael Smerconish, 2015-11-21
by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2016-01-22
[I want to highlight not the content of Scheuer's article,
although that is significant and worthwhile,
but his response to a comment to the article.
Here is a reader's comment and Scheuer's response:]
by Lennart:
Are you aware that the Anti Defamation League is keeping a so called hate file on you since many years back due to what they call "U.S. Anti Israel-activity"?
by Mike Scheuer:
Thank you for writing.
I do not know that for a fact, but it would not surprise me.
I have lost at least three lucrative jobs because of the money-and-media influence of disloyal Jewish-Americans and their organizations.
I also have been banned from the major news networks and from testifying before the Congress.
It seems that these poor little traitorous fellows are unhappy with me.
Well so be it, I do indeed hate what these flagrantly disloyal people deliberately do to damage America\'s chances for survival.
And I\'ll be damned if I will standby silently and watch disloyal U.S. citizens, their organizations, and the politicians they bribe
involve the United States in a foreign country\'s endless religious war,
which commonsense will tell you is America\'s war in large measure because of
its support for and truckling to Israel and the Arab tyrannies.
All told, I welcome their hate and their venom.
MFS
the Islamists and their governments
by Michael F. Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2016-03-26
his web site non-intervention.com
the first post on his web site:
2005-02-07 “Imperial Hubris: An Author Reviews the Reviews of His Book”
Here are excerpts from two commercially published books
which discuss Michael Scheuer and his career at the CIA.
First is a self-assessment from
the 2005 epilogue to the paperback edition of Imperial Hubris,
the second is from Steve Coll’s 2004 Ghost Wars.
Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer
The epilogue to the 2005 paperback edition
of Michael Scheuer’s Imperial Hubris
has a section discussing his personal background and CIA career.
E.1 Personal: From Anonymous to Mike
[E.1.1]
My name is Michael Scheuer.
Born in 1952 in Buffalo, New York,
I hold a B.A., two masters degrees, and a Ph.D., all in history.
I worked for Union Carbide Corporation and the Central Intelligence Agency.
My CIA career lasted from 1982 until November 2004,
when I resigned of my own accord on cordial terms.
Since 2002, I have under the pseudonym “Anonymous”
published two books focused on Osama bin Laden,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes and Imperial Hubris.
I wrote the books because I believed—and still believe—that
U.S. leaders have not squared with Americans
about our enemies’ motivations or
about the potentially devastating dimensions of the war we are fighting.
I also wanted to show Americans that though this war is complex,
it can be understood using documents in the public domain.
By writing the books, I made a bet that,
if U.S. leaders would not be frank with citizens,
the latter could use the books, libraries, and Internet sites
that provided source material for my books
[to get the information that they need to understand the issues].
So far, I have won the bet.
The books’ substance and predictions have proved solid,
suggesting Americans need little classified data
to understand the fix their country is in.
[E.1.2]
The appearance of Imperial Hubris brought speculation about
why the CIA permitted its publication
Speculation ran from
the Agency trying to influence the 2004 presidential election, to
the Agency’s need to let the “ranting Scheuer” vent steam
by publishing “a work they [senior CIA managers] viewed as partly ludicrous.”
Both speculations are probably wrong.
I say “probably” because I was never told why the CIA permitted publication.
[E.1.3 is omitted; it basically summarizes “why they hate us”.]
[E.1.4]
Also nonsense is the idea that the Agency as an institution—
as distinguished from
Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and his lieutenants and advisers—
used my book to influence the 2004 election.
The media’s initial coverage of Imperial Hubris portrayed it
as a work of focused criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
notwithstanding that only two pages of the book are devoted to that topic.
The book was not an attack on President Bush, but
it would have been intellectually dishonest and professionally negligent of me
to ignore
the tremendous benefits the U.S. invasion provided
Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and worldwide Sunni militancy.
A thorough reading of my book by its initial reviewers
would have made it clear that
my criticism focused on the senior leadership of the U.S. intelligence community
for not having adequately supported Presidents Bush and Clinton
in the war against al Qaeda.
It is worth noting that
when the media focused on this main theme,
DCI Tenet’s public affairs chief forbade me to speak to the media,
suggesting, perhaps, that Mr. Tenet, et al. found
criticism of the president more acceptable than
criticism of the intelligence community’s leadership.
[E.1.5]
My own, more pedestrian speculation is that
former DCI Tenet and his lieutenants allowed publication of Imperial Hubris
because they had deliberately frozen my career
after I documented in 1999
numerous fixable problems in the intelligence community,
and they now feared being called to account for failing to fix those problems.
I had attacked their treatment of my career vigorously inside the Agency
and had considered legal action,
but I had no intention of raising this issue in public
until Senator [John] McCain and others accused the CIA
of using my book to try to help get Senator Kerry elected president.
[E.1.6]
Here is a thumbnail sketch.
In 1997–99,
I was pressed to the point of harassment—
via accusations of nonexistent bureaucratic problems and orders to fix them—
by senior Agency managers
in an effort to get me to leave voluntarily as chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit.
I twice reported this verbally to Mr. Tenet
and the CIA’s Executive Director, Mr. A. B. Krongard;
they asked me to stay but did nothing to stop the harassment.
In May 1999, then-Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) Jack Downing
fired me as the Bin Laden Unit chief.
He said did so
because I was “mentally burned out” and
because my recent written criticism of my FBI subordinate
had angered senior FBI leaders.
Downing said the criticism was warranted
but “should not have been put on paper.”
He then shook my hand and
asked me to tell my officers that it was my decision to leave
so they would not leave the unit.
He also said not to worry about my reputation
because I would be given a medal and a monetary award.
I refused to lie to my officers,
suggested where he should store the medal, and
signed a memorandum stating I would not accept a cash award.
Soon afterward, I sent the CIA’s ten senior officers a report
reiterating intelligence community problems that, if left unfixed,
would prevent the community
from optimally defending America against al Qaeda.
The original report is classified, but
an unclassified version was published in the 2004-12 issue of the Atlantic.
I spent most of the rest of 1999 reading in the CIA’s library.
[E.1.7]
From 2000 to 2004-11
I was denied a job commensurate with my rank, experience,
and accomplishments.
I was sent to the Bin Laden Unit on 2001-09-12—
serving there until I resigned—
and given a title but no official duties.
My services were often sought, but, I was told,
James Pavitt (Downing’s successor as DDO) vetoed each request.
Pavitt refused to let me help debrief senior al Qaeda detainees.
The CIA knew that Through Our Enemies’ Eyes was respected by Islamists
and that, as the author, I would be an effective debriefer.
Mr. Pavitt, however, put burying my career above
using me to elicit information to defend America.
[E.1.8]
In my view, therefore,
the CIA’s politically motivated critics should rethink their accusations.
Imperial Hubris was published, I believe,
because Tenet, et al. feared I would expose
the well-documented record of a deliberately frozen career,
their earlier fifteen-month-delay (March 2000–October 2001)
of the publication of Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
(a book written to warn pre-09-11 America
about the high chance of a domestic al Qaeda attack
and which the CIA used as a training manual while delaying publication),
and
their negligent approach to fixing intelligence community failings.
It is a tawdry record, and I detail it here
to refute the idea that
the CIA used my book to manipulate presidential politics.
In my view, the book was published for a traditional reason:
Mr. Tenet and his lieutenants were trying to cover their bureaucratic butts—
and in Tenet’s case, political aspirations—
after having broken their own regulations
on discrimination and workplace harassment,
and to avoid taking bureaucratically difficult actions
that would have better protected America.
The cost of hypocrisy is always high.
It is especially so when petty men allow damaging attacks on the CIA—
an institution vital to U.S. defense—
rather than explain their actions or see a Medal of Freedom go a’ glimmering.
Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
Here are the excerpts from Steve Coll’s Ghost Warsthat deal with Michael Scheuer.
Note that he is identified in that book only as “Mike.”
(The book was published in 2004 before his real name was revealed.)
Emphasis has been added.
[GW, page 415]
At the bin Laden unit of the Counterterrorist Center, [as 1998 wore on,]
cynicism about the Saudis only deepened.
The bin Laden unit’s leader, an officer known to his colleagues as Mike,
argued with rising emotion that the CIA and the White House
had become prisoners of their alliances
with Saudi Arabia and Pakistani intelligence.
America was in a war against a dangerous terrorist network.
As it waged that war, it was placing far too much faith in unreliable allies.
The CIA needed to break out of its lazy dependence
on liaisons with corrupt, Islamist-riddled intelligence services
such as the ISI and the Saudi General Intelligence Division,
he argued.
If it did not, he insisted, the CIA and the United States would pay a price.
His arguments cut against the grain
of prevailing CIA assumptions and long-standing practice.
Some of his colleagues feared that he was campaigning
so emotionally and vociferously against the Saudis and the Pakistanis
that he was beginning to jeopardize his agency career.
[GW, pages 449–50]
Around this time [mid-1998]
the leader of the Counterterrorist Center’s bin Laden unit,
known to his colleagues as Mike, fired off frustrated emails
protesting the agency’s heavy reliance on its liaison
with untrustworthy allies in the Persian Gulf.
The bin Laden unit leader personified the single-minded passion
that prevailed inside the Counterterrorist Center’s partitioned office suite.
He was a disheveled, blunt, undiplomatic career officer
who felt the United States ought to kill Osama bin Laden
as a matter of the greatest urgency.
The White House sometimes complained to [CIA Director George] Tenet
that Mike was not well suited to manage the bin Laden group;
he was too myopic in his approach.
The email exchanges Mike generated after the hunting camp incident
[when senior U.S. leadership rejected a proposal to try and kill bin Laden]
were angry, unusual, and widely circulated,
according to one person who read them.
During his three years in the bin Laden unit, Mike said later,
he believed the CIA’s Directorate of Operations
“was the only component of the Intelligence Community
that could be said to have been waging
the war that bin Laden declared against the United States in August of 1996.
The rest of the CIA and the Intelligence Community
looked on our efforts as eccentric and, at times, fanatic.”
Afterward Mike transferred to another position at Langley headquarters.
In the heavily compartmented CIA,
where by careful design officers knew little about one another’s work,
his colleagues could not be sure exactly what had happened,
but among at least a few of them a belief settled in
that Mike had been exiled, in effect, for becoming
too passionate about the bin Laden threat,
too angry about the failure to attack
at Tarnak Farm and at the desert hunting camp.
Tenet did not widely explain his reasoning.
[Wait for his book to come out!]
He made clear years later that in every case
where [President Bill] Clinton’s Cabinet discussed cruise missile strikes,
a decisive problem was the lack of absolute certainty that bin Laden was present.
Tenet concluded that the CIA’s strategy against bin Laden had to be reexamined.
Early in 1999, Tenet ordered the Counterterrorist Center
to begin a “baseline” review of the CIA’s operational strategy against bin Laden.
He wanted the entire operation turned upside down, looked at from fresh angles.
From the White House, [Richard] Clarke lobbied Tenet for change,
arguing that
neither Mike at the bin Laden unit nor senior mangers such as Paul Pillar
were the right leaders for a campaign against bin Laden.
Whether influenced by these arguments or not,
within months Tenet had dispatched
a fast-track executive assistant from the seventh floor—
a traditional breeding ground of CIA leadership—
to replace Mike in the bin Laden unit.
When the Counterterrorist Center’s director, Jeff O’Connell,
rotated out of his position (he soon became the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv),
Tenet had another opportunity to shake things up….
Miscellaneous Articles
2006
2006-07-08-Scheuer
Agent who led Bin Laden hunt [Michael Scheuer] criticises CIA· Closure of unit ‘wasted 10 years experience’
· Al-Qaida reasserting its influence, says ex-chief
Guardian, 2006-07-08
2007
2007-04-29-Lang
Scheuer on Tenet (and Scheuer)Patrick Lang quoting and commenting on Scheuer
Sic Semper Tyrannis, 2007-04-29
2007-05-10-Scheuer-Tenet
Charles Goyette Interviews Michael Scheuerinterview with Michael Scheuer
Antiwar.com Blog, 2007-05-10
2009
2009-10-18-WP-Pakistan-attacks-South-Waziristan
Pakistan Launches Full-Scale Offensive30,000 Troops Deploy In Militant Stronghold
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post, 2009-10-18
[My reason for including this citation is
it gives an example of the mainstream news stories
that would have been so much enhanced by
getting a quote from Mr. Scheuer.]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 17 --
The Pakistani military launched a major ground offensive Saturday
in the insurgent haven of South Waziristan,
starting a much-awaited fight that could define
the nation's increasingly bloody domestic struggle against Islamist extremism.
...
2010
2010-01-03-Scheuer-Borger-Chapman-bombing-reaction
Michael Sheuer on SOTU's "Last Word" segment-the real state of Al Qaedasecuringamerica.com, 2010-01-03
[Some interesting comments here;
this an excerpt from this 2010-01-03-SOTU transcript.
Some excerpts:]
SCHEUER:
No. I think we tend to forget that
one of the first people here with his begging bowl after 9/11
was Yemeni President Salih.
We’ve been dumping money and ordinance into Yemen since 2001.
Al Qaida has done nothing but grow there.
Mr. Brennan said there are perhaps 300 Al Qaida operatives in Yemen.
I would say, if you -- if you doubled, tripled or quadrupled that number,
you might get a tenth of what’s there.
Yemen is bin Laden’s ancestral home.
More Yemenis than any Arab nationality fought against the Soviets.
There would have been more Yemenis in the 9/11 attacks,
except they couldn’t get visas as easily as the Saudis.
Yemen is an Al Qaida country.
And more than that, Al Qaida helped put President Salih in power
back in the ‘90s when there was a civil war in Yemen.
There is no way Salih can exist if he moves to crush Al Qaida.
...
SCHEUER:
[O]ne of the officers who got killed had arranged an operation in 1998
that would have killed or captured Osama bin Laden.
And
Mr. Brennan was instrumental in preventing that operation from occurring.
Instead he said the Americans should trust the Saudis to take care of bin Laden.
So it’s a painful-- it’s a painful death,
but more importantly it’s a death that didn’t need to occur had Mr. Clinton --
Mr. Brennan, George Tenet, and Mr. Berger
had the courage to try to defend Americans.
2010-01-05-Holland-on-CSPAN-interview
Michael Scheuer: terrorists should focus on Israel, not the U.S.by Adam Holland
adamholland.blogspot.com, 2010-01-05
[This was cited by Jeffrey Goldberg in
“Adam Holland on Nutty Michael Scheuer” at the MSM site The Atlantic.]
2010-01-07-Horton-interviews-Scheuer
Scott Horton Interviews Michael ScheuerAntiwar.com Radio, 2010-01-07
[In this interview, Scheuer says that
he definitely believes bin Laden is still alive (29:45).
Further, starting about 26:55 Scheuer says:]
We had that idiot in Kabul yesterday say that
“We don’t need to collect intelligence against
the people who are attacking us and killing us,
we need to collect information about
how the Afghan farmers live and the rest of it
so we can build a nation here.”
[That would seem to almost surely be a reference to the report
“Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan” by
Major General Michael T. Flynn, USA,
Captain Matt Pottinger, USMC, and
Paul Batchelor, DIA.
It was a disappointment to me that Scheuer in the interview
did not seem to comment on the probability of success of
the McChrystal plan for Afghanistan that Obama endorsed on 2009-12-01,
nor on what would be the likely outcome of
the on-going attempt to implement that plan.]
2011
I want to make some comments on
the situation described by Michael Scheuer in the posts cited below.
I am making these comments here so that I can extend and expand them
as the situation warrants.
First, and key to my point, let us recall how Jewish pressure
caused DePaul University to deny tenure to
its assistant professor and strident critic of both Israel
and unconditional American Jewish support thereto, Norman Finkelstein.
Numerous American Jews argued that Finkelstein’s comments
were both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic,
and, as with the criticism of Scheuer,
that DePaul should not provide a platform for such speech.
DePaul, as you may know, proceeded to deny Finkelstein tenure.
Now I want to compare and contrast
the reason given by the DePaul administration for denying Finkelstein tenure
with what I believe to be the real reason.
(Both have definite parallels in the current case, of Scheuer and Georgetown.)
The reason given by DePaul for denying Finkelstein tenure
was not the substantive criticism he had undeniably made
of Israel and powerful American Jews,
but rather of some intemperate and frankly juvenile statements
that could be linked to him.
In the letter from DePaul’s president,
the president quoted from the report of the relevant university panel
as follows:
[S]ome might interpret parts of [Finkelstein’s] scholarship
as “deliberately hurtful”
as well as provocative more for inflammatory effect
than to carefully critique or challenge accepted assumptions.
Criticism has been expressed for
his inflammatory style and personal attacks
in his writings and intellectual debates.
These concerns are relevant to the [UBPT] in the recognition that
an academic’s reputation is intrinsically tied to
the institution of which he or she is affiliated.
The university president then wrote the following:
I [the university president] have considered the fact that
reviewers at all levels, both for and against tenure,
commented upon your ad hominem attacks
on scholars with whom you disagree.
In the opinion of those opposing tenure,
your unprofessional personal attacks
divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas,
and polarize and simplify conversations
that deserve layered and subtle consideration.
As such, they believe your work not only shifts toward advocacy
and away from scholarship,
but also fails to meet the most basic standards
governing scholarly discourse within the academic community.
Now, one may argue with various parts of that reasoning
(and many supporters of Finkelstein indeed have done just that).
But the point here is that
it was not the content of Finkelstein’s writings
that provided the smoking gun that denied him tenure,
but rather their tone.
Now let us note the main part of
the email Scheuer sent on January 08, 2011 3:58 AM:
The world can surely be a very difficult placeClearly Scheuer is falling into the same trap as Finkelstein fell into.
for slugs like you,
and I was worried that you had not written to threaten me
in the last six months.
You are, I know, always in danger of getting stomped by
human creatures who walk on two legs
as you slither across the floor looking for a filthy surface to adhere to.
It is good to know you are safe!
Have you found a nice, safe garbage can to adhere to,
or perhaps the warm underside of a manhole cover?
It is a very human one, one I am guilty of as well.
Further, in the cases of both Finkelstein and Scheuer
some of their critics made equally intemperate and ad hominem attacks on them,
and so Finkelstein and Scheuer were just responding in kind.
Nonetheless, it provides ammunition for their critics
and diverts attention from the substantive issue at hand
(which of course is a prime objective of
many those who criticized Finkelstein and Scheuer).
So much for discussion of the given reason for the dismissal of Finkelstein.
Let me now move on to what I believe to be real reason
(after all, in the most important sense substance is what matters,
and Finkelstein, like Scheuer, indeed provided a rather unique point of view).
Here is what I believe:
Every university values several things, among them
truth (maybe),
contribution to the scholarly dialogue and the national interest,
money, and reputation.
Finkelstein and Scheuer both contribute, in the eyes of many,
to truth, scholarly dialogue, and the national interest.
As to money and reputation, maybe not so much.
The issue of donations to the university is significant for many universities,
which mine the Jewish community for contributions,
but not so much at Catholic institutions such as DePaul and Georgetown
(yeah, I know there are arguments about how Catholic Georgetown is).
But the issue of national reputation is certainly of the highest interest
to any university of which I am aware.
[To be continued.]
2011-01-09-Scheuer
This is how Israel-First works to silence and damage its criticsby Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2011-01-09
2011-01-12-Scheuer-Part-2
Scheuer-vs-Israel-First, Part 2by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2011-01-12
2011-01-12-Scheuer-Part-2-Emails
Scheuer-vs-Israel-First, Part 2: The E-mailsby Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2011-01-12
2011-03-04-WP-Scheuer-oped-why-the-Mideast-revolts-will-help-al-Qaeda
Why the Mideast revolts will help al-QaedaBy Michael Scheuer
Washington Post Op-Ed, 2011-03-04
[1]
The rush in the West to proclaim the advance of democracy in the Arab world
has led to the propagation of an ill-conceived and dangerous corollary:
that the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa also mark
the irrelevance of al-Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups.
[2]
"Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By," declared the New York Times.
"Uprisings Put al Qaeda on Sidelines," asserted the Wall Street Journal.
And Western politicians, academics and even intelligence specialists
appear to agree that,
with peaceful and pro-democratic change afoot in the Middle East,
the world has moved beyond al-Qaeda,
leaving Osama bin Laden writhing in the dust.
[3]
If only that were true.
Since bin Laden declared war against the United States in 1996,
al-Qaeda's main goals have included the destruction of the Arab world's tyrannies and of Israel.
The events of recent weeks
only move al-Qaeda closer to those objectives.
[4]
Today, the dictatorships of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia
and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt are gone.
Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is little more than
the mayor of his capital city of Sanaa.
And Col. Moammar Gaddafi may be on his way out in Libya,
unless some knee-jerk U.S.-led intervention saves him
by refocusing Libyan and other North African Islamists
on what they consider an infidel threat greater than Gaddafi.
[5]
As for Israel, the fall of Mubarak - and the unsealing of Egypt's border with Gaza -
pose a security disaster equal to the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
Israel's two anti-Islamist shields to the east and to the west
are now history.
[6]
All of this amounts to an enormous strategic step forward for al-Qaeda.
That these victories have come with virtually no investment
of manpower or money by the terrorist network,
and with self-defeating applause from
the Facebook-obsessed, Twitter-addled West,
only makes them all the sweeter for bin Laden.
[7]
Peering into the future, the autocrats' probable successors
likewise offer abundant good news for al-Qaeda and kindred groups.
In Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and any other nation with a U.S.-supported tyranny
that sinks in the weeks and months ahead,
the role of Islamist groups will become larger - and over time perhaps dominant -
if only because the populations in play are almost entirely Muslim
and because Islamist groups have the most effective nationwide infrastructures to replace the old guard.
And most do and will receive funding, openly or covertly,
from always generous donors in Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Sunni gulf states.
[8]
Each new regime is likely to host a more open, religion-friendly environment
for speech, assembly and press freedoms than did Mubarak and his ilk.
So it will be easier for media-savvy Islamist groups - whether peaceful or militant -
to proselytize, publish and foment without immediate threat of arrest and incarceration.
Indeed, Washington and its Western allies
will dogmatically urge the new governments
to maintain such freedoms, even as the Islamists capitalize on them.
[9]
The Islamists will follow the formulas for gaining power and then governing
that are detailed in the Koran and the Sunnah, the prophet Muhammad's sayings and traditions.
Western experts have long failed to recognize these documents
as Islam's equivalent to the Declaration of Independence,
the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
In Egypt, for example, governance based on them
would be far more familiar, comfortable and culturally appropriate
than anything opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei and his followers could offer.
[10]
The blessing of the Arab revolts for al-Qaeda and its allies
also can be seen in the opening of prisons across Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
In Egypt alone, the news media are reporting that at least 17,000 prisoners have been freed.
Many of those released are not thieves and murderers,
but Islamist firebrands that the regimes had jailed
to protect their internal security -
at times even at the request and with the funding of Washington and its allies.
Indeed, many were incarcerated as a result of
quiet cooperation between Western and Arab intelligence services;
their release is a major setback for these efforts.
[11]
So al-Qaeda and like-minded groups are now being replenished by
a steady flow of pious, veteran mujaheddin,
each of whom will never forget that U.S. and other Western funds
helped keep them jailed by Arab tyrants.
[12]
The revolts also mean that the United States and its Western allies must take on
a far greater share of the counterterrorism operations
that they previously conducted with the help of Arab regimes.
The days of Mubarak, Saleh, Gaddafi and Ben Ali doing the dirty work
for American, European and Israeli counterterrorism efforts are over.
Soon it will be U.S. and Western special forces and intelligence services
that will be ordered to capture or kill militants in Muslim lands -
individuals that our tyrannical friends used to dispose of for us.
[13]
How tragic that
in the war being waged against the United States by al-Qaeda and its allies
precisely because of Washington's relentless intervention in the Islamic world,
the U.S. government will now be forced to intervene even more -
or sit on the sidelines and watch al-Qaeda build or expand bases from which to threaten U.S. security.
[14]
Of course, open and vociferous participation by Islamists
in the demonstrations in Cairo, Tunis, Tripoli and elsewhere
would have earned a lethal and Western-supported response
from Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi.
So al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups
simply used a talent that long ago atrophied in the West -
the ability to keep their mouths shut.
As usual, the West wrongly concluded that silence connotes not strategy,
but impotence and irrelevance.
[15]
Bin Laden and his peers are counting on the fact that
the uprisings' secular, pro-democracy Facebookers and tweeters -
so beloved of reality-averse Western journalists and politicians -
are a thin veneer across a deeply pious Arab world.
They are confident that these revolts are not about democratic change
but about who, in societies where peaceful transfers of power are rare,
will fill the vacuum left by the dictators and consolidate power.
These men also know that the answer to that question
will ultimately come out of the barrel of a Kalashnikov, of which they have many,
along with the old tyrants' weapons stockpiles, on which they are now feasting.
2011-03-31-Scheuer-CNN-Libya-interview
Here are two links to Scheuer’s interview on CNN re Obama’s Libya intervention:Michael Scheuer vs. CNN’s War Cheerleaders (Antiwar.com, Eric Garris)
“You’re Just Carrying the Water for Mr. Obama!”
(describes CNN anchor Christine Romans's actions)
Here is the controversial part of the last:
[W]hen Kiran [Cherty] asked Scheuer
whether America’s aid for the Libyan rebels
was actually support of “Islamic democracy…tired of totalitarian rule,”
he acidly asserted,
“If we were supporting Islamic democracy, that would be one thing.
But, if you listen to Ms. Clinton and, especially,
the rather crazed Ms. Rice at the U.N.,
this is all about democracy in a world
were democracy is not going to take hold.”
As Christine listened to Scheuer’s increasingly cutting criticism
of the U.S. involvement in Libya,
she appeared to become agitated in tandem with his answers
(as she repeatedly put her hand on her hip, crossed her arms,
and furrowed her eyebrows).
When the interview concluded, Christine dismissively interjected,
“I think it’s very clear, Michael Scheuer,
that you are no fan of this policy and this administration.”
[Dismissive? Sounds like an accurate summation of Scheuer's view,
at least with regard to Obama's Libya policy.]
Then, looking at Kiran repeatedly (as if for succor), Christine scolded,
“I think calling Ambassador Rice crazed is certainly a significant charge.”
Unrepentant, Scheuer acerbically retorted,
“Oh, I don’t know! I’ve just listened to her!
That’s only my impression.”
Elaborating, he remarked,
“[T]his is not a Democratic problem: this is a Republican problem, too.
Both parties love to intervene in other people’s business
where there are no U.S. interests at stake
and where we spend enormous amounts of money
at a time when we’re nearly bankrupt.”
With her arms crossed defiantly
(and Kiran looking down at the desk demurely),
Christine sharply disagreed, declaring,
“And, that’s a whole nother [sic] story.
To call the United States bankrupt–
the United States is running humongous deficits, yes.
But, the economy and this mission is Libya are two separate issues.”
Smiling, Scheuer sneered,
“They’re not separate issues, ma’am.
You’re just carrying the water for Mr. Obama.”
Bristling at Scheuer’s slam, Christine retorted,
“I’m certainly not carrying anyone’s water!
And, I will assure you of that.”
Then, after thanking him for his time, Christine icily concluded,
“You, know, we’ve had a very long, exhaustive interview.
You’ve had plenty of time to give your point of view on that.”
2013
2013-08-07-Scheuer-obama-rice-kerry-mccain-and-graham-intervening-for-more-war
Obama, Rice, Kerry, McCain, and Graham: Intervening for more warby Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2013-08-08
While the frequent, dastardly lies of
President Obama, CIA Chief John Brennan, and their media acolytes
about the demise of al-Qaeda and its allies unravel,
Obama, Susan Rice, John Kerry, John McCain, and Lindsay Graham also are
knowingly stoking the flames of Islam’s religious war against the United States
by intervening in the Palestine-Israel war and Egyptian politics.
Take, for example, the newly begun Israel-Palestine “peace talks.”
There is, of course, no chance of peace,
unless all Palestinians are forever willing to be
Israel’s obedient, impotent, and forelock-tugging subjects.
First, the PLO represents half of Palestinians
and the democratically elected Hamas government —
which represents the rest —
has not been invited to the talks.
Second, no viable Palestinian state is possible because
(a) for decades Israel has deliberately cut up Palestinian territory
with roads, military positions, and settlements
that leave little contiguous territory with which to compose a “state,” and
(b) because it keeps seizing Palestinian land
to build security walls and settlements.
Third, more than half of Palestinians — and most of the Muslim world —
will never accept peace with the Israelis,
whom they regard as the U. S-protected enemies of their God and faith,
as well as plundering and murderous land thieves.
In addition, Hamas and other Palestinian Islamists —
not to mention al Qaeda and its allies —
know the Arab Spring has created an enormous, if still potential opportunity
to draw large quantities of Israeli blood
because it toppled or weakened the Arab tyrannies that border Israel
and long helped the Israelis keep their borders secure.
...
2015
2015-07-02-Scheuer-isis-makes-the-british-lion-a-declawed-and-shabby-cat
ISIS makes the British lion a declawed and shabby catby Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-07-02
...
Western leaders have lied and deceived their peoples
about the nature, size, and endurance of the Islamists
for so long that
the entire problem has resolved itself into four clear options,
one easy and the other three brutally difficult:
- The West must stop intervening in a region
where it has consistently armed, funded, and backed tyranny
for more than sixty years,
and let Muslims sort out such problems as
Israel, methods of governing, and sectarian hatreds.
If the West is lucky,
strict non-intervention will allow Sunnis and Shias
to fight a prolonged and bloody regional religious war
that will make the West more onlooker than target,
or - The West must raise taxes considerably, rearm,
reinstate conscription to provide troops for service at home and abroad,
shelve most civil liberties to cope with the internal Islamist threat,
and prepare to kill many millions of its enemies and their supporters,
or - If too bankrupt too do (b) — which is likely —
the West must get ready to use tactical nuclear weapons
(NB: NATO leaders surely are doing this
after attacking Russia’s national security
with their insane democracy mongering in Ukraine),
or - Give up and convert to Islam.
...
The Western world today is led by self-deceivers of Paine’s description
[Referencing a previous quote from Thomas Paine].
For twenty years the current crop of Western leaders and their predecessors
have faced one of the easiest possible foreign policy problems to solve since 1900,
and yet they have only whined about its bewildering complexity,
lied about it being insusceptible to a military solution,
and preached about the consequent need for
a prudent, multifaceted, culturally sensitive, and highly intelligent response.
This is horse hockey.
Since Osama bin Laden first publicly spoke in 1996,
it has been blindingly clear that
the Islamists are going to keep killing Westerners
until Western governments stop intervening in their world or
until the West kills all or almost all of the Islamists.
The Islamists have never altered this message —
though they have intensified it with words and deeds —
and Western leaders, by not listening,
have wasted twenty years and thousands of military lives
but have yet to begin to defend the West.
[I would modify that last to
"effectively, for the long term, defend the West."]
...
The Islamist problem should not even have taken an hour to solve
when it was in its infancy.
But today it stands a steadily increasing chance of finishing off
the long-dying entity called Western civilization.
[Not to worry.
Hyper-immigration (now Obama wants to welcome even the illegal invaders),
multi-culturalism, and feminism will do that
even if Islam does not.]
2015-09-02-Morrell-Schoenfeld-Mary-Jo-White-more-911-related-cover-up-lies-these-from-an-ex-cia-director-and-a-journalist
More 9/11-related, cover-up lies, these from an ex-CIA Director and a “journalist”by Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2015-09-02
...
[O]n this occasion I am going to publish a commendation that was given to me by the Department of Justice, on its behalf and that of the FBI, for the work that my unit “Alec Station” — staffed mostly by female CIA officers, but also with excellent female officers from NSA and FBI — did against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida between November, 1995, and May, 1999. I am doing so for two reasons.
First, in his recent book, The Great War of Our Time, the former Acting Director of CIA, Michael Morell, and his co-author — the latter shill also co-wrote George Tenet’s deceitful book — published a number of deliberate lies about me and the people who I was honored to serve with in the 1995-1999 era of the battle against al-Qaeda.
...
The second reason is an August, 2015, article by an Israel-First cheerleader named Gabriel Schoenfeld ...
...
2015-11-21-CNN-Smerconish-interview-with-Scheuer
YouTube video: Ex-CIA officer who led Bin Laden hunt, on ISIS attacksCNN, Michael Smerconish, 2015-11-21
2016
2016-01-22-remark-by-Scheuer-on-being-impacted-by-American-Jews
Addendum: National Review adds luster to Trump’s candidacyby Michael Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2016-01-22
[I want to highlight not the content of Scheuer's article,
although that is significant and worthwhile,
but his response to a comment to the article.
Here is a reader's comment and Scheuer's response:]
by Lennart:
Are you aware that the Anti Defamation League is keeping a so called hate file on you since many years back due to what they call "U.S. Anti Israel-activity"?
by Mike Scheuer:
Thank you for writing.
I do not know that for a fact, but it would not surprise me.
I have lost at least three lucrative jobs because of the money-and-media influence of disloyal Jewish-Americans and their organizations.
I also have been banned from the major news networks and from testifying before the Congress.
It seems that these poor little traitorous fellows are unhappy with me.
Well so be it, I do indeed hate what these flagrantly disloyal people deliberately do to damage America\'s chances for survival.
And I\'ll be damned if I will standby silently and watch disloyal U.S. citizens, their organizations, and the politicians they bribe
involve the United States in a foreign country\'s endless religious war,
which commonsense will tell you is America\'s war in large measure because of
its support for and truckling to Israel and the Arab tyrannies.
All told, I welcome their hate and their venom.
MFS
2016-03-26-MFS-after-brussels-westerners-face-two-deadly-enemies-the-islamists-and-their-governments
After Brussels, Westerners face two deadly enemies —the Islamists and their governments
by Michael F. Scheuer
non-intervention.com, 2016-03-26
posted by KHarbaugh at 12:00
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