Infantile Nation

World Net Daily ^ | 9/25/07 | Pat Buchanan

[Thorin]

To the hysteriacs, Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and we are all at Munich – and we should behave like Churchill and gird for war.

This is absurd.

Hitler could destroy the Jewish population of Europe because he was able to conquer Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. Iran has no air force or navy we could not dispatch in a week and no nukes. Israel has 200 to 300 nuclear warheads and, if it believed its survival was at stake, could turn Tehran into toast in 10 minutes.

America and Iran have great differences, but also common interests. Among the latter, no Taliban in Kabul, no restoration of a Sunni Baathist dictatorship in Baghdad and support for the present governments. Iran cannot want a Sunni-Shia war in the region, which would make her an enemy of most Arabs, and she cannot want a major war with America, which could lead to the destruction and breakup of the nation where only half the people are Persians.

That is plenty to build a cold peace on, if the hysteriacs do not stampede us into another unnecessary war.

[Badeye]

‘Those who pushed for war against Iraq certainly didn’t tell us our boys would be coming home in body bags four years later. These are the same people pushing for war against Iran. We should consider how well their prior predictions worked out in evaluating what they are now telling us about Iran.’

Really? What part of ‘this war will outlast my Presidency’ confuses you? Iraq is just one front on this unusual warfare we are facing for at least two generations, perhaps longer.

The President was crystal clear about this.

[ketsu]

Buchanan is an idiot. The jihadis who smashed the WTC were all from 3rd world backwater nations too. It does not pay to ignore these threats. If billybob klintoon had taken appropriate action in the 1990’s when the threat first surfaced, a lot of later tragedy could have been averted.

Uuum... Saudi is hardly a "3rd world backwater", although you couldn't tell from their behavior. Yet Jorge and gang make kissy kissy and hold hands with the Saudis.

[DuncanWaring]

I hope it's a lot better than the "proof" that Saddam had WMDs.

Saddam himself proved he had WMDs.

He used them on the Kurds.

[MNJohnnie]

and if it does become a threat, Israel has the military might to deal with it.

NO they don't. NICE you and Paddy have feelings. Please stop confusing them with facts.

Israel is a very small country. It does not have a large enough air force to take out a country the size of Iran.

Israel does NOT have 200-300 nukes. In fact, the claim they have nukes at all is just so much rumor. There is no way to prove it since Israel has never conducted a nuke test.

As for the Iran attacking us in Iraq. The facts have been presented to you in dozens of threads. You simply put your hands over your eyes and scream "NO NO NO NO NO" That you want to cling to your emotional denial and "hide under the bed until the bed men go away" dogmas does NOT change the facts about Irans proxy war against US.

That you refuse, like Paddy, to see your silly Neo Isolationist dogmas are as unworkable in 2007 as Isolationism was in 1940 is YOUR problem, not ours. The rest of us all ready know how stupid this "hide under the bed" doctrine is in the post 09-11-01 world.

[ketsu]

The bulk of the world’s oil comes from that part of the world. The USA is dependent on the free flow of oil out of the ME. It can not allow any national to dominate that region.

Almost but not quite. The US doesn't need ME oil. The EU and Chinese do. Controlling the ME is all about controlling potential economic and military threats from other industrialized nations.

PNAC and the rest of the Bushies are quite clear about this behind closed doors. Read their Clinton era policy papers before they could hitch their wagon to the war on terror.

[Redleg Duke]

Pat’s off his meds again, I see.

[Thorin]

>>>>>The President was crystal clear about this.

No, he wasn't. Americans were led to believe that the war against Iraq would be quick and relatively painless. Cheney said we were witnessing the "last gasp" of the insurgecny years ago. Then there was that whole "mission accomplished" photo op.

But the Administration was crystal clear that Saddam had WMDs. He didn't, and we lost great credibility as a result.

[ketsu]

Israel does NOT have 200-300 nukes. In fact, the claim they have nukes at all is just so much rumor. There is no way to prove it since Israel has never conducted a nuke test.

They most definitely do. They also have second strike capability(subs).

Israel is not going anywhere.

[Alberta's Child]

in you rvietnam scenario, you fail to mention that we didn’t bring their leaders over here to forward their agendas to our colleges.

And in your Vietnam scenario, you fail to mention that many of their leaders now live in the U.S. and run laundromats, run Vietnamese restaurants, etc. LOL.

[ex-snook]

"This is the kind of thinking that has allowed Iran to wage a more-or-less covert terror war against us for the last 28 years with virtual impunity."

We have been at it a lot longer.

>From Wikipedia. There's more for those who want to know truth.
In 1951, a nationalist politician, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, BP) which controlled the country's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and began plotting to depose Mossadegh. Members of the British Intelligence Service invited the United States to join them, convincing U.S. President Eisenhower that Mossadegh was reliant on the Tudeh (Communist) Party to stay in power. In 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax, and the CIA took the lead in overthrowing Mossadegh and supporting a U.S.-friendly monarch; and for which the U.S. Government apologized in 2000.

The CIA faced many setbacks, but the covert operation soon went into full swing, conducted from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran under the leadership of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. Iranians were hired to protest Mossadegh and fight pro-Mossadegh demonstrators. Anti- and pro-monarchy protestors violently clashed in the streets, leaving almost three hundred dead. The operation was successful in triggering a coup, and within days, pro-Shah tanks stormed the capital and bombarded the Prime Minister's residence. Mossadegh surrendered, and was arrested on 19 August 1953. He was tried for treason, and sentenced to three years in prison. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi returned to power greatly strengthened and his rule became increasingly autocratic in the following years. With strong support from the U.S. and U.K., the Shah further modernized Iranian industry, but simultaneously crushed all forms of political opposition with his intelligence agency, SAVAK. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became an active critic of the Shah's White Revolution and publicly denounced the government. Khomeini, who was popular in religious circles, was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release in 1964, Khomeini publicly criticized the United States government. The Shah was persuaded to send him into exile by General Hassan Pakravan. Khomeini was sent first to Turkey, then to Iraq and finally to France. While in exile, he continued to denounce the Shah.

[Alberta's Child]

Don't blame Ahmadinejad for something that should be laid squarely at the feet of this administration. Iran became a far more potent threat to the region AFTER the U.S. invasion of Iraq than it ever was before.

For the life of me, I still can't understand why the U.S. would go out and topple a largely secular Ba'athist government in Iraq and replace it with a Shi'ite government whose relations with Iran would be far more amicable than Saddam Hussein's had been. Heck -- Ahmadinejad couldn't have done any better for Iran if he were sitting in the White House himself.

[MNJohnnie]

Those who pushed for war against Iraq certainly didn’t tell us our boys would be coming home in body bags four years later

Yeah they did. You were just too busy screaming your Neo Isolationist dogmas you didn’t bother to listen to single thing anyone told you.

This is going to be a long war. A different kind of war then any the USA has ever fought was TOLD you from day ONE. You are just to busy clinging to your emotion based denial to learn a single thing about the War. It is WAY past time you quit screaming the same absurdly ignorant dogmas you always scream and actually LEARN some thing about the war.

HERE is what we are up to in Iraq. LEARN it this time instead of arrogantly clinging to your ignorance.

Why Iraq

One of the really infuriating things in modern politics is the level of disinformation, misinformation, demagoguery and out right lying going on about the mission in Iraq. Democrats have spent the last 3+ years lying about Iraq out of a political calculation. The assumption is that the natural isolationist mindset of the average American voter, linked to the inherent Anti Americanism (what is misnamed the “Anti War movement”) of the more feverish Democrat activists (especially those running the US’s National “News” media) would restore them to national political dominance. The truth is the Democrat Party Leadership has simply lacked the courage to speak truth to whiners. The truth is that even if Al Gore won the 2000 election and 09-11 still happened we would be doing the EXACT same things in Iraq we are doing now.

Based on the political situation in the region left over from the 1991 Gulf War plus the domestic political consensus built up in BOTH parties since 1991 as well as fundamental military strategic laws, there was NO viable strategic choice for the US but to take out Iraq after finishing the initial operations in Afghanistan.

To start with Saddam’s Iraq was our most immediate threat. We could NOT commit significant military forces to another battle with Saddam hovering undefeated on our flank nor could we leave significant forces watching Saddam. The political containment of Iraq was breaking down. That what Oil for Food was all about. Oil for Food was an attempt by Iraq to break out of it’s diplomatic isolation and slip the shackles the UN Sanctions put on it’s military. There there was the US Strategic position to consider.

The War on Islamic Fascism is different sort of war. in facing this Asymmetrical threat, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone.

Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The “Holy” soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is mostly neutral in terms of guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).

Did any of the critics of liberating Iraq ever look at a map? Iraq, for which we had the political, legal and moral justifications to attack, is the strategic high ground of the Middle East. A Geographic barrier that severs ground communication between Iran and Syria apart as well as providing another front of attack in either state or into Saudi Arabia if needed.

There were other reasons to do Iraq but here is the strategic military reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.

Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. One has to wonder if the American people have either the emotional maturity, nor the intellect” to understand. It’s so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like “No Blood for Oil” or “We support the Troops, bring them home” or dumbest of all “We are creating terrorists” then to actually THINK.

Westerners in general, and the US citizens in particular seem to have trouble grasping the fundamental fact of this foe. These Islamic Fascists have NO desire to co-exist with them. The extremists see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. There is simply no way to coexist with people who completely believe their “god” will reward them for killing us.

So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest of the Jihadists realize we are serious. They same way killing enough Germans, Italians and Japanese eliminated the ideologies of Nazism, Fascism and Bushido.

Americans need to understand how Bin Laden and his ilk view us. In the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming “We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad” and recruit the next round of “holy warriors”. Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11-01 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it -

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Winston Churchill

[ketsu]

We have been at it a lot longer.

Why is it that people with a nuanced view of foreign policy only show up for the Buchanan flame threads?

[Thorin]

>>>>For the life of me, I still can't understand why the U.S. would go out and topple a largely secular Ba'athist government in Iraq and replace it with a Shi'ite government whose relations with Iran would be far more amicable than Saddam Hussein's had been. Heck -- Ahmadinejad couldn't have done any better for Iran if he were sitting in the White House himself.

You are exactly right. We removed the principal counterweight to Iran in the region and installed a government friendly to Iran in Iraq. Iran has been the greatest beneficiary of our invasion of Iraq to date.

[SoldierDad]

As Buchanan points out in the rest of the column, both the USSR and China were sending in weapons to kill our soldiers in Vietnam, yet we continued to talk to them

You don't know much about that region of the world, nor their belief systems, do you? 12th Imam - Worldwide Arab Caliphate - those mean anything to you? How about the reconsitution of the Persian Empire? Have you spent any time studying the history of these people? Pat Buchanan has not, that's obvious. But, then, he's only for closing our borders and living soley within the confines of those borders. Sorry, but the world doesn't work that way anymore, and I'm not intereted in giving near total control of the world's major oil reserves over to a bunch of Islamo-facists - how about you? Oh, and in case someone brings up the argument again about comparing the current situation with the USSR or China, try and think about the differences between the ideologies of those two countries and the Islamo-facists we're facing today. Not the same mind-sets in any way, shape, or form.

[Badeye]

The President was crystal clear about this.

No, he wasn’t. Americans were led to believe that the war against Iraq would be quick and relatively painless.

Your playing semantics here. You can look up the quote.

Iraq is one theater of this war. Its global. And we don’t have any means to declare it ‘over’. We’re not the ones that have been looking for a war since the early 1990’s, the jihadists are.

til they decided they’ve screwed up, it won’t end. To suggest otherwise is to demonstrate a misunderstanding of what it is we are facing as a nation.

[ketsu]

Nice cut and paste, but your talking points are all ex post facto(my new favorite term) rationalizations. The real justifications are there. Read up on the people who planned and executed the Iraq war. The detailed clear and specific goals, none of which are in your rousing propoganda.

[Little Ray]

Buchanan is a moron.
Hitler wasn’t a threat to world peace when he annexed the Rhineland and seized Czechoslovakia. We (more specifically, the Euroweenies) let him GROW into a menace.
Better to kill the infection now that to wait until it requires major surgery.

[MNJohnnie]

So basically what Paddy and his Freeper stooges are advocating is we run away and hide under our beds and create a power vacuum in the ME so that the Chinese and the Russians can dominate the Western world’s Oil supply thru their proxy Iran.

Which shows that like the Hysteric Left, the Rabid Right will under NO circumstance ever defend this nation. They are too busy clinging to their failed Neo Isolationist dogmas to realize the world has change a great deal since 1930.

[muleboy]

$4000+ per second is damned expensive flypaper