‘Our Country Is in Trouble’

"You say bin Laden has laid all this out. But one doesn't hear discussion of this in the current presidential campaign." WRONG. Dr. Ron Paul has been screeming the thesis of this book his entire campaign. You just weren't listening.

Dr. Ron Paul has been screaming the thesis of this book throughout his entire campaign and Newsweek has been marginalizing or ignoring him the entire time. "But one doesn't hear discussion of this in the current presidential campaign."- WRONG. You just weren't listening.

Scheuer's portrait of Bin Laden's "genius" is at variance with Peter Wright's portrait of a charismatic but unfocused and naive would-be visionary in "The Looming Tower". Bin Laden was radicalized by Zawahiri, who was in turn tilted to murder after extensive torture in an Egyptian jail. Brilliant? Not so sure. The 9/11 plot would have been foiled at many turns, but for incompetence in high ranks of the CIA and FBI. political grievences that fuel hatred in the US. Any attempt to discuss these issues is seen as "sympathy for terrorism" - snd Scheurer is right, understanding one's enemy is critical.

The deepest taboo is against discussing our support for right-wing israeli policies, and the terrible cost we are paying for this blind support. There is a reason why this is the unmentionable subject in the Presidential race: to do so woudl be political suicide.

It's It is unquesitoably true that there is an effective ban on discussing the

Does anyone care to take a sensible investigation of the basic theology of Islam (before the international relations blunders of either side) and ask what the foreign policy of the actual religion really is? I find it absurd for any pundit or policy maker to assume that this fight will be won on the crux of a change in American foreign policy, although in moral principle I can sympathize with the call for those changes to be made. The publicly unstated fact to-date is that this is an ideological war that is not caused by bad foreign policy, but is in fact further enraged by bad foreign policy. But nobody wants to say it because even fewer these days can distinguish the difference between insulting an idea/religion and insulting a person, and that thanks to the unbridled advance of the hallowed ideals of political correctness. The statements given by Michael Scheuer lend credence to the fact that education does not snuff out the "myth of religion", as he has shed light on the highly educated cadre of the new gaurd of al-Qaeda (a number of them Ivy Leaguers, à la Arab princes). Set that up alongside the sweeping proliferation of Islam across what many had once assumed to be the stable, religion-purged secular societies of Western European WHITE PEOPLE (where I live, by the way) who for no personal political reason somehow become sympathetic out of nowhere to terrorism, and there's no way you can prove to me that this conflict is the result of ONLY American foreign policy and lack of universal enlightenment. Scheuer is right in stating that a spineless American government has failed to call it what it really is: that in it's most basic form, Islam is a religion whose fundamental theology contains a foreign policy that is unwilling to acknowledge the most basic of human dignities given by God--that a human being has a innate hard-wired granted liberty to choose regardless of the moral consequences of that choice, provided that choice does not infringe upon that same right of another human being; and that only God himself has the right to carry out his own judgement where eternity is concerned. However, acknowledging that this planet does not and never will have the capacity to function on a plane of justice other than evil for evil, I am forced to subscribe to whatever foreign policy that will protect the American people, any other people, and and their respective borders from such a tyranny of theo-anthropological falsehood until Islam experiences a shift of its own foreign policy. Now, ask me if that will happen...

The US foreign policy is a cancer to the world. Wherever there is US involvement, there will be trouble not only for the particular nation but the region as a whole. A conclusion can be made that all the chaos in the world are US made at the expense of the US taxpayers and against the wishes of the voters. The US is even trying to rekindle the cold war with Russia and just looking for viable excuses to intimidate China. What Mr. Scheuer is telling us now should be taken very seriously because the Americans are now experiencing the repercussions.

America will decline and rot from its own hubris before it will admit to the collossal mistakes it makes as a nation of bigots and social idiots. Made illegal at home by the Civil Rights Movement, Americans need someone to spill the bile of its anglocentricism on. Having finally and grudgingly given Native Americans their long lost dignity, and unable to spill its hatred on African Americans, the United States has turned its hatred towards others. Just listen to the vitroilic against "illegal immigrants," or the insane demagoguery of spite in the comment below, that the number of people killed justifies an insane hatred of any peoples. We are not the great democracy that folks like George W. make us out to be, and the attempt to spread "democracy " around the globe is just modern termonology for "Manifest Destiny," which helped us justify the near extinction of Native Americans, Australian aboriginies, the Moirés of New Zeland, and has left Africa a total cesspool of infectious European ideological waste. Unfortunately we will sleep in our own filth and die an egregious death because Euro-America has not learned one simple Natural Truth -- Darwinism is just as valid in the survival of ideas as it is of species, and the ideas of which Mr. Scheuer speaks are not "his" ideas, they are observations of reality that even a simpleton can understand -- all the simpleton has to do is think. It is obvious that many Americans cannot even accomplish that simple task. "Shine, Perishing Republic!"

America will decline and rot from its own hubris before it will admit to the collossal mistakes it makes as a nation of bigots and social idiots. Made illegal at home by the Civil Rights Movement, Americans need someone to spill the bile of its anglocentricism on. Having finally and grudgingly given Native Americans their long lost dignity, and unable to spill its hatred on African Americans, the United States has turned its hatred towards others. Just listen to the vitroilic against "illegal immigrants," or the insane demagoguery of spite in the comment below, that the number of people killed justifies an insane hatred of any peoples. We are not the great democracy that folks like George W. make us out to be, and the attempt to spread "democracy " around the globe is just modern termonology for "Manifest Destiny," which helped us justify the near extinction of Native Americans, Australian aboriginies, the Moirés of New Zeland, and has left Africa a total cesspool of infectious European ideological waste. Unfortunately we will sleep in our own filth and die an egregious death because Euro-America has not learned one simple Natural Truth -- Darwinism is just as valid in the survival of ideas as it is of species, and the ideas of which Mr. Scheuer speaks are not "his" ideas, they are observations of reality that even a simpleton can understand -- all the simpleton has to do is think. It is obvious that many Americans cannot even accomplish that simple task. "Shine, Perishing Republic!"

I agree we need to get a different mindset in order to stop the cycle of violence in which the US foreign policy has certainly caused many problems around the world. The current administration has purpetuated the longstanding Foreign policy disasters around the world. There is no country safe from our meddling, from South America to the middle east. We even threaten China simply because they are growing and have a military. Our foreign policy is and has been a bully on a mission. We need to stop this type of aggression against other nations.

To: sanderstoych
Dr. Paul is screaming about this very thing from every rooftop he can climb. The american people hear him. But the american people already KNOW this. They just don't care. The american people are not capable of thinking long term. We want jobs and the economy to be good right now. W don't care about a deficit. We want tax breaks! We don't care that our foreign policy might be turning millions of muslims to hate us. We want cheap oil prices NOW! We have come to terms with the fact that we're an empire, and that there are certain costs and benifits to being an empire. From that perspective, our current course of action works in our favor in the immediate future. One might even argue that we've always been exactly this way, but that we've only gained the capacity to act on a large enough scale for this reality to manifest itself visibly only after the mid 20th century. What we need to be having a discussion of is not the cost/benifit of our foreign policy, because it's clearly good for us financially. We need to be talking about the morality of our foreign policies. But what does our country know about morality when the so called "moral values" voters are the biggest racists and biggots in the country!?

Rant over.

To set2free: You're a PSYCHO!

Has not one man, Ron Paul that is, been saying over and over whenever the question of foreign policy arises, that they want to kill us for the exact reasons that Scheuer illuminates in your interview? I know, I know, Dr. Paul doesn't have a snowball's chance of securing the nomination, but how can any candidate be a candidate of change if they can't have an honest discussion w/ the American people on this grave issue?

Wowee!! I've been saying some of these things for years in letters to the editor - which Newsweek does not publish. Even in previous blogs to this site. I'd suggest that Michael Sheuer read the American Prospect which is where I get many of my ideas. He might also tun into Air America some time, another source of my information. I'd also suggest he pay more attention to what Democrats - particularly Obama, is saying. Whether Obama wins or loses the presidential nomination, he has set the theme of the election: the past vs. the future and the need for change we can believe in. One of the major changes that I hope emerge is the change in our foreign policy - particularly in regard to the Middle East.

Much of what is written here has been discussed in other articles, but here the issues are concisely summarized quite well. Unfortunately, with the current resident of the White House, did you expect anything to actually get better?

If the electorate gets their heads out of the sand and votes for a Democrat in November, perhaps we will be able to repair some of the damage before somebody decides to "go nuk-u-lur" on us.

This silly religious devotion to Israel and the consequent failure to truly deal with the issue of the displace Palestinians is at the heart of Bin Laden appeal. Arabs want a hero, to stand up to the West and what they perceive as its blind devotion to Israel and its "Jews only" policies.
Bin Laden is powerful because he has a message and a movement - that Arabs relate to. All our military might will not address this underlying reason for his popularity. He also wants the US to bleed slowly economically, just like his fighters did to the former Soviet Union - so this nonsense in Iraq is exactly what he wants for every billion of our tax dollars we throw at Iraq, he invests much much less and is keeping his ideology alive.

Michaek Scheuer has a powerful message regarding the actual reasons for Al-Quaida's attack on the West. As long as Americans and our leaders lack the insight to understand the roots of the conflict and interpret it through our own cultural perspective, we will only exasperate and intensify the conflict. Would Christians accept an Islamic superpower doing to us what we are doing to the Islamic world?

I cringe when I hear people advocating a political settlement in Iraq as what is really needed there. The fundamental issues in the Muslim world are ideological ones, and more specifically, religious ones. But who will advocate a religious solution at an American political podium? This is impossible, so the solutions are also impossible. Some politicians such as Bush do emphasize American ideals such as freedom and democracy, but these are thin soup for someone devoted to Islam.

Now I expect Bin Laden does reject America because of debauchery and dissipation, but I would be willing to believe that the reasons for the attacks lie elsewhere.

With guys like this running the team to catch Bin Laden no wonder we are no where close to catching him. Why did Mr. Scheuer keep quiet for the 10+ years he was in Afghanistan funding Bin Laden and the Mujahideen against the Soviets? Did he not realise he was feeding a snake that would one day come back to bite us? China, India and Russia are the fastest growing economies in the world and are multicultural states which cannot afford to let every minority group secede. The Chinese dont let anyone including Tibetans or the Falun Gong get out of line. India is the largest democracy in the world surrounded by the likes of Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh (all muslim countries where minorities have no rights).
Indeed the politicians are not telling us the truth. The truth that the nation's intelligence agencies are full of incompetent people like this. Not only did they not learn from their mistake of supporting Bin Laden once, they want us to do it again so they can get back to their comfortable old role of funneling US taxpayer money to Muslim terrorists.