Whose War? (Israel’s “amen corner” has plans for America to fight many wars in the Middle East.)

The American Conservative ^ | March 24, 2003 | Patrick J. Buchanan

[rdb3]

C'mon, peeps! Take a step back and observe.

Buchanan's true motivation is... m-o-n-e-y. It's not America and for what she stands. It's not patriotism. It's simply m-o-n-e-y.

Now that he knows (as if he didn't already) he's not a true Presidential contender, he has found a nice little niche to play to that increases his bottom line.

That's it. Period. End of story. Open the church doors and pass the collection plate (no pun intended).

For those who say and/or think this is not true, ask yourselves these fundamental questions:

1. What purpose does it serve to divide the conservative movement (paleo-, neo-, traditional, and post-) against itself?
2. Why continue to submit treatises that place you directly at odds with others in your camp when you know that 99.8% of that camp disagrees with you?
3. Why do it so publicly? It's not about dissent, but about having a political tin-ear.
4. Why the absolute fascination with Jews?
5. Leftists are truly the enemies of America, yet Buchanan and his mental kin do not attack them. But if the subject is the Jews or the "neocon," this bunch attacks like my Prisa Canarios are going to attack when they are fully grown. Why is that?

I would use the word "irrational" to describe him, but that would be false. Buchanan knows what he's doing. Those like him know what they're doing as well.

For the love of money.

"All ya gotta do is say, 'Yes.'
--Floetry

[rdb3]

Today Rush said that Buchanan's statements have the net effect of dividing conservatives; I tend to agree.

I've been saying this selfsame thing for a long time.

Questions: If the conservative camp is divided, who benefits? And, if the division is brought about from inside the conservative camp, why is the divisive individual(s) tolerated?

"All ya gotta do is say, 'Yes.'"
Floetry

[WOSG]

"Why are Republicans siding with liberals? "

Because they are sharing the same idiocy.
The term is "fellow travellers".

As for what the "international Left" means,
the ANSWER my friend,
is blowin' in the wind ...

Just do a search on ANSWER on Free Republic and
you can get the sordid and ugly history of
the Stalinist (ie satanist) roots of the
anti-war-on-Iraq movement.

[Poohbah]

When you post PS like calling Mossadegh the "last poplularly elected leader" I cant take the rest of our post seriously.

Sorry, that is a fact. Like it or not, it is a fact.

As others have noted, that guy was doing what Chavez is doing today. He had dissovled the popularly elected bodies, moved against the constitutional monarch, and was centralizing power, all the while relying more and more on Communist party (Tudeh sp?) ... Without US intervention in 1952, it was going into USSR orbit.

Quite true. But irrelevant.

The PERCEPTIONS of the Iranian people in 1979 were, by and large, not in sync with your views. And perception is reality in this case.

You've bought into the 'sour grapes' inevitability thesis on 1979.

It was inevitable because of Shah Reza Pahlavi's fecklessness in the decade before the revolution. You had a monarch who didn't know whether he wanted to restore the the absolute monarchy of the Sassanid Empire (and pi$$ off the rest of the world in the process), or an enlightened constitutional monarch on very nice terms with the West (and thus looking like an American sock puppet to his subjects). He alternately ran a police state and coddled his political opposition (and he was doing this long before anyone was even asking "Jimmy who?" in 1976). He tried to sit between two stools, and fell on his a$$ for his trouble.

[Reverend Bob]

Go, Pat, Go! ...To France preferably.

I think he'd be right at home there. What a waste.

[republicman]

Pat you ignorant slut

1. We are going to war with Iraq so that Saddam can't wipe out American cities with Anthrax or chemical weapons, not because of Israel

2. Most of us "neo cons" are with Israel because they are a a westernized democracy dealing with islamo-nuts like the ones that blew up our two towers.

[republicman]

It's amazing how is that Jews are controlling the "neo conservative agenda" when the vast majority vote for democrats.

If Pat thought logically for two minutes, instead of just relying on his prejudices, he would see how incredibly wrong he is, and how foolish he looks for it.

[Poohbah]

If Pat thought logically for two minutes

...the strain would probably kill him :o)

[rmlew]

The latest edition of "The American Conservative" is out. Its title piece by Pat Buchanan is a screed against neoconservatives, Jewish conservative, Zionists and the Bush administration. http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
In it, Buchanan takes a page out of Holocaust Revisionists Joseph Sobran (http://www.sobran.com/fearofjews.shtml) and Michael Hoffman. In a strategy similar to leftist pre-emptive claims of "McCarthyism", Buchanan attempts to discredit the very notion that anti-Semites should be beyond the pale:
"Indeed, it is the charge of “anti-Semitism” itself that is toxic. For this venerable slander is designed to nullify public discourse by smearing and intimidating foes and censoring and blacklisting them and any who would publish them. Neocons say we attack them because they are Jewish. We do not. We attack them because their warmongering threatens our country, even as it finds a reliable echo in Ariel Sharon."

Essentially we have a populist making slanderous and bigoted claims and then trying to use the charges against him in a form of political Jujitsu. Like David Irving, Sobran, Hoffman, and Sami Al-Arian Buchanan infers that he is a victim of a conspiracy to silence dissent. Buchanan et all use this perverse victimology to discredit their opponents.

As the recent comments of Congressman Jim Moran show, mainstream leaders are picking up the anti-Semitism of the far-left and “far-right”. (Side prediction: Moran will not even be censured) How long is it before congressmen and even the NY Times begin to echo this "anti-anti-Semitism" claim, as cover for anti-Israel and conspiratorial charges?


It should come as no surprise that Buchanan shows himself to be out of step with reality when he writes:
"For America is about to make a momentous decision: whether to launch a series of wars in the Middle East that could ignite the Clash of Civilizations against which Harvard professor Samuel Huntington has warned, a war we believe would be a tragedy and a disaster for this Republic"
As if we are not already in a Clash of Civilizations? Perhaps someone needs to send a copy of Huntington's book to Pat with the appropriate sections highlighted. The clash is inherent and inevitable. 9-11 should have made that clear.
Pat understood the conflict in "Death of the West." Now he aligns himself with the neo-communist and Islamists trying to destroy Western Civilization, because he fears an open conflict that is already real. Like all appeasers, Buchanan is operating out of fear. Neville Chamberlain had real reasons to fear war in 1938. He failed to understand what Germany would do with Czechoslovakia’s industrial and military base, or how Allied failure to act would strengthen the diplomatic hand of Germany.

Let us imagine that we follow Buchanan's advise over the past year. We pull out of the Middle East and force a "peace plan" on Israel based on military guarantees. The embargo of Iraq is already fraying, with French Russian and Chinese military-parts sales to Iraq. Were the US to back down now, our allies in the region would be undermined, forcing them into a conciliatory stance on Iraq for fear of revolt. A decade hence, after Iran and possibly Iraq develop and/or procure nuclear arms and ICBM’s, will Buchanan support a war should Israel be attacked; of course not. He will recycle his old claims and use the existence of an Islamist bomb to justify the American betrayal. The only question is what country, if any, will be Buchanan’s Poland, his line in the sand. Will it be Russia, Greece, or Spain? (If you think I’m kidding about Spain, note that Bin Ladin reject western control of any land once held by Muslims. Take a good look at the maps of the Fatamid and Ottoman Empires.) Or will Pat and his ilk decide that the “America First” stand is to ignore threats to Europe and hope that the Atlantic and Pacific are barriers.

To modify a tired line used by Buchanan’s current allies and contributors to TAC: “The last refuge of coward is patriotism.” Buchanan will not fight the real enemy, so he lashes out at all those who would, claiming they are warmongers or have dual loyalties. The America First movement of the 1940’s (communists, progressives, populists, and fascists) would be proud.

[185JHP]

I used to like Buchanan. When he was a candidate, I read a list of 7 things he was in favor of, and I agreed with 6 of them. But I had a queasy feeling about his anti-Jewishness. He's got a problem there. Since then, his nuttiness has been exposed in other ways, like the "we should have stayed out of WWII" idiocy. Sad - he "coulda been a contenda."

[JohnGalt]

So you concede that you are sharing the same idiocy with Fred Barnes, Colin Powell and Joe Lieberman. I applaud your frankness, and agree with you.

Equating ANSWER with conservative dissent is like equating the Aryan Republican Army with the Republican victory of 1994. I see, you learned the tactic from Clinton.

[JohnGalt]

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification... And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils? Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

George Washington's Farewell Address

[dirtboy]

A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interest.

A washed-up populo-paleocon displays a warped notion of what this country's interests are:

Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends.

Since when did Pat ever give a rat's backside about these other countries? Oh, yeah, nowadays, since it suits his position - in other words, OTHER countries are a better place to determine the interests of this country than the elected leadership of this country...--- head scratch ---

[Howlin]

Hey, give the man a break; somebody's got to support him and his sistah!

[Howlin]

Don't you think it's funny that Pat named Kristol?

Kristol can hardly get a call returned from this White House and is STILL furious cause he didn't get a job in the administration.

[Howlin]

LOL........and here I thought I had lost my mind!

[Howlin]

one can only assume it would take nuclear devastation to get the point.

And then they'd say we deserved it because of our support of Israel.

[UbIwerks]

It was Molly Ivins.

No! It was William Safire.

Pat used to be pro Israel and anti - Arab. When criticism began flowing because of his support for ethnic Nazis (a policy he probably copied from then congressman Nixon), Pat cleverly turned anti-Israeli so he could say that the Jews were picking on him for his support of an even handed mid east policy.

It was calculation when he first started it, but now he has internalized it along with the anti-Semitism.