[October 28, 2017] In this on-going series of those with new and often controversial ideas (mostly complex and original), I will focus today on Ralph Peters; retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, political commentator, and author. Peters is an unconventional, out-of-the box thinker who holds a formidable allegiance to the United States and its people.
Like others whom I’ve written about here (D’Sousa, Sowell, and Nawaz1), Ralph Peters makes his case against political correctness that, he believes, stifles our national will to protect the innocent, blinds Western ideology to an ugly reality, and appeases our enemies. He is outspoken about such thinking and says that it dooms our political strategy to failure, perverts democracy, and places everyone in danger.
“While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region’s comprehensive failure isn’t Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats. ….” – Ralph Peters
I first became aware of Ralph Peters when he came to be the guest speaker at a little High School in central Pennsylvania. My son attended the school where Peters had graduated a couple of decades before. To everyone who met him that day, he was well-mannered, obviously intelligent, and good at “connecting the dots” on problems in the Middle East, immigration from outside the Americas, and American political blindness. Several years later at the U.S. Army War College, I was given mandatory reading of his articles.
Because Peters goes against the politically accepted idea that Islam is a religion of peace, he is ostracized in polite circles across Washington, D.C. His ideas are fresh, revealing, and have a logic that is undisputable. Having insulted the intelligence and ideology of so many government bureaucrats and politicians, by explaining his geopolitical views, some call him unhinged and dangerous.
That would be a mischaracterization of Peters and shows that his unsalable logic is beginning to make headway in the echo chamber of the U.S. political structure. Ralph Peters has been a strong critic of past-President Obama and his administration (especially the State Department and Department of Defense). He claims that Obama has done more harm to the U.S. and continues to do so yet no one is willing to call Obama out on it. Peters does just that.
Ralph Peters presents some unique ideas about the state of the world and provides us with a level of historical detail that is rare. He knows what he is talking about. I recommend his articles in the New York Post for those who are willing to think differently.
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