Posted on 03/31/2003 8:08:20 AM PST by quidnunc
The war in Iraq has triggered an ideological war inside the American conservative movement and the Republican party. The ideological war may lack the deadly seriousness of the fighting on the ground. But if morale on the home front matters in wartime, and it does, then this ideological war has its significance too.
Since 9/11, some of the most vociferous domestic opposition first to the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan and then to the Iraq war has come — not from the American Left as might have been expected — but from the American Right.
"Cui bono? For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam?
"Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud."
That's Pat Buchanan speaking in an article published September 24. (The reference to the Nazi slogan "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" is unlikely to have been a coincidence.)
Or consider this, from a column by syndicated columnist Robert Novak written the very day after the 9/11 attacks: "Unlike Nazi Germany's and Imperial Japan's drive for a new world order, however, the hatred toward the U.S. by the terrorists is an extension of its hatred of Israel rather than world dominion. Stratfor.com, the private intelligence company, reported Tuesday: 'The big winner today, intentionally or not, is the state of Israel.' Whatever distance Bush wanted between U.S. and Israeli policy, it was eliminated by terror. … The United States and Israel are brought ever closer in a way that cannot improve long-term U.S. policy objectives."
Both Buchanan and Novak have alleged — and their charges have been echoed by a second string of Internet journalists — that the war on terror has been orchestrated by a "cabal" (Buchanan's words) of "neoconservatives."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
The war on terror is transforming the politics of the whole world, to the point where it's no longer clear that political terms like "left" and "right" can retain their old meaning. All that is clear is that in the 1990s as in the 1930s, defeatism in the struggle against fascism is making allies of the far left and the far right.
The paleos never met a fascist dictator they didn't like — or at least respect.
Scratch the surface and their anti-semitism shines through every time also.
Lenora Fulani and Pat Buchanan...united in their hatred of Jews.
In this they strongly resemble Arabs.
Source?
Your desperate arguements are as fictious as your nerdy idol, Captain Kirk, try explaining your stance rather than using the drive-by sniping tactics of the Left labeling people McCarthyite. This is just sad.
At least Buchanon is saying that he supports the war and will not be critical while the troops are in action.
Wrong, Pat. The Middle East also holds terrorists, and it is vitally important that we kill them.
Limbaugh was against the Kosovo war (as was Tom Delay and a majority of the Republicans in the Senate who voted against the air campaign. Perhaps you weren't listening to Rush then.
BTW, I do not think that Rush "liked" Milsovic. I was merely pointing to the absurdity of the the argument that opposing the war equals liking Saddam.
As to the war itself, I support the troops and believe (now that we are in this mess) we need to press on to Baghdad and destroy Saddams regime. After that, of course, we should get the hell out! Unfortunately, the state department has decided not to allow the Iraqi opposition to set up an interim government yet....so that will not be easy.
On the other hand Paleos and Libertarians believe, according to David Frum, that... "the U.S. had brought 9/11 on itself. "9/11 was a direct consequence of the United States meddling in an area of the world where we do not belong and are not wanted," said Buchanan in September 2002. "We were attacked because we were on Saudi sacred soil and we are so-called repressing the Iraqis and we're supporting Israel and all the rest of it." The right response [according to the Paleos/Libertarians]: withdraw from the region, downgrade the relationship with Israel, and above all -- leave Saddam Hussein's Iraq alone."
Some people are really naive! (according to this view for the good of Europe during the '40s we should have left Hitler alone).
Thank God, our present government is much wiser!
Buchanan takes columnist to task
One has to admire the chutzpah with which Dennis Prager promotes his book in his column "Pointing fingers with reckless aim" (Commentary, Saturday). Right up in his first paragraph, this huckster puts his title, subtitle and publisher and describes its contents.
Mr. Prager then goes into a litany of libels against Jews dating to the Middle Ages: the belief of "tens of millions of European Christians ... that Jews kidnap and slaughter non-Jewish children before Passover to use their blood for baking matzo," the belief that Jewish folks "caused the Plague," that they were responsible for the collapse of the French Panama Canal company, that they knew in advance about the September 11 attacks.
After this recital, I am introduced: "And now Pat Buchanan and other Americans believe (or at least say) that America is going to war against Iraq 'because of the Jews.' " Question: Where did Mr. Prager get this quote? Nowhere in my 5,000-word March 24 cover article in the American Conservative ("Whose War?") does any such statement appear. Not only have I never written that "America is going to war against Iraq because of the Jews," I have written the opposite. In my March 13 column, urging mercy for Rep. Jim Moran, Virginia Democrat, I wrote this of his comment about the strong support of the "Jewish community" for the war:
"Now, about this comment, it is, first, wrong. We are going to war because Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell are convinced we must disarm Baghdad and regime change is the only way to effect it. Second, according to polls, the Jewish community is only about as hawkish as the rest of the nation, with 59 percent supporting war."
Why did Mr. Prager fabricate this quote? Because he could not find in my 5,000 words one sentence to justify linking me with those who told "grandiose lies" about the Jewish people. Bereft of evidence, he decided to plant it. For those interested in what I did say and do believe, here is the gist of my article:
There is a neocon War Party, some of whom were plotting with Israel for war on Iraq as far back as 1996. These individuals urged Israel to ditch the Oslo peace accords when support for Oslo was U.S. policy. Other neocons who run the Weekly Standard, the New Republic and Commentary have been shrieking for a "World War IV" against eight or nine Arab and Islamic nations, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
In decrying their warmongering, my piece cites sources on the left and right and names exactly who these two dozen neoconservatives are.
Mr. Prager closes by saying that I have "an amoral view of America's role in the world." Well, at least, it is an American view, the view of every president up to Woodrow Wilson: Stay out of foreign wars, be on guard against "passionate attachments" to any country other than our own. As our first and greatest president wrote in his farewell address:
"[A] passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils...Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause ..."
The "tools and dupes" President Washington warned against are the Dennis Pragers who propagandize for endless wars, for other men's sons to fight and for interests other than those of the United States of America.
PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
McLean, Va.
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