Fasten your seat belts, here is my take on Frum's review of Scheuer:
First, the end of all U.S. aid to Israel, the elimination of the Jewish state, and in its stead the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state.
Second, the withdrawal of all U.S. and Western military forces from the Arabian peninsula — a shift of most units from Saudi Arabia to Qatar fools no Muslims and will not cut the mustard — and all Muslim territory.
Third, the end of all U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Fourth, the end of U.S. support for, and acquiescence in, the oppression of Muslims by the Chinese, Russian, Indian, and other governments.
Fifth, restoration of full Muslim control over the Islamic world's energy resources and a return to market prices [sic], ending the impoverishment of Muslims caused by oil prices set by Arab regimes to placate the West.
Sixth, the replacement of U.S.-protected Muslim regimes that do not govern according to Islam by regimes that do. For bin Laden, only Mullah Omar's Afghanistan met these criteria; other Muslim regimes are candidates for annihilation.
These are the paragraphs which Frum says characterize the principal missteps of American-Muslim policy alleged by author Scheuer in Imperial Hubris together with the steps needed to begin the path toward winning the war. I have separated them for clarity.
My contention is that Frum is primarily motivated by the first, that he disguises this by describing it as one of many objections, and that his objection, from the only point of view which should animate a servant of the nation, is misplaced.
First, a summary of the six mistakes: There are really only four because because the fifth and the sixth are really one since they both have to do with oil. So that leaves our support for Russia, China and etc. (the fourth), our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan (the third) and our support for Israel (the first). In time we will see that there are only three because our involvement in Afganistan and Iraq will be subsumed and finally only two because our support of Russia and China will be shown to be hardly the stuff of war and jihad. Ultimately, we will be down to two and we will see that one is worth waging total world war to the death and one is not worth any American city. Please stay tuned to see which is which.
Let us turn to our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are theaters of active war in the world war against insurgent Islam but Afghanistan at least is not an objective in itself. We are in Afghanistan to destroy the command and control of Al Quaida. Although they might well come back and maybe already have, Al Quaida is long gone from Afghanistan as a governing force.
We are in Iraq to keep WMDs out of their hands, to prevent petro dollars from being used to fund terrorism, especially WMDs, and to maintain the flow of oil from the world's second richest reserve field at reasonable, market prices. President Bush has also articulated a strategic goal of rendering both countries into democracies but this goal is again not an end in itself but a strategy in the war on terror. We can live in peace with a peaceful if autocratic or even theocratic Afghanistan and Iraq.
So, we have an interest in Afghanistan in denying terrorists a base of operations. Apart from that, we do not need to be there. We do not need to wage world war to grant Afghan women the vote. And since we have not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we have only an interest that its petro dollars do not again go toward making big bombs. Apart from oil, we could happily leave both places to their own brand of hell.
Conclusion: Subject to the above, let Usama have his way on issue number three. Assuming Iraq has been subsumed into the oil issue, we are now down to three issues.
Let’s consider mistake the Fourth, “ the end of U.S. support for, and acquiescence in, the oppression of Muslims by the Chinese, Russian, Indian, and other governments.” OK, Usama, that’s no skin off our butts, done your way, in exchange of course for an end to the war. We are now down to two issues.
These amount to oil and Mr. Frum’s real concern, support for Israel.
In the end this is all about Scheuer’s ideas. He has said, (note, the quote and the accompanying commentary come from a thoroughly leftist source that you may have the full impression, not that you may conclude that I support or otherwise endorse the source- http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3705 :
On the question of Israel, Scheuer bravely confronts the "third rail" of American foreign policy, descrying the policy of unconditional support to that country as an albatross of unbearable weight tied 'round our necks, one that could well drag us down into a relentless war against a billion-plus Muslims. Yet all discussion, he notes, of this inexplicable policy, which hurts our national interests, is forbidden:
<(B> "Almost every such speaker is immediately branded anti-Semitic and consigned to the netherworld of American politics, as if concerns about U.S. national security are prima facie void if they involve any questioning of the U.S.-Israel status quo."
The Kerry people may lift his critique of the Afghan war, but were surely horrified by Scheuer's bitterly ironic paean of admiration for
"Israel's diplomats, politicians, intelligence services, U.S.-citizen spies, and the retired senior U.S. officials and wealthy Jewish-American organizations who lobby an always amenable Congress on Israel's behalf."
He sarcastically hails the Israelis and their American supporters who "have succeeded in lacing tight the ropes binding the American Gulliver to the tiny Jewish state and its policies," perceptively noting that this conflation of American and Israeli interests been so successful that, "for many Americans," Israeli nationalism "has become deeply entwined with American nationalism" – to which I would add, only in certain quarters.
Why is Frum so adamant on the question of Israel? Israel has no oil but it has marvelous human assets. I suggest that we cut this Gordian knot and solve our problem and make a huge gain: Withdraw all support from Israel but offer every Israeli immediate citizenship and residence in America. Voila, Usama is happy and we profit! We might have just spared Pittsburgh or Seattle the agony of atomic destruction while enriching our commonweal? What a deal.
Now let us turn our attention to the one area of contention which remains and which is not a matter for surrender or appeasement. It is one of the most moral basis upon which any nation can righteously wage war: Oil. As the estimable (and equally admirable) Ann Coulter has remarked, between bon mots, oil is only as much worth fighting for as air. Soon we will be fighting for water as well as oil. All three are commodities worth fighting for and, if necessary, dying for because without any one of them we will surely die. Of three hundred million Americans we would be lucky if ten million were to survive the chaos which followed the catastrophic and abrupt loss of oil. We would freeze. We would starve. We would die like the Irish on the side of the roads during the hunger. We would thirst. We would go mad. We would murder one another.
Ah, you say, we need not fear the total loss of petroleum products but only that they be fairly priced (this is what Scheuer says Usama wants – no reason to believe that he wants to entirely cut off the flow) but I say I would commit the nation to total, unlimited war for national survival before I would give such a man a dagger and expose the national breast to his thrust. Fairly priced? Do you like your job? Your house? Your car? Your kids’ education? Your diet? Your retirement? Your dignity? By God, sir or madam, if you would not fight for oil like a Confederate at the Dunker Church, you are not worthy.
Does not oil put it all in perspective? Oil is worth a world war against 1.3 billion Muslims, but Israel is not. But if we look hard at these issues the matter will almost solve itself and we can retain our cheap oil if Scheuer is right. Let the crazies have their theocracies on their own turf. Give us cheap oil. We could cut that deal. Done.
WHY DOES EVERYONE ON THIS THREAD WANT SCHEUER TO BE WRONG?
Offer every Israeli United States citizenship? Are you mad?
Imagine if you will that England is taking flak from terrorists because of their support for the United States. Rather than continue to support us they offer us asylum in their country. Would you consider them an ally? Would we want to leave our own country? Of course not. It is the same with the Israelis.
And I disagree with your assumption about Afghanistan and Iraq. #1. If we leave those countries, the terrorists move in. The only way to make sure the terrorists don't get a toehold in those countries is to leave them with a governing body of their own people who are strong enough to ensure the Taliban and terrorists don't come back in.
I don't think it's that we so much want Scheuer to be wrong. He is so obviously wrong it would be boneheaded to ignore how wrong he is.
Listening to him on Matthews show yesterday I had three thoughts. #1. He's burnt out. #2. He doesn't make sense and contradicts himself every other sentence . It was like listening to Kerry and trying to figure out what he was saying. #3. If this is the best we can do within the CIA, we're in more serious trouble than I thought.
Did you hear Russert question him about his previous book which detailed the many connections between OBL and Saddam? His previous book details names, places, dates, times of meetings, etc. It is inescapable that there was a relationship between OBL and Saddam.
But now Scheuer says there is no relationship. Was he lying then or is he lying now? He certainly is lying. That much is clear. Or he's so burnt out he's no longer making sense. Does he think we can't look this stuff up? If he doesn't realize we can easily find the hypocrisy in his statements, he's dumber than a rock and we should be delighted he's left the CIA.