Posted on 02/01/2006 10:09:49 AM PST by SirLinksalot
Buchanan defends foreign aid – for Hamas
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Posted: February 1, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc.
Ever since President Bush, sometime after 9-11, converted to neoconservatism, his Middle East policy has suffered from the triple defects of that subspecies of the Right: hubris, ideology and immaturity.
Neoconservatives see the world as they wish it to be, not as it is. Like teenagers, they act on impulse and rail against the counsel of experience. "Often clever, never wise," Russell Kirk said of the breed.
Repeatedly, Bush was warned by traditional conservatives that to send a U.S. army to occupy Baghdad would engender Arab rage and Islamic terror. Heeding the "cakewalk" crowd, he refused to listen. Three years later, we are trying to extricate a U.S. army from Iraq with the least possible damage to U.S. security interests.
Prodded again by neoconservatives, Bush declared our true goal had always been to democratize Iraq and the entire Islamic world. His second Inaugural resonated less of Reagan than of Rousseau:
So, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
To advance the end of "tyranny in our world," Bush began to call for elections across the Middle East. Again, he and Condi were warned that if these people were allowed to vote their convictions, they might just vote to throw us out and throw the Israelis into the sea.
Now that elections have been held, what do the returns show?
Propelled into or toward power have been Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, pro-Iranian Shiite zealots in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Hamas in Gaza and on the West Bank.
Now, Condi, who denounced Bush's predecessors back to FDR for supporting dictators while preaching democracy in the Middle East, appears about to engage in a bit of hypocrisy of her own.
After insisting Hamas be included in the elections, Condi, stunned by the results and under pressure from Israel, has declared we will cut all aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas takes over the government, as Hamas was elected to do.
Bush agrees. Unless Hamas surrenders its weapons, abandons all armed resistance and recognizes Israel's right to exist, we will not give 10 cents to a Palestinian Authority that has Hamas as its head. Rice is said to be pressuring Europe to do the same. Unless Hamas remakes itself into a Mideast version of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Dr. King, we terminate aid.
Before adopting this knee-jerk reaction to an election we insisted go ahead, one trusts the president, this once, will think it through.
What is likely to happen if we proceed on such a course?
If we and the Europeans cut off aid, and Israel refuses to remit to the Palestinians the taxes they collect, the Palestinians will be put through hell for voting the wrong way. The Arabs will call us hypocrites who believe in elections only if they produce the results we demand.
And who could say they are wrong?
What will Hamas do? They are not going to disarm in the face of an Israeli military that has been killing Palestinians – collateral damage, of course – at four times the rate that Palestinians have been killing Israelis. They are not going to give up their trump card and recognize Israel's right to exist before they get a Palestinian state.
What will Hamas do? Hamas will accept the cut-off of aid, seek money from the Saudis and Iranians, do their best to keep the Palestinian people fed, clothed, housed and educated, and sacrifice for their people. And Hamas will fail. And when they fail, whom do we think will be blamed? When the Palestinian people have been broken because they voted the wrong way, whom do we think they will hate?
Let me propose another course. Put Hamas on probation.
For almost a year, Hamas has held to a truce with Israel and not engaged in attacks. Let America and Europe send word that if the truce holds, if Hamas does not attack Israeli civilians, if Hamas show its first concern is, as it claims, bettering the life of the Palestinian people, we will let the aid flow. But if Hamas reignites the war, we will not finance the war. We will terminate the aid.
Make Hamas responsible for continuing the aid. And make Hamas responsible for terminating it, if it comes to that.
Understandably, the Israelis are close to hysterical over the landslide for Hamas and are on a diplomatic campaign to have all donors end all aid to a Palestinian Authority dominated by Hamas.
But that is not in our interests. It is not even in Israel's interest. For it has been Israel's behavior, and uncritical U.S. support for that behavior, that produced this victory for Hamas. To continue on that road is to arrive at, literally, a dead end.
Bush has unleashed a revolution in the Middle East, and it is everywhere bringing to power Islamic fundamentalists. Either we deal with them, or fight them or get out of the Middle East.
From pacifist to appeaser. From appeaser to collaborator. It's the natural progression of morally decadent men like Pat.
I ssee nothing anti-semitic in Buchanan's view. He wants to put Hamas on probation, to see if they crank up hostilities...if they do, then cut off financial aid.
IO happen to think we should cut off aid now, because it will harder to do it later...
Why don't you answer a question?
This has got to be, at best, an incorrect statement. One could argue that an attempted genocide could create less conflict and tension but it would only be a short-term 'solution'. The ensuing hatred and resentment that such maneuvers would bring are not forgotten and there is always a longer-term and deeper conflict because of such attempts.
I don't see you crying over Jews who lost land in 1929, 1948 or today.
You don't see it because I wasn't taking up that particular argument. I am certainly on the side of the Jewish people whom have lost what they had in Europe of days past. I certainly sympathize with Israelites who are losing what's their's today. It is a complex issue and you should understand it as such. You should also understand where I was coming from in terms of trying to frame the debate as it relates to the reaction to this particular PB piece. If you don't see this then I'm afraid you've just done the same thing that you've accused someone else of doing [above, in an earlier post]: being 'knee-jerk'.
"Our" terrorist enemies? How many Americans has Hamas killed?
Paradoxically it is easier for Hamas to make compromise same way as it was easier for Likud/Sharon. Why? Because PLO was undercut by the more radical Hamas (the reason why Israel secretly supported Hamas in the past) and Labor was undercut by Likud.
One of the rules of politics is that hard and necessary steps are to be made by the parties which oppose them.
2. I support the relocation of Arabs, not Jews.
You may say it, because you are not in position of power and responsibility (or at least not officially here :) ). Israeli leaders in power can say at most "we wish the relocation of Arabs were possible".
To all you pro-Israeli guys who bash Buchanan. Sometimes it is better to have open critic and opponent who want to engage you into debate, than fake friends you "support" you through unanimous 100% resolutions because they fear to lose their seats.
Reread his statements without prejudice and you might find some valid points nobody else dares to present. And the last but not the least: do you think that future Israeli/US policy will go along the "the relocation of Arabs, not Jews" or more along what Buchanan propose? I would not bet in your place :)
Things look differently "in the plaza" than "in the palace". Below is the related passage from Machiavelli Discourses (Book I, chapter XLVII:
After one thousand four hundred fourteen (1414) when the Princes of the City had been driven from Florence, and no other government having been instituted, but rather a certain ambitious license, and public affairs going from bad to worse, many of the populari seeing the ruin of the City and not understanding the cause, they blamed the ambitions of some powerful one who would feed the disorders in order to be able to make a State to his own liking and take away their liberty: and there were those who went through the loggias and the plazas speaking ill of many Citizens, and threatening them that if they should ever find themselves (members) of the Signoria, they would uncover this deceit of theirs and would castigate them.
It often happened that ones like these did ascend to the supreme Magistracy, and when they had risen to that position and saw things more closely, they recognized whence disorders arose, and the dangers that hung over them, and the difficulty of remedying them. And seeing that the times and not the men were causing the disorders, they quickly were of another mind and acted otherwise, because the knowledge of things in particular had taken away that deception which, in the general consideration, they had presupposed.
So that those who at first ((when he was a private citizen)) heard him speak, and afterwards saw them remain quiet in the supreme Magistracy, believed that this resulted not by the more real knowledge of things, but from their having been perverted and corrupted by the Nobles. And as this happened to many men and many times, there arose among them a proverb, which said: These men have one mind in the plaza and another in the palace. Considering, therefore, all that has been discussed, it is seen that the quickest possible way to open the eyes of the People, is by finding a way ((seeing that a generality deceives them)) in which they should have to descend to particulars [...]
Quote Machiavelli all you want. Buchanan is no Machiavelli, and his Jew-hatred is exposed, again and again. He has gone from being a one-time sensible voice of the right to a David Duke-like caricature; a spiteful enemy of American success at every turn. There is little difference in the PRACTICAL effects of Buchanan from Cindy Sheehan.
There was already a President whose views were not so different from Buchanan (Buchanan worked for him. This President ended Vietnam War and brokered the compromise between Israel and its main enemies - Egypt and Syria.
Of course he is not. Still Machiavelli is being proven right again and again.
My understanding is that Pat is not now defending foreign aid on principle, but because there will be foreign aid to the Palestinians, he is saying provide it with monitoring for Hamas. I disagree with him on the Middle East. Otherwise Pat is an original thinker. Both he and columnist Charley Reese seem to have soft spots for the Palestinians. I understand neither in that regard.
and Pat has been proven wrong, again and again. He's a loser. I'm ashamed he was ever called a "conservative."
Once you to be an isolationist, you have no choice but to be in a reactive mode.
Once you choose not to be an isolationist, you open yourself up to more proactive options. In choosing sides in a proactive stance, it just doesn't make any sense to choose any Arab country over Israel.
I'm not saying that blind allegiance between the U.S. and Israel is desirable; I'm saying that countries don't have buddies, they have interests-- and Buchanan has never had the ability to see the forest through the trees.
Buchanan has successfully bullied himself into a position of irrelevance.
Perhaps you should reread Smith's paragraphs regarding the the rationale behind the invisible hand and then tell me where your 'conservatism' disagrees with it:
Every individual...generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.
Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of.
If you read the GWOT and national security documents, you'll find the war is ostensibly against ALL terrorists, regardless of nationality. I assume the theory behind that is that even if they haven't yet made America/Americans a specific/priority target it is likely it will only be a matter of time. Kind of like genocide, US policy now creates an aura of "international criminality" around it and says we won't abide it.
Theoretically, once Arab/Mid-East terrorists are back in their bottle, we would then turn to Ireland?!
Israel doesn't want a Palestine State and the Palestininans don't want a Jewish State. There is no intention to have negotiations regardless of who leads the Palestinians or who leads Israel. Ever present will be reasons and provocations.
If Bush thinks his two-state solution, expressed in the SOTU, is in America's best interest, the he should unlock these two from their mutual death embrace.
The irony is that even a hypothetical "one-state solution" probably wouldn't change things very much. The region that encompasses Israel and the disputed territories would likely be a dysfunctional, unsustainable nation if there were no Israelis there, or if there were no Palestinians there. It simply doesn't have enough assets to make it anything more than that.
I think Pat is a Libertarian. And Libertarian and Conservative really aren't the same thing. The Libertarians are being pushed out of the party by the porkers.
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