'Effete' Europe useless in GWOT, says bin Laden man

"Everyone is entitled to my opinion!" could be the motto of Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit. Regularly showing up on American television, Scheuer is good as a talkative churl spewing calumnies on whatever political figure in the war on terror news hosts want defamed, always enthusiastically addressing …

[Dillon Pyron]

We've lost

The West has lost the GWOT. Not because of some military victory, but because of a psychological victory. The recent events in London and Glasgow prove that. Our governments and citizens run around like chickens with their heads cut off, screaming "the terrorists, the terrorists".

How free are you, compared to, say, 1980? What rights did British subjects have in 1980 that you don't have now? How many cameras were there in 1980? What rights did US citizens have in 1980 that we don't have now? What rights that we extended to others have we taken from them? How much shampoo can I put in carry on? In fact, the only positive change I can think of is the disappearance of 55 MPH.

With every right we lose, with every camera that goes up (oh, we'll get them soon enough, trust me on that one), with every incarceration without charge, the terrorists win a little battle, as they bend us into a state that they really want us to be.

[Gav]

Who?

"leading Scheuer to indicate he believes we can win the so-called GWOT all by ourselves."

Who's 'we'?

[Marvin the Martian]

Anti-roman catholicism?

Didn't he mean anti-semitism or islamophobia? Much more popular, both in Europe, far as I can tell. The first is additionally very popular as a bogeyman, the second not. So I'm guessing he'd have wanted to say the first.

[g lane]

You fight bad ideas with better ideas

The problems with execution are

a/ you might just have the wrong person and as yet we don't know how to reliably reanimate the dead even when later found to be innocent,

b/ you create martyrs which doesn't do anything for the side of the good guys,

c/ a pretty good percentage of the insane criminals who want to drop a nuke on New York don't care about dying in the furtherance of their delusions,

d/ we are better than they are, why should we reduce our morality to that of a feudal medieval state which still hasn't broken out of the witch-burning stage of society.

You fight bad ideas with better ideas. The "war on terror" is a pointless activity because there will be an endless sequence of revenge. If any state _really_ wants to change another, be a generous, if critical, friend.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unbelieveable

This guy is unbelieveable. Only in America could you be taken seriously while you look down on someone for being Anti-death penalty and suggest that the whole of a continent are anti Roman-Catholic.

Presumably he thinks that the EU is anti-catholic because the UK had a bit of a problemo with the IRA. Let me assure all Americans reading this (and that includes Michael Moore et at), the IRA were terrorists and ran organised crime such as bank jobs, drug dealing, money laundering and arms running. They were most definately not freedom fighters. That said, there was bad shit on both sides.

[Frank Bough]

Anti-Papists

I've no time for the RC church (or Judaism, Islam, Scientologists etc) but does this guy think we're living in the middle ages? Is he looking to restore the Holy Roman Empire or something? Do we need to submit to Rome to fight the Islamo-fascist threat?

[John A Blackley]

Out of the mouths of....

Well, if the only basis for judging Scheuer is the reporting in this article (and it's the only basis I have so far), then he seems like a dangerous, gung-ho idiot.

However, to understand the thinking of dangerous, gung-ho idiots (and we must, to protect ourselves from them), some study of what they say is instructive. For example, "The EU's policy of easily obtainable political asylum and its prohibition against deporting wanted or convicted terrorists to a country with a death penalty have made Europe a major, consistent and invulnerable source of terrorist threat to the United States."

It's a supportable point of view and not less rational than some of the anti-American rhetoric I hear from within the EU states.

[Bob Jones]

Title

Its funny ... an arrogant, Israeli-bought, hawkish, neocon discussing how Europe hates America ... if you want a reason, I'd suggest a mirror.

Europe didn't hate America when Clinton was in office ... but this gas bag hates Clinton too.

[Martijn ter Haar]

Scheuer makes no sense

Political asylum is *not* easily obtainable (in fact, here in the Netherlands 'asylum procedure' is a synonym for 'Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare') and if the crimes are serious for the death penalty, they can always be prosecuted within Europe.

[amanfromMars]

Hmmm?

Is Scheuer mad? Or just bitter that OBL outgrows him in ITs MetaMorphosis?

MoveOn, Mr Scheuer, there is nothing Good where you're at.

[Arnold Lieberman]

Aunty Americanism

Rather shockingly, there is a short series on the BBC about anti Americanism that must have slipped through the Controller's fingers. Remarkably calmly written, there was no hint of sensationalism or bias, unlike comments that are no doubt going to be attached to this article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/deathamerica/

[Anonymous Coward]

USA's loss.

Yet another ignorant-and-proud-of-it, "can do" fascist nut in charge of an important job then?

Shrug.

[Anonymous Coward]

Scheuer go-hung idiot, but

He's right about;-

(a) Political-asylum policy, if not in Europe than in the UK. But this was pretty well established in the book "Londonistan" which highlighted the problem the UK was creating for itself.

(b) Anti-Americanism is rife in the UK, which is understandable to an extent given the unpopularity of the Iraq War. However if people were to demonise China in a similar manner than the Left would howl in protest and cry "racism".

as for anti-Roman Catholicsm?....

Well here he's inaccurate. The "liberal intelligentsia" deride all denominations of Christianity, having decided religion is best relegated to the Middle Ages. However their fear of being labelled "racist" means they're only comfortable in deriding a 'white' religion like Christianity and are silent over Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc.

Apart that these Scheuer is abit barking-mad.

[Andy Bright]

What, eh? Someone's Grandcousin is an effete Americanism?

I was just wondering if anyone in Congress that listened to these twats understood what the hell they were banging on about?

I read and re-read everything they had to say, and I can't for the life of me understand what the fuck their point is.

Adolf apparently reckons because his dad or something went to France to kill Germans, it's okay for him to torture innocent people. Come again? Call me old fashioned, but I always thought WWII about deposing a power-mad dictator bent on torturing and murdering innocents by the million. Nice to know it takes a matter of seconds for the actions of one generation to rip up and shit on the reputation garnered by the previous.

Europe is a safe haven for terrorists because we don't like giving people to Americans just for them to murder them or send them off to Iran to be tortured?

Normally I'd take an ounce of whatever these guys are on - but after thinking about it for a minute, I figure they must be on some crude form of meth, so I'll give that a miss.

I don't suppose any of the effete, spineless Democrats present actually had the balls to respond to any of this bullshit? No? There's a shocker.

It's almost as if they were so spineless, they wouldn't cut the funding on a war after being voted in to Congress to do exactly that. Afraid that doing anything controversial would cost them votes, they've pretty much gotten themselves unelected by being to spineless to do anything their voters wanted. Awesome strategy, can't wait for the Presidential election - I just want to see how they fuck that one up.

Seems to me that if anyone in that place had an ounce of integrity, they'd have taken both of these geniuses and subjected them to everything they appear to be championing - or at least give them a good kicking.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the country...

... where naturally skinny people are routinely victimised and moves are underway to protect the rights of the obese.

Have fun fighting terrorism, you've been the biggest hindrance to the rest of the world defeating it for the past 90 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti Roman Catholic

Yes, I've really noticed that with the enormous Roman Catholic cathedrals everywhere... I found Italy particularly anti-Catholic. Couldn't believe how much hassle Catholics got while trying to visit that big anti-Catholic establishment located there.. eh the Vatican ?

What planet is this guy on!?

Has he actually ever visited Europe??

Can we do a class action law suit for defaming an entire continent ... that would be fun!

[Mark]

Swivel-eyed nutters

The bits about "sir" in the article reminded me of Ollie North in the Iran Contra hearings, where "sir" seemed to be every second word. Where on earth do they get these people? They seem to be pre-manufactured robots made to a rather low-tech template with only very limited spec. If he'd said "resistance is useless" I wouldn't have been surprised.

There are few enough reasons these days to view UK citizenship as a badge of honour. Scheuer is evidently one of them.