Posted on 09/11/2002 3:32:38 PM PDT by traditionalist
The fires had not yet gone out at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a year ago, before the War Party had introduced its revised plans for American empire. What many saw as a horrific atrocity and tragedy, they saw instantly as an opportunity to achieve U.S. hegemony over an alienated Islamic world.
President Bush initially directed America's righteous wrath and military power at al-Qaida. But in his "axis-of-evil" address, he signed on to the War Party's agenda.
What lies ahead? When America invades Iraq, it will have to destroy Saddam and all his weapons of mass destruction. Else, the war will have been a failure. And to ensure destruction of those weapons, we must occupy Iraq. If you would see what follows, pull out a map.
With Americans controlling Iraq, Syria is virtually surrounded by hostile powers: Israel on the Golan, Turks and Kurds to the north, U.S. power to the west in Iraq and south in Jordan. Syrian President Assad will be forced to pull his army out of Lebanon, leaving Israel free to reinvade Lebanon to settle accounts with Hezbollah.
Now look to Iran. With Americans occupying Iraq, Iran is completely surrounded: Americans and Turks to the west, U.S. power in the Gulf and Arabian Sea to the south, in Afghanistan to the east and in the old Soviet republics to the north. U.S. warplanes will be positioned to interdict any flights to Lebanon to support Hezbollah.
Iraq is the key to the Middle East. As long as we occupy Iraq, we are the hegemonic power in the region. And after we occupy it, a window of opportunity will open – to attack Syria and Iran before they acquire weapons of mass destruction.
This is the vision that enthralls the War Party – "World War IV," as they call it – a series of "cakewalks," short sharp wars on Iraq, Syria and Iran to eliminate the Islamic terrorist threat to us and Israel for generations.
No wonder Ariel Sharon and his Amen Corner are exhilarated. They see America's war on Iraq as killing off one enemy and giving Israel freedom to deal summarily with two more: Hezbollah and the Palestinians. Two jumps ahead of us, the Israelis are already talking up the need for us to deal with Libya, as well.
Anyone who believes America can finish Saddam and go home deceives himself. With Iraq's military crushed, the country will come apart. Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south will try to break away, and Iraq will be at the mercy of its mortal enemy, Iran. U.S. troops will have to remain to hold Iraq together, to find and destroy those weapons, to democratize the regime, and to deter Iran from biting off a chunk and dominating the Gulf.
Recall: After we crushed Germany and Japan in World War II, both were powerless to reassume their historic roles of containing Russia and China. So, America, at a cost of 100,000 dead in Vietnam and Korea, had to assume those roles. With Iraq in ruins, America will have to assume the permanent role of Policeman of the Persian Gulf.
But is this not a splendid vision, asks the War Party. After all, is this not America's day in the sun, her moment in history? And is not the crushing of Islamism and the modernization of the Arab world a cause worthy of a superpower's investment of considerable treasure and blood?
What is wrong with the War Party's vision?
Just this: Pro-American regimes in Cairo, Amman and Riyadh will be shaken to their foundations by the cataclysm unleashed as Americans smash Iraq, while Israelis crush Palestinians. Nor is Iran likely to passively await encirclement. Terror attacks seem certain. Nor is a militant Islam that holds in thrall scores of millions of believers from Morocco to Indonesia likely to welcome infidel America and Israel dictating the destiny of the Muslim world.
As for the pro-American regimes in Kabul and Pakistan, they are but one bullet away from becoming anti-American. And should the Royal House of Saud come crashing down, as the War Party ardently hopes, do they seriously believe a Vermont-style democracy will arise?
Since Desert Storm, America has chopped its fleets, air wings and ground troops by near 50 percent, while adding military commitments in the Balkans, Afghanistan, the Gulf and Central Asia. Invading and occupying Iraq will require hundreds of thousands of more troops.
We are running out of army. And while Americans have shown they will back wars fought with no conscripts and few casualties, the day is not far off when they will be asked to draft their sons to fight for empire, and many of those sons will not be coming home. That day, Americans will tell us whether they really wish to pay the blood tax that is the price of policing the War Party's empire.
It has not worked with Saddam.
In this case, it would be his destruction for hitting us somewhere, but he could hardly finish us. He might get one city, but we would pulverize Baghdad into glass along with him and his heirs.
You're assuming he gives two s**ts and a holler about his heirs. He's getting old and weak. He doesn't want to be assassinated by his own kids.
He is a tyrant, and they are usually cowards by nature. He enjoys being a tyrant. He is not religious and not a martyr. There is nothing to suggest he would give his life in this cause.
He's getting old, and there is word that he's getting sick. He truly does not want anyone to succeed him--he has a habit of shooting competent generals to avoid the potential threat they might pose to him.
He wants to remain the rich ruler of his regime. He wants to sell oil.
And if he would comply with ALL of the terms of the 1991 cease-fire, he could do just that. But he hasn't. So much for your theory that he's rational.
He also wants to be head of some Pan-Arab kingdom in his imagination. If he were to do what you say, he would be dead in the matter of hours and America will live on, injured for sure but hardly vanquished.
Like I said, he tends to ruthlessly kill potential successors. He might do this just to make sure that he goes out still on top, and achieve immortal glory in the Arab world at the same time.
Saddam does not appear insane as for example Kim Jung-Il of North Korea has shown himself to be.
OK, so you believe that al-Qaeda got the anthrax by ordering it from a comic book advertisement?
Yet we are not invading North Korea, which I think is a much bigger threat to us. Instead we are giving them more nuke technology and missiles so they will be able to hit us in the future.
Sorry, old chap, but this is another example of you not knowing whereof you speak.
You have to forgive their oversight. They go crazy when Pat tells truth they can't refute. You know the usual also includes guilt by association, half-truths, out-of-context - the whole KGB dossiers are searched. All because Pat is for America first.
That is a lie. Buchanan wholeheartedly supported our operations in Afganistan.
In deed, buchanan's present arguments are dated, demonstrating a cold war mentality. I remember all the arm chair generals who predicted sucessful operations in Afganistan would require overwhelming military power;
Buchanan was not one of them.
I can see you haven't read the Article. Buchanan is not asserting that the war against Hussein will be difficult. It is what comes afterwards, the occupation and governing of Iraq and perhaps a few other countries, that Buchanan is concerned about. This is an issue few dare to address. I hope Bush is considering it.
Given the fact that Bin Laden and radical Islamists seek the overthrow of secularist regimes like Saddam's, why would Saddam given them such potent weapons? Would he not be afraid that they would use them on him?
You're right, during the iran-iraq war, Iran used people as weapons (like Stalin did in WW2.) They lost an entire generation trying to push back Iraq. Their society is largely divided between the (now adult) children of the war dead who hate their gov't, and an extremely old ruling class. there have been massive protests against the ruling elites. Iran's leaders have to devote all their energy to preventing a revolution.
A phrase used to illustrate AIPAC's influence on Congress, which no one can deny is considerable.
During the Gulf crisis: "There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East -- the Israeli defense ministry and its 'amen corner' in the United States." ("McLaughlin Group," 8/26/90)
Are you denying AIPAC and similar groups were some of the loudest proponents of US intervention against Iraq?
In a 1977 column, Buchanan said that despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was "an individual of great courage...Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." (The Guardian, 1/14/92)
Pat was quoting a respected historian's analysis of Hitler's political success. What of the above is untrue?
Writing of "group fantasies of martyrdom," Buchanan challenged the historical record that thousands of Jews were gassed to death by diesel exhaust at Treblinka: "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody." (New Republic, 10/22/90)
Historians believe the Nazis used a diesel engine to gas people in Treblinka. This is strage, however, since diesel engines emit tiny amounts of carbon monoxide, so using their exhaust to kill people would be strikingly inefficient. If you ran a gasoline engine in your garage with all doors and windows closed, you would die in a few minutes, but not if you ran a diesel engine..
Some historians ran an experiment whereby they built a replica of Treblinka's chamber, put animals into it, and ran a Diesel engine. It killed, but only after a substantial amount of time (it wouldn't kill in your garage because unlike the chamber your garage isn't totally sealed). So Diesel engines can kill, and that the Nazi's used one is well established, but why they chose this rather inefficient manner of killing is quite a curiousity, and I see no reason why commenting on it is antisemitic.
Buchanan's columns have run in the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight, the German-American National PAC newsletter and other publications that claim Nazi death camps are a Zionist concoction.
Guilt by assosiation. Just because a person's article appears in a publication does not imply that the person agrees with the publican's editorial agenda. Pat writes synidacted columns. Anyone can buy them and print them, and it would not be difficult for an obscure publication with a low profile to print one without Buchanan's authorization.
Buchanan called for closing the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which prosecuted Nazi war criminals, because it was "running down 70-year-old camp guards." (New York Times, 4/21/87)
It just so turns out that this office ended up persecuting some innocent men. Besides, prosecution of Nazi war criminals is already being handeled by Israel and various international bodies. Why does the US government need to duplicate their efforts? Is not cooperation of local law enforcement enough?
Buchanan was vehement in pushing President Reagan -- despite protests -- to visit Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where Nazi SS troops were buried.
An insult to one the the greatest American presidents of all time. It is shameless how the neocons go along with the liberal lie that Reagan was controlled by his advisors.
At a White House meeting, Buchanan reportedly reminded Jewish leaders that they were "Americans first" -- and repeatedly scrawled the phrase "Succumbing to the pressure of the Jews" in his notebook.
Documentation please.
Buchanan was credited with crafting Ronald Reagan's line that the SS troops buried at Bitburg were "victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." (New York Times, 5/16/85; New Republic, 1/22/96)
Reagan was his own man, and those words were his own. The allegation that Buchanan wrote them is a lie perpetuated by Norm Podhoretz.
After Cardinal O'Connor criticized anti-Semitism during the controversy over construction of a convent near Auschwitz, Buchanan wrote: "If U.S. Jewry takes the clucking appeasement of the Catholic cardinalate as indicative of our submission, it is mistaken. When Cardinal O'Connor of New York seeks to soothe the always irate Elie Wiesel by reassuring him 'there are many Catholics who are anti-Semitic'...he speaks for himself. Be not afraid, Your Eminence; just step aside, there are bishops and priests ready to assume the role of defender of the faith." (New Republic, 10/22/90)
A couragous defense of Polish nuns whose actions were unfairly villified by the likes of ADL and AIPAC, a vilification which O'Connor was too cowardly to resist. What is antisemitic about building a convent near, not in, Auschwitz? Recall, that there were thousands of Christian vicitims killed there as well.
Are you now going to say the Pope is antisemitic for placing the cross in the field next to Auschwitz?
The Buchanan '96 campaign's World Wide Web site included an article blaming the death of White House aide Vincent Foster on the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad -- and alleging that Foster and Hillary Clinton were Mossad spies. (The campaign removed the article after its existence was reported by a Jewish on-line news service; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2/21/96.)
Okay, so some campaign staffer posted a wacky conspiracy theory article. Big deal. You cannot deny, however, that Foster's death is rather mysterious, and that there is a high possibility of foul play involved.
to me, people who make such statements in writing repeatedly are antisemetic jew haters... there are so many quotes of Batty Pukaanan expressing vileness about jews,
You haven't presented a single one yet.
Yes, we confront Islamic radicals now, but Saddam is not one of them.
Okay, but why wouldn't he be afraid of them using the WMD on him? They hate us more than him, but they also don't like him. Saddam's no fool. He's not going to strengthen the hand of a potential adversary.
I beg to differ, but let's assume Iraq would. It is at least as likely, and I believe more so, that North Korea, Pakistan, and the Muslim Slavic nations ringing the south of Russia would provide this material too. It's also just as likely any of this stuff could be cooked up by some wildcat group in Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, or even in various European and North American cities. In fact, assuming you bomb Iraq into the Stone Age, I guarantee you that terrorist groups will find another source.
Unless you plan on raising taxes, floating more debt, and reinstating the draft to finance the next Hundred Years War, you'll need a different plan other than to bomb one of the few secular Muslim regimes in the Middle East.
So he never sent most of his Air Force to Iran in 1991? Whoops, he did.
In that portion of the world, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is taken very seriously. Muslims fanatics and Saddam both hate the US more than they hate each other.
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