For causing America’s Afghan defeat … indict President Obama

In looking at the trade President Obama made of five senior Taliban political, intelligence, and military officials for the return of a U.S. Army deserter, Sgt. Bergdahl, one is struck most forcefully, I think, by Obama and his lieutenants’ uncaring attitude toward U.S. national security.

The five returned Taliban leaders will significantly assist Mullah Omar’s organization in destroying the Afghan government the U.S. and NATO installed in Afghanistan. That destruction may take a while — all events in Afghanistan take much longer than anticipated — but it will occur, and Afghanistan will become not what it was on 10 September 2001, but something much worse, a state governed by a government that is deeply Islamic, one which is supported by Pakistan and all of America’s allies in the Gulf, and, most important, one that will believe Allah has given it complete victory over the world’s only superpower. From the backwoods, unsophisticated, and almost medieval regime it was in 2001, the Taliban organization that will return to power in Afghanistan will be living, visible proof for all Muslims that Osama bin Laden was correct: The Americans are cowardly paper tigers; that they are so effete that they could not tolerate the loss of less than 200 lives a year; and that the trust of the mujahideen in Allah and their own efforts on His behalf were more than enough to defeat the greatest power in history.

And when the Taliban regime returns to power, it will make Afghanistan a much bigger base than it ever was before in which Islamist fighters from the world over can train, get to know each other, and plan attacks against the United States, its allies, Israel, and the Arab tyrannies. The Taliban and the Islamists they host will be sure that U.S. ground forces will never return, and they will know that the forces Washington may use against them — drones, Special Forces, and CIA covert operations — have already shown themselves utterly unable to stall the growth, spread, and effectiveness of Islamist forces, let alone win a war. The deadly pin-pricks Washington may apply against the new Taliban regime and their Islamist guests will certainly will be a lethal nuisance to them, but they will not slow the growing power and numbers of the mujahideen, and they will remind all Muslims that the world’s greatest power is not manly enough to defend itself in any meaningful way.

The foregoing scenario is not, of course, inevitable, nothing in human affairs is inevitable. Still, it is more than likely to occur, and if it does it will be a long-term national security disaster for the United States. At the moment there seems to be nothing we can do militarily to prevent this event, so the next best option is for Americans to accept that we have suffered a humiliating and comprehensive political-military defeat in Afghanistan and to bring to account those responsible for it, starting — and perhaps ending — with Barack Obama.

How to do this? Well, first, impeachment is out of the question. The Congress is completely unable and unwilling to do anything to protect the American people from what has become the everyday-lawlessness of Obama and Eric Holder. An impeachment proceeding would immediately be identified by the Democrats and their slaves in the mainstream media as an effort by the nasty, racist Republicans to unseat the noble Black man who aspires to help all citizens by becoming America’s first, post-1776 monarch. Impeachment also is the road to perdition because it would give the Democrats’ various colonies of automatons — Ivy Leaguers, Blacks (even though Obama has been their economic scourge), school teachers, illegal immigrants, abortionists, environmentalists, gays, movie stars, most journalists, animal righters, socialists, the voting-rights-for-felons crowd, etc. — a cause to rally around in defense of their liege lord. Indeed, even a successful impeachment would be a defeat for America because the Democrats would not hesitate a second before bringing America to the brink of a race or civil war.

So forget impeachment and, in an odd way, even be grateful that Obama was twice elected to the presidency. His two terms have proven to all Americans that a Black president can be just as big a liar, just as big a child in foreign policy, just as big an incompetent, just as big a pawn of Wall Street, and just as big a demagogue as any White president.

How, then, to proceed against Obama? One way would be for would-be prosecutors to look at Article III, Section 3, of the U.S. Constitution. That short section reads: “Treason against the United States, shall consist in only levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

It would, I think, be quite hard, though not impossible, to prove that Obama waged war against the United States. To wage war against America, Obama would have to have some semblance of manliness — he has none — and he would need one of those guns he hates. Indeed, any fair-minded jury looking at a man like Obama could only conclude that he was fit to wage war only against those who cannot defend themselves, like unborn Americans and U.S. soldiers, Marines, and intelligence officers sworn to defend the Constitution.

But treason, as the U.S. Constitution states, can also consist of a citizen of the United States “adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” This is the clause that could allow a patriotic prosecutor to help Americans and their wounded country by bringing Obama to book. Consider the following of Obama’s actions — and they are his and his alone — which irrefutably have given aid and comfort to America’s Islamist enemies, and each of which has the constitutionally requisite “two Witnesses to the same overt Act.”

  1. Ending the CIA’s rendition program and enhanced interrogations with nothing to replace them, thereby partially blinding the U.S. Intelligence Community and allowing the mujahideen to operate more securely and with more aggressiveness.
  2. Initiating the unconstitutional war that destroyed Qadhafi’s Libyan regime, an important ally in the war against al-Qaeda, and which facilitated the growth of Islamist militancy across the North African region and into Sub-Saharan Africa.
  3. Authorizing rules-of-engagement for our soldiers and Marines that made them more targets than killers, costing many unnecessary American deaths and leaving countless mujahideen alive to attack us another day.
  4. Almost completely ending drone strikes since mid-December, 2013, allowing the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies time to safely regroup, refit, and meet to plan next steps.
  5. Giving the Taliban and its allies, in 2010, a promise that most U.S.-NATO forces would be withdrawn without victory by the end of 2014, thereby declaring America’s acceptance of defeat by its Islamist enemies.
  6. Giving the Taliban and its allies, in 2014. a guarantee that there would be only 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and only 1,000 by the end of 2016, thereby reconfirming his 2010 pledge to Mullah Omar that he would facilitate America’s defeat.
  7. Returning to the Taliban five senior leaders who will substantively contribute to the Taliban’s destruction of all America and NATO has endeavored to accomplish in Afghanistan since 2001.

Each of the foregoing actions clearly presented a gift of “aid and comfort” to our Islamist enemies. There can be no quibbling on that score. There also can be no credible argument that Obama took the actions with good intentions and never thought that they would produce such intensely damaging “unanticipated consequences” for the United States. The negative impact of each of the foregoing actions on U.S. national security was completely predictable before it was taken, and Obama certainly was warned of that fact by U.S. intelligence officers. Should Obama, under oath, argue that the consequences of the actions were not predictable, he would simply add perjury to his troubles.

In his still invaluable Farewell Address (1796), George Washington warned his countrymen always to be on their “[g]uard against the postures of pretended patriotism.” In my lifetime, no U.S. president has been more of a sham patriot than Barack Obama, a man with zero respect for the U.S. Constitution and a man always ready to flout the law with his “phone and pen.” The charge against Obama of giving aid and comfort to our Islamist enemies is an open and shut case. The question for Americans now, I suppose, is whether there is a prosecutor in the country who is ready to do the right thing for our republic, or do all U.S. lawyers and law professors share Obama’s contempt for the Constitution and clear preference for tyrannical government?

Author: Michael F. Scheuer

Michael F. Scheuer worked at the CIA as an intelligence officer for 22 years. He was the first chief of its Osama bin Laden unit, and helped create its rendition program, which he ran for 40 months. He is an American blogger, historian, foreign policy critic, and political analyst.