The Conservative Cat

Now, to be fair, it's possible that Mr. Smerconish was not hunting evidence but was instead of victim of an excessively open mind. That does not change the fact that his conclusions are completely bogus.

The article quotes extensively the opinions of Michael Scheuer, the author of Imperial Hubris. Scheuer's credentials are that he spent 22 years in the CIA, 4 of them studying most-wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden. The essence of Scheuer's theory is given in the following passage from the article.

[W]e’re told that radical Islam hates us, and attacks us, for who we are and what we think, when that is not the case. It’s not McDonalds, Starbucks, lap dances and Britney Spears – offensive though Muslims may find those hallmarks of American life. And it’s not about converting us to Islam. To the contrary, says Scheuer, what motivates radical Islam is American foreign policy. It’s our support for Israel, our troops on the Arabian Peninsula, our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, our support for Russia, India and China against their Muslim militants, our pressure on Arab energy producers to keep prices low, and our support for tyrannical Muslim governments.

This is a plausible contention, but it's equally plausible that people hate us because of Britney Spears. What evidence do we have that Scheuer's explanation is the correct one? Mr. Smerconish offers us this.

[Scheuer] reminds us that in Afghanistan, non-Afghan Muslims fought the Soviets not because they were atheists and communists, “but rather because they were atheists and communists who had invaded and occupied a Muslim land.”

This factoid should be enough to make you discount the entire article. Afghanistan was in turmoil well before the Soviet invasion. The Marxist takeover in 1978 was only five years after the previous coup, and both were in response to dissatisfaction with a general economic malaise. When the Soviets invaded, the Afghan government was already being overwhelmed by the mujahedin.

It gets worse. Smerconish tries to bolster Scheuer's credibility with this passage.

Despite [Scheuer's] two master’s degrees, his Ph.D., his 22-years with the Agency, including 4 years being the point person on Bin Laden, no elected officials seek out his guidance. “No sir, they kind of avoid me like grim death,” he told me when I asked.

It's real easy to explain why nobody takes Scheuer's advice. In 1999, Scheuer proposed that the U.S. take out Osama bin Laden by attacking an Afghan camp where the al-Qaeda leader was socializing with officials from the United Arab Emirates. Here's what he said about the proposal in a CBS News interview.

"The world is lousy with Arab princes," says Scheuer. "And if we could have got Osama bin Laden, and saved at some point down the road 3,000 American lives, a few less Arab princes would have been OK in my book."

A guy who claims our foreign policy is too adventurous and then considers foreign royalty to be acceptible collateral damage is not rational.

Scheuer's credentials are that he's an expert on bin Laden-- not foreign policy in general, not the history of Islam, nor the way America is portrayed in the foreign press. It is generally believed that the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia during the run-up to the first Gulf War is what sent bin Laden over the edge. A guy obsessed with Osama bin Laden could easily forget that a wealthy terrorist may not be representative of the entire Arab world.

If it's wrong to attack an argument by attacking the person making it, it's equally wrong to support an argument by the fact of the person making it. Like a TV crime show, the truth is not in the people: it's in the evidence.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat