By Andrew J. Bacevich

via Tom Dispatch

First came the hullaballoo over the “Mosque at Ground Zero.”  Then there was Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida, grabbing headlines as he promoted “International Burn-a-Koran Day.”  Most recently, we have an American posting a slanderous anti-Muslim video on the Internet [...]]]> Joe McCarthy Would Understand 

By Andrew J. Bacevich

via Tom Dispatch

First came the hullaballoo over the “Mosque at Ground Zero.”  Then there was Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida, grabbing headlines as he promoted “International Burn-a-Koran Day.”  Most recently, we have an American posting a slanderous anti-Muslim video on the Internet with all the ensuing turmoil.

Throughout, the official U.S. position has remained fixed: the United States government condemns Islamophobia.  Americans respect Islam as a religion of peace.  Incidents suggesting otherwise are the work of a tiny minority — whackos, hatemongers, and publicity-seekers.  Among Muslims from Benghazi to Islamabad, the argument has proven to be a tough sell.

And not without reason: although it might be comforting to dismiss anti-Islamic outbursts in the U.S. as the work of a few fanatics, the picture is actually far more complicated.  Those complications in turn help explain why religion, once considered a foreign policy asset, has in recent years become a net liability.

Let’s begin with a brief history lesson.  From the late 1940s to the late 1980s, when Communism provided the overarching ideological rationale for American globalism, religion figured prominently as a theme of U.S. foreign policy.  Communist antipathy toward religion helped invest the Cold War foreign policy consensus with its remarkable durability.  That Communists were godless sufficed to place them beyond the pale.  For many Americans, the Cold War derived its moral clarity from the conviction that here was a contest pitting the God-fearing against the God-denying.  Since we were on God’s side, it appeared axiomatic that God should repay the compliment.

From time to time during the decades when anti-Communism provided so much of the animating spirit of U.S. policy, Judeo-Christian strategists in Washington (not necessarily believers themselves), drawing on the theologically correct proposition that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God, sought to enlist Muslims, sometimes of fundamentalist persuasions, in the cause of opposing the godless.  One especially notable example was the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989.  To inflict pain on the Soviet occupiers, the United States threw its weight behind the Afghan resistance, styled in Washington as “freedom fighters,” and funneled aid (via the Saudis and the Pakistanis) to the most religiously extreme among them.  When this effort resulted in a massive Soviet defeat, the United States celebrated its support for the Afghan Mujahedeen as evidence of strategic genius.  It was almost as if God had rendered a verdict.

Yet not so many years after the Soviets withdrew in defeat, the freedom fighters morphed into the fiercely anti-Western Taliban, providing sanctuary to al-Qaeda as it plotted — successfully — to attack the United States.  Clearly, this was a monkey wrench thrown into God’s plan.

With the launching of the Global War on Terrorism, Islamism succeeded Communism as the body of beliefs that, if left unchecked, threatened to sweep across the globe with dire consequences for freedom.  Those who Washington had armed as “freedom fighters” now became America’s most dangerous enemies.  So at least members of the national security establishment believed or purported to believe, thereby curtailing any further discussion of whether militarized globalism actually represented the best approach to promoting liberal values globally or even served U.S. interests.

Yet as a rallying cry, a war against Islamism presented difficulties right from the outset.  As much as policymakers struggled to prevent Islamism from merging in the popular mind with Islam itself, significant numbers of Americans — whether genuinely fearful or mischief-minded – saw this as a distinction without a difference.  Efforts by the Bush administration to work around this problem by framing the post-9/11 threat under the rubric of “terrorism” ultimately failed because that generic term offered no explanation for motive. However the administration twisted and turned, motive in this instance seemed bound up with matters of religion.

Where exactly to situate God in post-9/11 U.S. policy posed a genuine challenge for policymakers, not least of all for George W. Bush, who believed, no doubt sincerely, that God had chosen him to defend America in its time of maximum danger.  Unlike the communists, far from denying God’s existence, Islamists embrace God with startling ferocity.  Indeed, in their vitriolic denunciations of the United States and in perpetrating acts of anti-American violence, they audaciously present themselves as nothing less than God’s avenging agents.  In confronting the Great Satan, they claim to be doing God’s will.

Waging War in Jesus’s Name

This debate over who actually represents God’s will is one that the successive administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have studiously sought to avoid.  The United States is not at war with Islam per se, U.S. officials insist.  Still, among Muslims abroad, Washington’s repeated denials notwithstanding, suspicion persists and not without reason.

Consider the case of Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin.  While still on active duty in 2002, this highly decorated Army officer spoke in uniform at a series of some 30 church gatherings during which he offered his own response to President Bush’s famous question: “Why do they hate us?”  The general’s perspective differed markedly from his commander-in-chief’s:  “The answer to that is because we’re a Christian nation.  We are hated because we are a nation of believers.”

On another such occasion, the general recalled his encounter with a Somali warlord who claimed to enjoy Allah’s protection.  The warlord was deluding himself, Boykin declared, and was sure to get his comeuppance: “I knew that my God was bigger than his.  I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”  As a Christian nation, Boykin insisted, the United States would succeed in overcoming its adversaries only if “we come against them in the name of Jesus.”

When Boykin’s remarks caught the attention of the mainstream press, denunciations rained down from on high, as the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon hastened to disassociate the government from the general’s views.  Yet subsequent indicators suggest that, however crudely, Boykin was indeed expressing perspectives shared by more than a few of his fellow citizens.

One such indicator came immediately: despite the furor, the general kept his important Pentagon job as deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, suggesting that the Bush administration considered his transgression minor.  Perhaps Boykin had spoken out of turn, but his was not a fireable offense.  (One can only speculate regarding the fate likely to befall a U.S. high-ranking officer daring to say of Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, “My God is a real God and his is an idol.”)

A second indicator came in the wake of Boykin’s retirement from active duty.  In 2012, the influential Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington hired the general to serve as the organization’s executive vice-president.  Devoted to “advancing faith, family, and freedom,” the council presents itself as emphatically Christian in its outlook.  FRC events routinely attract Republican Party heavyweights.  The organization forms part of the conservative mainstream, much as, say, the American Civil Liberties Union forms part of the left-liberal mainstream.

So for the FRC to hire as its chief operating officer someone espousing Boykin’s pronounced views regarding Islam qualifies as noteworthy.  At a minimum, those who recruited the former general apparently found nothing especially objectionable in his worldview.  They saw nothing politically risky about associating with Jerry Boykin.  He’s their kind of guy. More likely, by hiring Boykin, the FRC intended to send a signal: on matters where their new COO claimed expertise — above all, war — thumb-in-your eye political incorrectness was becoming a virtue.  Imagine the NAACP electing Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as its national president, thereby endorsing his views on race, and you get the idea.

What the FRC’s embrace of General Boykin makes clear is this: to dismiss manifestations of Islamophobia simply as the work of an insignificant American fringe is mistaken.  As with the supporters of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who during the early days of the Cold War saw communists under every State Department desk, those engaging in these actions are daring to express openly attitudes that others in far greater numbers also quietly nurture.  To put it another way, what Americans in the 1950s knew as McCarthyism has reappeared in the form of Boykinism.

Historians differ passionately over whether McCarthyism represented a perversion of anti-Communism or its truest expression.  So, too, present-day observers will disagree as to whether Boykinism represents a merely fervent or utterly demented response to the Islamist threat.  Yet this much is inarguable: just as the junior senator from Wisconsin in his heyday embodied a non-trivial strain of American politics, so, too, does the former special-ops-warrior-turned-“ordained minister with a passion for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Notably, as Boykinism’s leading exponent, the former general’s views bear a striking resemblance to those favored by the late senator.  Like McCarthy, Boykin believes that, while enemies beyond America’s gates pose great dangers, the enemy within poses a still greater threat.  “I’ve studied Marxist insurgency,” he declared in a 2010 video.  “It was part of my training.  And the things I know that have been done in every Marxist insurgency are being done in America today.”  Explicitly comparing the United States as governed by Barack Obama to Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao Zedong’s China, and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Boykin charges that, under the guise of health reform, the Obama administration is secretly organizing a “constabulary force that will control the population in America.”  This new force is, he claims, designed to be larger than the United States military, and will function just as Hitler’s Brownshirts once did in Germany. All of this is unfolding before our innocent and unsuspecting eyes.

Boykinism: The New McCarthyism

How many Americans endorsed McCarthy’s conspiratorial view of national and world politics?  It’s difficult to know for sure, but enough in Wisconsin to win him reelection in 1952, by a comfortable 54% to 46% majority.  Enough to strike fear into the hearts of politicians who quaked at the thought of McCarthy fingering them for being “soft on Communism.”

How many Americans endorse Boykin’s comparably incendiary views?  Again, it’s difficult to tell.  Enough to persuade FRC’s funders and supporters to hire him, confident that doing so would burnish, not tarnish, the organization’s brand.  Certainly, Boykin has in no way damaged its ability to attract powerhouses of the domestic right.  FRC’s recent “Values Voter Summit”  featured luminaries such as Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan, former Republican Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Representative Michele Bachmann — along with Jerry Boykin himself, who lectured attendees on “Israel, Iran, and the Future of Western Civilization.” (In early August, Mitt Romney met privately with a group of “prominent social conservatives,” including Boykin.)

Does their appearance at the FRC podium signify that Ryan, Santorum, Cantor, and Bachmann all subscribe to Boykinism’s essential tenets?  Not any more than those who exploited the McCarthyite moment to their own political advantage  — Richard Nixon, for example — necessarily agreed with all of McCarthy’s reckless accusations.  Yet the presence of leading Republicans on an FRC program featuring Boykin certainly suggests that they find nothing especially objectionable or politically damaging to them in his worldview.

Still, comparisons between McCarthyism and Boykinism only go so far.  Senator McCarthy wreaked havoc mostly on the home front, instigating witch-hunts, destroying careers, and trampling on civil rights, while imparting to American politics even more of a circus atmosphere than usual.  In terms of foreign policy, the effect of McCarthyism, if anything, was to reinforce an already existing anti-communist consensus.  McCarthy’s antics didn’t create enemies abroad.  McCarthyism merely reaffirmed that communists were indeed the enemy, while making the political price of thinking otherwise too high to contemplate.

Boykinism, in contrast, makes its impact felt abroad.  Unlike McCarthyism, it doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of incumbents on the campaign trail here.  Attracting General Boykin’s endorsement or provoking his ire probably won’t determine the outcome of any election.  Yet in its various manifestations Boykinism provides the kindling that helps sustain anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world.  It reinforces the belief among Muslims that the Global War on Terror really is a war against them.

Boykinism confirms what many Muslims are already primed to believe: that American values and Islamic values are irreconcilable.  American presidents and secretaries of state stick to their talking points, praising Islam as a great religious tradition and touting past U.S. military actions (ostensibly) undertaken on behalf of Muslims.  Yet with their credibility among Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and others in the Greater Middle East about nil, they are pissing in the wind.

As long as substantial numbers of vocal Americans do not buy the ideological argument constructed to justify U.S. intervention in the Islamic world — that their conception of freedom (including religious freedom) is ultimately compatible with ours – then neither will Muslims.  In that sense, the supporters of Boykinism who reject that proposition encourage Muslims to follow suit.  This ensures, by extension, that further reliance on armed force as the preferred instrument of U. S. policy in the Islamic world will compound the errors that produced and have defined the post-9/11 era.

Andrew J. Bacevich is currently a visiting fellow at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.  A TomDispatch regular, he is author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, among other works, and most recently editor of The Short American Century.

Copyright 2012 Andrew J. Bacevich

News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12

“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a [...]]]> via Lobe Log

News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12

“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a safehouse in the coastal city of Benghazi.

The attack, which occurred shortly after the US embassy in Cairo was stormed by a mob, was ostensibly staged over an anti-Islamic film that has been publicized in the US. It is also possible that the demonstration in Benghazi over the film served as “cover” for a pre-planned assault on the compound:

The attack was believed to have been carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda-style Sunni Islamist group that has been active in Benghazi, a Libyan security official said. Witnesses said the mob also included tribesmen, militia and other gunmen.

The Islamist militia denied it had taken part in the assault on the compound, which AFP suggests was strangely well-coordinated given the fact that the film cited as the reason for the demonstration had not been publicized for very long. Unknown persons set up a firebase in a nearby farm to support the men who breached the walls and set fire to the buildings:

Ansar al-Sharia cars arrived at the start of the protest but left once fighting started, Hamam said. “The protesters were running around the compound just looking for Americans, they just wanted to find an American so they could catch one.”

“U.S. Suspects Libya Attack Was Planned”: The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration has reason to believe the attack in Libya was preplanned – it is not clear if the assault in Egypt is also being investigated for premeditated actions – by al Qaeda sympathizers. The US announced it was pursuing an investigation but had no firm evidence yet:

If it were established that the deaths of the American diplomats resulted not from the spontaneous anger of a crowd about an insult to Islam but from a long-planned Qaeda plot, that might sharply shift perceptions of the events. But officials cautioned that the issue was still under urgent study.

The White House would not comment. “At this stage, it would be premature to ascribe any motive to this reprehensible act,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.

But according to comments reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Libya’s Deputy Minister of the Interior Wanis al-Sharif has suggested that there was a link between the attack and the announcement yesterday –posted on the 11^th anniversary of 9/11 by al Qaeda’s official As-Sahab news outlet – that Ayman al-Zawahri’s deputy, the Libyan national Abu Yahya al-Libi, was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan.

Al-Zawahri, the Associated Press reports, “urged Libyans — al-Libi was born in the north African country — to attack Americans to avenge the late militant’s death, saying his ‘blood is calling, urging and inciting you to fight and kill the Crusaders.’”

The Deputy Minister of the Interior has subsequently blamed the American government for not taking precautions over this announcement. The US government has yet to respond to this apparent attempt by al-Sharif to deflect blame for the attack’s successful penetration of the embassy grounds after the outnumbered and outgunned Libyan guards stationed there abandoned their posts.

“Romney Campaign Denies Acting Rashly on Libyan Situation”: The National Journal reports that the Republican Party is deflecting criticism from both parties over their presidential nominee’s assertions that Obama was “sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions.”

Romney’s comments referred to a statement, now since walked back, by the US embassy in Cairo condemning the anti-Islamic film for inciting hate. The statement was released shortly before a mob converged on the compound and scaled the wall, but at a press conference in Jacksonville, Florida, Mitt Romney painted the embassy’s statement as a response to the attack after it happened rather than to the film before the protest took place.

Ben Smith reports that in addition to cited condemnations coming from Democrats, Republican foreign policy experts have voiced dismay over Romney making his remarks before more reports were available to judge what had happened in Cairo.

But the campaign has hit back on the criticism of its actions, with Romney not retracting his initial remarks and instead telling reporters that “it’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”

Statements published by Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post – whose editorial board strongly criticized Romney’s remarks – show that several of Romney’s hawkish advisors, most notably former UN ambassador John Bolton, are rallying to his defense and blaming the media for mischaracterizing their candidate’s remarks.

And according to the National Journal, other “senior Romney advisers, who would not speak on the record,” are practicing damage control by presenting the remarks as part of:

“[t]he larger point of Romney’s statement, which accused the administration of initially siding with protesters in Cairo, was that Obama is misreading the violent underbelly of the Arab Spring and jeopardizing U.S. interests in the region.

“This was a story that was building the entire day,” a senior Romney official said of the developments that took place late on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. …. [a]nd the statement was about the consistent failure of this administration to engage constructively with the aftermath of the Arab Spring.”

Just as the fall of Kabul and Baghdad ignited a spate of jubilation and self-vindication from proponents of intervention in those countries, the fall of Tripoli has reincarnated this pattern, both from humanitarian interventionists and their U.S.-interest minded counterparts. And now that the Qaddafi regime has completely eroded, even skeptics [...]]]> By Reza Sanati

Just as the fall of Kabul and Baghdad ignited a spate of jubilation and self-vindication from proponents of intervention in those countries, the fall of Tripoli has reincarnated this pattern, both from humanitarian interventionists and their U.S.-interest minded counterparts. And now that the Qaddafi regime has completely eroded, even skeptics of the war are grudgingly offering recommendations which, they argue, will enhance the situation in Libya for the Transitional National Council (TNC) and Western interests.

Nevertheless, beneath the veneer of what is now touted as a success for the Obama administration’s approach to the Middle East, lies the severity of unanswered questions related to the future of Libya for at least the next 5-10 years.

These uncertainties, much like those which resulted after the collapse of the Iraqi Baathist enterprise or the Afghan Taliban, need to be dissected and openly addressed.

For now, the most glaring queries about the situation in Libya are as follows:

1) Does the TNC actually represent the rebel fighters on the ground? In other words, will the rebels, who have essentially been armed and trained by NATO advisers, remain loyal to the TNC – which, by the way, is largely made up of former officials within the Qaddafi power structure? In recent days, the Islamist strand of rebel fighters has openly called the prior assumption of a united Libyan opposition into question.

2) If, for whatever reason, the answer to the previous question is not a definitive “yes”, what then? Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, initially an opponent of the intervention, has recently come out in favor of foreign troops on the ground, ostensibly to prevent chaos. Yet if one assumes that the TNC and the rebels are united, meaning the former have functional control over the latter, Haass’’s prescription would seem redundant, unless the TNC and rebel fighters were only linked by the tentative and tactical goal of removing Qaddafi.

3) Equally important and related to the prior two, considering that small arms have now proliferated throughout Libya proper, is the question of how disarmament of the civilian fighters will be carried out. If there is no broad-ranging political understanding between the commanding rebels on the ground and the TNC, then more conflict may be looming. More probable though – assuming that an agreement between the rebels and the TNC is not reached – is a scenario where the rebels try to bypass the higher echelon of the TNC, replacing them with officials that are more representative of the fighters on the ground. What will NATO’s response be in such a circumstance?

4) It is estimated that the post-uprising sanctions upon Qaddafi’s regime left approximately $160 billions dollars of Libyan assets abroad frozen. The Atlantic has rightly stated that due to the “many layers of national and international law” Libya will have to go through a “long, tedious legal struggle” to recover those funds. However, some funds have recently been released this past week under “humanitarian grounds”, but only a pittance of the overall sum. If the real goal is to help the Libyan people’s cause, would it not make sense to place the releasing of these assets on a much faster track? While the Atlantic argued that certain aspects of international law and intrastate “red-tape” will make it difficult for Libya to obtain the frozen assets, the country’s extraordinary circumstances would render the releasing of those funds to the TNC in a much smoother and faster pace far more justifiable. So why the delay?

5) Lastly, what will happen if there is chaos? Fears of Baghdad 2.0 have always been present and if there is no political arrangement that is credible and sustainable for the population at large, the possibility for low-grade and sustained violence will be quite high. This dynamic could invite far more intervention than what has already been witnessed.

The downfall of Muammar Qaddafi has brought hope to millions who suffered under his rule, but his departure from the political scene was by no means natural. It therefore remains to be seen whether out of an inorganic situation, a new, indigenous political framework within Libya can be constructed and sustained. If it cannot, then even more questions are bound to arise.