Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How Trump Can Pass His Afghanistan Test

Tags

Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, America First, border security, globalism, Immigration, Iraq, ISIS, jihadism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, Trump, Tucker Carlson

So it seems we’re soon going to see another major test of how much of an America First-er on foreign policy President Trump really is: Will he or won’t he withdraw the U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan if he can strike an acceptable deal with that country’s Taliban insurgents?

Globalists across the political spectrum – that is, supporters of America’s pre-Trump decades of seeking to address foreign policy challenges through various forms of active engagement in foreign affairs around the world – and especially conservative globalists, are awfully skeptical, to say the least, and they have numerous understandable and specific reasons. One that stands out: Why should anyone trust the Taliban to keep the promise that the President is seeking – a pledge to ensure that no part of Afghanistan left under its effective control by any agreement to end or even suspend the conflict between it and the Afghan government becomes a terrorist base once again.

After all, the Taliban was the group that permitted Al Qaeda to use such territories as safe havens from which to plan and train for the September 11 terrorist attacks. A U.S. invasion and nearly twenty years of ongoing military operations have clearly played a major role in ensuring that no September 11 repeats have taken place, or at least strikes emanating from Afghanistan. And there’s no sign of any ebbing in the Taliban’s violent, anti-American nature. In addition, similar American-led and assisted operations against ISIS have prevented that group from creating safe havens in Iraq and Syria large enough to possess September 11-like potential.

All in all, therefore, such interventions look like a resounding success for the idea that defeating terrorists “over there” is the best guarantee that they won’t do any harm “over here.” And there’s compelling evidence that the President has bought into this argument.

As he told Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson in an early July interview:

“…I would like to just get out [of Afghanistan].  The problem is, it just seems to be a lab for terrorists.  It seems — I call it the Harvard of terrorists. 

“When you look at the World Trade Center, they were trained.  They didn’t — by the way, they attacked the wrong country.  They didn’t come from Iraq, all right.  They came from various other countries.

“But they all formed in Afghanistan, and it’s probably because it’s at the base of so many countries, but they all formed and it’s rough mountains and you get a lot of — you know, you get a lot of good hiding places.

“But I would leave very strong intelligence there.  You have to watch because they do — you know, okay, I’ll give you a tough one.  If you were in my position and a great looking central casting and we have great generals, a great central casting general walks up to your office, I say, ‘We’re getting out.’  ‘Yes, sir.  We’ll get out.  Yes, sir.’

“I’ll say, ‘What do you think of that?’  ‘Sir, I’d rather attack them over there, then attack them in our land.’  In other words, them coming here.  That’s always a very tough decision, you know, with what happened with the World Trade Center, et cetera et cetera.

“When they say that, you know, no matter how you feel, and you and I feel pretty much very similar.  But when you’re standing there, and you have some really talented military people saying, ‘I’d rather attack them over there than have them hit us over here and fight them on our land.’  It’s something you always have to think about.”

But what the President surprisingly seems to forget is that the September 11 terrorists were able to come “over here” not only because they were able to organize in Afghanistan, but because American border security was so unforgivably lax. This description of that situation comes from a group strongly on the restrictionist side of the immigration debate (as am I). But the evidence presented of visa overstays and examples of other hijackers being in the country illegally when they launched the attacks is highly specific and comparably convincing.

Further, then-U.S. Representative Candice S. Miller, a Republican from Michigan and former chair of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, stated at hearings in 2012 that “more than 36 visa overstayers have been convicted of terrorism- related charges since 2001.”

As I’ve written previously, tightening border security enough to quell the terrorist threat completely is no small task. At the same time, it should also be clear that stepped up border security measures, along with intensified domestic counter-terrorism activities, have played some role in not only preventing more September 11 attacks but in greatly reducing the number of attacks from jihadist-inspired homegrown lone wolves.

Just as important, whenever making policy seriously, and therefore determining priorities and thus allocation of resources, the question always needs to be asked which of any competing approaches is more promising. In the case of anti-terrorism approaches, this challenge boils down to whether the nation is best advised to focus on further improving border security (a situation over which it has relatively great control) or on continuing to police the terminally dysfunctional Middle East (a situation over which is has relatively little control).

Given that the Taliban is still a force to be reckoned with in Afghanistan after eighteen years of fighting the U.S. military and forces from allied countries plus those of Afghan governments in Kabul; and given new Pentagon claims that ISIS is already “solidifying” its “insurgent capabilities in Iraq” and “resurging in Syria,” the case for a domestic, i.e., America First-type focus instead of continuing to play whackamole in the Middle East looks stronger than ever. And that’s the case whether America’s generals look like they come from central casting or not.

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Im-Politic: Hyper-Partisans Across the Spectrum are Wrong; the Terrorist Threat is “All of the Above”

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gun violence, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, jihadism, left-wing terrorism, mass shootings, September 11, terrorism, Trump, white supremacist terrorism, white supremacists

As if we needed another one, the latest upsurge in the intertwined national debates about gun violence, mass shootings, and terrorism provides another example of how hyper-partisan, encrusted thinking is obscuring the road to dramatically improved policies – and greater public safety. Specifically, way too many Americans are still mired in a dangerously distracting debate over where the biggest terrorist threats come from, rather than admitting that the nation faces numerous types of violent groups that fit any sensible definition of terrorism.

And as a result, way too many (including most prominent political leaders) are ignoring a crucial lesson of America’s post-September 11 experience – that concerted, innovative, well-funded national campaigns against terrorist movements actually work.

After the attacks of 2001, the focus understandably was Islamic terrorism. And if you doubt the impact, ask yourself why else no hijacked jetliners have crashed into U.S. skyscrapers and similarly big targets for nearly 20 years. And why in 2018, the last full data year, exactly one homicide in America was connected with Islamism.

Dumb luck? But as golf immortal Ben Hogan once said to an exasperated less successful rival who accused him of getting the lion’s share of the breaks, “[T]he more I practice, the luckier I get.” In that vein, surely massive American anti-terrorism efforts abroad and at home have played an important role. If you’ve forgotten what they’ve been, here’s a quick summary (from the Los Angeles Times article linked above):

“Despite horrifying abuses and mistakes, from torture to secret prisons, [the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations] have largely destroyed Al Qaeda and its most dangerous offspring. The U.S.-led war against Islamic State has killed thousands of militants and broken the group’s hold on territory in Iraq and Syria.

“Domestic law enforcement has monitored extremists at home and interrupted dozens of plots (including some that turned out to be insubstantial). And common-sense security measures have made us less vulnerable; no U.S. plane has been hijacked since 9/11.”

I’d add that, despite numerous calls for sharp increases from Democrats and others on the Left, U.S. admissions of asylum-seekers from Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere around the world remained exceedingly modest under former President Barack Obama, and have dropped sharply under President Trump.

The clear meaning? Yes, as President Trump’s critics have claimed, Islamic-inspired terrorism has been on the wane. But it looks glaringly obvious that deserving much of the credit have been measures many of them strongly opposed – and still oppose, mainly because they’ve been so determined to smear Mr. Trump and others backing such hard-line policies as simple Islamo-phobes who have long been chasing a mirage.

But don’t think this lets the President and many of his supporters off the hook. For until recently, they’ve acted as if they’ve been so bent on defending the anti-jihadist campaign and on justifying its continuation that they’ve soft-pedaled its clear success, and have been slow to acknowledge the more recent emergence of an unmistakably serious violent white supremacist threat.

Chiefly, there’s compelling evidence that since his inauguration, the President has reduced funding for government efforts to fight domestic terrorism springing from racist and other extreme right-wing roots, and increased the resources devoted to fight violent jihadists. That shift might have been justified early during the Trump presidency – shortly after two major Islamist-inspired shootings in San Bernardino, California in December, 2015, and in Orlando, Florida in June, 2016. But since then, the domestic racists etc have been much more dangerously active, and it’s not enough for the President to condemn them explicitly and emphatically. His money needs to move where his mouth is.

Not that anti-jihadism budgets need to be cannibalized to achieve this aim. Vigilance on that front remains essential as well, lest America be caught by surprise again a la September 11. Washington also needs to move much more decisively against violent leftists – like the Dayton, Ohio shooter seems to have been, along with antifa. 

In other words, U.S. anti-terrorism policy needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time – and be as agile and continually evolving as the sources of terrorism themselves.

Im-Politic: Unpacking the Ilhan Omar Mess

Tags

free expression, identity, Ilhan Omar, John McCain, race-mongering, racism, terrorism, The Squad, Trump

It’s so utterly typical of how fevered Americans of all political stripes have become in the last decade or so (and especially in the Age of Trump, which began as soon as he declared his candidacy for presidency): The more verbiage that’s spilled over the clash that’s developed over controversial recent remarks by the four Democratic Congresswomen comprising the so-called Squad, and President Trump’s reactions, the more confused and dangerously simplistic this rhetorical gang war becomes.

So for the record, here’s my effort to spell out the only reasonable conclusions to draw about the main participants – and especially Mr. Trump and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who have generated the most intense reactions pro and con. Also utterly typical of the times: I have no doubt that few of you readers on any side are going to be entirely pleased.

My bottom line: There can be no reasonable doubt that the President was deeply and offensively wrong when he tweeted that Omar and the other Squad-ers should “go back” to their troubled countries or origin and help fix their problems instead of “loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.” But there can also be no reasonable doubt that there are entirely reasonable grounds for finding many of Omar’s own statements repugnant and insulting enough prompt speculation about her allegiance to the nation – in an emotional, if not a legal, sense.

Of course, the Trump tweets were completely and inexcusably inaccurate in the case of Squad members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts – who are all American born. And since all four of the Squad-ers are women of color, he once more opened himself up to reasonable charges of racism, or at least expressing racist views – since his phrasing unmistakably equated being non-white with being foreign-born.

In my view, Mr. Trump was simply once again being stupid and sloppy. Still stupider on the President’s part: As a result, he’s legitimized at least some of the race-mongering of four politicians who have been among the most flagrant race-mongers seen in American politics since the heyday of segregationist resistance to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

But what I want to focus on here is that he plainly stepped in it, and needlessly deepened national divisions. Presidents should try to do the opposite.

In this vein, also deeply and offensively wrong have been the President’s “love it or leave it”-type tweets and subsequent remarks, whether meant for the Squad or for anyone legally or even illegally living in America. Everyone resident here enjoys full Constitutional free expression protections. Period.

Worse still was the “Send her back” chant that broke out during his rally in Greenville, North Carolina last week. All those participating should have their proverbial mouths washed out. For unlike the “go back” Trump tweets and statements, this call amounted to a demand that Omar be forcibly removed from the country for her opinions. The President (who certainly knows how to egg on a crowd) never encouraged these cries, and in fact looked pretty unhappy while listening to it for its 13-second duration. But he didn’t move to quiet it. So even though he has never expressed this sentiment and disavowed it subsequently, it’s entirely fair to charge that he badly flunked the leadership test passed with flying colors by the late Arizona Republican Senator John McCain during his unsuccessful presidential campaign of 2008.

Still, none of the above can create any reasonable doubt that Omar is an anti-American ingrate – and that as such, Americans (including President Trump) have every right to be offended by many of her own remarks, and even to wonder why (but not to favor expelling her), if her affinity with her adopted country is so threadbare, she’s chosen to stay.

This question of identifying with America is crucial because no one can legitimately question the loyalty or identity of Omar (or the other Squad-ers, or other Americans) for denouncing specific current and past U.S. policies and circumstances in the most vehement possible terms. Moreover, as noted in this must-read (especially for Trump supporters) Washington Post piece on many of the President’s own statements, Mr. Trump’s record is full of such sentiments, too. (Portraying the country’s very founding – as has become all too common on the far Left – to be an act grounded in white supremacy is another matter, in my view. But I haven’t found any comments from any of the Squad-ers deserving of that description.)

These allegations are easily supported by Omar’s unquestioned belittling of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks by violent Muslim jihadists, by her giggling dismissal of Americans’ fear of Al Qaeda, the jihadist terrorist group that planned and carried out these attacks, and by her call for lenient treatment for young Somali-Americans convicted of planning to join another jihadist terror group, ISIS. Slighting the importance of an event that claimed thousands of American lives and generated thousands more casualties, ridiculing the idea that the perpetrators are a major threat, and sympathizing with those seeking to join an equally hostile organization – this record is so far out of the range of normal that it does indicate a fundamental alienation from her adopted country.

The question of Omar’s gratitude matters, too. Again, it’s by no means illegal. But as opposed to given its long and deep roots – this Washington Post profile shows that it began practically from her arrival and continues today – it also quite naturally raises the question of why, during all these years, she hasn’t concluded that she’d be better off somewhere else. After all, she’s still quite young, she has most of her life ahead of her, she’s a gifted orator and politician, she clearly has had the means to leave for some time. And surely there are countries beyond America’s borders that haven’t conducted foreign policies so brutal and otherwise disgraceful that they haven’t provoked (understandable, as she sees it) jihadist retaliation, and that have been more welcoming to Muslims.

In other words, Omar has a perfect right to stay and engage in any Constitutionally protected expression she wishes. But I and others have an equal right to express outrage and also to proceed to ask “What gives?” without being slimed for intolerance. And to attack President Trump for blurring these vital distinctions. Meanwhile, all of us should be discouraged that so many of us evidently can’t keep them straight, either.

Im-Politic: The Price of Unforced Trump Immigration Policy Errors

Tags

Africa, AP, Associated Press, border security, border wall, Center for Immigration Studies, Im-Politic, Immigration, Kirstjen Nielsen, Mark Stevenson, Middle East, migrants, terrorism, Trump

While piloting the fledgling New York Mets to an historically awful season in 1962, their colorful manager Casey Stengel at one point exasperatedly asked “Can’t anybody here play this game?” Or something like it.

An Associated Press (AP) report yesterday makes clear that the same question needs to keep being asked about the Trump administration’s intertwined immigration and border security policies. The article provided the latest batch of evidence supporting an administration claim about the threat of terrorists entering the United States across the southern border that the President and his aides have repeatedly undercut by incompetently presenting the facts.

The most recent controversy about the terrorism-immigration connection erupted in early January, when, according to press reports, former (and later fired) Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen met with Congressional leaders to lobby for Mr. Trump’s border wall proposal. Her pitch, according to the reports, used the claim that, during the past year, 3,000 terrorists were among those apprehended by border officials as they tried to cross into the nation from Mexico.

The claim was so easily debunked that even supporters of much more restrictive U.S. immigration policies were left shaking their heads. But as explained in this post from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a related terrorism-immigration threat does warrant major concern – including wall-building – even though the Trump administration rarely mentions it and even on those occasions often botches the matter. It’s the demonstrable presence in groups of would-be border crossers of migrants from countries and regions where terrorism is all too common, including the Middle East and North Africa and their large numbers of jihadists; and/or of migrants on federal terrorist watch lists.

The numbers of actual terrorists even in these often overlapping groups apparently aren’t large in absolute terms. But as observed by CIS’ Todd Bensman, a former Texas State counter-terrorism official, “in this threat realm, small numbers portend major consequences. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as she heads for the exit over just a relative few migrants who committed terror attacks in her country after entering among the million migrants she admitted.”

And this is where the new AP story comes in. According to correspondent Mark Stevenson,

“Thousands fleeing conflict or poverty in Nigeria, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Haiti and Cuba have traveled across oceans, through the jungles and mountains of South America, up through Central America, on a route that — so far — ends here: the steamy, crumbling Mexican city of Tapachula, near the Guatemala border.”

Why did they try to enter the United States this way? Stevenson quotes a migrant rights supporter as explaining that stating that their presence owes to the fact that

“word quickly spread through international smuggling networks that Mexico had become more permissive for migrants. Attention drawn to the large caravans meandering north to the U.S. last year, combined with Mexico’s fast-track for thousands of humanitarian visas in January, appeared like welcome mats on the global stage. At the same time, it became more difficult for migrants in Asia or Africa to reach Europe.”

The non-Western Hemisphere migrants interviewed by Stevenson all claimed to be fleeing poverty, violence, and persecution in their home countries, and no doubt many and even most are telling the truth. But how on earth can this be reliably determined? Assuming these individuals have national documentation, do Nigeria, Cameroon, and Bangladesh, for example, really have governments remotely capable of identifying their populations with any precision? Can a reporter verify their stories? Also disturbing: Stevenson’s interviewees were all single men.

On the one hand, the length of the journeys they say they have taken surely complicates the task of bringing along family members, and especially children. At the same time, it’s single men who commit the lion’s share of the terrorist acts and crimes against women that have generated such a backlash in Europe and – to a much lesser extent so far – in the United States.

As noted by Bensman, the former Texas counter-terrorism official, the Trump administration could easily clear up the confusion it has helped create by securing the release of the correct numbers as kept by the FBI and Homeland Security’s National Counterterrorism Center, and by reporting them accurately. But weirdly, the administration has not only declined to take these obvious steps. It’s resisting CIS efforts to force the release of these data through the Freedom of Information Act. In fact, ten days ago, CIS sued the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to make the data public.

Let’s all hope this legal action succeeds, or that the Trump administration stops the obstruction. Keeping the nation safe from terrorism is too important an objective to tolerate big unforced official errors continuing.

Im-Politic: Why White Supremacist Terrorism has Become a Top Priority Threat

Tags

anti-semitism, Christchurch, Great Replacement, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, jihadism, mosques, Muslims, New Zealand attack, social media, terrorism, Trump, white nationalists, white supremacist terrorism, white supremacists

The great 20^th century economist John Maynard Keynes is widely thought to have said in response to a challenge to his consistency, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?…” I’ve always thought that’s great advice in life generally, and in particular for anyone who spends much time commenting on public policy. As a result, I have no problem reporting that my views on the seriousness of the white nationalist/supremacist violence threat nationwide and globally are different now than when I last wrote on the issue a little over three years ago. Moreover, it’s clear that President Trump needs to get off the dime on this front as well.

Specifically, it’s now clear to me that these movements have developed into dangers to public safety that are comparable, or nearly so, to Islam-inspired terrorist movements, and that other national governments need to intensify their focus accordingly.

The proximate cause of course is Friday’s terrible massacre of Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. But the past year has also witnessed a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania synagogue, the letter bombs sent by a Florida man to Democratic Party politicians and officials as well as liberal mainstream media figures, and the arrest of a Coast Guard officer who was apparently stockpiling weapons with the intent of killing lots of liberal political figures and journalists.

My previous views on the differences between white nationalist (I know it’s a logically tortuous term, but it’s in widespread use, so….) violence and Islamic terrorism were based mainly on two observations: First, that, unlike the latter, the former had no general program (however loony in real-world terms) that it tried to push; and second, that unlike Islamic terrorists, the white nationalists didn’t seem to have an international network from which they could draw strength, inspiration, and even resources.

It’s now clear, however, that the Islamophobic, anti-immigrant hatred behind much white nationalist violence is motivated by a determination to stop what these extremists view as an effort by globalist-dominated national governments to replace their countries’ historically white populations of European descent with Muslims and other foreign non-whites. Some of this “Great Replacement” thinking (I hesitate to dignify it as anything as systematic as an “ideology”) of course also justifies anti-semitic violence by evoking the long-held belief that Jews are crucial members, and indeed masterminds, of a transnational (usually called “cosmopolitan” conspiracy to control all of humanity by dissolving all existing bonds among individuals, ethnic groups, and national populations and imposing a form of tyrannical world government).

Moreover, like jihadists, white nationalists undoubtedly the world over increasingly are using social media to talk to one another, share their poisonous bigotry, and whip themselves into a frenzy. As a result, it’s just as pointless to try distinguishing the two by contending that jihadists appear much more organized globally than white nationalists. It’s true, for example, that white nationalists haven’t demonstrated the ability to turn large chunks of physical territory into bases capable of promoting large-scale terrorist operations like September 11. But it’s also true – as noted by many alarmed by jihadism – that such capabilities aren’t needed for Islamic radicalism to deserve blame for inspiring “lone wolves” to go on terrorist rampages.

It’s also true, as far as we know, that, unlike the jihadists, white nationalists haven’t yet been able to foster the creation of and maintenance of cells that can carry out large-scale terror attacks like those Europe has suffered in Paris and Brussels. But why sit back and wait for this capacity to develop?

So President Trump obviously needs to stop denying that white nationalism is a burgeoning security threat. White nationalists may indeed be “a small group of people that have very, very serious problems,” but there’s now no doubt that however sparse their numbers, white nationalists can do tremendous harm. He also needs to stop committing the entirely unforced error of reacting to anti-Muslim terrorism in the blandest possible ways (when he reacts at all) while greeting violence by Islamic radicals with instant outrage.

But let’s also be clear about what burgeoning white nationalist violence doesn’t mean. Principally, it doesn’t mean that Mr. Trump and his rhetoric are responsible (unless you want to hold Never Trump-ers and their extreme rhetoric responsible for antifa-type violence). And it doesn’t mean that Islam-inspired terrorism can or should be downplayed – including with all that implies for policies toward immigrants and refugees from countries where reliable vetting information simply doesn’t exist. 

Instead, it means that we live in a depressingly and dangerously complicated world in which perils can come simultaneously in many different forms; in which governments need to target them all; and in which people of genuinely good will urgently need to realize that what they have in common, and what separates them from the violent fringes, is far more important than what divides them. Mr. Trump could help greatly by recognizing that his entirely correct claim that “to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name” applies to white supremacist terrorism as well as the Islam-inspired kind.

Im-Politic: Out of the Mouths of Globalists – A Case for the Wall

Tags

Afghanistan, America First, border security, border wall, foreign policy, globalism, government shutdown, Im-Politic, Immigration, jihadism, Middle East, State of the Union, terrorism, The New York Times, Trump

With the possibility of another Border Wall-related government shutdown hanging over tonight’s State of the Union – and all of American politics – it’s pretty astonishing to recognize that The New York Times editorial board, which strongly opposes the wall, and which has long championed a globalist approach to foreign policy issues, has just unwittingly endorsed a Trump-ian, America First-style approach to border security.

The endorsement came in The Times‘ recent editorial calling for a prompt U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan – a position that’s also decidedly Trump-ian.

According to Times editorial writers, the main rationale originally cited for fighting in Afghanistan was flawed from the start. It focused too tightly on

“the idea that war abroad could prevent bloodshed at home. As [then President George W. Bush] explained in 2004: ‘We are fighting these terrorists with our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond so we do not have to face them in the streets of our own cities.’”

Globalists well to the left of Bush endorsed this rationale as well, notably former President Barack Obama. His first bid for the White House stressed that Afghanistan was a “good war” and a conflict that “had to be won” in order to “take the fight to the terrorists” – in stark contrast to Mr. Bush’s “dumb” war in Iraq.

But The Times – which admirably recognizes that it bought this line as well – now suggests that this argument never made much sense. Although acknowledging that “since 9/11, no foreign terrorist group has conducted a deadly attack inside the United States,” it adds that

“there have been more than 200 deadly terrorist attacks during that period, most often at the hands of Americans radicalized by ideologies that such groups spread. Half of those attacks were motivated by radical Islam, while 86 came at the hands of far-right extremists.”

The Times doesn’t draw the obvious implication, but it couldn’t be clearer even to a minimally perceptive observer: The kinds of terrorist threats the paper spotlights have appeared in the United States in large measure because border security has been so shoddy for so long. In particular, American immigration authorities have never adequately screened newcomers from countries where radical Islam has taken root, and who are therefore unusually vulnerable to radicalization.

It’s conceivable that border security could effectively address these challenges without the kind of physical barriers now sought by President Trump – and demonized by most of Congress’ Democrats. But at the least, The Times‘ rationale strongly militates for other Trump-ian, America First-style border security measures, like applying travel bans against countries that are known hotbeds of terrorism and strict limits on admitting refugees and asylum-seekers from these same points of origin.

And barriers look especially important given the extensive legal/due process protections now automatically awarded to anyone who sets foot on American soil, including from countries whose threadbare (at best) governments lack the capacity to document the identity of their residents satisfactorily. Therefore, adequate vetting by the U.S. government will be excruciatingly difficult, to put it mildly.

But if The Times wants to clinch the case for withdrawing promptly from Afghanistan, it should make a point I’ve made repeatedly: It will be far easier to protect against terrorist threats by relying mainly on border security because access to the country is something Washington can reasonably hope to control. Protecting against terrorist threats mainly by chasing jihadists around a completely dysfunctional region of the world whose greatest strength is spawning extremism would base American strategy on something Washington can’t reasonably hope to control.

And of course, connecting an end to massive American military involvement in the Middle East with the need for more secure borders could only bolster President Trump’s position, too.

Im-Politic: September 11 Forgotten at Ground Zero

Tags

Chanel Foundation, Coca Cola, G20, Ground Zero, Group of 20, Im-Politic, International Olympic Committee, Jamal Khashoggi, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Saudi Arabia, September 11, terrorism, World Trade Center

On the back of the older of our two family cars is a faded bumper sticker declaring “9-11. We Will Never Forget.” I wish I had a spare that I could send to the folks running the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with the Chanel Foundation, the International Olympic Committee, the Coca Cola Co., and other businesses and organizations like them. Because the Port Authority – a partnership involving the two states mentioned plus the federal government that operates major transportation assets in the New York metropolitan area – and the others just mentioned clearly have forgotten.

My evidence for this charge? Not two decades after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Port Authority, which developed the World Trade Center (WTC) site that stands in the shadow of the September 11 memorial, installed an exhibit at the Center an art exhibit that showcases the flag of Saudi Arabia – the home country of 15 of the 19 September 11 aircraft hijackers, which is ruled by a monarchy widely accused of (and in fact sued by the families of many September 11 victims for) harboring the terrorist forces responsible for the attacks. In other words, the a Saudi flag image is all but flying above Ground Zero. 

The exhibit, which opened last month, was funded by the Chanel Foundation, the Olympic Committee, and Coke. Although there’s no evidence that these sponsors had any role in the decision to locate the art at the WTC, since money talks, surely they could have prevented this outrage.

To be sure, Saudi Arabia’s is not the only flag displayed. The work consists of candy-shaped sculptures of the flags of all the countries comprising the Group of 20 (G20) – a loose network of the world’s twenty largest economies, which meets periodically to discuss various global issues. The French artist who created the sculptures didn’t mean to single out the Saudis as paragons of virtue, either. And that certainly wasn’t the (stated, at least) intent of the Port Authority, which called installing the work a part of its “continuing efforts to transform the World Trade Center site into a dynamic space in Lower Manhattan….”

Yet even leaving aside the appropriateness of prominently displaying a portrayal of the Saudi flag virtually on the very spot where the Twin Towers stood, the sculptures’ ostensibly intended message is pretty ditzy, or pretty cynical, depending on your standpoint. The flags come in the shape of wrappers around pieces of candy. The sculptor’s objective for this format (though not for placing it at the WTC site, which wasn’t his decision) was “to celebrate mankind on an international level and pay tribute to People of the entire world.” That’s pretty kumbaya-y, especially considering that G20 meetings are combinations of cold-blooded exercises in advancing national interests and multinational business interests (mainly in the case of the pre-Trump United States), with periodic rhetorical lip service to and occasional instances of international cooperation.

But hey, he’s an artist. Coca Cola and the like surely understand the self-interested aims that are served by portraying such arrangements and their workings as high minded (indeed sugar-sweet) efforts to promote international friendship and harmony.

Even so, this kind of globalist propaganda is still much less offensive per se than planting a facsimile of the Saudi flag so close to the scene of an atrocity committed by adherents of the kinds of jihadist movements strongly supported by Saudi leaders. Moreover, it’s especially troubling given the evidence that this same regime killed dissident Saudi journalist (and legal U.S. resident) Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey – an action that ignited much higher profile and sustained domestic and worldwide condemnation. So it’s not as if a lot of post-September 11 reform has taken place.

Like I said, the “Never Forget” bumper sticker on my car is pretty faded by now – and the Port Authority’s decision has prompted me to get a replacement. In fact, I think I’ll make it three (to go onto our second car). Moreover, I am going to send the other to the Port Authority. I hope all RealityChek readers will consider doing the same.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The U.S. Public Opinion Gap isn’t Only Partisan

Tags

alliances, America First, climate change, Democrats, globalism, Immigration, Jobs, national security, nuclear deterrence, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center, Republicans, terrorism, Trump, weapons of mass destruction

A recent (November 29) Pew Research Center poll on public attitudes toward foreign policy issues was a classic good news/bad news story – at least if you believe that the top priority of American foreign policy should be to promote the security and well-being of the American people.

On the one hand, that’s pretty much what the results show – that’s the good news. On the other hand, these commonsense positions prevail overwhelmingly because adults viewing themselves as either Republicans or Republican leaners hold them. That’s the bad news.  In other words, the views of Democrats and those leaning Democratic reveal a marked disregard for their nation’s self-preservation and prosperity.

According to Pew, 72 percent of all Americans say that “taking measures to protect the U.S. from terrorism” should “be a top foreign policy priority,” 71 percent would assign the same priority to “protecting jobs of American workers,” and 66 percent regard “preventing the spread” of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) with similar urgency.

But now check out the partisan splits: On the terrorism issue, fully 84 percent of Republicans and their leaners regard it as a top foreign policy priority. Only 61 percent of Democrats and their leaners agree. So much, i.e., for the idea that Americans will never forget September 11. And remember – the question only described protection from terrorism as a top priority, not the top foreign policy priority.

On protecting American workers’ jobs, 81 percent of Republicans and their leaners would treat it as a priority, versus only 65 percent of Democrats and their leaners. I’m old enough to remember when the Democrat called themselves the party of working Americans.

The exception here is preventing the spread of WMD: Fewer (64 percent of Republicans and their leaners see it as a major priority than do Democrats and their leaners (68 percent), but these results are very close.

Many of the other Pew poll findings are not the slightest bit surprising. Principally, the biggest partisan divides on foreign policy issues come on “dealing with global climate change,” “reducing illegal immigration into the U.S.,” and “maintaining U.S. military advantage over all other countries.”

But here’s what’s more surprising. The Democrats, and especially their leaders, have enthusiastically assumed the mantle of globalism champions versus President Trump’s proclaimed America First approach. And a hallmark of globalism, whether on the right or the left ends of the national political spectrum, has been international activism. Liberals and conservatives generally disagree on where to place the emphasis (e.g., emerging transnational issues like climate change and migration versus more traditional security-oriented issues), but energetic engagement is favored by all.

Nonetheless, if you look carefully at the Pew results, Democrats and their leaners would place the “top priority” label on relatively few foreign policy issues. Indeed, only one such candidate for this status reaches the 70 percent mark with these groups – “improving relationships with allies.” And only four issues are seen as top priorities by 60 or more percent of Democrats and their leaners – as stated above, WMD (68 percent), protecting American jobs (65 percent), climate change (64 percent) and terrorism (61 percent). 

Overall, then, it’s easy to conclude from these and other findings in the Pew poll that Democrats and their leaners may be globalists, but they’re globalists who don’t seem to regard overseas-related challenges with overwhelming concern. Alternatively, they’re reluctant to support zeroing in on a limited (and arguably more manageable) set of goals. P.S., the relatively low score for climate change seems especially noteworthy given the importance progressive Democrats and others relatively far to the Left have attached to the idea of a “Green New Deal.”

It’s even easier to conclude that Republicans and their leaners are more committed to an America First-type approach. And it looks like this commitment is somewhat stronger. Their highest priority foreign policy issues are the aforementioned terrorism and job protection – where their priority scores are in the 80s percent. And their next three priorities are maintaining a national military edge (70 percent), reducing illegal immigration (68 percent), and preventing WMD spread (64 percent). For good measure, “getting other countries to assume more of the costs of maintaining world order” comes in at 56 percent.

However revealing these Pew results, they still left out two of the biggest questions for politicians and others trying to surmise which approaches to U.S. foreign policy, and what specific initiatives, would garner the most and least public support. The first is how genuine political independents view these issues. The second is how high a priority is assigned to preventing a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland.

The importance attached to halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction points to great concern about this challenge. But the strong support expressed by Democrats and their leaners for shoring up America’s alliance relations indicates an especially serious lack of awareness on their part that indiscriminately extending nuclear umbrellas over U.S. allies has greatly increased the odds of such attack (principally from the newish NATO commitments to the highly vulnerable Baltic states, and the longstanding commitment to protect South Korea from North Korea and its new nuclear capabilities).

Of course, these Americans can’t entirely be blamed for this knowledge gap, as both U.S. leaders and the mainstream media continue to work overtime to mask the – growing – nuclear war risks inherent in the nation’s alliance system. (President Trump has been only a partial exception.) Hopefully 2019 will see some explicit, intellectually honest discussion of these dangers – and well before they reach critical mass.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Trump Needs to Go Real America First vs the Saudis

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America First, globalism, Iran, Israel, Jamal Khashoggi, Magnitsky sanctions, Middle East, Mohammed bin Salman, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Saudi Arabia, terrorism, Washington Post

Earlier this year, The National Interest published a lengthy article of mine arguing that President Trump seemed to be repeating a mistake that has doomed previous efforts to replace a failed, longstanding globalist strategy with a fundamentally new foreign policy much better suited to the country’s real strengths and weaknesses. And just this morning, this prediction was borne out by the Washington Post‘s editorial writers (best viewed as among the many unofficial spokespeople for globalist approaches that fill the Mainstream Media) in a piece they wrote on Mr. Trump’s approach to the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi authorized at top levels by the Saudi Arabian monarchy.

My article made the case that globalism would never be rejected unless the President made a clean, fully explained, break with the assumptions on which it was based. Instead, it pointed out, he seemed to have settled (wittingly or not) on an approach that might be called “globalism on the cheap.” That is, Mr. Trump’s actions appear to reflect a belief that most and even all of globalism’s supposed economic and security benefits can be realized, and supposed goals achieved (both entailing shaping the entire global environment in ways America allegedly needs in order to be acceptably safe and prosperous) while reducing its costs (e.g., subsidizing the defense of free-riding allies, and their economies with lopsided trade arrangements). The essay also explained that, because similar claims made by globalism critics in the past turned out to be literally too good to be true, numerous chances for genuine and urgently needed foreign policy overhaul have been lost.

That’s why the Post editorial is so revealing. It shows that, because Mr. Trump’s rejection of globalism has been so partial (in this case, when it comes to the Middle East), he’s made himself vulnerable to the kinds of attacks that have vanquished earlier critics and squandered a golden opportunity to stake out a true America First position that would have been strategically sound and politically popular. In fact, the Trump Saudi statements have enabled his critics to slam him in two powerful ways.

First, the Post edit writers have restated the common charge that the President was “craven” in letting Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman off the hook for the Khashoggi murder largely because of economic considerations like the kingdom’s purchases of U.S.-made weapons and its cooperation in keeping oil prices low. As the editorial puts it, Mr. Trump, “cares not a fig for American values….And if he can sell one or two more fighter jets, who cares if a journalist is murdered?”

Small wonder that his decision has been so unpopular even with many of his supporters in Congress. Just as bad, the President’s rationale is so narrow that it’s been easy to undercut on its own terms (e.g., by questioning the actual importance of Saudi Arabia’s imports to the U.S. economy).

But the editorial’s second line of attack is much more important, and is worth presenting in full. The President, according to the Post, is

“undermining the basic understanding that has worked to the United States’ advantage since World War II under presidents both Republican and Democratic.

“Those leaders all accepted that, with less than 5 percent of global population but more than 20 percent of the global economy, the United States, more than any other nation, depends on and benefits from predictable rules. It needs a world where business executives can go forth and come home without fear of kidnapping, where ships can ply the oceans without armed escorts, where contracts are honored and disputes fairly adjudicated. It needs a world where journalists can report and inform Americans on the true conditions on the ground.

“Previous presidents understood that the way to achieve such a world was to enlist allies who would live by the United States’ rules in return for protection — safe in knowledge that the United States would not use its preeminence to squeeze them for every last dollar. They would go along because the United States stood not just for itself but for rules that benefited everyone and for values they cherished, as well: freedom, human dignity, the rule of law. By championing good — albeit imperfectly and inconsistently — the United States did well.”

As my National Interest piece explained, this by-now-standard defense of globalism has the decisive sources of U.S. security and prosperity exactly backward. Far from depending on a placid world largely knit together by alliances and institutions dominated by like-minded countries, the real guarantors of U.S. power and wealth are America’s…power and wealth – i.e., its own assets – along with an unmistakable willingness to use them when advisable.

Further, this power and wealth have been indispensable both in instances when unilateral action has been desirable or unavoidable, and in ensuring that the specific forms taken by various cooperative (“multilateral”) ventures advance American interests – an outcome globalists wrongly take for granted.

These America First-supporting conclusions, by the way, are so valid that it’s become routine for even globalists unknowingly to acknowledge them – as did the Post’s editorialists when they (rightly) accused the President of failing “to see that Saudi Arabia is far more dependent on the United States than the reverse.”

But Mr. Trump’s own failure to recognize the real U.S.-Saudi power balance is far more frustrating for backers of new America First foreign policies. And in a Middle Eastern context, it’s manifested in much more than his views on the Saudi market for American arms exports.

For example, it’s also apparent from his conviction that keeping world and U.S. oil prices relatively low depends on Washington making nice to Riyadh – whereas the Saudis have learned that overly expensive and/or skyrocketing oil prices hurt them (badly) as well. After all, until recently, they’ve reduced American and worldwide economic growth, and therefore reduced the oil revenues on which the kingdom is completely reliant economically. More recently, because of the U.S. energy production revolution (a development vigorously – and correctly – championed by the President), the higher global oil prices rise, the more American oil and natural gas come on stream to the world market, and take market share from the Saudis and other Middle Eastern and foreign exporters.

And, as I’ve written repeatedly, the President’s partial America-First-ism is clear from his belief that it’s vital for U.S. national security to support Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries (along with Israel) in order to contain Iran’s regional ambitions.

So what would a real America First approach to the Khashoggi murder have been? Nothing less than the long overdue beginning of a U.S. strategic withdrawal from the hopelessly violent and dysfunctional Middle East based on the (equally long overdue) understanding. This decision would be described an explained in high profile presidential speeches and other declarations that, with the following points, would put the globalists on the defensive for a change: that the United States no longer needs the region’s oil nearly so desperately; that terrorist threats originating in the Middle East are best met by securing America’s own borders, rather than by battling jihadist networks all around the world; and that any Iranian threat to the U.S. homeland is eminently deter-able with U.S. nuclear forces.

P.S. For those concerned about Israel’s security (and that includes me), the Jewish state is more than capable of protecting itself through a combination of its own military strength, its own emerging alliance with the Sunnis – which will also contain any possible headaches from Palestinian radicals – and continuing military and economic assistance from Washington.

In the process, Mr. Trump should announce some painful and specific slaps at the Saudis – like expelling, say, half of their staff from their embassy in Washington and imposing painful so-called Magnitsky sanctions on the personal finances of bin Salman and others at the most senior levels of the Saudi leadership. For nothing is more central to the concept of America First than that, barring truly vital strategic interests to the contrary (the reduction of which itself is a high America First priority), no one gets away with harming American citizens or legal residents (Khashoggi’s status) unjustly.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Khashoggi Incident Really Matters

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Al Qaeda, America First, arms sales, Cold War, energy, globalism, globalists, Iran, ISIS, Islam, Israel, Jamal Khashoggi, jihadism, Middle East, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, September 11, terrorism, Trump

Important though it is, the most important question surrounding the possibility that Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has killed Jamal Khashoggi is not whether the United States responds or how it responds if the kingdom did murder the dissident journalist – who happens to be a legal resident of the United States.

Instead, the most important question is really two-fold. First, do the many U.S. foreign policy traditionalists calling for severe punishment understand how such a move could undercut the decades-long approach toward the Saudis that they themselves have strongly supported? Second, and even more intriguing, do these globalists understand that the Khashoggi affair is simply the latest in a long string of signs that it’s well past time for the United States to adopt a genuine America First approach and leave the hot, dysfunctional mess that is the entire Muslim Middle East?

Given the prominence of maintaining good relations with the Saudis in the strategies of American globalists across the the board, it’s nothing less than jaw-dropping to see how many of them – liberal and conservative alike – are calling for strong counter-measures if Khashoggi is in fact dead at Saudi hands. Here’s a representative example from no less than former CIA chief John Brennan – who’s gone on Never Trump rampage in part because he views Trump’s foreign policy views as anathema. My astonishment, however, is justified even if much of the outrage is no more than outrage-signaling – posturing assumed to be safe because the Trump administration will eventually not upset the felafel cart.

After all, since World War II, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf region has been valued as a prime source of the oil desperately needed for the world economy to function acceptably in peacetime, and crucial to prevailing over ruthless global enemies in hot and cold wars alike. Once the Soviet threat disappeared, the region’s oil retained all of its perceived importance, and the critical mass of the foreign policy establishment gravitated toward seeing first Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and then Iran’s theocracy as the prime threat to the world’s unimpeded access. Crucially, not even evidence of (unofficial?) Saudi support for the Islamic extremists of Al Qaeda who launched the September 11 attacks ever truly threatened the U.S.-Saudi connection. 

Indeed, in recent years, even far left-of-center American politicians joined widespread calls for Washington to create a Middle Eastern-dominated coalition to handle most of the fight against ISIS (a successor group to Al Qaeda). And one of the anchors of this arrangement was expected to be none other than Saudi Arabia.

As I’ve argued for years now, none of the arguments for a close, if informal, U.S.-Saudi alliance holds any more water. North America possesses all the fossil fuels needed by the United States, and thanks to the shale/fracking-led energy technology revolution, the Persian Gulf’s role as key global oil supplier is greatly diminished as well. The terrorist threats likely to keep emanating from the region are best dealt with through much stronger U.S. border controls, not repeated American military interventions or fantasies about the Muslim Middle East’s decrepit (and highly compromised) regimes becoming a strong, reliable bulwark against jihadism.

And those claiming that Israel’s security warrants continuing America’s Middle East policy status quo need to remember that Israel and Saudi Arabia (and most other Sunni monarchies) have now created a tacit alliance to counter Shi’ite Iran. Moreover, Washington can always keep selling or simply giving the Israelis all the weapons they need.

The situation has changed so much that the most compelling argument against steps like cutting off or suspending U.S. arms sales to the Saudis has been advanced by President Trump: a boatload of revenue and jobs would be lost by the American economy, and the Saudis could always turn to alternate suppliers (like the Chinese and, more credibly – because their military equipment is still better – the Russians). In addition, don’t forget this irony: Consistent with its anti-Iran goals, Israel and its own impressive defense-related technologies could also partly fill the vacuum left by a U.S. withdrawal from the Saudi market.

At the same time, there’s no shortage of countries living in dangerous neighborhoods that would remain or could become massive buyers of American weapons. And as pointed out here, the Saudi military has relied on so much U.S. equipment for so long that changing its complexion would be as complicated as it would be expensive. Not to mention the years it would take for a regime that faces imminent threats to complete this task.

As a result, even if Khashoggi miraculously reappears one day, or even if he doesn’t but the Saudis are innocent, here’s hoping that the uproar over his disappearance triggers some major rethinking of America’s Middle East policy. After all, to paraphrase a famous recent remark about governing, a policy firestorm is a terrible thing to waste.