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Bush Is Running Out of Alibis [Buchanan]
Human Events Online ^ | Friday, February 3, 2006 | Pat Buchanan

Posted on 02/03/2006 6:38:56 PM PST by canuck_conservative

"The road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline," railed President Bush in his State of the Union. Again and again, Bush returned to his theme.

"America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. ...

"Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need. ...

"American leaders from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan rejected isolation and retreat."

Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.

But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism. Like all politicians in trouble, Bush knows that the best defense is a good offense.

Having plunged us into an unnecessary war, Bush now confronts the real possibility of strategic defeat and a failed presidency. His victory in Iraq, like the wars of Wilson and FDR, has turned to ashes in our mouths. And like Truman's war in Korea and Kennedy's war in Vietnam, Bush's war has left America divided and her people regretting he ever led us in. But unlike the world wars, Korea and Vietnam, Bush cannot claim the enemy attacked us and we had no choice. Iraq is Bush's war. Isolationists had nothing to do with it. To a man and woman, they opposed it.

Now, with an army bogged down in Afghanistan and another slowly exiting Iraq, and no end in sight to either, Bush seeks to counter critics who warned him not to go in by associating them with the demonized and supposedly discredited patriots of the America First movement of 1940-41. His assault is not only non-credible, it borders on the desperate and pathetic.

"Abroad, our nation is committed to a historic long-term goal. We seek the end of tyranny in our world," said Bush. "Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends upon it."

Intending no disrespect, this is noble-sounding nonsense. Our security rests on U.S. power and will, and not on whether Zimbabwe, Sudan, Syria, Cuba or even China is ruled by tyrants. Our forefathers lived secure in a world of tyrannies by staying out of wars that were none of America's business. As for "the end of tyranny in our world," Mr. President, sorry, that doesn't come in "our world." That comes in the next.

"By allowing radical Islam to work its will, by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself, we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals or even in our own courage," said Bush.

But what has done more to radicalize Islam than our invasion of Iraq? Who has done more to empower Islamic radicals than Bush with his clamor for elections across a region radicalized by our own policies? It is one thing to believe in ideals, another to be the prisoner of some democratist ideology.

Bush has come to believe that the absence of democracy is the cause of terror and democracy its cure. But the cause of terror in the Middle East is the perception there that those nations are held in colonial captivity by Americans and their puppet regimes, and that the only way to expel both is to use tactics that have succeeded from Algeria in 1962 to Anbar province in 2005.

Given the franchise, Arab and Islamic peoples from Pakistan to Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and Egypt have now voted for candidates with two credentials. They seemed to be devout Muslims, and they appeared dedicated to tossing America out of the region and the Israelis into the sea.

With opposition also rising to his free-trade policy, Bush reverted to the same tactic: Caricature and castigate critics of his own failed policies. "Protectionists," said Bush, pretend "we can keep our high standards of living, while walling off our economy."

But it was protectionists from Lincoln to Coolidge who gave us the highest standard of living on earth. And the record of Bush's merry band of free-traders? The largest trade deficits in history, a $200 billion trade surplus for Beijing at our expense in 2005, and 3 million lost manufacturing jobs since Bush first took the oath.

If America is angry over what interventionism and free trade have wrought, George Bush cannot credibly blame isolationists or protectionists. These fellows have an alibi. They were nowhere near the scene of the crime.

It is George W. Bush who is running out of alibis.


TOPICS: Israel; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: assclown; buchanan; bush; cluelessbuchanan; isolationism; israel; layoffthehoochpat; paleocontruthfile; paleolibtruthfile; patbuchanan; patbuchananhatesjews; patrickbuchanan; pitchforkpat
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1 posted on 02/03/2006 6:38:58 PM PST by canuck_conservative
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To: canuck_conservative

I didn't even know my good friend Pat was still alive.


2 posted on 02/03/2006 6:41:00 PM PST by wrathof59
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To: canuck_conservative

I'd rather listen to Cindy Sheehan than hear more of Buchanan's crazy rants.


3 posted on 02/03/2006 6:42:48 PM PST by NavVet (“Benedict Arnold was wounded in battle fighting for America, but no one remembers him for that.”)
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To: canuck_conservative
Pat Buchanan has become such a nutbag that his message is no different than that other nutbag, Jimmy Carter.

They say the same garbage.

4 posted on 02/03/2006 6:43:12 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: wrathof59

I didn't know he was a Dem.


5 posted on 02/03/2006 6:43:14 PM PST by Big Giant Head (I should change my tagline to "Big Giant Pancake on my Head")
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To: wrathof59

Why do you suppose he is shouting this loud? Poor old dude hasn't had a rational thought for some time.


6 posted on 02/03/2006 6:43:39 PM PST by Steamburg (Pretenders everywhere)
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To: canuck_conservative

Go Pat Go! [hoot]


7 posted on 02/03/2006 6:44:52 PM PST by 1rudeboy (Sorry, I can't resist.)
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To: canuck_conservative

Recently, Buchanan advocated foreign aid to the newly elected Hamas. His credibility is gone. I'm surprised there are still people who publish him.


8 posted on 02/03/2006 6:45:07 PM PST by Clintonfatigued (John Paul Stevens for retirement)
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To: canuck_conservative
Hey Pat...you are a...

9 posted on 02/03/2006 6:47:04 PM PST by NewLand (Posting against liberalism since the 20th century!)
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To: canuck_conservative
Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration?

They do influence his administration, Pat. So does the Workers World Party, through front groups like Not In Our Name, International ANSWER, and The World Can't Wait. Everybody with a loud voice, or a lot of money, who's as dedicated to a antique, discredited political philosophy as you are is a real problem for the people whose job it is to solve the troubles of the real world.

10 posted on 02/03/2006 6:47:37 PM PST by Starve The Beast (I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused)
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To: 1rudeboy

Go Pat Go Away!


11 posted on 02/03/2006 6:47:49 PM PST by Andy from Beaverton (I only vote Republican to stop the Democrats)
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To: Clintonfatigued
Recently, Buchanan advocated foreign aid to the newly elected Hamas. His credibility is gone. I'm surprised there are still people who publish him

He's not an isolationist; he's just an anti-Semite. If he were an isolationists he would've opposed foreign aid to Hamas and not called for America to restrain Israel as regards Iraq. He believes in an interventionist foreign policy as long as the policy hurts or destroys the Jewish state.

12 posted on 02/03/2006 6:49:11 PM PST by Stepan12
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To: canuck_conservative

Posted yesterday.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1570720/posts


13 posted on 02/03/2006 6:50:08 PM PST by auboy
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To: Toddsterpatriot; Mase; expat_panama
But it was protectionists from Lincoln to Coolidge who gave us the highest standard of living on earth.

This kind of crap really ticks me off. If Pat supported his claim, people on both sides of the issue could have a reasonable discussion about the criteria for standard of living comparisons, and maybe learned from each other about what must be different methods in their calculation.

Instead, we will now have this "slogan" (there really is no better term for it) repeated endlessly as fact.

14 posted on 02/03/2006 6:53:20 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: Stepan12

Go Pat Go!

15 posted on 02/03/2006 6:54:18 PM PST by Stepan12
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To: canuck_conservative

pat is the dennis kucinich of the right.


16 posted on 02/03/2006 6:54:22 PM PST by festus (The constitution may be flawed but its a whole lot better than what we have now.)
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To: canuck_conservative

What's Pat complaining about? Isolationism and protectionism ARE his bag. It's not a caricature, look in the mirror Pat.


17 posted on 02/03/2006 6:58:02 PM PST by jpf
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To: canuck_conservative

Pat and mother cindy should get married and honeymoon in a ditch outside Bush's ranch. They're both Bush-hating irrational nut-jobs. Oh, did I forget to mention their anti-semitism?


18 posted on 02/03/2006 7:08:04 PM PST by ozzymandus
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To: canuck_conservative; Laurita; CMS; The Sailor; txradioguy; Jet Jaguar; Defender2; ...
This blowhard does not even know US History!

"And like Truman's war in Korea and Kennedy's war in Vietnam"


26 Sep 1945 - The first death of an American serviceman in Vietnam occurred.
OSS (Office of Special Operations) Major (Lieutenant Colonel) A. Peter Dewey
was killed in action by the Communist Vietminh near Hanoi.

May 1950 President Harry S Truman authorised $10 million in aid to the French for their war in Viet Nam.
By January 1951, $150 million had been given in aid.

1953-61 Dwight D. Eisenhower 34th US President
1953-61 Richard M. Nixon Vice President
1953 - The US is supporting the French in the amount of $1 billion per year--
33% of all US foreign aid--which is 80% of the total cost to the
. US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles (under Eisenhower) first voices the 'Domino Theory':
if one country in Southeast Asia falls to the Communists, they will all fall, one by one.

12 Feb 55 - President Eisenhower's administration sends 1st 350 U.S. advisers to South Vietnam
to train the South Vietnamese Army

8 Jun 56 - The first American of record to die in Vietnam
under the Eisenhower and Nixon administration
was Air Force Tech Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr.
His son, Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, died in Vietnam Sep 7, 1965.
8 Jun 56 Has been formally recognized by the Pentagon as the first American officially to die in that war.

5 Sep 56 - President Eisenhower tells a news conference that the French are
"involved in a hopelessly losing war in Indochina" 1956 The US believed in that Ho Chi Minh would have won any election held in Viet Nam and used their influence over the government of the State of Viet Nam to ensure that the election was not held




From a Must Visit Site
Vipers Vietnam Veterans Page, A Vietnam Veteran & Proud Web Site
About Vietnam

The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history.
1st American advisor was killed on June 08, 1956,

and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.

Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran.  For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers.  And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.

19 posted on 02/03/2006 7:08:32 PM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub (It's ALWAYS a great day to be a Conservative Independent Voter AND a Viet Nam Vet)
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To: 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub

bump


20 posted on 02/03/2006 7:09:22 PM PST by Soaring Feather (~www.proudpatriots.org~Supporting Our TROOPS~)
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