So another young, educated, privileged Saudi man, here all nice and legal, has attempted to commit mass murder for terrorist reasons. Oh, the authorities are mouthing the usual cautions about letting the FBI get to the bottom of it, and you may believe they are diligently working to uncover or bury the truth as you will. But, the American people already have all the evidence needed to come to a reasonable conclusion. What we might not get is the fuller picture, the full target set. For that, let us turn to a parallel development.

In 1946, the United States establishing a School of the Americas, to fundamentally transform our hemisphere through the very long-term growth of professional militaries in Latin America. As the left recognized this program’s effectiveness, they organized to begin smearing our military and this program as a “School for Dictators.” The left lost this long fight, as the Colombian military became a real, capable, professional force instead of a goon squad trying to outdo communist thuggery, always a losing gambit.

Turning from that instance, understand that we have done the same thing on a much wider scale with a wide range of professional military schools for decades. The point has always been to influence foreign militaries from the middle ranks up. Yes, there are also peer militaries involved in exchanges, where we send officers to their schools and they sent to ours. Set those exchanges aside, and look at the one-way programs. No US student is going to Saudi Arabia to learn to be a military pilot. We are not just providing a service as part of the arms sales package here; we are in the very long-term business of influence operations.