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.
A great summary. When the neocons lied that Pat's book 'A Republic, Not an Empire' was anti-semitic, those who read it themselves saw that neocons are war propagandists. Now others will see them. Pat's book was a blueprint for our survival in this century.
You're kidding. Says who? ;)
And to call the people with him assassins is to show where your bias rests.
Pat has been echoing that great socialist Noam Chomsky for years.
Some great thinker.
Some patriot.
Pat's bottom line is for the U.S. to withdraw support for Israel, which is not going to happen.
I don't think that it Pat's line at all. If you read with improved comprehension, Pat is saying that we have no business fighting Israel's wars. That is different than saying "end support." Many of us feel no reason to NOT support Israel, as we would any other friendly democratic nation. But it's a hell of a stretch from that support to fighting another country's battles, which is what the neocons here are clearly demanding from Bush -- or else. Nice guys. Why are THEY so obsessed with Israel?
The neocons represent American people just as much as the Lenin's People's Commissariate did the Russian people.
Well said, however we both know who won, and what happened thereafter.
American interests, articulated by Bush, are to hunt down the terrorists wherever they are. If they find harbor in Iraq or in Saudi Arabia, that's who the enemy
And if they have found harbor in, say, Germany, Canada or the Netherlands -- or in the good old USA itself? It seems these were where they spent their most productive periods. What now, bomber boy?
Uh, the battle came to our shores on Sept. 11. We're trying to get Israel to kiss and make up with that rat Arafat.
Uh, the battle came to our shores on Sept. 11. We're trying to get Israel to kiss and make up with that rat Arafat.
Don't shape-shift on me. You made a specific statement that misrepresented Buchanan's point and I clarified it. I said nothing about "our shores" or the like. The argument is not whether something came to our shores on the 11th, but rather what should be done about it. You and your neocon buddies take one view, the rest of us take another.
The difference is the knowledge, consent, and support of the governments involved. Terrorists can operate pretty freely in the US, Canada, Germany, etc., because they are, by and large, free societies, not because they share the terrorists goals. That is different than, for example, Egypt, Syria, and Afghanistan who at best turn a blind eye to the terrorist activities and at worst provide direct assistance to them.
If terrorist operations are discovered in non-consenting countries, the method for acting against them is different -- it essentially becomes a local problem, though any information obtained would be wanted by the US, and likely given to them. Military strikes are not needed when the local governments are taking care of the problems themselves. Take, for example, the aggressive crackdown on terrorist cells in the US, Canada, and western Europe over the last couple of weeks (it is likely that many of them were under surveillance (but not enough evidence to act against) prior to the WTC/Pentagon attacks, and those were then likely the starting point for rounding up what can be uncovered) -- in these "friendly" (cooperative governments) areas, it is more like policework, as opposed to the "unfriendly" areas, which will require covert and/or overt military action.
As I said in my earlier post, there are a wide variety of methods available, and it comes down to choosing the correct mix of those methods for each particular case. Obviously direct military action is appropriate in some cases, and would be absolutely wrong in others. The same could be said for the other methods as well.
The US supported the KLA and Chechen terrorists. Many muslim countries are openly on the side of the KLA and Chechen terrorists too. Bomb Washington?
The neocons are only intent on a holy war while President Bush intends a war on terrorism. Bush is looking for America's best interest. Neocons don't see terrorists, they see an opportunity to involve the USA in their quest to obliterate Islam.
All that is well and good, but the issue here is that the worst war mongers belong to the neocon camp and that their motives are highly suspect due to their record of Israel-first policies. Neocons are the last ones to ask what American foreign policy should be and their opinions are the least trustworthy.
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