Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Now if they'd only admit they made a mistake in having Michael Scheuer on in the first place. The issue was first brought to light by the under-credited Adam Holland in a posting here (and cross-posted here): C-SPAN: Caller should have been upbraided
C-SPAN said a call-in host should have upbraided an anti-Semitic caller.
"Program hosts, whose role is to facilitate the dialogue between callers and guests, are certainly permitted to step in when a caller makes ad hominem attacks or uses obscenity or obviously racist language," a statement to JTA said. "Given that this involves quick judgment during a live television production, it's an imperfect process that didn't work as well as it should have that day."
The cable network, which covers the U.S. Congress, government hearings, think-tank sessions and news conferences in their entirety as a means of expanding government transparency, has been stung by criticism following a Jan. 4 broadcast of its "Washington Journal" call-in show...
Sir,
Just to clear on my position re Israel, I send along the following:
As you may have noticed, I did not respond to the caller's bigoted question, but I did say what I thought was appropriate about the U.S.-Israel relationship. This whole issue -- from my perspective -- has to do with relations between two sovereign nation-states. I oppose any kind of relationship with Israel because no vital U.S. national or security interest is at stake in the relationship, nothing in the least that should lead America into a war. Indeed, there is nothing in the relationship for America but endless expense, diplomatic disasters, wars not of its own making, the corruption of its domestic political system, and -- increasingly -- numbers of dead U.S. soldiers and Marines. The U.S. has no genuine interest in either Israel or Palestine, nor does it matter to America who wins the war those two entities love to fight. Quite simply, a pox on both their houses.
Mr. Scheuer,
I will leave aside your assertions concerning the US/Israel relationship. I disagree, to put it mildly, but I would like to remark upon your role in the C-SPAN incident and what it may indicate.
You say you did not respond to the caller, and you now note that it was bigoted, which it was. But the fact remains that you did respond to the caller. You took his remark as an opportunity to go on with your own agenda without a hitch, when another man, more aware of what had just occurred would have taken the opportunity to castigate the man, or at the least refuse to answer and await a more appropriate moment for inserting their point. It might have been something of a "Sister Souljah moment" for you, but you missed it.
To me it bespeaks a remarkable level of detachment on your part -- an example of a man so self-absorbed in X's and O's that he completely misses the human factor even when it's right there in his face. I will, for the sake of argument, take at face value your claims to a lack of any anti-Jewish feeling whatsoever on your part, but you must know, or should, that the tack you are taking, and the verbiage with which you are choosing to express yourself is a potential gold-mine and god-send for those without your pure heart. A man with an important intellectual message should be aware of this, or risk being written off as a crank or worse.
Instead, I see little self-awareness on your part -- a serious lack of social skill if you will, a nerdish focus on books and no grasp of the human factor so important and decisive in international politics, among other things.
This detachment points to the type of "expert" opinion that may provide a valuable data point or two, but whose analysis and even more, his prescriptions for action and policy ought to be written off out of hand by actual leaders and decision makers.
This image seems appropriate.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/mortaljive/Extra%20Images/TheTwoTowers_WormtongueAndKingTheod.jpg
We have relationships with nationstates all over the world, including for example Great Britain, from which we rebelled and whose politics and miscalculations have often led us into war. We have relationships with states whose politics couldn't be further from our own ideals. We have relationships with nations whose interests directly threaten our own.
Yet, according to you we are supposed to abandon Israel, whose people and culture are closely interwoven with ours, whose ideals in many ways echo our own - and which indeed has provided not only the US but the rest of the planet with many brilliant innovations especially in the fields of agriculture, hi tech and medicine.
There is more to "national interest" than oil is there not?
And, there is more to morality than cold calculations about how much oil is located where.
Further, with any luck your point of view is also going to be obsolete as the world moves beyond the overuse of fossil fuels. In fact it might well be some Israeli who unlocks a secret about sustainable energy.
Why on earth would we abandon a nation whose contributions vastly exceed its size and which could lead the way toward a cleaner planet and healthier, better-fed people?
Finally, your comments have indeed unleashed a torrent of ugly antisemitism and added to the myth that the US has gone to war for Israel, which is something the world's tiny Jewish minority really does not need.
The fact is Israel has often been damaged by Great Party wars, by the arming and empowerment of regimes like Saddam Hussein's, and has been betrayed by the West on many occasions for example during the Yom Kippur War when desperately needed arms were withheld - but also during the 1948 war when the Brits actually fought for the other side, blockaded the Yishuv and armed the Arabs - 3 years after the extent of the Shoah was revealed.
And, it's pretty obvious, from the wars we're involved with now, that the "Great Game" has backfired.
We'd better take another look at calculations like this - devoid of morality, shortsighted and loaded with hubris.
Wouldn't we best serve our our national interest by fostering human creativity, working with people who are interested in learning and who support our own ideals, rather than going after short-term power. profit and control of commodities that will soon spoil in any case?
Further to Israel's contributions, here's the NYT's David Brooks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12brooks.html?em
From # 1:
Indeed, there is nothing in the relationship for America but endless expense, diplomatic disasters, wars not of its own making, the corruption of its domestic political system, and -- increasingly -- numbers of dead U.S. soldiers and Marines.
Please supply facts on which the above was based.
This appears to be purely projection just going on the corruption in America's political system based on it's own partisan politics.
The Israelis are not responsible for you jumping in to save Kuwait from Saddam and ultimately annoying Bin Laden, the mess with Iran from Carter's crass idiocy in permitting the creation of an apocalyptic regime etc., etc., etc.
If anything break the relation with Israel and pull all the R&D those US companies (MS, Intel, IBM, HP, Motorola yadda, yadda, yadda) are accomplishing there and send back many Silicon Valley companies which are basically Israeli startups and tell your politicians not to go to Israel looking for bio-tech companies to make home in Virginia.
All that GDP your companies sucked out of Israeli R&D surely over compensates all that endless expense.
John from Franklin, N.Y.: "sick and tired of all these Jews" who were "willing to spend the last drop of American blood and treasure to get their way in the world." Jews.. have "way too much power" and "jewed us into Iraq."
Scheuer: "Yeah. I think that American foreign policy is ultimately up to the American people."
___________
Imagine a similar rant with Muslims or Arabs instead of "Jews":
Caller is sick and tired of all these Muslims who were willing to shed American blood on US soil or abroad, to get their way in the world. Muslims.. have way too much power and have brought the US to the brink of bankruptcy as it tries to secure the American way of life from the ambitions of Islamic imperialism.
How would Scheuer respond? Would he conclude that the caller was an Islamophobe? I'll bet you he would. And we can well imagine what his response would be.
It would be all Israel's fault.
There is little doubt as to whose interests Mr. Scheuer is serving. You can hear his kind of perception of reality echoed in almost every Arab blog and newspaper.
I'm willing to bet that Israel's high-tec achievements, enumerated by posters above, leave him cold and unimpressed. What impresses him is this kind of thing:
"But, [Scheuer] adds, viewed from a pure, coldly professional viewpoint, the attack was the culmination of a sophisticated al-Qaida human intelligence, or HUMINT, operation that skillfully played on the CIA's thirst for information about al-Qaida's top leaders.
"I do not want to sound callous at all, but it was a wonderful operation," he said. "In terms of a HUMINT [human intelligence] covert operation, it was top-notch. It was as good as anything I have seen in a long time."
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Lax-Security-May-Have-Contributed-to-CIA-Deaths-80929807.html
And he seems to long for a similarly successful attack on Americans, on a much more spectacular level, for their own good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1xPD0uy0yQ
You might want to wonder how a man with this highly emotional temperament, volatile understanding and seething animus ever got to be a senior level CIA officer.
Remember Shamai Leibovitz? I speculated then that it could have been his very anti-Israel activism that recommended him to his CIA bosses in the first place. When I hear and read Scheuer's fulminations, I have a very healthy suspicion that I may be quite correct in my conjectures.
There is a book waiting to be written, named:
"The CIA's secret war against Israel".
Scheuer "charges that AIPAC .. and other unnamed Zionists got him fired from his position as a Senior Fellow and columnist for the Jamestown Foundation...
"You know you always talk about the Israel Lobby and its power, and to see it up close and personal aimed right at me, was very educational. In fact, it was worth the experience of losing a job."
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/01/adam_holland_on_nutty_michael.php
His explicit and obviously pleasurable paranoia reminded me of the 7 steps required to start a militia in Montana:
http://www.genepool.addr.com/militia.html
I ask again: how does such a person get to climb up to a senior level authority in the CIA?
Solomon,
"A man with an important intellectual message should be aware of this, or risk being written off as a crank or worse."
Solomon, is it fair to say that the points Scheuer was making will be villified and his credibility and good name would be smeared in the service of Jewish interests, by Jews worldwide, especially American and Israeli Jews, regardless of when he made them.
Are you seriously suggesting that he wouldnt be written off as a crank or worse by the "educated elite" we've been hearing so much about lately or the Leftwing zeitgeist perhaps as a better descriptor, if he had waited to make that point?
Cynic
"All that GDP your companies sucked out of Israeli R&D surely over compensates all that endless expense. --- Cynic"
Did Americans suck it out like vampires?
There is always China. Havent the Israelis already benefited from US military technology, and now being aware of it, are threatening to sell it to China, to establish a backup plan for military and economic support?
No, he'll be written off by people, Jewish or not, who recognize anti-Semitism as evil and self-defeating, and quite rightly.
Where are his comments anti Semitic?
He may be an anti Semite. But I dont see it in his limited comments here. (Im not a student of Scheuer or his history.)
BTW, I think that America's support for Israel is based on more than naked self interests. It's the reason that the US has moral authority in this world, like no other. It sticks its neck out even where its immediate self interests may be lacking.
I still think that there is an underlying double standard here.
You can see it in the recent Harry Reid the racist episode. It seems to me that Harry Reid is given a free pass (like the Feminists to Bill Clinton) because he sings the same tune as the majority political zeitgeist of African Americans....favoring special preferences and monies to those groups. Opposing this and favoring colorblind policy and laws, gets you put into the racist category pretty quick. Those policies being driven by a racist hostility to African Americans. I see the same thing at work often with regards to Jews. Im Not saying that Scheuer may indeed be the worst sort of Anti Semite. However, given the dynamics, Im inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt...having been called a racist and misogynist and anti semite too many times to count, myself.
I think that is going to be problematic going forward for all these groups. They have disempowered the charges because of their overuse.
For a similar example, see the recent Harry Reid episode, where his racist comments were excused by African Americans because he does not oppose their political agenda. Special priveleges, reparations, and on and so forth.
However if Harry Reid supported colorblind policy(ies) then he would surely have been racked over the coals as a racist.
It's not necessarily what a person says, but their policy advocations that are seen as in opposition to the (fill in the blank) that are the motivator for allegations, designed to villify and marginalize the speaker.
Until this largely ends, then you will only empower real anti Semites, real racists, and so on and so forth, by disempowering the serious charge.
"No, he'll be written off by people, Jewish or not, who recognize anti-Semitism as evil and self-defeating, and quite rightly."
EV is manifesting a syndrome I encounter on the English written Arab blogosphere which I have taken to frequent more recently. A Jew's article is readily believed and feted when the POV perfectly aligns with that of the blogger. A Jewish writer's position is roundly rejected with meaningless ad-homs and red herrings, when articulating a truth different than the poster's inclination. And never mind that the position is bona fide, with verifiable facts, arguments and analysis which should at least give the reader pause to consider.
However,
"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."
Bertrand Russell
It's a kind of volitional acquired Paranoid personality disorder.
Those with the condition habitually relate to the world by vigilant scanning of the environment for clues or suggestions to validate their prejudicial ideas or biases.
I have known EV for at least 5 years now, and though he has always had the inclination to feel sorry for himself for being a white Christian man in a world that is increasingly diverse, multi-coloured, and though he has always treated Jewish posters with a certain dismissive contempt*, he seems to have fallen off the page of what is rational and minimally acceptable recently. At least as far as I am concerned. I don't see why anyone should waste their emotional or intellectual energy to try to talk sensibly to him. He has passed a certain line. I suspect even his friends on the Right are no longer talking to him.
There is no need to enable him to continue to fulminate by responding and encouraging him to stay around. I think he is decent enough to realize where he is not wanted and to stop bothering the good faith posters here who want to discuss the subjects provided by Solomonia.
__________________
* For example: In a very long and rather tense discussion thread on the now defunct Charlie Rose Message boards, he repeatedly interjected whenever an argument was made by me or others about the uniqueness of the Holocaust with: "Fascinating".
So the white Christian males POV is dismmissed and categorized as unsavory and illegitimate.
Classic Western Leftism.
As I have stated, doing so is going to be dissasterous for European minorities...in the long run. That isnt a wish, that is an easily deduced prediction.
Furthermore, you can see the double standard that Noga supports with regards to Israel as a Jewish state. And the Left is attacking it as such, deligitimizing Jewish concerns (the concerns of the power weilding majority in Israel)....and raising minority concerns above them.
Thus the conundrum for American Jews.
This is why Sophia is so disturbed. Somehow the Israeli Jews got put on the "wrong side" of the double standard.
You should be ashamed of yourself for that comment Noga, if you really care about Universals, and not just the concerns of Jews. Dismissive contempt and paranoid personality disorder, indeed. You are full on projecting.
Look to Jewish views on Sarah Palin, for this phenomenon, where she is villified and hated for being unabashedly white Christian conservative....as if that is a crime against humanity, decency, or minorities.
What would the analysis of this phenomenon be if she were Jewish?
NWO: Let me repeat: you have crossed a line. I'm not surprised that some posters here accused you of being sympathetic to Hitler's ideology if not to his deeds.. yet. Your delight in imagining Jews being slaughtered in Israel --by way of punishment for the fact that American Jews do not vote for the Republican party in droves-- is positively disturbing. You really have no intuitive or intellectual grasp about what democracy and freedom mean.
I have nothing to say to you, and there is nothing you can say that I want to read.
"What would the analysis of this phenomenon be if she were Jewish?"
If Grandma had a penis she'd be Grandpa.
More slander.
I have both an strong intellectual grasp, and I also support that intellectual foundation...particularly the European Enlightenment....classical liberalism.
Apparently, you have a problem with white Euro Christian males, participating in democracy.
I know that I make people uncomfortable with my probings. Those pesky free thinking Goy.
I have never derived joy from imagining Jews being slaughtered. But Im sure in your paranoid mind I do, just like those Arabs, heh?
Good Lord!
Look, EV, I get that you're fascinated with this subject, but what can I do to get you to understand that you've made whatever point you're going to and now you're derailing threads and annoying other long-term commenters? I'm good at looking past comments I don't care about, but I have to admit most people don't share that ability.
Jews and Christians (and Blacks, and Gays, and...) all have divergent histories and cultural experiences that may indeed result in different reactions to circumstances were their places reversed -- and rightfully so. William F. Buckley understood this, calling some of (what we would now call) the PC rules that guide us with regard to Jews "welcome cultural taboos." Welcome because they inform us of what's appropriate without having the need to go through a history lesson and philosophical group therapy session every time one of these issues comes up.
That's fine that you want to re-explore these matters, they ARE interesting to look at from time to time, but I would recommend that if you want to continue to make this a major conceit for yourself you go to Blogspot.com and get your own site to indulge your intellectual proclivities. Go ahead, make whatever final point on this you want, but this is the final thread for it. After that you have to leave the job of moving Jews to the right to me.
Fair enough Solomon. Especially that last part.
I hope you do realize that calling people anti Semites loosely, isnt a good strategy, it alienates many good people, and then when real nasty anti Semites come along and the charge anti Semite is leveled at them, then all those people, say, yeah, he probable just got treated like me.
It has been a good strategy for the Left for a long time, to silence any criticizm of their policies and minority groups, and thus help move their agendas, having their policies adopted by institutions. However, Islam just changed the game.
It may have been appropriate to have taboos in the past (ala Buckley). However we now have a Black President and Jews make up 11% of Congress, on just 2% of population.
That time is over.
Time to move forward.
EVil, Obama was elected by garnering the majority of popular votes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008
McCain 69,456,897
Obama 59,934,814
That's a difference of about 9 million votes.
and the majority of Electoral College votes
McCain 365
Obama 173
EVil, FAKE "conservatives" like you linking McCains loss to JOOOZ is what makes you a JACKASS.
I hope you continue to post your moronic comments here for us to refute. It's good practice for us.