Posted on 09/27/2001 9:09:59 AM PDT by ex-snook
Knee-jerk? You mean knee-jerk as in jumping to conclusions? Knee-jerk as in dive-bombing a discussion without realizing it has already passed you by? Knee-jerk as in pasting labels on anyone and everyone who says something with which you disagree?
ps: don't look now, but I think there's a "neo-con" behind you.
Knee-jerk as in dive-bombing a discussion without realizing it has already passed you by?
Excuse me? I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention to you.
Happy hunting.
By Jove you hit it on the head. Notice how this thread has more than its fair share of Buchanan smearers and use him as the strawman for an attack on Bush's position.
We have been an arrogant power and our policy in Iraq is insane. And I fear for this country if we go out in our nationalistic pride... without God. Now is the time to humble ourselves and repent, instead of trusting in the strength of our own arm.
I'd like to know if the $12,000,000 "matching funds" gift from the taxpayers in the last election is funding his self-important dribble.
His views on things matter about as much as Ezola Foster's do.
Any one have the rest of the names on this traitors list. This act of undermining our entire war effort and the safety of our troops in the field at this critical time, is nothing less than treason.
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And I think we should continue to maintain a robust foreign intelligence community to monitor these lands to make sure no other terrorists train and prepare for future attacks against the U.S. soil, with the warning to all countries that we will take pre-emptive action if we find out about terrorists with the potential to harm American citizens training in their lands. This, I believe, would encourage those countries to police themselves.
Callahan
It ends with a plea for a narrower policy ,-- to target "as a laser beam" Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. The bulk of the article argues against a wider policy, and in particular pleads not to target any nation that may happen to be Israel's direct enemy. How does it argue? Solely by noting that the proponents of the wider policy are neo conservatives.
A proper argument against any policy should discuss the merits of the policy, not political groupings. This one doesn't. That is the contradiction you don't see, between the stated support of the general policy and the content of he article.
But was either side in the Wars of the Roses committed to a fundamental critique of the causes and effects of the wars? Of course not. This is just a modern version of those wars.
Buchanan, in spite of the hysteria directed at him by in-house Republicans, has never strayed very far from the plantation. It is a sign of how woefully impotent the forces of Republicanism (as in: "The Republic of the United States of America") really are that they have to sit in the gallery rooting for the likes of Colin Powell as a champion of reasoned, limited response. It would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.
Even the main characters in this tiny little pissing contest are discreetly hidden behind veils of discreet allusion. Who are the "neo-con"s and where is their true philosphical home? Are the hands of so-called "traditional" conservatives clean in this so-called fight? A so called power struggle in which nothing of importance is being publicly discussed. Very, very sad.
As to the original question: "Whose War is This?" Its very profundity guarantees that it will not be answered--ever. Americans seem plumply satisfied with that. Even after 6,000 dead. Amazing.
If the United States invades Iraq, bombs Hezbollah and conducts strikes on Syria and Iran, this war will metastasize into a two-continent war from Algeria to Afghanistan, with the United States and Israel alone against a half-dozen Arab and Muslim states. The first casualties would be the moderate Arabs — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states — who were our Cold War and Gulf War allies.
The war Netanyahu and the neo cons want, with the United States and Israel fighting all of the radical Islamic states, is the war bin Laden wants, the war his murderers hoped to ignite when they sent those airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Buchanan could have made this argument: that unless Osama terrorists move to a particualr country, or receives a substantial suport from a particular country, we shouldn't attack that country in the context of this war. That would have been a valid comment, and I would agree with it.
He was talking about the current situation. What do unlikely "what-if" scenarios have to do with anything?
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