Imperial Hubris Indeed

In today's regional fishwrapper (We've decided not to worry so much about half of our items being based on L. A. Times items, after all, this is Just Another Blog [From L. A.]™, not from Peoria or Washington, D. C. or even Walla Walla, Washington.) Michael Scheuer, whose first two books were published anonymously, has the lead piece in the Opinion section. It probably should have appeared under the "Anonymous" byline as well. Mr. Scheuer is not a total fool, he's derided the current administration for its foolish "war of terror," & its insistence that "they hate us for our (slowly eroding ) freedoms, but in his article he calls for

the use of massive, largely indiscriminate military force

against the

worldwide uprising of radical Islamists.

"Worldwide uprising?" No question there are religious fanatics out there, wishing to harm the United States & its interests (mostly oil, of course) & they are not to be taken lightly, but just what indications are there of a "worldwide uprising?" A few thousand "radical Islamists" per Islamic country, or non-Islamic country, carrying out acts of terrorism in the Islamic Crescent & parts of North America & Western Europe do not a "worldwide uprising" make. For some reason (payments from the military-industrial complex?) Mr. Scheuer seems to think that "the clandestine service and special forces" are not enough:

Simply and callously put, covert forces cannot kill the number of enemies that require killing.

He offers no estimate of the numbers that need to be offed, but claims

[t]he fact is that in this global war against non-uniformed, religiously motivated foes who live with and are supported by their civilian brethren, and who are perfectly willing to use a nuclear device against the U.S., victory is only possible through the use of massive, largely indiscriminate military force.

Is he suggesting the carpet bombing of any place occupied by Muslims, simply because the "radicals" live in the same neck o' the woods? And what does this mean:

But as long as we continue to avoid the broader, Europe-angering death and destruction that are the necessary byproduct of war-winning conventional military campaigns, we will not be able to win. Although the covert services can successfully eliminate the enemy's leaders, its foot soldiers and civilian supporters are not being wiped out. Thus, fallen Islamist chiefs are quickly replaced, and their troops and civilian support networks remain intact. Bluntly put, using covert forces as our main war-making tool ensures an endless struggle against a well-led, resilient and manpower-rich enemy.

Manpower-rich? No one can say w/ much certainty how many fundamentalist foot soldiers there are, let alone "civilian supporters," but we would really like to know what the targets of this "broader, Europe-angering death and destruction" are. Believe you us, if there were divisions of radical Muslim troops, armor & artillery, supported by an Al-Qaida air force (other than the ones they manage to high jack, of course) & navy, we'd know exactly where to apply plenty of conventional military force. But this sounds like the old "turn the Middle East into a glassy parking lot" routine, especially in light of this:

The knee-jerk reaction to calls for applying massive military force is an anguished cry of "oh, but we will lose the battle for hearts and minds!" That is an utterly false claim because the United States has already lost the "hearts and minds" war -- up to 80% of Muslims worldwide share Osama bin Laden's belief that the goal of U.S. foreign policy is "to weaken and divide the Islamic world," according to a poll by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes. More military force could only drive that number up marginally.

So we should continue w/ foreign policies that alienate & then radicalize Muslims, then bomb the shit out of them, because 80% of them are lost anyway? As opposed to electing leaders who would at least weaken the stranglehold of the oil & armament industries on American foreign policy & enable us to attempt to win back some of that lost 80%? Sad, as we had thought Mr. Scheuer had some common sense. Oh well. Once you've read this in your dead-tree edition of the Times, flip the Opinion section over, & it will magically become the Book Review, where the cover review is of a book Jonah Goldberg might want to consult when carefully researching & detailing what should be his next book, Conservative Fascism. (Fair & balanced, y'know.) It's about the origins of WWII, & not the standard "if only they hadn't appeased Hitler, blah blah blah" take, either. Let's look at some quotes from Winnie Churchill, the hero of the National Review crowd (it gets their knickers all squishy when they refer to George W(orst) Bush as Churchillian):

Churchill is a dominant figure in "Human Smoke," depicted as a bloodthirsty warmonger who, in 1922, was still bemoaning the fact that World War I hadn't lasted a little longer so that Britain could have had its air force in place to bomb Berlin and "the heart of Germany." But no, he whined, it had to stop, "owing to our having run short of Germans and enemies." Churchill was not driven by anti-fascism. In his 1937 book "Great Contemporaries," he described Hitler as "a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with an agreeable manner." The same book savagely attacked Leon Trotsky. (What was wrong with Trotsky? "He was still a Jew. Nothing could get over that.") Churchill repeatedly praised Mussolini for his "gentle and simple bearing." In 1927, he told a Roman audience, "If I had been an Italian, I am sure that I should have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism." Churchill considered fascism "a necessary antidote to the Russian virus," Baker writes. In 1938, he remarked to the press that if England were ever defeated in war, he hoped "we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among nations."

And from the Big Appeaser himself:

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said in 1939 of German treatment of Jews that "no doubt Jews aren't a lovable people. I don't care about them myself."

Winston again:

But even more than the communists, Churchill's enemy No. 1 in the 1920s and early '30s was Mohandas Gandhi and his doctrine of nonviolence, which Churchill warned "will, sooner or later, have to be grappled with and finally crushed."

As previously documented here.