Ex-CIA Man Uncovers Jewish Conspiracy!

Wall Street Journal -- Best of the Web ^ | Feb. 10, 2005 | JAMES TARANTO

[JohnathanRGalt]

Remember Michael Scheuer? He's the former CIA analyst who penned an anonymous book called "Imperial Hubris" attacking the Bush administration's approach to terrorism. When we last saw him, in November, he was explaining to Tim Russert that American support for Israel is to blame for anti-American terrorism, and that Osama bin Laden is "in many ways . . . an admirable man."....

[DAVEY CROCKETT]

LOL PING!

[Torie]

It takes two to tango. Arafat rejected Barak's offer that would have removed almost all of those settlements. I don't think the settlements had much to do with the lack of a peace deal. I don't think at any time the Palestinians were ready to make a deal that was at all reasonable for Israel to accept. The upside of the settlements is that it tended to make clear that time was not on the Palestinians side.

And no, I don't know a thing about the book. I just think over the past 20 years, the equities have shifted decisively to Israel's side, and I was one whose skin would crawl ever time I listened to M. Begin. Diffferent facts lead to different conclusions.

Oh yes, the really "constructive" thing Israel did was to build the wall, which I advocated about 6 years ago. If anything leads to peace, it will be the wall.

[Cold Heat]

Help me out here hoss.

A rather unexplainable fear of Jews.

[Hoplite]

The wall again, is it?

I think we left this with me standing firm on the 1967 border and you allowing for small scale Israeli enlargement.

I'll note that I wouldn't have been so charitable as to describe anything Arafat did as dancing - he was a schmuck and good riddance to him, but neither his existence nor Palestinian's dismal inability to find worthy leadership is reason for Israel to play the Lord of the Manor and enclose the Palestinian commons or divest Palestinians of their homes to make room for Israeli homes - were the shoe on the other foot, Palestinian settlements or encroachment in Israel would be no more acceptable than the current setup, and we need to start enforcing that policy with a little more firmness than we have in the past.

As to where this leads, I'll quote Scheuer himself:

Israel. There is certainly not a more difficult or dangerous issue to debate in the field of postwar U.S. foreign policy. The American political landscape is littered with the battered individuals - most recently the president of the United States - who dared to criticize Israel, or, even more heretically, to question the value to U.S. national interests of the country's overwhelmingly one-way alliance with Israel. 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 the U.S.-Israeli status quo.

[Hoplite]

Scheuer's afraid of Jews?

Sorry - I don't see it.

[Torie]

What I am saying is that the settlements near the border put pressure on the Palestinians to change their position. The far flung ones were unfortunate, and will be abandoned anyway, but in the end, I don't think that had much to do with Palestinian irrationality, or being a barrior to peace in the sense of deflecting Palestinians away from something that it was moral for the US to push Israel to accept.

In the end, what is the in US interests in the long term is to do what is moral and consistent with its conscience - not to pacify the Arabs in an agenda that does not comport with that.

If one really wants to criticize the US and Israel, it should pertain to the period after the 1967 war and into the 1970's, and that is water long under the bridge.

[Torie]

By the way it is hard for any fair minded person to criticize Israel after Barak extended the deal he did, and its rejection. That exposed that the Palestinians and their leadership wore no clothes, covering up their ethnic cleansing agenda, in my mind. That was the real Rubicon for me, as to my present views.

[Celtman]

There were no Baptists 1000 years ago.

      Actually there were.  Roman Catholic Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, President of the Council of Trent in 1524, said, "Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past twelve hundred years, they would swarm in greater number than all the Reformers."

[sheik yerbouty]

I did not complain about intolerance, though I believe it is what you have a problem with. Take it or leave it.

[rmlew]

If the show were on the other foot, there would be no Israel.
On the other hand, there already is an Arab state on 3/4 of 1922 Palestine.
The issue then is how much of the disputed territory, Israel should take. Most of the "settlements" are either on previously empty land, or land owned by Jews prior to 1947-49.

The costs of supporting Israel are known. What are the costs of not supporting Israel?
Are we to believe that the Muslim world will cease to have grievences? I doubt it. They will have an excuse for Jihad as long as any non-Muslim nation controls territory once controlled by Muslims or any Muslim in Dar Al-Harb is slighted. Of course, the ultimate goal of Muslims is a world-wide Caliphate.

Scheuer knows this. His blaming Israel is therefor a clear attempt to buy off Islam. Of course, the question is why Israel and not Russia, Spain, of Greece?
Instead of dealing with Islam, he preffers to whine about Jewish power.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Confused bump.

[Grzegorz 246]

"And let's remember that Scheuer isn't just any old nutcase. He is, as Lemann said in his introduction, "the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit." The quality of intelligence over at Langley would appear to have been even lower than anyone suspected."

Heh.

[Mark in the Old South]

Ya got me, but I'll get even my little pretty. :-)

[Mark in the Old South]

Hadn't heard of this man or what it refers. I will have to look into it when I get time, unless you have a source?

[papertyger]

We are seen as Israel's enablers in the Arab world, and to a large extent that is not an incorrect view.

The "arab world" has any number of complaints, grievances, and accusations levelled at the west in general, and America in particular. I see no reason to give this one any more credibility than the others. One might just as well claim it is adverse to our national interest to ignore a hypothetical complaint on the part of the French posing our poor relations with them are due to chummy relations with the British.

Furthermore, if the foreign policy of the old Soviet Union were any indicator, it would seem the number and obscurity of grievances in the "arab world" grows in direct proportion to how much credit those grievances are given. After all, they were much more instrumental to the creation of the state of Israel than we were, yet they seemed to suffer no appreciable arab animosity for it.

[Hoplite]

In the end, what is the in US interests in the long term is to do what is moral and consistent with its conscience - not to pacify the Arabs in an agenda that does not comport with that.

I agree with this completely, so I have to ascribe your diverging opinion to a lack of morals.

= )

Seriously, though, I see the settlements not as something Israel was compelled to do in order to safeguard it's citizens, which is both the primary duty and unalienable right of the Israeli government, but as a naked land grabs. I thus see them as unjustified on the Israeli's part and unsupportable on ours, regardless of how jacked out of shape the Palestinian so-called leadership was.

[Hoplite]

We're not going to cut Israel loose, and Scheuer is not attempting to buy off Islam - he's calling for a clear-headed evaluation of our fight with Al Qaeda, to be followed by the necessary steps to carry on that fight to a successful conclusion.

I don't see how you can combat a problem, win a war, unless you realize really what the enemy is up to and what he's about, and what motivates him. As long as we cling to these ideas that they're criminals and we can settle the issue with primarily the use of law enforcement in the court, and a very moderate application of military power, I see no reason for hope. I use an epigram there from Lincoln after the battle of Antietam where he said: "These people just don't realize we're in a bloody war and it's going to have to be fought out to the end", and that's about where we are. - Michael Scheuer

American-Israeli relations go under the "what motivates him" part of Scheuer's comment.

As to justifying Israeli expansion across it's 1947 borders, if that can be justified, then so too can Palestinian reclamation of areas which were previously empty land or owned by Palestinians prior to 1947-49, right?

Of course not - this isn't about what's justified, its about what's possible given the current situation, which favors Israel, is maintained as the status quo by America as it is in our interest to maintain it that way, but is being used by some in Israel to carve out lebensraum at the expense of Palestinians, which is contrary to our interests.

[rmlew]

American-Israeli relations go under the "what motivates him" part of Scheuer's comment.
Have you read Bin Laden's demands? He doesn't give a wit about the ARabvs in the West Bank or Gaza. The existance of Israel is the problem. Of course, there are many other issues that Bin Laden puts ahead of Israel and others like Andalusia behind it.

As to justifying Israeli expansion across it's 1947 borders, if that can be justified, then so too can Palestinian reclamation of areas which were previously empty land or owned by Palestinians prior to 1947-49, right?
1. Conquest is universal, at least in the short term. Long term, I put my faith in God.
2. Very little land was owned by Arabs, that they do not own today. In fact, individual Arabs own more land in 1949 Israel than Jews.
3. What makes the 1940 armistice lines any more permanent than that of 1967, 1979 or the 1923 Sykes Pikot treaty.

Of course not - this isn't about what's justified, its about what's possible given the current situation, which favors Israel, is maintained as the status quo by America as it is in our interest to maintain it that way, but is being used by some in Israel to carve out lebensraum at the expense of Palestinians, which is contrary to our interests.
1. Israel did just fine without US aid until 1973. We only got involved to counter the Soviets.
2. Lebenraum? Take a good look at 1921 "Palestine". 3/4 of it was carved out as an ARab state. We are squabling over the remaining 1/4 as Israel and Yesha.
As for American national interests, rewarding Islamist terrorism is not in them.

[Hoplite]

Bin Laden specifically references American support for Israel on numerous occasions - he has three oft repeated complaints about the US:

1. US Occupation of Muslim lands.
2. US Support for non-Islamic governments in Islamic countries.
3. US support for Israel.

In his November 2004 statement, he ties the idea for the 9/11 attacks directly to our role in Israeli occupation of Palestine.

This isn't to say that I'm supporting some notion that we should base our policies on anything Bin Laden says - we're not the intended audience for his statements and we should continue to act in our own interests, independent of what he says. But it would be foolish of us to completely ignore what he's saying and avoid analysis of whether it's doing him any good amongst his target audience.

The crux of the matter here is that Israeli settlements in Palestine are against American interests - the Palestinians will never agree to them save under coercion, and a coerced peace is not a lasting one. As such, the settlements should get no support from America.

And don't kid yourself as to Israel's chances without American support - Israel has one of the most combat effective militaries in the world, but the logisitcal tail of that military is tied to the United States.