|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
From its beginning 2400 years ago in ancient Greece, the purpose of history has been to counsel the present by documenting the mistakes of the past. Thucydides explicitly made this goal the purpose of his History of the Peloponnesian War: to memorialize “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it.” At the violent end of the Roman Republic, the historian Livy similarly explains his intent: to shows us “what to imitate,” and “mark for avoidance what is shameful in the conception and shameful in the result.”
Yet here we are, two millennia later, despite our wealth, technological advances, and much vaster knowledge, still repeating the mistakes and follies not just of the distant past, but of the last half-century. The four years of the Biden administration’s failing foreign policy are the consequence of bad ideas and practices that we have already witnessed over and over.
Until we pay attention to the blunders of the past, and acknowledge the tragic nature of human affairs, we will continue to let misplaced idealism, electoral politics, ideological mantras, and sheer laziness endanger our national security and interests.
The conflict ignited by Hamas’ war crimes on October 7 features another lesson our foreign policy and national security mavens have failed to learn. U.S. forces in the region have been attacked 170 times by Iranian proxies, with scores of U.S. troops wounded, some critically, and three killed. Yet during that time, the Biden administration has responded with telegraphed and limited missile attacks on proxy assets in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the Red Sea. Yet the aggression against our forces and international shipping has persisted.
Obviously, a political party going into a presidential election with a failed candidate suffering from dementia and underwater in the polls, is loath to add the uncertainty of serious military action against Iran. So the financier and provider of materiel for its proxies has not had its mind concentrated by a serious degradation of its military infrastructure and armaments. Moreover, it’s clear that Iran is also providing targeting information to the Houthis’ attacks on commercial and military shipping in the Red Sea. Yet Iran continues to get a pass.
And we know why. The Biden foreign policy establishment is still slaves to “new world order” talismans like “diplomatic engagement” and “negotiated settlements.” The former is chin-wagging with photo ops, the latter mere “parchment barriers.” They create the illusion of action, while avoiding the uncertainty and unforeseen contingencies that attend the use of force on the scale needed to concentrate the mullahs’ minds and reinvigorate our weakened deterrence power.
Then there’s the bogeyman of “escalation,” which doesn’t trouble Iran and its proxies, but does paralyze the greatest military power in world history. This administration is also mired in an either-or fallacy: either we avoid Iranian targets, as the Biden team is doing, and run the exorbitant risk of empowering the enemy and emboldening it to further aggression; or we ignite World War III.
But as Alan Dershowitz points out,
“There are, of course, alternatives less than all-out war, and more than attacks on proxies. They involve the bombing of military targets inside Iran. These include sites used for Iran’s nuclear program, its naval bases and ships, its military drone production, its oil and gas facilities and its command centers. All of these could be accomplished from the air and sea without a ground invasion, and without the loss of American lives an invasion would risk.”
And how about restoring the punitive sanctions and “maximum pressure” that Donald Trump put on Iran’s economy? Or taking out the commander of the expeditionary Quds Force Esmail Qaani, whose predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, President Trump obliterated? The foreign policy big brains squealed that Trump was being reckless and sparking a regional conflict. But Iran merely responded like the West, putting on a cruise-missile fireworks show that accomplished nothing. In fact, the whole region was pretty calm during Trump’s four years.
The history we’ve failed to learn from does not have to go back to the Twenties and Thirties of the 20th century for monitory examples, when the serial appeasement of Germany began before the ink was dry on the Versailles Treaty, and ended in the most destructive war in history. The Nineties and the rise of al Qaeda provide enough foreign policy decisions “shameful in the conception and shameful in the result.”
The first portent was the 1993 bombing of the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center, the first of several other bombings planned for the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the United Nations building. Federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy publicized during the trial and in his book Willful Blindness, the traditional Islamic doctrines that motivated Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheik,” and his followers who carried out the attack. Though the explosion did not cause the destruction and the mass casualties the terrorists had hoped for, the audacity of the attack against the world’s greatest infidel power heartened and inspired jihadists across the globe, especially Osama bin Laden and the jihadist group al Qaeda he founded in 1988.
The Clinton administration, however, and many Americans did not understand or take seriously enough the nature of this enemy and its jihadist motives based on 14 centuries of Islamic precepts and doctrine. Bin Laden’s many rationales for attacking the infidel Americans were dismissed as the ravings on an “extremist,” a “heretic,” a “beard from the fringe,” or a kooky cultist like Jim Jones or David Koresh. Yet bin Laden’s sermons on American degeneracy and weakness were based on orthodox Islamic “creed,” as he said, and reprised the arguments of the neo-jihadist Muslim Brotherhood, the premier influence on modern Islamic jihadism.
As the Nineties progressed, this rhetoric became a gruesome reality:
- In November 1995, a car bombing killed five Americans in a U.S.-Saudi training facility in Riyadh.
- In June 1996, another car bomb killed 19 Americans and wounded 372 in a residential complex housing Air Force personnel near Dhahran. Bin Laden credited those murders with the U.S. reductions of its number of troops in Saudi Arabia.
- In August 1998, al Qaeda launched simultaneous attacks on two U.S. embassies in east Africa. In the Nairobi bombing, 12 Americans died.
- In October 2000, a fishing boat full of explosives blew a 40-by 40-foot hole in the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39.
None of these lethal attacks on our military personnel were met with serious reprisals. The usual post-Vietnam fear and political costs of “escalation,” along with photogenic dead troops and foreign civilians, inhibited President Clinton’s response. Also, just as today, the doctrines of the globalist “rules-based international order” downgraded military force, and in dealing with the jihadists privileged instead “diplomatic outreach” and “dialogue,” and economic incentives to change their behavior.
More dangerous, the Clinton foreign policy team, which included holdovers from Jimmy Carter’s administration, were internationalists reluctant to use force, and didn’t grasp the deeply religious motivations of Islamic jihadists. To Clinton’s team, as Daniel Pipes wrote, “most Islamists were seen as decent people, serious individuals” who, according to the Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, were espousing “‘a renewed emphasis on traditional values.”’ Unfortunately, those traditions included the Koran injunction to “kill the infidel wherever you find him.”
As a result, Clinton’s response to those attacks were tentative and limited. The murders in Riyadh were treated as a criminal matter instead of an attack on the whole nation and its way of life. Then as now, the attackers were aided by Iran, and kinetic retaliation was discussed but, as one White House official wrote, “The anger was never fortified by any coherent depth of thought or planning. Every tactic brought up soon ran out of support or was forgotten. It was all momentary.”
Also then, as now, strategically useless, showy barrages of cruise missiles substituted for action. For example, in August 1998, a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan misidentified as a chemical weapons manufacturer was destroyed, killing a night watchman and putting 300 people out of work. In another useless display, 66 cruise missiles were fired at two al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan that bin Laden supposedly was visiting. Six militants were killed, but bin Laden had just left for Kabul. At a cost of $70 million dollars, as CIA officer Michael Scheuer put it, the attack had done “the work of day laborers armed with thirty-dollar sledge hammers.”
Finally, then as now, missish rules of engagement squandered several opportunities to take bin Laden out. One good chance to kidnap bin Laden while he was attending evening prayers in a mosque was lost when the plan was vetoed out of fear that the Muslim world would be offended, and jihadists who hadn’t participated in the embassy bombings would be killed. Just like today, international public relations trumped punishing those who murdered our citizens, at the cost of our powers of deterrence. And bin Laden enjoyed a huge boost to his prestige for once again eluding the American infidels and exposing their weakness.
The wages of those failures were the smoking ruins in New York, D.C., and Pennsylvania, and 2996 dead.
So here we go again, our soldiers taking casualties from Iran’s proxies, and our leaders losing their nerve and not punishing the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism that for 45 years has been at war with the U.S. and killing our citizens with impunity. Such are the wages of historical amnesia, political calculations, and feckless foreign policy idealism.
We learn from history does not mean there are those who do not seek power and money and lunatic fanatics. This is only going to keep happening in what’s left of this 2nd earth age because if any being starts this in the 3rd and final earth age, there will be no hell created for them and not a second JUDGEMENT.. Their eternal life instantly snuffed. The 1st earth age the fallen angels led by impregnated 1st earth age creation and gigantic and otherwise freaks were born. YHVH destroyed 1st earth age, recreated the earth where the Biblical Old Testament Genesis begins that includes that 8th day creation Et Ha-Adam’s woman created from his helix curve DNA translated by King James team as “rib”. seduced Eve while she was pregnant with Adam’s seed and Eve had superfetation. Able was born first then Eve continued in labor with Cain. Cain’s father was . Abel’s father was Adam. Then jealousy, greed and murder. There are those kenites and those who have given themselves over to . There is a war in heaven for our souls being played out here on earth. What we haven’t learned from history is to prepare, plan and train for those who refuse to learn! In HIS HOLY NAME!! AMEN
There are many beneficiaries of Islamic largess here in America and in Europe.
The Saudi Royal Family and other wealthy Islamic OPEC countries/royal families provide lucrative financial contracts to many businesses and organizations and of course the universities and educational systems in America and the West.
In other words, many American and Westerners are being bribed and corrupted by Islamic money to ignore and tolerate the threats and crimes and aggressions of the depraved psychopathic murderous Islam scum.
Where are our American leaders who will tell the truth that Islam itself and the Saudi and other Islamic Royal Families are the enemy of America and US citizens, just as surely as Mexico and the Mexican government are the enemy of America and US citizens.
With Mexico we are told to ignore the murder of more than 100,000 US citizens every year by Mexican manufactured drugs pushed into America from Mexico with the encouragement and facilitation of the Mexican government.
Mexican president Obrador is a mass murderer of US citizens. And the US government and its leaders do absolutely nothing about it.
Mexico facilitates and encourages the illegal alien invasion of millions into the USA with impunity.
And the US government and leaders do absolutely nothing about it.
Why so much treason and betrayal of America and real flesh and blood Us citizens for so long ?
Because wealthy and politically powerful elites/oligarchs from America’s ruling class are benefitting handsomely from their treason and betrayal.
America’s greatest enemies today are (1.) Islam and its various depraved and psychopathic and murderous Royal Families, and (2.) Mexico and the Mexican government, and (3.) America’s own treasonous political and oligarchic ruling class who have betrayed, and continue to betray their own country and fellow citizens.
America and its citizens should fight their real enemies, the ones that are doing real harm and damage to America and its citizens, like Islam and Mexico.
America and its citizens must recognize its real enemies and crush them.
Stupid people never learn. It has been ever thus since man was a sentient being.
you have added a largish goblet of acid-laced KoolAde to the account in Genesis. Reads like a fun story but is far from anything resembling Truth.
The singleton remedy for the Islamic ambition is comprehensive military defeat entailing unrecoverable eradication of their breeding stocks, as the most destructive weapon in their arsenal is the Islamic uterus available for fertilization.
All their whelping is devoted to whelping “martyrs’ and it needs to cease.
The civilized world can survive only if Islam does not.
I call that addition by subtraction. Civilizations flourish and evolve when the ignorant savages living amongst them are weeded out and exterminated.
Depraved psychopathic murderous Islam has been a scourge on humanity for 1400 years.
Enough already.
Professor Thornton, your erudition is a blessing to your readers. But, as you say, errors repeat themselves continuously in history as though we have learned nothing. We will need some time and additional academic training to understand why this happens on all levels of human activity. Let me suggest here that to truly understand the origins of the problems you have noticed, we will have to master academic physics. The application of “The Principle of Least Action.” to our everyday lives will provide a rather remarkable explanation for our psychological, social and political failures. Physicists have not gotten around to generalizing their insights and social scientists are not scientists so much as observers of our foibles. After a good night’s sleep and your morning coffee, please google “The Principle of Least Action.” Sabine Hossenfelder has a YouTube video that touches on the basics.
Noting that both of t he World Wars we tried to stay out of were under a Democrat
This is not a mistake, it’s a plan, a plan put together by the United Nations to achieve their 17 sustainable development goals implemented through Agenda 2030 through its WEF mouthpiece.
As for “ slaves to “new world order” talismans like “diplomatic engagement” and “negotiated settlements.”
Boris Johnson “encouraged” Ukraine to tear up the negotiations with Russia so that NATO could expand its influence and the military industrial complex wins the taxpayers money.
The smug bitch, jug-eared Barry made his contribution to all this.
When a drone crashed in the area, instead of sending a 5-finger team in to retrieve or destroy it, Bitch Hussein asked nicely if his administration could have it back.
They said “No”.
Jug-eared Barry shrugged his shoulders.
And now, our sworn islamic enemy is manufacturing drones by the 1000s.
what is happening now is due to the empty suit fraudulently elected and now dithering around in the crack house . a non achieving ” lying dog face pony ” his modus operandi his whole sorry life . 81 mill .votes folks !!
It is obvious that Biden is not giving the orders, He has stated that he takes orders. Whoever is the real President is a member of the Islamic Brotherhood. Probably a “southern Baptist” who has stated that the Muslim call to prayer is the sweetest sound he has ever heard. Need any more clues?
your first clue let the kitty cat out of the sack.
But imagine how motivated you would be for your utopian cause if your brain was completely vacant of any knowledge of history…. only filled with a cancerous hatred for this country.
No knowledge of history, no knowledge of where your food is produced, no knowledge of freight trains, trucks, air cargo systems and distribution centers, no knowledge of public services such as water, sewage, and power, no knowledge of home maintenance, no knowledge of first aid, no knowledge of anything productive for a functioning society.
Now lets give every one of these “soldiers of the nihil” a highly sophisticated communication devise, a device you monitor by the minute, awaiting your marching orders to the next coordinated smash and grab at the mall, the next street takeover or massive riot. Call it…. “Dial-a-Riot”
Historians of the future will reflect upon the real cost of handing everyone in the world a “smart phone”, regardless of their position on the idiot scale.
This would make a great plot for a novel.
Were you referring to the “idiot scale” or the “soldiers of nihil”?
I’d like to have a animation of the idiot scale. If Socrates was correct, we are ALL on that scale somewhere.
If anybody wrote a novel 75 years ago with a plot resembling what’s going on today in the Dem circus, bookstores would have displayed it under “Fiction and Fantasy”.
Well, Science Fiction has been “prophesying’ for years – but even realistic scenarios are ignored because “it’s just fiction”.. Er – do you believe the newspapers?
Never have our weapons been so powerful, and never have we been so dependent on fragile technology. The only way to save our civilization is to change human nature. But human nature can’t be changed. Plan B anyone?
“What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”
_____Hegel “Lectures on the Philosophy of History” (1832)
Assuming that the people in charge right now are sociopaths, driven by self-loathing and an all consuming hatred for others who do not think like them, the likelihood of these individuals understanding or learning anything from history is remote, light years away.
The thing I keep wondering is why our guys are still in far outposts in Syria and Iraq? Aren’t they just sitting ducks? Nobody wants us there, and if we do go to actual war with Iran they will just be overrun by local rabid jihadis. I am no military strategist, but it just seems like everything we do is counter=productive (taking out Suliemani was sweet, though).
I’ll just say thanks Bruce. Part of our task is to convince our friends and legislators to realize the danger and act quickly. They are flooding into the states and our feckless leaders are welcoming them in … to our destruction.
I’m about to read “Stealth Jihad”, by Leo Hohmann. A good friend from London recommended it, she is in the middle of it all in London..
Stay safe and well Bruce
Negotiated settlements are not worth the paper on which they are written if the other party practices taqiyya – unless you build sanctions for non-compliance into about every second line, and then follow through when the other party follows the example of its treacherous prophet Mohammed, and reneges on what has been agreed. Israel is a role model in this respect – I fully believe that, when rockets were fired on the last day of the ceasefire, Hamas was hoping that Israel would let them get away with it because it was only a few, and then they could surreptitiously resume hostilities, safeguarded by Israel’s genuine and proper desire to see more hostages released. However, perhaps because they’ve experienced Hamas’ little ways before, Israel very sensibly called a halt to the ceasefire.
If I were preident *no I am NOT stumping for that position…) here is how I’d handle th situation, and it is basd on what I have learned about how Thomas Jefferson handled the ‘situation” with he Barbary Pirates in the early 1800’s. First he got a copy of their book.. not so he could learn their doctrine and become one of them, but so he could learn their way of thinking, and values. After he’d got a good bead on them he launched a very strong and effective offensive against the pirates themselves.
then he launched an all out attack on every ship his Navy could find.. capturing and/or sinking them. It did not even take a year before they surrendered,and ceased their attacks. They asjed for erms short of total surrender, thomas said NOPE. Unconditional surrendr is the only way to end this conflict. They did…..
SO what I would do is to place our Navy ships closely enough togethere that none are out of range of at least two others. Whenever they lunch an attack against us, or any shipping, instantly retaliate destroying the threat, whether it be rowboat, jetski, trading dhow, drone, missile, guns large or small…. identify the source of the weapon’s deployment, and annihilate it. If land based launch, same thing. Never be passive, always respond and destroy. I don’t think it would take three months and the Red Sea would be open again.
The O’Biden policy has been very successful. The object was to enable Iran with the goal of destroying Israel By now this should be obvious, although if fact it was newer really hidden. It depended on willful self-deception and media censorship and now it is on the verge of success
Just imagine how the average American would feel if ANY foreign country in the World had a Military Base Stationed anywhere in the 48 Mainland States.
Now the average American should be asking…. WHY are there US Military Troops stationed in countries like Qatar who feed the enemies of America OPENLY… Why are US Troops in Syria or Iraq in the first place?.
Why are there US Troops in Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, UK, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and why are the American Taxpayers paying their young Americans to defend and protect all of those countries rather than defending and protecting America, like at the Southern Border that is being invaded…
Riddle me this… Who are they defending these countries from exactly?.
Excellent article Bruce, thanks!
Well your article would make sense is they were forgetting the past but the current Resident and his minions have no intention of making things better! NO ONE is THAT FKN NAIVE OR JUST PLAIN-OUT STUPID, Its ALL ON PURPOSE! The goal is for 1 world government over a entire globe ruling 3rd World countries! NO FRREDOM, NO SELF AWARENESS, your only thought is what they tell you to think or youre shot! They turn Trump into a “NAZI” because A) its what they know 2) want to scare you from FRREDOM and into the spider web, where its too late! If only one thing that the dema are doing wrong was limited to the Border, how WAAAAAAAY off the mark are they with that! 100,000s of thousands of unvetted aliens are being allowed to come into this country! What could that have to do with turning USA into a 3rd world country!