Posted on 09/27/2001 9:09:59 AM PDT by ex-snook
Whose War Is This? By Patrick J. Buchanan
In his resolve to hunt down and kill the Osama bin Laden terrorists he says committed the Sept. 11 massacres, President Bush has behind him a nation more unified than it has been since Pearl Harbor. But now Bush has been put on notice that this war cannot end with the head of bin Laden and the overthrow of the Taliban.
The shot across Bush's bow came in an "Open Letter" co-signed by 41 foreign-policy scholars, including William Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick, the publisher of The Weekly Standard and the editor in chief of The New Republic — essentially, the entire neoconservative establishment.
What must Bush do to retain their support? Target Hezbollah for destruction and retaliate against Syria and Iran if they refuse to cut all ties to Hezbollah and move militarily to overthrow Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Failure to attack Iraq, the neocons warn Bush, "will consti tute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."
"Our purpose in writing is to assure you of our support as you do what must be done to lead the nation to victory in this fight," the letter ends.
Implied is a threat to end support if Bush does not widen the war to include all of Israel's enemies, or if he pursues the U.S.-Arab-Muslim coalition of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Among the signers is Richard Perle, chairman of Bush's own Defense Policy Board, a key advisory group.
This letter represents one side of a brutal policy battle that has erupted in the capital: Is it to be Powell's war or Perle's war?
A critical decision
The final decision Bush makes will be as historically crucial as Truman's decision to let MacArthur advance to the Yalu, and FDR's decision to hold up Eisenhower's armies and let Stalin take Berlin.
How the president will come down is unknown.
In his address to Congress a week ago, Bush declared: "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." The president seemed to be offering amnesty, or conditional absolution, to rogue states if they enlist in America's war, now, and expel all terrorist cells.
Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is signaling that what matters is not where nations stood, but where they stand. On Sunday, he said on CBS: "What we are looking at today is how are these states going to behave going forward."
And Powell's coalition is coming together. Whether out of fear or opportunism, Libya, Syria, Iran and the Palestinian Authority have all denounced the atrocities of Sept. 11. Pakistan has joined the coalition. Sudan is cooperating.
But calls for a wider war dominate the neoconservative media. The Weekly Standard's opinion editor, David Tell, wants war not only on past sponsors of terror, but also on "any group or government inclined to support or sustain others like them in the future."
Bennett wants Congress to declare war on "militant Islam" and "overwhelming force" used on state sponsors of terror such as Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran and even China. The Wall Street Journal wants strikes "aimed at terrorist camps in Syria, Sudan, Libya and Algeria, and perhaps even in parts of Egypt."
On their lists
Terrorism expert Steve Emerson puts Lebanon's Bekaa Valley at the top of his list. Benjamin Netanyahu includes in the "Empire of Terror" to be obliterated: Hamas, Hezbollah, "the Palestinian enclave," as well as Iran, Iraq and Taliban Afghanistan. Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt of the Project for the New American Century want Iraq invaded now: "Nor need the attack await the deployment of half a million troops. ... The larger challenge will be occupying Iraq after the fighting is over."
As of now, Bush is laser-focused on bin Laden and the Taliban. But when that war is over, the great policy battle will be decided: Do we then dynamite Powell's U.S.-Arab-Muslim coalition by using U.S. power to invade Iraq? Do we then reverse alliances and make Israel's war America's war?
Allies would be at risk
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.
If America wishes truly to be isolated, it will follow the neoconservative line. Conservatives should stand squarely with President Bush — and Gen. Powell.
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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