Posted on 02/02/2002 7:49:21 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
WASHINGTON: North Korea yesterday blustered that it was on the brink of war with the US after President George W. Bush renewed his attacks on the "axis of evil" of so-called rogue states.
Mr Bush again labelled Iran, Iraq and North Korea the world's most dangerous regimes, warning they could face US action and prompting speculation about where the war on terror would lead after Afghanistan.
His warning, raised first in his State of the Nation address on Tuesday, drew an angry reaction from Muslim countries throughout the Middle East. But the most blunt message response came from North Korea. A spokesman for strongman Kim Jong Il said the nation was ready for war and had been wise to develop "powerful offensive and defensive means". We are sharply watching the disturbing moves of the United States that have pushed the situation to the brink of war," the Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
As the secretive communist regime's propaganda machine went into overdrive, North Korean state media said US warplanes had carried out scores of reconnaissance flights in recent weeks in preparation for an attack. The spokesman said Mr Bush's speech was "little short of declaring a war".
Undaunted by the strength of the reaction in the Middle East to his speech, Mr Bush reiterated his accusations against the three countries and warned that Washington was ready to act. He said all three nations were developing weapons of mass destruction. "They need to know our intention is to hold them accountable and the rest of the world needs to be with us, because these weapons can be pointed at them as easily as at us," he said. Iran, which Washington describes as the main state sponsor of terror ism, called Mr Bush -thirsty for human blood", while the Iraqi regime of Sad Hussein branded him "stupid, arrogant and irresponsible".
Former secretary o state Madeleine Albrigh also condemned the "axis of evil" speech, calling it "big mistake". She said many in the international community believed the US h "lost its mind" because of the way Mr Bush handled foreign policy. "I think it was a big mistake to lump those three countries together," she said. "They are very different from each other." That warning risked alienating foreign allies she said. We know that they are (already) not supportive of what we are doing in lraq or Iran or North Korea, so I don't know what the value is." But US officials said there were no plans for, any military action against the three countries. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the US was not about to open three more fronts in the war against terror now centred on Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, in New York, US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday urged world leaders to crush the cause of terrorism by stamping out poverty. Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Mr Powell said' We have to go after poverty, we have to go after despair." AFP
He sound like you, actually.
Pearl Harbor only makes the isolationist case if all acts or threats of destruction from abroad are our fault, the fruit of our evil imperialism, which we could easily avoid by acting decently. Isolationists are forced by the logic of their position to insist that whatever attacks are mounted against America, they are always our fault. Indeed, they really have to argue that no attack could ever be made on America except as a reaction to American wrongdoing abroad. Otherwise the case for isolationism falls down in little pieces. The isolationist case is intrinsically anti-American.
Paleos all seem to hate the nation that actually exists, and love only the idea that exists in their own heads. As Buchanan reportedly says, the bad guys ''have replaced the good country we grew up in with a cultural wasteland and a moral sewer that are not worth living in and not worth fighting for -- their country, not ours.'' Quoted here.
Note: I am not endorsing the author or the New York Times or the review. Dismissive comments about any of these will be ignored, and prove nothing - the only thing I'm interested in is the quotation. If the reviewer has misquoted or distorted Buchanan, I would be interested to have some Death of the West buff post the entire paragraph in which these lines appear, along with the paragraphs preceding and following. That should give the general Freeper enough context to decide.
Actually, you have not in any way answered my argument about the logic on isolationism. Since we are not isolated from the rest of the world any more, but are vulnerable to attack, the isolationist can only hold on to isolationism by arguing that any time we are attacked, it is our own fault. Blame America First.
But in a larger sense, I think your "point" is very clear indeed. You think that the America which actually exists is a demon-possessed zombie that might need rough handling if it is to return to the idea of it you have in your mind. I will rest my case quite comfortably both on your "point" and on your citation of Buchanan in context.
Oh but you would like them and fit in very well on these forums. There are just tons and tons of pseudo intellectual left wing garbage like yourself over there.
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