Posted on 09/18/2001 6:41:29 AM PDT by Pokey78
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:19 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
This is the part I disagree with. I don't our support is slavish or one-sided. And I do not see anything wrong with supporting a democracy in the area. Is there another democracy in the Middle East?
BAHAHAHAHA!!! Was that before he sold out his abortion stance to get some Reform party money?
Feel free.
Theory One is a canard at worst, a distorted view at best. Thoughtful people realize that bombing them all is not the right way to go about this. It would cause more problems than it would solve. The people in charge - the people Buchanan hates because they are where he wants to be - know this.
Theory Two espoused here by Pat Buchanan and elsewhere by libertarians and paleos is that Islamic Fundamentalism's hatred for the U.S. is linked to American intervention in Islamic homelands. Specific incidents of military aggression by the U.S. against Islamic peoples and by a decidedly pro-Israel tilt in our foreign policy are the cause and the goal is to get the U.S. out of Islamic territory.
Has the US been aggressive against all Islamic peoples? How would Kuwait answer this question? What about our support of the mujahadeen? We haven't exactly bombed the hell out of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, have we? Haven't we also been accused of arming some of those same Islamic countries?
My point is not to defend all of US foreign policy in the region. It is to show that our policies have not been focused on "aggression" against "Islamic peoples"....
....unless you include US support of Israel, and assume that support of Israel equals an attack on Islam. What a nice sentiment for Buchanan to align himself with. I'm not surprised, unfortunately.
To address the rest of your post, traderkirk, the goal should not be to kill every person who is anti-American, which is your deduction from your flawed Theory One. People, all over the world, should be able to think what they want to think. That is part of our freedom here - unfortunately beginning to be limited via political correctness and hate crimes laws - and it is something that billions of people have not really had the luxury to do.
Acting on those thoughts, however, especially violently, is another matter. If anti-American people of any religion want to take up arms, become suicide bombers, etc., then we will have to deal with them, no matter how many of them there are. But doing so will be their choice, not ours. And do you think they would stop if we were to pull out of Israel today? I don't.
And as far as the implications of Theory Two goes, you just might as well have put it in these terms: radical Islam dictates to America - stop support of Israel, and everything will be fine.
So how come Buchanan supports being dictated to by some foreign countries and peoples (radical Islam), but not others (Israel)?
We have plenty of oil if we would allow it to bubble up. We have enemies (Pat's enemies)in this country preventing us from getting it. Wonder who they might be! In effect, they are worst than OPEC.
America is seen as the main obstacle, this is due to the fact that America is as you pointed out reliant on Middle Eastern oil therefore America is a major stumbling bloc to a united Islamic Nation.
Therefore America is seen as a major target, with attacks such as these what they hope to achieve is one of two objectives.
Objective 1 America realises that her support of the pro Western States will be too costly therefore she will withdraw all military assets from the Middle East allowing the Islamic fundamentalists to carry out 1978/79 style Iranian revelations.
Or Objective 2, due to the scale of the atrocity the American government is forced by public opinion to carry out large scale reprisals against a number of Muslim countries, these operations will be used as the basis for more anti American propaganda with the Muslim countries and so hopefully inflame the Muslim population enough to carry out 1978/79 style Iranian revelations.
The outcome is to either push the west out of the Middle East or encourage the West to leave, they then hope to create a Super Islamic state.
I agree with Pat Buchanan analyst that with American withdrawal America will no longer be a target. This is because there are too many other major obstacles to achieving such an Arabic super state.
Saddam himself is a major obstacle unless he accepted as the leader of such a state he will not serve under another leader.
Other obstacles is the mutual suspicion each Arabic country has for each other, Israel has exploited this in her various fight for survival on more than one occasion.
The various differing forms of Islam and political leaderships in each of the states are another major obstacle.
Without American support and aid the Middle East will fragment into a number of regional wars that will make the Balkans look like a walk in the park.
Many see this as a good aim as the Arabs will be too busy slaughtering each other to worry about the West.
This is one idea being mooted about as a last resort.
Tony
Again, when you can show me I said that, then I said it. Until then you are engaging in a straw-man argument. But if it amuses you, continue at your own pace.
bin Laden wants the USA to leave the Middle East, to turn over the world's oil supply to bin Laden/Saddam.
Is Buchanan taking money for agreeing with bin Laden?
Enquiring minds want to know.
If you back theory two, you can still exact retribution for the crime against humanity commited last Tuesday (eye for and eye and all) but refrain from a clash of civilization slaughter on a scale unsen in human history.
Well said. Everyone is so worked up in war frenzy, fanned by a media that drowns in pathos ("how do you FEEL about your family being killed?" zoom in for close-up); and the media screams with "patriotism" where not long ago it scorned any kind of national feeling among Americans. No one is stopping to reflect before running headlong into possible destruction. Just calls for someone else (of course) to GO TO WAR!
Yes, they hate us for our values. How infantile and provincial.
That's the leftist communist view.
What is most pathetic about Buchanan is he isn't even original.
While we are at it,let's not forget that Pat and the Patsies want to reduce our military to nothing more than a reserve self-defense force.
That same military that could bomb Iraq into oblivion for ten years but could do nothing to protect the motherland? Tell me, what could your wet-dream military have done to prevent this? Killed everyone everywhere who did not openly profess complete loyalty and love for America and our vaunted "American values"? Not even Stalin had the stomache for that kind of slaughter. Yet you and your neocon buddies scream out for it without blinking an eye.
If you run foreign policy in binary, then "yes." If it's a bit more complex than that, "no."
Howdy.
Lots of posters more articulate than I, such as Cincinnatus, are doing a fine job of stuffing Pat back in his box.
Buchanan's biggest problem is that practically no one agrees with him. The libertarians and paleos have been preaching, and preaching, and preaching their doctrine of isolationism for YEARS, and NOBODY buys it.
Intellectual debate on Free Republic is the closest the Buchanan supporters will ever get to enacting their Luddite views.
Yes,let's surrender before the "bad mans comes back and hurts us again"!
BTW,if you think there really is such a thing as a guarantee of security,you shouldn't be allowed to cross the street by yourself. The fact is it is inevitable that NYC and DC WILL be attacked by terrorists using either/or/both suitcase nukes and biological warfare agents."Disengaging from the mid-east" will do nothing to prevent this from happening. Hell,it might even be American "Earth-Firsters" who do this instead of Islamic or other religious fundamentalists. Then again,rabid enviromentalism IS a religion for some people.
BTW,are you aware that some members of PETA think humans have no right to live on the planet Earth because "it belongs to the animals and we are trespassing."? There ain't no shortage of nutcases.
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