INSIDE THE MAD, MAD MIND OF MICHAEL SCHEUER…APPEASER, ISOLATIONIST, ANTI-SEMITE AND AMERICA HATER

Posted By on November 25th, 2010

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/11/24/inside-the-mad-mind-of-michael-scheuer-token-expert-of-appeasers-isolationists-anti-semites-and-america-haters/2/

Among the angry rantings of anti-war leftists and Paulite libertarians, you’ve probably noticed one name popping up again and again: Michael Scheuer. Scheuer is a former CIA officer who headed the agency’s unit on Osama bin Laden. His popularity with war critics stems from his argument that Islamic terrorist attacks against the United States are in large part “blowback” against American meddling in the Middle East. Whenever Ron Paul or one of his fans says, “Our own CIA tells us they hate us because we’re occupiers!” this is the guy they’re talking about.

Given his importance to the Left/Right anti-war coalition, it’s worth asking: Who is Michael Scheuer?

Answer: He’s a nut. Specifically, a Jew-hating nut.

On May 26, 2010, NewsRealBlog’s Jeanette Pryor highlighted Scheuer’s thesis that the answer to all our woes is getting out of the rest of the world’s business—especially Israel. Perhaps the most telling part was Scheuer’s assessment of the political landscape:

There is not a nickel’s worth of difference between President Bush and former President Clinton, between Senator McCain and Senator Obama, between Speaker Pelosi and Mayor Giuliani, between any of the forgoing and any of their Israel-first cheerleaders in the Council of Foreign Relations, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the American Israel Political Action Committee.

They are all rank and reckless interventionists bent on involving America in other people’s wars and content to see America by their ego-building, democracy crusading adventures overseas. The greatest danger to America lies in the imperial ambitions of these men and women. They are a mortal threat to the American people.

Put aside, for the moment, the question of whether or not you agree with any given politician on foreign policy issues. Simply ask yourself: do you really think there’s “not a nickel’s worth of difference” between most prominent Republicans and Democrats on them? It’s true that several prominent Democrats voted for the Iraq War, and that President Barack Obama has continued some of his GOP predecessor’s policies in the War on Terror, but the parties’ common ground – much of which is little more than political expediency or the occasional fleeting recognition that defending the nation trumps politics – is overshadowed by far more than a nickel’s worth of difference (guess whether it was Pelosi or Giuliani who vouched for Syria’s good intentions in 2007).

The differences – and Scheuer’s madness – are best highlighted by the following commentary Scheuer re-posted in the comment section of Jeanette’s post (emphasis added):

Obama is completely owned by the Israelis, just as his predecessors were. U.S. taxpayers continue to see their money channeled to the war-wanting Israeli theocracy, even as the number of jobless and homeless increase domestically. Our soldier-children are still on the hook to die for Israel — without a declaration of war — if Netanyahu divines that his holy book tells him that Israel’s God-given deed for all of Palestine needs protecting by attacking Iran. (NB: Odd isn’t it, how Washington routinely uses the separation-of-church-and-state tenet to attack U.S. Christians, but believes it is inapplicable when the U.S. federal government financially supports or militarily defends overseas theocracies like Israel and Saudi Arabia?)

In addition, Obama has an Israeli military veteran as his chief of staff, and almost certainly as a conduit for making sure his friends in that military are up-to-date on U.S.-collected intelligence. And 76 U.S. senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Clinton in April, 2010 — after Netanyahu publicly humiliated Obama and Biden — urging unqualified support for Israel because it is a “reliable ally and friend and has helped advance American interests.” This explains a lot about America’s problems if 76 senators believe Israel’s suborning U.S. citizens to spy on their country; selling U.S. high-technology to U.S. enemies; and corrupting the U.S. political system — at least to the extent of 76 AIPAC-owned U.S. senators – are the traits of a “reliable ally and friend.”

“Obama’s war on Israel” must meet a new-age definition of war that I have yet to learn. For all intents and purposes, Obama is an Israeli operative, as were his predecessors.

First, the “Israeli military veteran” Scheuer refers to is Rahm Emanuel, and he’s not an Israeli military vet:

In 1991, during the first Gulf War, Emanuel flew to Israel and volunteered in Sar-El, the Israel Defense Forces program for civilian volunteers, at a base in the north, performing the unglamorous task of rust-proofing brakes on military vehicles.

Just a bit different, no? And for what it’s worth, a fair number of Israelis don’t seem to think Emanuel’s on their side anymore…

Second, ol’ Rahm could be the biggest Zionist zealot in the country, and it still wouldn’t make Scheuer’s case—Emanuel’s boss ultimately calls the shots, and Obama’s far removed from “Israeli operative” you can’t help but wonder what Scheuer’s smoking. What’s Israel getting from someone they “completely own”? Not bloody much, that’s what. Among the reasons the International Zionist Conspiracy should demand a refund:

Are there words sufficient to fully convey just how utterly insane it is to say the man responsible for all this is a lapdog for the Jews?

Writing for the Weekly Standard, Thomas Joscelyn has more on Mad Mike. Scheuer has a history of floating dark conspiracy theories about how Israel conspires to bend US foreign policy to its sinister will, including Scheuer’s view that the US Holocaust Museum is meant to achieve this end by working a guilt trip over unsuspecting Americans and his habit of approvingly citing al Qaeda propaganda about Israel’s ties to the US.

Even when we move away from the subject of Israel, Scheuer doesn’t fare much better. Joscelyn undermines the CIA kook’s main meal ticket, his blowback thesis…

In advancing this argument Scheuer ignores the role that state-controlled propaganda plays in shaping popular opinion in the Middle East. He also ignores the argument that U.S. foreign policy has been, on balance, ostensibly pro-Muslim and pro-Arab.

History is replete with examples, but several will suffice: the U.S. saved Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from Israeli forces in Beirut in 1982; assisted Muslims against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan throughout the 1980s; freed the Muslim nation of Kuwait and prevented the invasion of Saudi Arabia by a supposedly secular tyrant in 1991; and intervened on behalf of Muslims in Somalia and Bosnia. (For a more complete account of U.S. foreign policy towards Muslims and Arabs, see Barry Rubin’s “The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism” published in the November/December 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs, a magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relations.)

…and his glaringly-inconsistent assessments of Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorism:

WHEN MICHAEL SCHEUER, the first head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, first emerged into public view almost a year ago, it was a curiosity how he could appear in the media–time after time–claiming that there was no evidence of a relationship between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaeda. It was curious because, in 2002, Scheuer wrote the book Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, in which he cited numerous pieces of evidence showing that there was, in fact, a working relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. That evidence directly contradicted his criticism of the intelligence that led this nation into the Iraq war, which he called a “Christmas present” for bin Laden.

Here’s 2002 Scheuer: “Regarding Iraq, bin Laden, as noted was in contact with Baghdad’s intelligence service since at least 1994. He reportedly cooperated with it in the area of chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear (CBRN) weapons and may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam’s anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK).”

And here’s his 2005 about-face: “Without a doubt, in the war against al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies.”

In the final analysis, we see that the authority on which so much anti-war, isolationist, and appeasement-minded agitation depends is nothing more than a fraudulent crank. But while the real Michael Scheuer merely exposes the intellectual carelessness of his fans, it reveals something far more disturbing—and potentially more dangerous—about the competence of the CIA that tasked such a man with a major role in the defense of our nation.

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Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College.  He also writes for the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.

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