Some of you seem quite upset because you have a visceral dislike of Buchanan or an emotional tie to the President. Neither of these lead to valid points in an argument.
There are some Bushbots, but I'm not one of them. I debated for (thanks to the timely intervention of Scott McConnel) and voted for Pat in 2000. I am no fan of Jorge Arbusto's democratization delusion.
The simple fact is that Pat has lost it.
You and I have already debated this issue on another posting of this same article, and you deliberately failed then, and now, to understand rather than misrepresent Pat's essential point. The dangerous juju that you are putting about is that somehow, by refusing to negotiate with a mortal enemy, you can have your own way. Well, we didn't get our way with Hitler, did we? Instead, we had a WWII, Soviet domination of Eastern Europe for 50 years and tens of millions dead. And some of that was that we, the victors of WWI created Hitler and gave him a cause in the conditions imposed upon Germany. Pat is not wrong there; most honest historical assessments of the origins of WWII recognize that fact; and I did not even know that this point was in controversy any more. Pat has an interesting point about Danzig, Poland and Hitler, but instead of analyzing it you want to campaign on it.
In fact, you are a Bushbot, and, as McClellan said, you and your compatriots are constantly in campaign mode rather than governing mode. What are you running for? Bush is leaving in 6 months.
Part of your dissembling requires confusing "negotiation" and "appeasement." Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union. He did not appease them. Chamberlain appeased Hitler. He did not negotiate with him. Clear difference, a difference that Pat clearly makes in his article, and that Pat would not fail to note, because, whatever else you might say about Pat, he is not weak.
I already suggested that you to go and read Schelling, almost anything by him on strategic games, before spouting this ignorant attitude of yours, but you clearly have not. You and your kind want "victory" over Islamic fundamentalism. Well, what does such "victory" look like? Not one of the Bushbot WOT supporters can answer that question, and yet you cannot have a strategy until you know what you are trying to achieve. The way you and your kind talk about it can only be done through extermination, a "final solution" of the kind that even Hitler and Stalin could not carry out. If not, we are forced to seek the kind of accommodation with it that we achieved with the Soviet Union, which underlay the Regan strategy, "we win, they lose." You get there by remaining firm, and slowly bringing them along, which requires open engagement, which is negotiation. It requires give and take, which is in everyone's interest to avoid a final holocaust, but not just giving in.
And if you don't like being called a Bushbot, then starting thinking and stop campaigning, which you do by having reasoned debate with your interlocutors instead of calling them names.