The War Party's imperial plans

World Net Daily ^ | 9/11/2002 | Pat Buchanan

[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.

[DrLiberty]

Dont hold your breath waiting for facts from this crowd.

Anyone who doesn't toe the party line (ie, Israel First) will find themselves on the receivng end of a stream of vile diatribe. Anti-Semite, Arab-lover, Islamist, etc. Always with the personal attacks.

I myself am not Anti-Israel, I believe we have to defend them, but not at any expense. Their agenda and ours can't always be the same, although you'll find no end of those who believe that America must always serve Israel's interests first. What's worse is their vitriol for those who don't agree and their outrageous self-righteousness and hypocrasy.

Pat Buchanan is a prime example of what happens to those who don't go along. His views were much more inline with the constitution and traditional conservatism than Bob Dole's in 1996, but the long knives came out and slammed him to the mat with the most damnable propaganda.

I will not fight for Israel or the UN. Only America.

[DrLiberty]

How about defending our borders first before going pell-mell playing globo-cop all over the world? Doesn't that make more sense?

And even if you had decided to be Globo-cop (which we pretty much have) why wouldn't you secure your borders (and your immigration and visa programs)first before going out to slay all the monsters? Even the knights of medieval days had body armor and shields to defend themselves. What country or entity ever survived by only going on the offense and not defending itself from attack?

That is how empires are crushed. By overreach and not defending their homelands. It is a dangerous world indeed. We also need to get rid of the traitorous swine in this country in high positions. Wouldn't you agree? Or is that off-limits because, as our President said, you are with us or against us? The enemy is within and they are the globalists who put their religion "globalism/free trade/NWO" above America, the constitution and freedom.

[hchutch]

Israel First?

No, I merely heed the advice of Winston Churchill - advice proven correct after the folly of Munich that occured in 1938:

"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."

Or, as Patrick Henry put it:

"There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! ... Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

We have no other honorable option. We must ally ourselves with those nations that share our ideals, and have the courage to stand for them. We should provide them with aid. If that is not sufficient, we should be the arsenal of freedom and liberty. And if that is not sufficient, then we have no other honorable course but to fight for the very ideals that men risked their lives for in what is now known as Independence Hall on that hot July afternoon in 1776 when the outcome was far from certain.

I'll stand with the likes of Churchill, Jefferson, and Henry over Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul.

[FreedomFriend]

Then you're against George Washington. Listen, we haven't won a decidable war since WWII. I'm of the opinion that America should use a true-defensive approach only and stay out of foreign entanglements. The only exceptions being when our VITAL INTERESTS deem it.

[Senator_Palpatine]

"Together,we shall bring Peace and Prosperity to the Republic.."

"BEGIN LANDING YOUR TROOPS"

[x]

While I still think Pat's morally tone deaf to let this be published today, he does raise an important point. If we go into Iraq, what do we do next? What is our eventual exit strategy, if we have one? What do we hope or expect to leave behind. How realistic are those hopes and expectations? Is the coming war really likely to leave us more secure?

Iraq was the frontier of both the Roman and the British empires. The turbulent history of Iraq under the British protectorate and afterwards suggests how difficult it would be to rule the country. The Wall Street Journal once suggested that we could have a McArthur style regency over the country. I suspect the reality may be more like Haiti or Nicaragua, a country that we are continually compelled to intervene in to settle its affairs "once and for all." An important difference, though, is that overall Latin American resentment of the norteamericanos is much less than Muslim anger at the West. Thus we could have a low-level war with terrorist acts and military flair ups for a very long time. The current enthusiasm for empire forgets about the violent, on-going resistance to it.

[hchutch]

You're putting words into my post. In 1797, it was the proper course for a small republic dwarfed by European empires.

But this is NOT 1797. The circumstances HAVE changed to a large extent. We are not a small republic dwarfed by European empires any longer, and haven't been for a long time.

Back when Jefferson sent the Navy to fight the Barbary pirates, we were less than a decade removed from Washington's address and his words. The men running the government then knew the words, and they also knew the man who said them. George Washington, who you say I stand against, would not be part of ANY effort to appease a dictator when we had the power to stop him.

Washington would not wait to see a repeat use of airliners against skyscrapers. Nor would he await the provocation of a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack against us. Protecting our citizens IS a VITAL INTEREST. Particularly when there are those who choose to attack our citizens because we have made the choice to stand by those nations that share our ideals.

YOU need to listen: Appeasement is not honorable, nor have we EVER appeased any dictator or terrorist who made demands of us. We did not give in to the French when they demanded bribes, in what became the XYZ affair and the quasi-war with France. We did not give in when the Barbary Pirates demanded tribute. We did not give in when the British impressed our sailors. We did not give in when Mexico tried to take Texas from us by force. We did not give in when the Germans began torpedoing our ships. We did not give in when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. We did not give in when South Korea was attacked. Sadly, we gave in after the Vietnam War (may God forgive us for doing so). We did NOT give in when Saddam Hussein attacked our ally, Kuwait. We did not give in to Osama bin Laden after 9/11. And we sure as hell had better not give in to Saddam Hussein now.

George Washington did not give in when the Whiskey Rebellion started, did he? He'd be with Churchill and Henry, not Buchanan and Paul. Of that, I am certain.

[SteamshipTime]

Now, we have to ask ourselves if we as a nation still care enough about the principles that the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor for to assist others who need to "alter or abolish" the regimes that have become destructive of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or even to do the "alter or abolish" portion ourselves, as we did 60 years ago with Germany and Japan.

I'm looking for the enumerated power that says government must guarantee social democracy to every nation on earth. Can you help me find it?

[Isle of sanity in CA]

Pro-American regimes in Cairo, Amman and Riyadh

Pat has a great future in stand-up.

I knew Pat had getting a little weird lately, but has he lost his mind? It's that damn Perot party that did this to him!

[Isle of sanity in CA]

What is a chickenhawk?

[Isle of sanity in CA]

I do agree with his fears of becoming semi-permanent policemen of the Middle-East.

We already are. Most of the Pacific Fleet deploys for the Persian Gulf for 3 months at a time (+transit). I'm assuming a good portion of Atlantic Fleet does as well. Not to mention air bases in Saudi Arabia, Turkey. Navy bases in U.A.E still (I think.) We've been there for 10 years and the situation hasn't improved. I'd vote to hit hard, stay a few more years, and then get out. We shoulda finished the job before, but...

[Robert_Paulson2]

ON JEWS:

Buchanan referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory." (St. Louis Post Dispatch, 10/20/90)

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)

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)

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) 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.

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)

Buchanan was vehement in pushing President Reagan -- despite protests -- to visit Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where Nazi SS troops were buried. 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. 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)

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)

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.)


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, on the internet, cataloguing them would take weeks. YOu can choose your own bedfellows and fellow travellors... but Batty Pat, will be travelling without me, for I believe from what he says and what he has done... he is a hater of the jews...

You KNEW pat has said and done such things... and probably see nothing wrong with him, or them. Perhaps you are in agreement with him... Pat has a lot of fellow travelors in his entourage of anti semites. Follow him if you want. Count me out. He who hates the Jew is inviting the curse of God...

Like I said... you can and will make your own choices as to who your fellow travelers are in life. I choose to REJECT pat and his suaree of jew haters.

[Isle of sanity in CA]

Pat Buchanan--the anit-semitic isolationist. I can't believe I was once of fan.

Pat & McKinney don't like them J-E-W-S do they?

[dread78645]

I'll admit that Mr. Buchanan has major game.

I'll let you figure out just what I mean by "game."

"sniff, sniff. Yep, it smells game to me."`

[Isle of sanity in CA]

Then you're against George Washington. Listen, we haven't won a decidable war since WWII. I'm of the opinion that America should use a true-defensive approach only and stay out of foreign entanglements.

It's a lot smaller world than when George Washington lived. There weren't NBC weapons during Washington's time. There wasn't OIL during Washington's time. What do you think George Washington would think of a car? Should we abandon cars because he preferred horses?

[tallhappy]

Pat is a Patriot

Maybe once upon a time.

Now he's a lost sad soul.

[bigunreal]

You left out "racist," "nazi," and "xenophobe," just to name a few of the most popular politically correct names you could have called him. You really ought to be armed with more pejorative labels if you're going to make the typical establishment argument against reason and common sense.

[CWOJackson]

Buchanan was equally as vocal in his opposition to Desert Storm. During Operation Desert Shield he was predicting that if we went into Kuwait we would become bogged down in protracted war and thousands of our men and women would be coming home in body bags.

He was utterly wrong.

Following 9/11, when it became apparent that our President was going to commit troops in Afganistan, buchanan was again very vocal in his opposition, siting the previous defeats of the Soviet Union and England and predicting a protracted conflict with many casualties.

He was completely wrong.

buchanan starts out this latest essay with, "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." It should also be remembered that while the same fires were still smoldering, buchanan's friend raimondo was posting his screed gleefully announcing how the 9/11 attack had driven America to it's knees and paralized the nation.

buchanan's opening comments concerning the so-called "War Party" are pure speculation to fuel his rhetoric, raimondo's article, was reality.

As for the rest of buchanan's article, while it might appear a well balanced and thought provoking piece, there is little in it that suggests to me that buchanan's predictions will be any more accurate then his previous predictions for Kuwait and Afganistan...absolutely wrong.

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; nothing less than Desert Storm strength. And there were always the reminders concerning the failed Soviet invasion and the coming terrible Afgan winter that would make operations next to impossible.

While these arm chair generals, and an aging political speech writer manuvered hugh armies through their battle plans and made their bold predictions of doom, our President sent in a relatively small force of special operations units, not an invasion force. These forces were supported by a weapon not in the buchanan war plans, diplomacy.

We all know Stormin Norman's quote concerning Saddam's military prowess...it would seem Saddam and buchanan studied at the same staff war college.

[hchutch]

Would you rather turn on Fox News and watch news coverage of a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack on one of our cities? That is the alternative to going out and fighting now, before the terrorists get their hands on that material.

The likely provider of that material is Iraq. We need to take him out before he gives the terrorists something new to play with.

[Poohbah]

Some people are under the delusion that if they don't see the rest of the world, the rest of the world won't see us.