Sarcasm and condescension are not conducive to civil debate.
>BE: You parrot the Iraqi line. Hence: Baghdad Bob.
I had hoped for a more substantive answer. You know the facts about the Gulf War so what is your answer to the question "how do you define our actions?" If you don't think we cynically manipulated a regional dispute for our corporate interests and empire what do you think it was all about?
>BE: neo-Neville Chamberlainism is EVER going to be acceptable again as any kind of "conservatism."
So peaceful trade with all nations and not seeking monsters to destroy is now Chamberlainism is it? I reject your characterization as wrong and malicious but I guarantee that after several foreign policy failures that are costly in blood and treasure intervention for corporate benefits under the guise of do-gooderism and democracy will not be so palatable to any kind of conservatism.
>BE: Your ranting that assumes that actual conservatives have any use for the CIA
Bill Buckly was in the CIA as were a number of early NR members. What do you make of this little tidbit?-
"In 1952, a young "conservative" serving a one-year tour of duty with the CIA wrote an article for The Commonweal, a Catholic weekly. This man wrote:
"… we have got to accept Big Government for the duration — for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged, given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores....
"And if they deem Soviet power a menace to our freedom (as I happen to), they will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington — even with Truman at the reins of it all.
"That was 1952, and the writer of this article was calling for "Big Government for the duration" and "the attendant centralization of power in Washington" in order to oppose Communism. He wanted to fight Communism by adopting Marxism....Who do you suppose wrote those words? It was none other than William F. Buckley Jr."
Buckly and NR came as a wolf in sheep's clothing. It fractured and purged the right and reshaped the remainder to accept the establishment i.e. liberal world view of intervention, global wealth transfers, continuous war and domestic socialism all under the guise of national defense.
>BE:Ranting about US corporations and oil or the evil CIA does not suggest your conservatism.
I base my policy critiques on my core beliefs in maximum personal liberty, limited and localized government, the constitution - particularly that quaint little bit "to...establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity."
Does engaging in non-essential military action secure the liberty of military personnel or the nation as a whole? Losing one's life frivolously is not having your liberty secured now is it? To have one's life lost or body maimed or income confiscated purely for private businesses profits, for personal grandeur of a particular politician, to get votes in the next election or to get Moncia off the front page is a sin of the highest order and betrays the original purpose for the government.
Eisenhower warned us against the military-industiral complex (the speech originally included congress in the equation but that bit was dropped because informing the people that their representatives were tools of big business was too impolitic). Funny how Ike served that complex all his life but upon retirement saw fit to issue a warning. Seems he knew something. Like the less eloquent USMC General Smedly Butler who after retiring declared "war is a racket." He said he did not defend the US once in his career, he killed people to advance the interests of Wall Street.
>BE: Internationalism is another diplo-weenie scheme to tie the US down an restrict its freedom of intervention.
The difference between the "dipo-weenie" crowd and the "US free to intervene crowd" is like sects of Christians who disagree over baptism - should it be done as an infant or an adult - they are both Christians, they just differ on details. Likewise the intervention crowd both believe in intervention they simply disagree on who is top dog in the global government scenario.
>BE: In the last analysis, the air power, naval power and infantry power o the US accomplishes far more than a lot more useless diplomatic yak-yak.
Sounds like old fashioned gunboat diplomacy. Churchill, no paragon of virtue himself, did at least say "jaw, jaw is better than war, war." Your advice sounds like the callous and murderous "kill 'em all. Let God sort them out" mentality. Whoever does not agree with you is to be subjugated by force of arms? Real nice outlook on life, that.
You said that you did not understand plain English. I suggested the obvious remedy.
I define our actions as useful and ovedue even if the immediate beneficiary was the less than admirable leadership of Kuwait. Also as insuffiecient under Daddy Bush since we did not squash Saddam once and for all when we could easily have done so. If that meant fewer platoons of Arabs on our side, so what? Also Iraqi oil can pay for the invasion of Iraq over time and for rebuilding now.
You may have misssed it, unlike most o the world and akll of the conservatives but Neville Chambderlain was a cowardly cretin whose obsessions with trade and pacifism over morality enhanced the damage of WWII. Churchhill was a politician in a more liberal England. Jaw, jaw is most certainly NOT preferable to war, war, if the result is the oportunity for the enhancement of the armament of the enemies of our way of life.
Seeking monsters????? The monsters seek us. 9/11/01 was not the first time for this particular set of pus pockets. Gunboat diplomacy is the only kind that works for those with the gunboats.
"Peaceful trade with all nations" aka GATT and WTO violates an essential social compact here and is the treason of economic elites against the working people of this country. When enough are unemployed and impoverished to scrape the last nickel out of 3rd World slave labor, those elites will be the first to complain of the political backlash.
Bill Buckley was indeed in the CIA. So was William Sloane Coffin, Jr. and many Coffin-like weasels who much better characterize that agency's performance than does Buckley's brief service. Many family oil wells of Bill's father were confiscaed. The suggestion that Bill is a socialist is beneath contempt, looney tune libertarian notions notwithstanding. <> Instead of a string military, you would have preferred that, if Stalin's successors should ever reach Peotria with armies, a good lecture from the Libertarian Party or the noble resistance of the Peoria Chamber of Commerce would be an effective substitute for military force whacking the Russkies where they live first? Have I got that right?
Buckley and NR came in and purged the right? What right??? Seventeen halfwit semi-anarchists remembering the good old days before Hoover got elected? Ayn Rand????? The JBS?????
Eisenhower with the leftists favorite rant against the "military-industrial complex" was a conservative????? At a minimum we know that Robert Welch would not agree. OK, maybe Buckley was a little unfair to the JBS but they were getting a bit carried away.
Smedley Butler, a two-time Medal of Honor winner in Latin American interventions who went native after the fact and joined the leftist critique of what were Monroe Doctrine and TR Corollary exercises? Many things but not conservative any more than the more recent anti-American retired officers like Admiral LaRocque.
Also, since we abolished the draft hich was agross violation of liberty, we have established a professional military. Those who sign up know what they are signing up to do. Kill people and break things that respectively need killing and breaking. There are rumors that there are safer occupations. Nonetheless our military, not as well-compensated as they ought to be, do a fine job.
Personally, I see a lot more similarity between the cower in the corner sniffling crowd and the diplo-weenie crowd. Both essentially are working the peace at any price side of the street. Neither are remotely conservative. Our military is. Intervention and pre-emptive action is.