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.
Oh boy. You really need a lesson on how propagandists misrepresent statements through selective quotation. Here's the selection from Pat's 1977 column, IN CONTEXT:
Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him. But Hitlers 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."
This is a direct quote from Historian John Toland's award-winning biography, Adolf Hitler. To claim that someone is a Hitler admirer for honestly evaluating Hitler's skills and intellect is idiotic.
Later in the same column Buchanan writes:
"Men like Chamberlain and Daladier needed a moral justification for their acts of weakness and betrayal Almost alone among European statesmen, Churchill saw that under the guise of restoring Germany to her rightful place among nations Hitler was marching along the road toward a New Order where Western civilization would not survive. The vision lacking in the statesmen of 37 appears lacking as well in the men of 77."
Any idiot who can read can see that this column was no tribute to Hitler and expressed no admiration toward the evil genuis.
His outright and public denials of the holocaust's most gruesome extremes
Where has Buchanan denied the Holocaust?
Pat's insistence that we honor the nazi , jew-killer members of the SS
A lie. Pat never insisted on anything of the sort. All he did was support Reagan's decision to visit the Bitburg cemetary, and at no time during this visit did the Gipper honor any "Nazi, jew-killer members of the SS." I can't believe that someone on a conservative site would buy leftist propaganda about such a great conservative standard bearer as Reagan so uncritically.
If Pat is an anti-semite for supporting the Bitburg visit, than so is the greatest American president of the 20th century.
BTW, here is a good, even-handed account of what happened at Bitburg. Notice that Buchanan is nowhere mentioned.
Confronted with overwhelming evidence against your position to which you cannot respond, you resort to insults. How predictable.
To claim that someone is a Hitler admirer for honestly evaluating Hitler's skills and intellect is idiotic.
For many it is not idiotic; it is a calculated lie and smear. They know very well that most of the sheeple will never read and honestly evaluate what Buchanan actually wrote; hence their recklessness in throwing the Hitler/Nazi smear about.
In this regard most "conservatives" today are no different from liberals - to them, everyone who doesn't toe the line is a "Nazi", a "terrorist", or something somehow "unclean". Getting them to make distinctions other than "us" and "them" is mostly hopeless.
"Conservatives" have swallowed whole the myths which undergird the ruling elites; consequently they are incapable of true oppostion to these elites and their policies, even when they grasp what these are, which is seldom the case. In reality they are easily manipulated and easily herded sheeple.
end of debate...
Hitler was a highly decorated soldier from WW1, and had numerous citations for courage. But I suppose in your world, stating the truth makes one an anti-semite. Or perhaps aknowledging and evil man's streagths is verbotten.
I love it how you ignore the rest of Buchanan's column where he lays into the politicians who appeased Hitler, or where he called him a mass-murderer. I was wrong. You need no lessons in how liberals twist people's words. You have mastered the skill very well yourself.
Do you think that none of us have ever read several of the thousands of biographies of Adolph Hitler?
Biographies of Hitler are unanimous in their acknowledgement that a message-runner in the trenches of the First World War would have shown great personal physical courage.
Hitler's war service--and the personal courage he undoubtedly showed--gave him great cache in the elections among veterans and especially among the all-important Fussballmutti vote.
I wonder if you quite comprehend how counterproductive your mau-mauing rituals on these Empire vs Republic threads really are?
I suggest you read about Hitler's life and rise to power. You obviously know nothing about this evil genius. No, murdering unarmed women and childern is not couragous. What Toland was referring to was his service during WW1, and the cunning manner in which Hitler came to power, including his early attempts to subvert the Wiemar Republic. But why am I wasteing my time? You seem to enjoy your state of ignorance.
Do you lack basic reading comprehension skills? No one every said Hilter's genocide was courageous. It was his service as as SOLDIER IN WW1.
Where do you get this ridiculous idea that someone evil cannot be courageous? No one is endorsing the German cause in WW1. Everyone agrees that Hitler was evil in every aspect. Why is that inconsistent with him displaying great courage? Aknowledging the facts does not make one a Hitler admirer.
But if you want to delude yourself into thinking that evil men can't be courageous, I can't stop you. One day you're going to be in for one heck of a shock.
glad to see the nazi crowd here still spends lotsa time reading and repeating their accolades of praise for the little general's "virtues" and "courage."
Grow up. Learn the difference between aknowledging you enemy's strengths and praise.
Thus saith Robert Paulson, eminent WW2 historian.
Okay. Go on living in your fantasy world.
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