Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

With CIA operatives like Michael Scheuer directing the effort to capture Osama bin Laden, it’s no wonder he’s still at large. It seems like he needs to take revenge on anyone who isn’t him who has run or is running U.S. counter-terrorism efforts aimed to protect us from Islamic militants.

Scheuer begins his diatribe with the oldest, and most laughable spook trick in the book–what Israelis call the “ticking bomb” scenario. When you have no argument, think of a hypothetical situation that can never happen, ratchet up the guilt 100% or more and then ask your opponent to argue their way out of it:

In surprisingly good English, the captive quietly answers: ‘Yes, all thanks to God, I do know when the mujaheddin will, with God’s permission, detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States, and I also know how many and in which cities.” Startled, the CIA interrogators quickly demand more detail. Smiling his trademark shy smile, the captive says nothing. Reporting the interrogation’s results to the White House, the CIA director can only shrug when the president asks: “What can we do to make Osama bin Laden talk?”

First, you’ll note Scheuer posits the capture of Osama bin Laden, an event which neither he nor any successive CIA effort has succeeded in achieving. Second, he suggests that Al Qaeda could have the capacity to obtain a nuclear weapon, which is a ploy I’d expect of Dick Cheney or Condi “Mushroom Cloud” Rice. The likelihood of Osama bin Laden ever controlling a nuclear weapon are about as great as the odds of a tsunami devastating Seattle in the next 30 days.

Then believe it or not, Scheuer’s piece gets worse. Here is his characterization of Barack Obama’s foreign policy philosophy:

…Obama gazes upon a globe that he regards as largely carnivore-free and believes that remaining threats can be defused by semantic warfare; just stop saying “War on Terror” and give talks in Turkey and on al-Arabiyah television, for example.

This passage is so fatuous, so cynical, so Cheneyesque as to be laughable. One wonders whether anyone in Washington, DC could take anything Scheuer says seriously after reading this. Now, there may be a legitimate way to critique Obama’s foreign policy from a Republican, national security hawk perspective; but this surely can’t be it. Couldn’t we at least expect a serious Obama critic to accurately characterize what the president believes instead of simply making it up as he goes along?

This tripe is warmed over McCain campaign rhetoric. Considering the Washington Posts’ romance with neocon Middle East policy, I’m not surprised they’d entertain Scheuer’s delusions. But why they’d expect any of their readers who aren’t neocons to be interested is beyond me.

In belittling Obama’s attempt to return to a constitutional framework for U.S. foreign policy, renouncing torture, rendition, and closing Guantanamo, Scheuer lies once more about the president’s beliefs:

In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families. The interrogation techniques in question, the president asserted, are a sign that Americans have lost their “moral compass”…Mulling Obama’s claim, one can wonder what could be more moral for a president than doing all that is needed to defend America and its citizens? Or, asked another way, is it moral for the president of the United States to abandon intelligence tools that have saved the lives and property of Americans and their allies in favor of his own ideological beliefs?

The former CIA analyst neglects the rather inconvenient fact that numerous fellow CIA officers and FBI agents hold diametrically opposite views about whether torture DOES produce results that more conventional interrogation tactics cannot. In fact, the N.Y. Times over the past two weeks has “owned” this issue publishing powerful reporting and op-eds saying precisely this and documenting the claims with solid evidence. You’ll note that Scheuer provides no evidence that torture has benefitted our counter-terror efforts.

Scheuer continues with another questionable claim along with an odious ad hominem attack on Rahm Emanuel:

Obama’s hit man and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel [told] the American people that the interrogation techniques are a major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and its Islamist partners. Well, no, Mr. Emanuel, that is not at all the case. The techniques surely are not popular with our foes and their supporters — should that be a concern in any event? — but they do not even make the Islamists’ hit parade of anti-U.S. recruiting tools.

Can anyone in their right mind deny that if you found that your enemy tortured your fellow countrymen when it captured them, that this would not motivate you to either hate more or fight harder against such a power?

Here’s yet another lie about Obama’s statements on renouncing torture. You’ll note he claims Obama has called our former Republican national security officials liars without providing any evidence or quotation in support:

…The president used his personal popularity and the stature of his office to implicitly identify as liars those former senior U.S. officials who know — not “argue” or “contend” or “assert” but know — that the interrogation techniques have yielded intelligence essential to the nation’s defense.

I don’t know how you “implicitly” call someone a liar. Scheuer will have to explain that one to us. And once again, he claims to “know” that torture works without providing a shred of evidence that it does. Of course, he, like Dick Cheney can hide behind the disingenuous excuse: “If only I could tell you what I know, then you’d believe me. But I can’t because its top secret.” That one worked back in the Eisenhower administration when people still believed that presidents and their staffs told the truth. No longer, I’m afraid. And especially after such a dismal eight years of constant mendaciousness from the Bush era national security apparatus.

If I didn’t know better, in the passage below I’d say that Scheuer has forgotten that Barack Obama’s moral vision was presented to the American voters, who resoundingly endorsed it:

The integrity, intellect and reputations of Judge Michael Mukasey, Gen. Michael V. Hayden and others have now been besmirched by Obama because their realistic worldview and firsthand experience do not mesh with the president’s desire to install his personal “moral compass” as the core of U.S. foreign and defense policy.

You’ll notice that Bush’s legal and national security hacks have “integrity,” “intellect,” a “realistic world-view” and “first-hand experience” (all of which are dubious claims), while Obama has nothing more than a personal hunch on which to base his policy. As I mentioned above, I’d say that the fact that the U.S. electorate examined Obama’s “moral compass” and endorsed it, gives him a mandate to push forward with his reforms of U.S. counter-terror policy.

I’m tickled that Scheuer views the Obama administration’s revelation of the torture memos as a “farce.” But I’d say that the “farce” lies in the content of the memos themselves rather than in their publication. Can any American who reads Jay Bybee’s “torturous” mangling of both language and credulity in these memos call them anything but a “farce” (well, yes I realize they could be called far worse, but you get my gist)?

Here Scheur lies once more about Obama’s stated plans for accountability regarding past illegal acts

Obama and his team will “reluctantly” agree to a congressional investigation of former Bush officials and serving CIA officers

They may agree to a congressional investigation of former Bush officials, but they certainly will not investigate serving CIA officers. Obama has said so and to imagine anything else will happen is worse than ungenerous.

Here are a few more of the ex-spook’s cheap shots:

…The world will not be safer for America because the president abandons interrogations to please his party’s left wing and the European pacifists it so admires. Both are incorrigibly anti-American, oppose the use of force in America’s defense and — like Obama — naively believe that the West’s Islamist foes can be sweet-talked into a future alive with the sound of kumbaya.

Hey, can someone tell Scheuer that the campaign ended months ago and his side lost. Wow, McCain tried that stuff and where did it get him? Remember Obama, socialist? And I do so love it when the neocon wingnuts trot out Kumbaya. That one is so fresh. Never been used before and sure to persuade.

And can anyone tell me a single European pacifist anyone in the Obama administration has claimed to admire? I think this guy is off his meds. Where does he get this stuff? It’s lies cut from whole cloth.

I just speculated that Scheuer might’ve been off his meds when he penned this little love letter to Obama. Reading this passage, I know he was:

So if the above worst-case scenario ever comes to pass, Americans will have at least two things from which to take solace, even after the loss of major cities and tens of thousands of countrymen. First, they will know that their president believes that those losses are a small price to pay for stopping interrogations and making foreign peoples like us more. And second, they will see Osama bin Laden’s shy smile turn into a calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin.

Note, Scheuer calls Osama’s capture and imminent explosion of a nuclear device “worst case scenario.” I’d call it a “hypothetical scenario” so unlikely as to be laughable. But clearly his Washington Post editor admired something in this bilge though God only knows what it was.

One final word: you’ll note the omission of a few very important words in this piece: the constitution and the rule of law. Unfortunately for Scheuer, Obama places some value in them while the former doesn’t appear to do so himself. Isn’t it marvelous that we have a new president who can sweep these assholes out with the broom? We’ve had years of this lunacy, yet they still attempt to inveigle themselves into the national debate. I say, back to the hole where you and your fellow torturing spooks belong. In saying this, I do not make any sweeping judgments about all CIA operatives. Rather, I’m only commenting on those who endorse Scheuer’s views.