Nor does it do for us the shift the blame onto Israel, as many here are wont to do. Certainly, fifty years of on-again, off-again support of israel has won us few friends among the Arabs (except perhaps Jordan, who depend upon Israel themselves); but the root of the current escalation in radical-Islamic terrorism can be traced directly to US interventionism in the Gulf War, not the 700-mile distant Israeli/Palestinian conflict, which was tangentially related (at best) to the interventionist War Party's battle-cry "Free Flow of Gulf Oil!!".
Frankly, Buchanan was right (and I don't often say that). Not one drop of American blood should've been spilt for Gulf oil. Even if Hussein had embargoed (doubtful, his whole purpose in invading Kuwait was a cash-grab)... just drill Alaska instead. We don't need additional enemies.
Now, the Interventionist-Warmonger chickens have come home to roost. Many an Arab man in the street, enraged at US interventionism and the child-killing blockade of a mulsim "brother" country, has now joined in Bin Laden's quest for slaughter and carnage.
All the same, they have attacked us. Libertarians and Paleo-Conservatives are, of course, absolutely right that yet again the Interventionists have gotten us into a stupid, unnecessary War...
But nonetheless, War it is.
The Interventionists tried to use embargoes and blockades to "manage" Japanese imperialism in China the 1930s just as they tried to "manage" the Middle East in the 1990s; They got us over 2,000 dead at Pearl Harbor for their efforts then, and they have gotten us perhaps 10,000 dead at the World Trade Center. Their Foreign "policy" is, if not treasonous in its very design, certainly treasonous in the American-killing and government-expanding results that it continues to obtain. First one Pearl Harbor, and now another.
But it is another Pearl Harbor.
And our response to this Attack should be as ferocious as our response to the first one. Rational thinkers recognize that yet again, the Interventionist war-mongers have blundered our beloved Republic into a vicious enemy attack.
But we have been attacked.
And one of the only legitimate purposes of the Federal Government is to defend the citizens of these United States from enemy attack, and to punish aggressors. That purpose must now be executed. "We must shock them more than they have shocked us. We must do so with a force not yet seen in human history. I repeat: we are not responding to terrorism any more. We are at war. And war requires no restraint, simply massive and unanswerable force until the enemy is not simply defeated but unconditionally destroyed." -- Andrew Sullivan.
Quoting OWK (actually I codged together his #6 and his #21 from a prior thread):
But nevertheless, we find ourselves in the situation as it exists.
Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War.
6 Posted on 09/11/2001 10:31:56 PDT by OWK
How would you feel if China started funnelling arms and training to eco-fascist environmentalists in Oregon. Would that be ok? - Reponse? Blank stares.
But it's A-OK if we do it to others.
Side note... can someone point me to the Andrew Sullivan piece? I'd like to read it, but it keeps getting pulled before I have a chance...
Moral-coward idiots on parade alert! How come you didn't denounce this idiot, OWK? Some "principle".