One of Donald Trump’s five principal foreign policy advisors was counsel in a lawsuit to prevent the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes from taking over a dam on tribal land, formerly known as Kerr Dam and now called Salish-Kootenai Dam. The “legal” theory asserted to keep the tribes from acquiring the dam is particularly pertinent to Joseph Schmitz’s foreign policy bona fides.
RELATED: Salish-Kootenai Dam: First Tribally Owned Hydro-Electric Dam in U.S.
The claim to stop the tribes from owning the dam on their property was that the acquisition of it was part of a terrorist plot to help Turkey acquire nuclear materials.
While it is true that Turkey is among the handful of foreign nations to have direct relationships with Indian nations, those relationships have been about a Turkish invitation to Indian students in study abroad programs to choose Turkey as a destination and Turkish grants to tribes for economic development. In 2012, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) offered a development grant to tribal governments, a competition won by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation for a water project.
RELATED: Turkish Official Encourages Tribal-Turkey Relations
While it is true that most Turks are Muslims and there are some people in this country who think all Muslims are terrorists, those ideas have little currency in the fact-based community that dominates most foreign policy discussion.
It is not true that the Salish and Kootenai people have had any dealing with Turkey about hydropower, let alone nuclear materials.
It is not true that Turks are proselytizing for Islam on the Flathead Reservation. George Ochenski, writing in a Missoulian op-ed, opined about “Turkish Islam terrorists taking over the Salish-Kootenai” that “after a century of having non-Indians try to take over everything the tribe was supposed to get in the Hellgate Treaty of 1855, Turks are the least of tribal or non-tribal citizens’ worries.”
The sensational national security allegations in the attempt to stop the dam transaction are just blurted out – what lawyers call conclusory pleading. Normally, the lawyers would lay out each link in a conspiracy in a series of numbered paragraphs leading to the conclusion that if the Indians take over the dam then the Turks will use that transaction in some terrorist enterprise. If this scenario has you scratching your head, take solace: it had the same impact on the judge who heard the case.
The “logic” of the national security complaint starts with the general statement that Turkey is involving itself with Indian tribes because “the reservation is largely off-limits to federal and state regulatory authorities.” While state regulations generally have no force on Indian land, the absence of federal authorities would be welcome news to lots of Indians…if it were only true.
The plaintiffs warn of the alleged lack of regulation, “this setting would provide Turkey and such organizations with the opportunity to more freely promote their brand of Islam on reservations and/or to pursue other potentially more dangerous activities.”
This leads to the claim that Turkey seeks “access to the uranium deposits and bountiful water sources surrounding the Flathead Reservation for production of yellowcake capable of later conversion to a gaseous state for eventual use in incendiary devices.”
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras denied the request to stop the tribes, finding the lawsuit “failed to raise any fact or point to any evidence in the application for transfer that would materially call into question (the tribes’) suitability to serve as licensee.” Judge Contreras only noted in passing “somewhat perplexing arguments regarding the Turkish government’s involvement with Native Americans.”
Turkey is a NATO ally of the U.S. The NATO treaty is known among even people who have not read it for Article Five, which holds that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. In other words, Turkey is under the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. There would be nothing sinister in tribal relations with Turkey if the Flathead Reservation had any.
Energy Keepers is the tribal business corporation formed for the purpose of marketing electricity, with a strong tribal preference for renewable electricity. Hydroelectric power fills the renewable bill, and gaining control of the dam formerly known as Kerr is the tribal opening to the electricity market. It is unclear how Schmitz thought Energy Keepers would get access to nuclear materials from operating a hydroelectric power plant beyond the bare allegation that there are uranium deposits somewhere on the Flathead Reservation.
If the Salish and Kootenai people somehow gained access to nuclear materials, it would still be a mystery why Turkey would come to the U.S. for nuclear materials when they live near the remains of the Soviet Union—where the accounting is a bit more lax than it would be in Montana. The mechanics of this alleged terrorist plot are as mysterious as why another of Trump’s foreign policy advisors, George Papadopoulos is on a jihad to prevent Israeli natural gas from finding its way into Turkish pipelines.
The fantasy of the terrorist conspiracy between Turkey and the Flathead Reservation could be dismissed as low comedy, but Schmitz is a fellow traveller with the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance (CERA), one of several organizations vying to be the tip of the legal spear that stands the best chance of plunging into the heart of tribal sovereignty.
The argument is the one that has been deployed repeatedly and with great success against Native Hawaiians: Any program or policy that contains an advantage or benefit for indigenous people is unconstitutional racial discrimination against white people. There were probably three votes for that proposition on the Supreme Court before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The number is now probably down to two.
Schmitz’s co-counsel in the lawsuit to stop the Salish and Kootenai people from acquiring Kerr Dam was Lawrence Kogan, who was a featured speaker at a CERA regional conference held in Kalispell, Montana last year with the theme “This Land Is Our Land … Or Is It? Corrupt and Unconstitutional Federal Indian Policy and Rogue Federal Agencies.”
Schmitz has warned of the dangers in “multiculturalism, political correctness, (and) misguided notions of tolerance.” This political alarm echoes the xenophobia of the Trump campaign that has struck a sympathetic chord in between a third and half of Republican Party voters. Trump gives voice to the middle aged white males who are losing their privilege and CERA’s analysis offers Trump a way to fling the accusation of racial discrimination back in the face of non-white minorities.
Before Trump kicked off his presidential campaign with an attack on Mexicans, and long before he advocated keeping Muslims out, he was battling Indian tribal governments over what he believes are racial privileges in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. This is precisely CERA’s position.
Schmitz connects Trump to the CERA analysis of why tribal sovereignty is an unfair and unconstitutional advantage. Without tribal sovereignty, the argument will go, the tribes of the Flathead Reservation would be unable to conspire with Turkey to acquire nuclear materials in support of terrorism. Nor would they be allowed to compete with President Trump’s casinos.
If Trump is a warrior in defense of white people, it’s no great stretch to accuse the Indian tribes on the other side of that war of supporting terrorism. The only thing standing in the way is the small matter of the truth.