The material below the dotted line is the written version of my part in a six-member panel’s presentation to the House’s Homeland Security Committee on 9 October 2013. I ran late on 8 October 2013 and so failed to provide the committee’s members with a typed-up version of my opening statement before the hearing. I submitted it to them on 10 October 2013.
As things turned out, my tardiness did not really matter. The committee’s Chairman was knowledgeable, polite, and interested in what each panel member had to say, agreeing with some and challenging others. The rest of the Committee — at least those who showed up — was a train wreck or ignorance, arrogance, partisanship, and incompetence.
The Democratic members used most of their allotted time to chastise the Republicans for the government’s shutdown. The three Republicans who spoke to me — especially one from New York — had no interest in what I said about the growing certainty that the Islamists’ war soon will be fought, in part, in North America. Instead, the Republicans used most of their time to satisfy their AIPAC paymasters by praising and defending Israel, for whom they have what Alexander Hamilton would describe as a “womanish attachment.”
One lad from South Carolina also added a short homily on how the religion of Moses and Abraham made the United States and Israel one and the same. And another fellow from Utah was bent on getting me to name the names of people at the CIA who know what is blisteringly obvious to all but the 535 members of Congress — that our ties to Israel are a clear and increasingly mortal threat to U.S. security, its economy, and the lives of Americans because it is one of the central motivations of our Islamist enemies. I refused to play ball. Utah’s contemporary version of Tail-gunner Joe McCarthy also added that he “knows” all Muslims hate all Americans, their freedoms, and women’s rights and that is why they are attacking us. He must have been briefed by that preacher from South Carolina, or by Senators Graham and McCain, the Knesset members masquerading as U.S. Senators. (1)
Finally, in what has been a genuine and touching surprise, I have received several dozen e-mails from Americans who said they appreciated what I had to say to the committee. I want to thank them publicly for their kind words, and say that while they encourage me to continue speaking out, I must confess that I think there is little hope of preventing combat against Islamist forces in the United States in the years ahead. The quite large Homeland Security Committee probably is a pretty good microcosm of the attitudes of both the House and the Senate on these issues, and, if this judgment is correct, most of these ladies and gentlemen do not give a damn about the safety of American lives and property here at home.
Indeed, after listening to some of the members of this committee, as well as to the last three presidents and many others in Congress and the media for the last fifteen years, it seems likely that many would silently welcome attacks in the United States so they could say “we and Israel and now in the same a boat.” They then could go on with their daily businesses of war, taxing, and graft as usual.
What this means for Americans is that time is running out, and that there is every reason for them to exercise their rights under the 2nd Amendment as soon and as fully as possible. It seems likely that within the foreseeable future Americans will be called to defend themselves against Islamist fighters and/or an oppressive federal government that too-late sees that its deliberate lies about Islamist motivation, its willingness to facilitate U.S. military defeat overseas, its failure to control U.S. borders, and its groveling to Israel and the Saudi police-state have combined to bring war to our shores and that the only response it has is severe martial law — which is better known as tyranny.
One hopes that Phillip Bobbitt was right in his fine new book about Machiavelli’s thought when he argues that, in times when a republic’s leaders “become unsuitable,” one of the great strengths of a republic lies in “the ruthlessness of the public, which can replace its leaders according to the demands of circumstances.” (2)
Notes
- http://homeland.house.gov/hearing/hearing-al-shabaab-al-nusra-how-westerners-joining-terror-groups-overseas-affect-homeland
- Phillip Bobbitt. The Garments of Court and Palace. Machiavelli and the World He Made. New York: Grove Press, 2013, p. 90
See also