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Thread ID: 5485 | Posts: 39 | Started: 2003-03-11

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weisbrot [OP]

2003-03-11 17:32 | User Profile

According to Drudge, the next issue of American Conservative will feature Pat Buchanan finally strapping some truth onto the neoconservatives and their ethnic leadership. If true, it would validate the musings about attacks on CofC and other seemingly simpering "correct" articles run by AmCon being a sort of preemptive defense for what was to come.

This should be fun...

Buchanan Charges Neocons With 'Warmongering' Tue Mar 11 2003 11:53:48 ET

In this week's AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, editor Pat Buchanan issues a controversial, 5000-word indictment of the 'War Party' of Bennett, Kristol, Podhoretz and Richard Perle.

MORE

The magazine will hit newsstands and bookstores tomorrow. With quotes and citations, Buchanan alleges:

'War Party' ideas and plans for an attack on Iraq had been 'in preparation far in advance of 9/11, and when President Bush was looking for a new front,' the neocons 'put their precooked meal in front of him. And Bush dug into it.'

Richard Perle wrote a paper urging Israeli PM Netanyahu to dump the Oslo Peace Accords and target Iraq -- five years before 9/11.

Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith urged Israel to ditch the Oslo and take back the West Bank though 'the price in blood would be high,' three years before the Camp David talks.

Pentagon official David Wurmser urged the U.S. to act in concert with Israel to 'strike fatally...the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran and Gaza' -- nine months before 9/11.

Bennett, Kristol, Podhoretz 'seized on the horrific atrocity [of September 11] to steer America¹s rage into all-out war to destroy their despised enemies, the Arab and Islamic Œrogue states that have resisted U.S. hegemony and loathe Israel.'

The neocon vision is 'to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel....[They] seek American empire and the Sharonites seem hegemony over the Middle East. The two agendas coincide precisely.'

Buchanan charges Max Boot of the WSJ and Lawrence Kaplan of New Republic with 'playing the anti-Semitic card....to fend off critics by assassinating their character and impugning their motives.'

Developing....

Zoroaster

2003-03-11 17:49 | User Profile

This is good news.

Bay Buchanan is bad news. Yesterday on Buchanan and Press she announced her support for Bush's war. She might have ruined Pat's campaign for president. Pat ought to muzzle her.

-Z-

Ed Toner

2003-03-11 21:26 | User Profile

I think Pat has it right. When he made a run at President in 1994, I was his delegate, NJ 4th CD.

[url=http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html]http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html[/url]

The American Conservative. March 24, 2003

Whose War?

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

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged. In a rare moment in U.S. journalism, Tim Russert put this question directly to Richard Perle: “Can you assure American viewers ... that we’re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?”

Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group. People who claim to be writing the foreign policy of the world superpower, one would think, would be a little more manly in the schoolyard of politics. Not so.

Former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot kicked off the campaign. When these “Buchananites toss around ‘neoconservative’—and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen—it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is ‘Jewish conservative.’” Yet Boot readily concedes that a passionate attachment to Israel is a “key tenet of neoconservatism.” He also claims that the National Security Strategy of President Bush “sounds as if it could have come straight out from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible.” (For the uninitiated, Commentary, the bible in which Boot seeks divine guidance, is the monthly of the American Jewish Committee.)

David Brooks of the Weekly Standard wails that attacks based on the Israel tie have put him through personal hell: “Now I get a steady stream of anti-Semitic screeds in my e-mail, my voicemail and in my mailbox. ... Anti-Semitism is alive and thriving. It’s just that its epicenter is no longer on the Buchananite Right, but on the peace-movement left.”

Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan endures his own purgatory abroad: “In London ... one finds Britain’s finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the ‘neoconservative’ (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy.”

Lawrence Kaplan of the New Republic charges that our little magazine “has been transformed into a forum for those who contend that President Bush has become a client of ... Ariel Sharon and the ‘neoconservative war party.’”

Referencing Charles Lindbergh, he accuses Paul Schroeder, Chris Matthews, Robert Novak, Georgie Anne Geyer, Jason Vest of the Nation, and Gary Hart of implying that “members of the Bush team have been doing Israel’s bidding and, by extension, exhibiting ‘dual loyalties.’” Kaplan thunders:

The real problem with such claims is not just that they are untrue. The problem is that they are toxic. Invoking the specter of dual loyalty to mute criticism and debate amounts to more than the everyday pollution of public discourse. It is the nullification of public discourse, for how can one refute accusations grounded in ethnicity? The charges are, ipso facto, impossible to disprove. And so they are meant to be.

What is going on here? Slate’s Mickey Kaus nails it in the headline of his retort: “Lawrence Kaplan Plays the Anti-Semitic Card.”

What Kaplan, Brooks, Boot, and Kagan are doing is what the Rev. Jesse Jackson does when caught with some mammoth contribution from a Fortune 500 company he has lately accused of discriminating. He plays the race card. So, too, the neoconservatives are trying to fend off critics by assassinating their character and impugning their motives.

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.

And this time the boys have cried “wolf” once too often. It is not working. As Kaus notes, Kaplan’s own New Republic carries Harvard professor Stanley Hoffman. In writing of the four power centers in this capital that are clamoring for war, Hoffman himself describes the fourth thus:

And, finally, there is a loose collection of friends of Israel, who believe in the identity of interests between the Jewish state and the United States. … These analysts look on foreign policy through the lens of one dominant concern: Is it good or bad for Israel? Since that nation’s founding in 1948, these thinkers have never been in very good odor at the State Department, but now they are well ensconced in the Pentagon, around such strategists as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

“If Stanley Hoffman can say this,” asks Kaus, “why can’t Chris Matthews?” Kaus also notes that Kaplan somehow failed to mention the most devastating piece tying the neoconservatives to Sharon and his Likud Party.

In a Feb. 9 front-page article in the Washington Post, Robert Kaiser quotes a senior U.S. official as saying, “The Likudniks are really in charge now.” Kaiser names Perle, Wolfowitz, and Feith as members of a pro-Israel network inside the administration and adds David Wurmser of the Defense Department and Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council. (Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, editor emeritus of Commentary, whose magazine has for decades branded critics of Israel as anti-Semites.)

Noting that Sharon repeatedly claims a “special closeness” to the Bushites, Kaiser writes, “For the first time a U.S. administration and a Likud government are pursuing nearly identical policies.” And a valid question is: how did this come to be, and while it is surely in Sharon’s interest, is it in America’s interest?

This is a time for truth. 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. To avert this war, to answer the neocon smears, we ask that our readers review their agenda as stated in their words. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As Al Smith used to say, “Nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.”

We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity.

Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends. Far worse, President Bush is being lured into a trap baited for him by these neocons that could cost him his office and cause America to forfeit years of peace won for us by the sacrifices of two generations in the Cold War.

They charge us with anti-Semitism—i.e., a hatred of Jews for their faith, heritage, or ancestry. False. The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a “passionate attachment” to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what’s good for Israel is good for America.

The Neoconservatives

Who are the neoconservatives? The first generation were ex-liberals, socialists, and Trotskyites, boat-people from the McGovern revolution who rafted over to the GOP at the end of conservatism’s long march to power with Ronald Reagan in 1980.

A neoconservative, wrote Kevin Phillips back then, is more likely to be a magazine editor than a bricklayer. Today, he or she is more likely to be a resident scholar at a public policy institute such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) or one of its clones like the Center for Security Policy or the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). As one wag writes, a neocon is more familiar with the inside of a think tank than an Abrams tank.

Almost none came out of the business world or military, and few if any came out of the Goldwater campaign. The heroes they invoke are Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, Martin Luther King, and Democratic Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson (Wash.) and Pat Moynihan (N.Y.).

All are interventionists who regard Stakhanovite support of Israel as a defining characteristic of their breed. Among their luminaries are Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, Michael Novak, and James Q. Wilson.

Their publications include the Weekly Standard, Commentary, the New Republic, National Review, and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Though few in number, they wield disproportionate power through control of the conservative foundations and magazines, through their syndicated columns, and by attaching themselves to men of power.

Beating the War Drums

When the Cold War ended, these neoconservatives began casting about for a new crusade to give meaning to their lives. On Sept. 11, their time came. They seized on that horrific atrocity to steer America’s rage into all-out war to destroy their despised enemies, the Arab and Islamic “rogue states” that have resisted U.S. hegemony and loathe Israel.

The War Party’s plan, however, had been in preparation far in advance of 9/11. And when President Bush, after defeating the Taliban, was looking for a new front in the war on terror, they put their precooked meal in front of him. Bush dug into it.

Before introducing the script-writers of America’s future wars, consider the rapid and synchronized reaction of the neocons to what happened after that fateful day.

On Sept. 12, Americans were still in shock when Bill Bennett told CNN that we were in “a struggle between good and evil,” that the Congress must declare war on “militant Islam,” and that “overwhelming force” must be used. Bennett cited Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and China as targets for attack. Not, however, Afghanistan, the sanctuary of Osama’s terrorists. How did Bennett know which nations must be smashed before he had any idea who attacked us?

The Wall Street Journal immediately offered up a specific target list, calling for U.S. air strikes on “terrorist camps in Syria, Sudan, Libya, and Algeria, and perhaps even in parts of Egypt.” Yet, not one of Bennett’s six countries, nor one of these five, had anything to do with 9/11.

On Sept. 15, according to Bob Woodward’s Bush at War, “Paul Wolfowitz put forth military arguments to justify a U.S. attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan.” Why Iraq? Because, Wolfowitz argued in the War Cabinet, while “attacking Afghanistan would be uncertain … Iraq was a brittle oppressive regime that might break easily. It was doable.”

On Sept. 20, forty neoconservatives sent an open letter to the White House instructing President Bush on how the war on terror must be conducted. Signed by Bennett, Podhoretz, Kirkpatrick, Perle, Kristol, and Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, the letter was an ultimatum. To retain the signers’ support, the president was told, he must target Hezbollah for destruction, retaliate against Syria and Iran if they refuse to sever ties to Hezbollah, and overthrow Saddam. Any failure to attack Iraq, the signers warned Bush, “will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism.”

Here was a cabal of intellectuals telling the Commander-in-Chief, nine days after an attack on America, that if he did not follow their war plans, he would be charged with surrendering to terror. Yet, Hezbollah had nothing to do with 9/11. What had Hezbollah done? Hezbollah had humiliated Israel by driving its army out of Lebanon.

President Bush had been warned. He was to exploit the attack of 9/11 to launch a series of wars on Arab regimes, none of which had attacked us. All, however, were enemies of Israel. “Bibi” Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister of Israel, like some latter-day Citizen Genet, was ubiquitous on American television, calling for us to crush the “Empire of Terror.” The “Empire,” it turns out, consisted of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, and “the Palestinian enclave.”

Nasty as some of these regimes and groups might be, what had they done to the United States?

The War Party seemed desperate to get a Middle East war going before America had second thoughts. Tom Donnelly of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) called for an immediate invasion of Iraq. “Nor need the attack await the deployment of half a million troops. … [T]he larger challenge will be occupying Iraq after the fighting is over,” he wrote.

Donnelly was echoed by Jonah Goldberg of National Review: “The United States needs to go to war with Iraq because it needs to go to war with someone in the region and Iraq makes the most sense.”

Goldberg endorsed “the Ledeen Doctrine” of ex-Pentagon official Michael Ledeen, which Goldberg described thus: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business.” (When the French ambassador in London, at a dinner party, asked why we should risk World War III over some “sh*tty little country”—meaning Israel—Goldberg’s magazine was not amused.)

Ledeen, however, is less frivolous. In The War Against the Terror Masters, he identifies the exact regimes America must destroy:

First and foremost, we must bring down the terror regimes, beginning with the Big Three: Iran, Iraq, and Syria. And then we have to come to grips with Saudi Arabia. … Once the tyrants in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia have been brought down, we will remain engaged. …We have to ensure the fulfillment of the democratic revolution. … Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize.

Rejecting stability as “an unworthy American mission,” Ledeen goes on to define America’s authentic “historic mission”:

Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. … [W]e must destroy them to advance our historic mission.

Passages like this owe more to Leon Trotsky than to Robert Taft and betray a Jacobin streak in neoconservatism that cannot be reconciled with any concept of true conservatism.

To the Weekly Standard, Ledeen’s enemies list was too restrictive. We must not only declare war on terror networks and states that harbor terrorists, said the Standard, we should launch wars on “any group or government inclined to support or sustain others like them in the future.”

Robert Kagan and William Kristol were giddy with excitement at the prospect of Armageddon. The coming war “is going to spread and engulf a number of countries. … It is going to resemble the clash of civilizations that everyone has hoped to avoid. … [I]t is possible that the demise of some ‘moderate’ Arab regimes may be just round the corner.”

Norman Podhoretz in Commentary even outdid Kristol’s Standard, rhapsodizing that we should embrace a war of civilizations, as it is George W. Bush’s mission “to fight World War IV—the war against militant Islam.” By his count, the regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown are not confined to the three singled-out members of the axis of evil (Iraq, Iran, North Korea). At a minimum, the axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as ‘“friends” of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority. Bush must reject the “timorous counsels” of the “incorrigibly cautious Colin Powell,” wrote Podhoretz, and “find the stomach to impose a new political culture on the defeated” Islamic world. As the war against al-Qaeda required that we destroy the Taliban, Podhoretz wrote,

We may willy-nilly find ourselves forced … to topple five or six or seven more tyrannies in the Islamic world (including that other sponsor of terrorism, Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority). I can even [imagine] the turmoil of this war leading to some new species of an imperial mission for America, whose purpose would be to oversee the emergence of successor governments in the region more amenable to reform and modernization than the despotisms now in place. … I can also envisage the establishment of some kind of American protectorate over the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, as we more and more come to wonder why 7,000 princes should go on being permitted to exert so much leverage over us and everyone else.

Podhoretz credits Eliot Cohen with the phrase “World War IV.” Bush was shortly thereafter seen carrying about a gift copy of Cohen’s book that celebrates civilian mastery of the military in times of war, as exhibited by such leaders as Winston Churchill and David Ben Gurion.

A list of the Middle East regimes that Podhoretz, Bennett, Ledeen, Netanyahu, and the Wall Street Journal regard as targets for destruction thus includes Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and “militant Islam.”

Cui Bono? For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam?

Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud.

Indeed, Sharon has been everywhere the echo of his acolytes in America. In February 2003, Sharon told a delegation of Congressmen that, after Saddam’s regime is destroyed, it is of “vital importance” that the United States disarm Iran, Syria, and Libya.

“We have a great interest in shaping the Middle East the day after” the war on Iraq, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations. After U.S. troops enter Baghdad, the United States must generate “political, economic, diplomatic pressure” on Tehran, Mofaz admonished the American Jews.

Are the neoconservatives concerned about a war on Iraq bringing down friendly Arab governments? Not at all. They would welcome it.

“Mubarak is no great shakes,” says Richard Perle of the President of Egypt. “Surely we can do better than Mubarak.” Asked about the possibility that a war on Iraq—which he predicted would be a “cakewalk”—might upend governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, former UN ambassador Ken Adelman told Joshua Micah Marshall of Washington Monthly, “All the better if you ask me.”

On July 10, 2002, Perle invited a former aide to Lyndon LaRouche named Laurent Murawiec to address the Defense Policy Board. In a briefing that startled Henry Kissinger, Murawiec named Saudi Arabia as “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” of the United States.

Washington should give Riyadh an ultimatum, he said. Either you Saudis “prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain, including the Saudi intelligence services,” and end all propaganda against Israel, or we invade your country, seize your oil fields, and occupy Mecca.

In closing his PowerPoint presentation, Murawiec offered a “Grand Strategy for the Middle East.” “Iraq is the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot, Egypt the prize.” Leaked reports of Murawiec’s briefing did not indicate if anyone raised the question of how the Islamic world might respond to U.S. troops tramping around the grounds of the Great Mosque.

What these neoconservatives seek is to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel. They want the peace of the sword imposed on Islam and American soldiers to die if necessary to impose it.

Washington Times editor at large Arnaud de Borchgrave calls this the “Bush-Sharon Doctrine.” “Washington’s ‘Likudniks,’” he writes, “have been in charge of U.S. policy in the Middle East since Bush was sworn into office.”

The neocons seek American empire, and Sharonites seek hegemony over the Middle East. The two agendas coincide precisely. And though neocons insist that it was Sept. 11 that made the case for war on Iraq and militant Islam, the origins of their war plans go back far before.

“Securing the Realm”

The principal draftsman is Richard Perle, an aide to Sen. Scoop Jackson, who, in 1970, was overheard on a federal wiretap discussing classified information from the National Security Council with the Israeli Embassy. In Jews and American Politics, published in 1974, Stephen D. Isaacs wrote, “Richard Perle and Morris Amitay command a tiny army of Semitophiles on Capitol Hill and direct Jewish power in behalf of Jewish interests.” In 1983, the New York Times reported that Perle had taken substantial payments from an Israeli weapons manufacturer.

In 1996, with Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, Perle wrote “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” for Prime Minister Netanyahu. In it, Perle, Feith, and Wurmser urged Bibi to ditch the Oslo Accords of the assassinated Yitzak Rabin and adopt a new aggressive strategy:

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq—an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right—as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria’s regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq.

In the Perle-Feith-Wurmser strategy, Israel’s enemy remains Syria, but the road to Damascus runs through Baghdad. Their plan, which urged Israel to re-establish “the principle of preemption,” has now been imposed by Perle, Feith, Wurmser & Co. on the United States.

In his own 1997 paper, “A Strategy for Israel,” Feith pressed Israel to re-occupy “the areas under Palestinian Authority control,” though “the price in blood would be high.”

Wurmser, as a resident scholar at AEI, drafted joint war plans for Israel and the United States “to fatally strike the centers of radicalism in the Middle East. Israel and the United States should … broaden the conflict to strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region—the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza. That would establish the recognition that fighting either the United States or Israel is suicidal.”

He urged both nations to be on the lookout for a crisis, for as he wrote, “Crises can be opportunities.” Wurmser published his U.S.-Israeli war plan on Jan. 1, 2001, nine months before 9/11.

About the Perle-Feith-Wurmser cabal, author Michael Lind writes:

The radical Zionist right to which Perle and Feith belong is small in number but it has become a significant force in Republican policy-making circles. It is a recent phenomenon, dating back to the late 1970s and 1980s, when many formerly Democratic Jewish intellectuals joined the broad Reagan coalition. While many of these hawks speak in public about global crusades for democracy, the chief concern of many such “neo-conservatives” is the power and reputation of Israel.

Right down the smokestack.

Perle today chairs the Defense Policy Board, Feith is an Undersecretary of Defense, and Wurmser is special assistant to the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, John Bolton, who dutifully echoes the Perle-Sharon line. According to the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz, in late February,

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials … that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards.

On Jan. 26, 1998, President Clinton received a letter imploring him to use his State of the Union address to make removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime the “aim of American foreign policy” and to use military action because “diplomacy is failing.” Were Clinton to do that, the signers pledged, they would “offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.” Signing the pledge were Elliott Abrams, Bill Bennett, John Bolton, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz. Four years before 9/11, the neocons had Baghdad on their minds.

The Wolfowitz Doctrine

In 1992, a startling document was leaked from the office of Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. Barton Gellman of the Washington Post called it a “classified blueprint intended to help ‘set the nation’s direction for the next century.’” The Wolfowitz Memo called for a permanent U.S. military presence on six continents to deter all “potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” Containment, the victorious strategy of the Cold War, was to give way to an ambitious new strategy designed to “establish and protect a new order.”

Though the Wolfowitz Memo was denounced and dismissed in 1992, it became American policy in the 33-page National Security Strategy (NSS) issued by President Bush on Sept. 21, 2002. Washington Post reporter Tim Reich describes it as a “watershed in U.S. foreign policy” that “reverses the fundamental principles that have guided successive Presidents for more than 50 years: containment and deterrence.”

Andrew Bacevich, a professor at Boston University, writes of the NSS that he marvels at “its fusion of breathtaking utopianism with barely disguised machtpolitik. It reads as if it were the product not of sober, ostensibly conservative Republicans but of an unlikely collaboration between Woodrow Wilson and the elder Field Marshal von Moltke.”

In confronting America’s adversaries, the paper declares, “We will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively.” It warns any nation that seeks to acquire power to rival the United States that it will be courting war with the United States:

[T]he president has no intention of allowing any nation to catch up with the huge lead the United States has opened since the fall of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago. … Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing or equaling the power of the United States.

America must reconcile herself to an era of “nation-building on a grand scale, and with no exit strategy,” Robert Kagan instructs. But this Pax Americana the neocons envision bids fair to usher us into a time of what Harry Elmer Barnes called “permanent war for permanent peace.”

The Munich Card

As President Bush was warned on Sept. 20, 2001, that he will be indicted for “a decisive surrender” in the war on terror should he fail to attack Iraq, he is also on notice that pressure on Israel is forbidden. For as the neoconservatives have played the anti-Semitic card, they will not hesitate to play the Munich card as well. A year ago, when Bush called on Sharon to pull out of the West Bank, Sharon fired back that he would not let anyone do to Israel what Neville Chamberlain had done to the Czechs. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy immediately backed up Ariel Sharon:

With each passing day, Washington appears to view its principal Middle Eastern ally’s conduct as inconvenient—in much the same way London and Paris came to see Czechoslovakia’s resistance to Hitler’s offers of peace in exchange for Czech lands.

When former U.S. NATO commander Gen. George Jouwlan said the United States may have to impose a peace on Israel and the Palestinians, he, too, faced the charge of appeasement. Wrote Gaffney,

They would, presumably, go beyond Britain and France’s sell-out of an ally at Munich in 1938. The “impose a peace” school is apparently prepared to have us play the role of Hitler’s Wehrmacht as well, seizing and turning over to Yasser Arafat the contemporary Sudetenland: the West Bank and Gaza Strip and perhaps part of Jerusalem as well.

Podhoretz agreed Sharon was right in the substance of what he said but called it politically unwise to use the Munich analogy.

President Bush is on notice: Should he pressure Israel to trade land for peace, the Oslo formula in which his father and Yitzak Rabin believed, he will, as was his father, be denounced as an anti-Semite and a Munich-style appeaser by both Israelis and their neoconservatives allies inside his own Big Tent.

Yet, if Bush cannot deliver Sharon there can be no peace. And if there is no peace in the Mideast there is no security for us, ever—for there will be no end to terror. As most every diplomat and journalist who travels to the region will relate, America’s failure to be even-handed, our failure to rein in Sharon, our failure to condemn Israel’s excesses, and our moral complicity in Israel’s looting of Palestinian lands and denial of their right to self-determination sustains the anti-Americanism in the Islamic world in which terrorists and terrorism breed.

Let us conclude. The Israeli people are America’s friends and have a right to peace and secure borders. We should help them secure these rights. As a nation, we have made a moral commitment, endorsed by half a dozen presidents, which Americans wish to honor, not to permit these people who have suffered much to see their country overrun and destroyed. And we must honor this commitment.

But U.S. and Israeli interests are not identical. They often collide, and when they do, U.S. interests must prevail. Moreover, we do not view the Sharon regime as “America’s best friend.”

Since the time of Ben Gurion, the behavior of the Israeli regime has been Jekyll and Hyde. In the 1950s, its intelligence service, the Mossad, had agents in Egypt blow up U.S. installations to make it appear the work of Cairo, to destroy U.S. relations with the new Nasser government. During the Six Day War, Israel ordered repeated attacks on the undefended USS Liberty that killed 34 American sailors and wounded 171 and included the machine-gunning of life rafts. This massacre was neither investigated nor punished by the U.S. government in an act of national cravenness.

Though we have given Israel $20,000 for every Jewish citizen, Israel refuses to stop building the settlements that are the cause of the Palestinian intifada. Likud has dragged our good name through the mud and blood of Ramallah, ignored Bush’s requests to restrain itself, and sold U.S. weapons technology to China, including the Patriot, the Phoenix air-to-air missile, and the Lavi fighter, which is based on F-16 technology. Only direct U.S. intervention blocked Israel’s sale of our AWACS system.

Israel suborned Jonathan Pollard to loot our secrets and refuses to return the documents, which would establish whether or not they were sold to Moscow. When Clinton tried to broker an agreement at Wye Plantation between Israel and Arafat, Bibi Netanyahu attempted to extort, as his price for signing, release of Pollard, so he could take this treasonous snake back to Israel as a national hero.

Do the Brits, our closest allies, behave like this?

Though we have said repeatedly that we admire much of what this president has done, he will not deserve re-election if he does not jettison the neoconservatives’ agenda of endless wars on the Islamic world that serve only the interests of a country other than the one he was elected to preserve and protect.

Copyright March 24, 2003 The American Conservative

[url=http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html]http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html[/url]

N.B. Forrest

2003-03-12 03:10 | User Profile

Originally posted by Zoroaster@Mar 11 2003, 17:49 ** This is good news.

Bay Buchanan is bad news. Yesterday on Buchanan and Press she announced her support for Bush's war. She might have ruined Pat's campaign for president. Pat ought to muzzle her.

-Z- **

A muzzle - and a thick burlap hood.

Actually, I think Bay is really just Pat in a wig & skirt. You know, a Three Faces of Pat sorta thing.

Phillip Augustus

2003-03-12 04:36 | User Profile

And now, folks, presenting the Creepy Freepers on Buchanan:

[url=http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/862357/posts]www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/862357/posts[/url]

There are a few rational posts on this thread (about 15%, anyway) and the best one is undoubtedly post 122- the only one which I didn't have an opportunity to read, as it was deleted by the moderator. Someone over there, I won't say who, or why (don't want to get anyone banned over there), has the balls of a brass monkey based on one thing I am suprised hasn't been deleted yet.

If you need to know what kind of board FR is, consider that (A)Gecko is no longer welcome there, while (B)the likes of "Jimmyclyde" is now the quintessential Freeper. Pathetic.

Sertorius

2003-03-12 10:54 | User Profile

Well, I know of one person that isn`t happy about this article by Pat.

While looking to see if another story would be brought up on Hannity and Colmes, I got to see an interview with Bill Bennett. He was asked about this article. At the mention of Buchanans name, Bennetts pig-like eyes narrowed to a squint and he started snorting away with the usual canards that we have grown to expect out of Mr. Book of No Virtues. Bennetts first comment was along the lines that he must be the "token catholic" because everyone else mentioned was Jewish. Bennett shouldnt feel all alone in this regard, there are plenty of opportunistic or "christian" zionists out there as well to help the likes of Perle and company. Bennett got the mention because he possesses one of the loudest months of the banshees. He also went onto claim that Buchanan has a history of flirting with antisemitism, using the smear job by Buckley back in the early 90 as one example. At the end of his remarks he stated that he wasnt accusing Buchanan of personally being an antisemite.

No, he just implied it forty ways in one, but he didn`t come out and say it. Neo-cons have been doing this alot lately in their arguments against their opponents in this and other things.

I hope Pat burns them a new one.

Texas Dissident

2003-03-12 22:35 | User Profile

Newsmax is reporting:

[url=http://www.newsmax.com/archive/print.shtml?a=2003/3/12/151240]Buchanan Joins Rep. Moran in Blaming War on Supporters of Israel [/url]

Franco

2003-03-12 23:02 | User Profile

Vat?? The Jews run the American neocon movement?? And, they are pushing for war with Iraq??

Oh! Oh! Da noive! Such hate! I'm calling my rabbi....he'll fix Buchanan's wagon! Oh...oy....

Walter Yannis

2003-03-13 09:10 | User Profile

Originally posted by Texas Dissident@Mar 12 2003, 22:35 ** Newsmax is reporting:

[url=http://www.newsmax.com/archive/print.shtml?a=2003/3/12/151240]Buchanan Joins Rep. Moran in Blaming War on Supporters of Israel [/url] **

Here's the lead line:

First Rep. James Moran, D-Va., blamed Jews "for this war with Iraq." Now, from the opposite side of the political spectrum, Pat Buchanan is blaming a pro-Israel "cabal."

This is more evidence that we paleocons have more in common with the Naderite Greenies than any of us ever could have imagined a couple years ago.

Sam Francis had a good line in a recent TAC article - something about how modern multinational corporations, with their complete disconnect of "ownership" from "control", being vulnerable to infiltration by loyal and committed minorities. Of course, he meant our Elder Brothers in Faith, who hold a vastly disproportionate number of key management posts in the Fortune 1000.

It's a fact of history. Corporate American has become an IP power base, with the ouster of the old WASP management elite by IP types like Milken & Boesky in the 1980's and 1990's. That process is largely complete now. You know, now that I think of it I realize that I didn't make the connection at all 20 years ago when all of that was starting. People spoke of junk bond financing being the tool "brash young leadership" to oust the "stolid white shoe management," but it didn't occur to me that this was in part an ethnic war by IP Wall Street financiers putting their guys into key management positions. My own inability to read between the lines never ceases to astonish.

Anyway, we paleocons now find ourselves at odds with modern "capitalism" precisely because it is no longer ours and instead has become a bastion of our ethnic enemies. This makes us natural allies for the Naderite Greenies, who oppose the same capitalistic leviathan for their own reasons.

Actually, I think that if you dig a bit deeper into their motivations you'll find that they also fear our Elder Brothers in Faith, although they tend to express the fear in Trotskyite language. Remember, these are the same folks the Trotskyite neo-cons were in deep coalition with these same types of folk 30 years ago, when opposition to the Vietnam War was in the IP's interest. Now that the IP is leaving them, they find themselves left with only the Trotskyite newspeak with none of the gut emotion that animated them previously. The truth is that both sides are at loggerheads with the IP, although most on the Left have not yet made the connection. This is where we come in.

I'm convinced that our best hope now is a strategic alliance with the Left. We need to infiltrate the Left, and to provide it with a new animating philosophy. We need to give the Left - specifically Naderite Greenies - a healthy dose of Kevin McDonald, and help them to make the connection between the IP and issues like unchecked immigration leading to environmental decline. There are many potential converts there, if we approach it right.

We all need to get fitted out for sea turtle outfits as soon as possible.

Il Ragno should go first, since he'll have the ability to write the whole thing up with the requisite flair. Please post a picture.

Walter

Faust

2003-03-13 13:14 | User Profile

Still a few good Freepers left.

**To: quidnunc

That is the same charge Stalin's supporters came up with, how ironic. If you were against communist, "you were objectively a fascist.'

Political correctness is a disease far worse than I could have imagined.

41 posted on 03/11/2003 2:14 PM PST by JohnGalt **

www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/862357/posts

Sertorius

2003-03-16 17:35 | User Profile

Ed,

Neo-cons and their buddies in the media are always bringing up the Nuremberg trials. I hope one day to see these worthies sitting in orange jumpsuits in a modern version of these trials. We can even use the original charge against the Nazis-- conspiring to start a war of aggression against them. That would be true poetic justice.

Pat`s on target essay is as fine an indictment as I have read and should be used as a base for what I hope to be future charges against some real war criminals.

Sertorius

2003-03-17 01:49 | User Profile

Here is a list of Jews in key positions in the Bush Administration.

[url=http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/04/Israel/US_Zionists.html]http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/04/Israel/U...S_Zionists.html[/url]

For those who think that the Jews are being singled out, I`ll add to this list the gentiles Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, and of course, Bush himself.

juschill

2003-03-19 18:22 | User Profile

Unfortunately, it appears that Pat has [url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31598]thrown in the towel today.[/url]

PaleoconAvatar

2003-03-19 18:36 | User Profile

Originally posted by juschill@Mar 19 2003, 14:22 Unfortunately, it appears that Pat has [url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31598]thrown in the towel today.[/url]

[posting full text of that article from that link....]

A time for unity

Posted: March 19, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

After the blowing up of the Maine in Havana harbor in 1898, McKinley issued a call for 25,000 volunteers to liberate Cuba from Spain. A million responded. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the lines at recruiting stations went around the block.

This war is different. It is a war the president and Secretary Powell said they did not want to fight, but must, if Iraq refused to disarm. Thus, on the eve of war, the mood here seemed less one of war enthusiasm than of resignation, and a grim resolve to get it over with.

The war debate has been protracted and bitter. Now it is over, and patriotism commands that when American soldiers face death in battle, the America people unite behind them.

Yet before the first shot is fired, it is clear the world we knew has changed forever. Old institutions have been shaken, old alliances riven. Some will not be rebuilt or repaired in our lifetime.

How far away seems Sept. 11. After that horror, Le Monde headlined France's solidarity with us: "We are all Americans now!"

Yet, only 18 months later, President Bush had to meet his British and Spanish allies at a U.S. airbase on an isolated rock in the Atlantic. Had he gone to Madrid or London, mammoth protests would have disrupted his war summit.

NATO is shattered. For France and Germany were not content to dissent. President Chirac labored ceaselessly to sabotage U.S. policy and strip it of legitimacy. Neither his nor Gerhardt Shroeder's relationship with President Bush can ever be the same. And the British are as bitter with Chirac as the Americans. The European Union is a house divided.

As we write, Turkey appears about to reverse its parliamentary decision to deny U.S. troops use of Turkish soil to open a second front. But the stinging rebuff from our ally of 50 years will not be forgotten.

As for the United Nations, the benefit of two generations of indoctrination of American school kids in the myth that it is the last best hope of mankind has been lost. Should U.S. casualties be high, contempt for the U.N. will be pandemic.

In the Arab world, the resentment of the United States and its policies has never been greater. And if war brings nightly pictures of Iraqi dead and wounded and civilians fleeing U.S. bombs in terror, the recruiters of al-Qaida will reap a rich harvest.

In Europe, 80 percent to 90 percent oppose war. Tens of millions despise our president – even in Britain, Spain and Italy. Governments in Eastern Europe are with us, but the people are not.

The question arises: Why were we and the Brits so isolated diplomatically and militarily as we went to war to rid the world of the beast of Baghdad?

America led the world to victory in the Cold War. We remain the world's lone superpower, dominant in ways the British empire never was. But as war loomed, we no longer led the world, for the world refused to follow. In Asia, Europe and Latin American, tens of millions now see us as a rogue superpower. Why?

The New World Order of George H.W. Bush's vision, where the United States would work through the United Nations to police the world, as free trade spread and democratization deepened, can now never be realized by his son. The Clinton vision, where America would nurture the institutions of World Government that would grow in power to constrain the sovereignty of nations to create world peace, is also dead.

What is America's vision now? What is our president's vision of our place and our role in the world now?

Interventionism appears to have bred the very isolation that the interventionists most feared. Yet, once Saddam is dead or gone and Iraq is disarmed, the Bush Doctrine – "We will not let the world's worst leaders threaten us with the world's worst weapons" – seems to require new ultimatums to Iran and North Korea.

Who will be with us in these wars? Will Tony Blair, after his near-death experience, be up for fighting another war? Where does the last superpower go after Baghdad? Those questions are ahead of this nation and this president.

But today's imperative is that the United States win this war we are in with as little bloodshed as is consistent with swift and certain victory, and make good on our commitment to liberate the Iraqis. The time for debate will come again. It is not now. Now, we should pray for our brave men and women, and commander in chief. God bless and keep America.

> It is a war the president and Secretary Powell said they did not want to fight, but must, if Iraq refused to disarm. Suppose I walked up to a guy on the street, pulled a gun from my jacket, and said "Give me your wallet or I'll blow you away." Assume that the guy I accost thinks that I'm bluffing, or that surely a cop will come around the corner and stop me, so he decides to resist my order and stand there. I blow him away and take his wallet myself. Now, at my murder trial, would it be an acceptable argument if I told the judge that the murder wasn't my fault, but his, since "it was his choice, I didn't want to shoot him, but he ignored my order" by not following my instructions and giving me his wallet? That's basically the situation between Bush and Saddam. Bush is the robber who is saying the war is Saddam's fault, "it was his choice not to comply with the 48 hour ultimatum."

Okiereddust

2003-03-19 19:20 | User Profile

Originally posted by PaleoconAvatar@Mar 19 2003, 18:36 > Originally posted by juschill@Mar 19 2003, 14:22 Unfortunately, it appears that Pat has [url=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31598]thrown in the towel today.[/url]**

[posting full text of that article from that link....]

> It is a war the president and Secretary Powell said they did not want to fight, but must, if Iraq refused to disarm. Suppose I walked up to a guy on the street, pulled a gun from my jacket, and said "Give me your wallet or I'll blow you away." Assume that the guy I accost thinks that I'm bluffing, or that surely a cop will come around the corner and stop me, so he decides to resist my order and stand there. I blow him away and take his wallet myself. Now, at my murder trial, would it be an acceptable argument if I told the judge that the murder wasn't my fault, but his, since "it was his choice, I didn't want to shoot him, but he ignored my order" by not following my instructions and giving me his wallet? That's basically the situation between Bush and Saddam. Bush is the robber who is saying the war is Saddam's fault, "it was his choice not to comply with the 48 hour ultimatum." **

I read this a little different than you and juschill do.

It is a war the president and Secretary Powell said they did not want to fight, but must, if Iraq refused to disarm.

I read Pat saying not that we must go to war if Iraq refuses to go to war, but that the President and Powell say we must go to war, if Iraq refuses to disarm. And the rest of the article is sterling. I thinks you are being a little picky.

In addition I think your metaphor is slightly flawed. With Iraq, the argument might be more along the lines that the fellow you're trying to rob also has a gun, which he is slow about giving up. Eventually there comes a point when you realize if you don't blow him away you may in all likelihood be blown away yourself. That of course gives you no excuse in a court of law, except a slight reduction in the charge, from 1st degree to second degree murder.

I think that might be more analogous to the situation we have put ourselves in with regard to Iraq. As bellicose as our rhetoric has been up to this point, it has become obvious to everyone what our motives are in the Middle East, and that we represent a real threat to the region. In the short term, there's an argument to be made that the only way to prevent Saddam Hussein from capitalizing on this to mobilize sentiment in that region against the U.S. is to take him out.

Of course that doesn't help us. It just puts us in a deeper hole in the long term. For every neutralized enemy in the Middle East, we make 3 or 4 more enemies around the globe. That's what Pat is trying to point out, with reasonable diplomacy.

Once war is started, debate is necessarily dampened slightly for a while. The real debate wil begin when his war is over, and we contemplate once again the renewed threats elsewhere to our security, which this action has only aggravated.

PaleoconAvatar

2003-03-19 19:43 | User Profile

I agree with PJB where he states in The Death of the West:

"We did not leave America...she left us." (p. 5)

and

"They have replaced the good country we grew up in with a cultural wasteland and a moral sewer that are not worth living in and not worth fighting for--their country, not ours." (p. 6)

Okiereddust

2003-03-19 19:56 | User Profile

Originally posted by PaleoconAvatar@Mar 19 2003, 19:43 ** "We did not leave America...she left us." (p. 5)

and

"They have replaced the good country we grew up in with a cultural wasteland and a moral sewer that are not worth living in and not worth fighting for--their country, not ours." (p. 6)**

True enough. But as long as we are still here we must show it some respect. Even if we must eventually build anew, it will always be on the ashes of the old. That is the challenge and dilemma of conservatism, unlike that of the revolutionary, who wishes to perpetually anihilate and build from scratch..

juschill

2003-03-20 21:10 | User Profile

PaleoconAvatar - I agree with your statement Re: pages 5 & 6 of Death of the West 100%.

It is not worth fighting for any longer. Some honorable men tried to do so 150 years ago. Since then, the Old Republic has been forever lost.

Jahel

2003-07-11 21:14 | User Profile

The reference to the million-fold response to President McKinley's call for 25,000 volunteers at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the block-long lines of volunteers in every town on December 8, 1941 (and you might add the enthusiasm in April 1917) stands in stark contrast to the indifference and outright lethargy on the morning after Dubya the Warrior's ultimatum to Irag.

The only U.S. Army Recruiter in my area was in a neighboring town from where I live; one week after the Warrior President launched his crusade (maybe I should capitalize "Crusade") the recruiting office closed down. A boutique now occupies the location.

My own brief analysis of the situation is that our "Warrior"(?) President is a low-IQ, vainglorious, self-described party animal who is proud of the fact that he doesn't read books; as such, he is vulnerable to those who play upon his vanity--namely, the neo-con Israel-Firsters, and the Lords of the Global Plantation. There's black gold (oil) in them thar Iraqi fields, plus plenty of competition-free contracts (Bechtel and Halliburton come readily to mind) to rebuild what was destroyed by the shock-and-awe campaign. Seems a little reminiscent of that "we might have to destroy the town to liberate it" bit from the Vietnam era, not so? But there was no Bechtel or Halliburton waiting in the wings to rebuild it.

The re-packaging of the 1960s "liberals" as neo-cons is another example of "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." The neo-con, who is neither "neo" nor "con" is another one of those misnomers like Holy Roman Empire.

Jahel

albion

2005-01-30 05:56 | User Profile

WesleyWes

2005-02-09 00:52 | User Profile

Hello,

I dont buy tha Jewish conpiracy thang. Maybe there are a lot of intellectuals who are Jewish in tha neo-con movement. However there are more gentiles. It would be absurd to call it a Jewish war. Its a neo-con thing where grandiose beliefs or Empire 'kicking-ass' are bought by the 'conservative' crowd and believed by everyone except tha Pentagon. Bush 2 thinks hes creating a free world...?

Right On, WesleyWes Founder [URL=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti-Catholic]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti-Catholic [/URL]

Julian

2005-02-17 00:42 | User Profile

Sorry to diverge somewhat, but I cant figure out how to start a new post. Proof of my Aryan superiority! I was wonderign what you guys think of Michael Ledeen. He is a peculiar guy- obviously enamored of fascism, has written books on Dannunzio & Machiavelli. Yet, in cahoots with all these bastards. I suppose it makes sense somehow. Also, I am curious if anyone has read Alan Bloom, protege of Leo Strauss. A Neo-con, I suppose, yet intensely concerned with a "culture war."

neoclassical

2005-03-11 04:54 | User Profile

[img]http://www.instantlobotomy.com/images/banners/lrh22.gif[/img]

LOL JEWS DID WTC LOL

grep14w

2005-04-16 18:58 | User Profile

[QUOTE=WesleyWes]Hello,

I dont buy tha Jewish conpiracy thang. Maybe there are a lot of intellectuals who are Jewish in tha neo-con movement. However there are more gentiles. It would be absurd to call it a Jewish war. Its a neo-con thing where grandiose beliefs or Empire 'kicking-ass' are bought by the 'conservative' crowd and believed by everyone except tha Pentagon. Bush 2 thinks hes creating a free world...?

Right On, WesleyWes Founder [URL=http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti-Catholic]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti-Catholic [/URL][/QUOTE]Hmmmm....anti-Catholic and pro-Yid, whodathunkit?

Seriously, if you want to understand the Jewish role in this mess, you have to do some more reading. Just because there are Jews opposed to the war and non-Jews supporting it doesn't mean squat once you understand the dynamics of the situation.

Neo-cons, overwhelmingly Jewish, were pushing for wars with Israel's enemies for the past 20 years. No other influential group in the USA was doing that. You simply can't write this off as a "jewish conspiracy theory"; it's a fact. Without the constant neo-con push for war, we would be in a very different world today.

You need to read Kevin MacDonald's trilogy on Jews to understand what you are dealing with. You need to get your head out of pointless sectarian intra-Christian bickering, and look at the real world situation for a change. Anti-Catholicism in this day and age is archaic and largely irrelevent.

grep14w

2005-04-16 19:03 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Jahel]The reference to the million-fold response to President McKinley's call for 25,000 volunteers at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the block-long lines of volunteers in every town on December 8, 1941 (and you might add the enthusiasm in April 1917) stands in stark contrast to the indifference and outright lethargy on the morning after Dubya the Warrior's ultimatum to Irag.[/QUOTE]Two years since the war, and this is more true than ever. The US military is not meeting its recruitment goals. Guards and reserves increased their maximum age limit up five years, to age 39. Even non-citizens are avoiding military service in spite of the promise of citizenship.

The reality is that, for better or worse, no one wants to die for this stupid war. It may be that Americans have become too lazy and feckless; it may be that they have become smarter and are not fooled any more by the patriotic rhethoric. In either case, they are not "rallying to the colors" anymore.

Worries me, that maybe the Inner Party may be planning a new 911 in order to force through a new Draft so as to increase the size of the US military on the cheap and allow enough cannon fodder for further adventures in the middle east against Israel's enemies in Lebannon, Syria, and Iran.

Stigmata

2005-04-17 12:31 | User Profile

[QUOTE=WesleyWes]Hello,

I dont buy tha Jewish conpiracy thang. Maybe there are a lot of intellectuals who are Jewish in tha neo-con movement. However there are more gentiles. It would be absurd to call it a Jewish war. Its a neo-con thing where grandiose beliefs or Empire 'kicking-ass' are bought by the 'conservative' crowd and believed by everyone except tha Pentagon. Bush 2 thinks hes creating a free world...?

Right On, WesleyWes Founder [url="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti-Catholic"]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti-Catholic [/url][/QUOTE]The war is indeed a Judeo-Christian crusade to serve the interests of God's little chosen ones:

[font=Arial]Iraq: A War For Israel?[/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica, Geneva, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif][size=2]By Mark Weber[/size][/font]

[url="http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/iraqwar.shtml"]http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/iraqwar.shtml[/url]

But since you seem to detest Catholics as much as I do, check out:

[url="http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17744"]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17744[/url]

[url="http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17821"]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17821[/url]

[url="http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17790"]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17790[/url]

[url="http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17804"]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17804[/url]

Angeleyes

2005-05-17 07:03 | User Profile

A few points to ponder. I find Mr B long on hot air, but to his credit he has immersed himself in the American Political scene as a career, and offers many useful insights.

Mr Toner, thanks for you service to our electoral process, that's a lot of hard work. :boxing:

[QUOTE=Ed Toner]I think Pat has it right. When he made a run at President in 1994, I was his delegate, NJ 4th CD. [url="http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html"]http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html[/url] The American Conservative. March 24, 2003 ==snip== 1. Wurmser, as a resident scholar at AEI, drafted joint war plans for Israel and the United States “to fatally strike the centers of radicalism in the Middle East. Israel and the United States should … broaden the conflict to strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region—the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza. That would establish the recognition that fighting either the United States or Israel is suicidal.” ===snip some more=== 2. America must reconcile herself to an era of “nation-building on a grand scale, and with no exit strategy,” Robert Kagan instructs. But this Pax Americana the neocons envision bids fair to usher us into a time of what Harry Elmer Barnes called “permanent war for permanent peace.” ===snip a bit more== 3. Let us conclude. The Israeli people are America’s friends and have a right to peace and secure borders. We should help them secure these rights. As a nation, we have made a moral commitment, endorsed by half a dozen presidents, which Americans wish to honor, not to permit these people who have suffered much to see their country overrun and destroyed. And we must honor this commitment. But U.S. and Israeli interests are not identical. They often collide, and when they do, U.S. interests must prevail. Moreover, we do not view the Sharon regime as “America’s best friend.” === snip ==== 4. Though we have given Israel $20,000 for every Jewish citizen, Israel refuses to stop building the settlements that are the cause of the Palestinian intifada. Likud has dragged our good name through the mud and blood of Ramallah, ignored Bush’s requests to restrain itself, and sold U.S. weapons technology to China, including the Patriot, the Phoenix air-to-air missile, and the Lavi fighter, which is based on F-16 technology. Only direct U.S. intervention blocked Israel’s sale of our AWACS system.

Do the Brits, our closest allies, behave like this? =======not so much snip as break ===== 5. Though we have said repeatedly that we admire much of what this president has done, he will not deserve re-election if he does not jettison the neoconservatives’ agenda of endless wars on the Islamic world that serve only the interests of a country other than the one he was elected to preserve and protect. Copyright March 24, 2003 The American Conservative [url="http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html"]http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html[/url][/QUOTE]Comments:

Point 1. How is Saddam Hussein in Baghdad one of the centers of radical Islam? Assad in Damascus? For a Muslim, Saddam is a progressive, albeit along the lines of Joe Stalin being progressive. Assad is not his father, but he is his father's son. No argument on Iran, nor the "Palestinian" Arabs. Since the writing, Yassir finally went down: will anything change for the saps of the Arab League? I doubt it. There is political payoff in keeping Israel/Palestine all roiled up.

Point 2. Nation building seems to have become our habit, in Bosnia and Kosovo. It was stupid to get into it in 1995, stupider in 1999, and we have I suppose reached stupidest in 2003. At least the progression is consistent, if inconsistent with American strategic interests. Oh dear, are we still in the Balkans? Hmm, in ten years . . . will we be out of anywhere? For Pete's sake, we are still in Germany. (Yeah, I know, different context.)

Point 3. We helped invent Israel via the UN, etc, although the Soviets recognized them before we did. We became their sugar daddy after the French bailed on them in 1967. (Maybe that's a simplistic view.) I'd say we have a matter of national ego in keeping that nation state alive. But . . . "Remember the Liberty." I spent some time off the coast of Israel, they are on their side. Can't say as I blame them, no one else is, a few lobbyists and influence mongers here and there excepted. :whstl: .

Point 4. Sure, tech transfer, see also Israel (F-4 parts??) Iran-Contra, and the Japanese sell critical technology to the Russians in the 80's, screwing our acoustic advantage vis a vis Soviet subs. What's the point, Mr B? Once you share a secret, it is no longer a secret. Likewise a weapons system. Stingers in Afghanistan for 50, Alex. It's a risk one takes going into a tech transfer.

Point 5. After the fact observation: GWB got re elected. What are the Jacksonians thinking? Maybe Senator Kerry was too horrible an alternative to consider, so Pres Bush and his team get a pass despite driving the deficit to irresponsible levels via a "guns and butter" policy. "Yes, you can have a war, and we will cut your taxes." Wait a minute, wars are expensive, even FDR knew that. (Buy Bonds!) The risk of breaking the all volunteer force is a different kind of disassembly than what Clinton did for 8 years. Americans are generaly quite possessive of their military. (Not just at BRAC time.)

There is more than neo cons involved here, since foreign policy is ony a piece of the puzzle. The domestic front is the myopic center of political mass. The war against "the war against Christianity" strikes me as the core battle being fought these days. Is that a war the neo cons remain aloof from?

Mr B offered some very good points, can't cover them all, plus time has passed. A few of his points did not ring true to what I see, hence the comments.

Angeleyes

Ponce

2005-05-17 14:04 | User Profile

Even if a lot of what you say (Angeleyes) is beyond my tiny mind I can see that you are really into it and many here will benefit from your postings, I say many because I only read that which won't "confuse" my mind so that I can "digest" the truth behind the words.

As far as "whose war is it?" I say the so called neocons and I say "so called" because I like to say it as it is and I say the Jews (Zionists).

Sadam in no way form or shape is or was ever a danger to the US or to the western world but now because of what we have done we have gained an enemy where before we could have had a friend.

And whats more where the whole of Arabia was our friends (or close to) and are now our enemys, no matter what anyone says.

And guess what? We are now doing the same thing in Central and South America, the US is becoming isolated from the rest of the world with the Zionists state of Israel being out only "friend" but only for as long as we support them.

Angeleyes

2005-05-17 16:18 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Ponce] 1. Sadam in no way form or shape is or was ever a danger to the US or to the western world but now because of what we have done we have gained an enemy where before we could have had a friend.

1. And whats more where the whole of Arabia was our friends (or close to) and are now our enemys, no matter what anyone says.

2. And guess what? We are now doing the same thing in Central and South America, the US is becoming isolated from the rest of the world with the Zionists state of Israel being out only "friend" but only for as long as we support them.[/QUOTE]

3. Saddam was at least a second order threat. His ambitions impacted region, which impacts global oil supply, which impacted global economy, which impacts US, who benefits from global trade. He would never be a friend, but he probably could have been "worked with" the way we "worked with" Pinochet and some other unsavory sorts for a long time. Reason for war? Depends on who you ask, the answer here obviously no. James Webb was arguing "against" in fall2002, pointing out that Iraq is not a cookie cutter Japan post war. And you could have heard a pin drop . . .

4. The Arabs have NEVER been our friends, but we have been useful to one another now and again. Some Arabs, such as the Emir of Qatar, see us as hired muscle.

5. We've been "doing" Latin America for a very long time, why stop now? Win win is a better approach. China is actively working at peeling SA and CA away from our sphere of influence. Where is the Monroe Doctrine now, America, where?

Howard Campbell, Jr.

2005-05-17 19:39 | User Profile

[img]http://www.editorialcartoons.net/sequence/sequence102.gif[/img]

Sertorius

2005-05-17 19:45 | User Profile

AE,

I can't resist this. [QUOTE]Where is the Monroe Doctrine now, America, where?[/QUOTE] According to that idiot Rush Limbaugh the "stupid Monroe Doctrine" (his words) has been replaced by the vastly superior Bush Doctrine. I heard him say this when the Neocons first brought out this lipstick embellished pig after that state of the union speech in 2002.

Angeleyes

2005-05-19 04:59 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Howard Campbell, Jr.][img]http://www.editorialcartoons.net/sequence/sequence102.gif[/img][/QUOTE]Sorry, that's a bit of cheap pictorial rhetoric. When folks will open their eyes to the hard fact that geopolitics is not practical when viewed through a paper towel tube, it may be possible to have a meaningful dialogue or conversation.

Every thing about the Middle East is complicated by our relationship with Israel, which "we" helped create, since the fundamental Arab position is "Israel should not exist and must be wiped from the face of the earth." That does NOT equal "Israel has their hand up American President's arse and is blithely doing puppet stuff." Geopolitics is a continuum.

I'll be happy to discuss that complex dynamic if you are willing to drop the nonsense.

No, I am not a Jew, and while none of my best friends are Jewish, I've met some great folks who are. I have also travelled to Israel (20 years ago) and the folks there were fantastic.

Ponce

2005-05-19 05:23 | User Profile

Don't lay down to long with the dogs Angel or you will catch fleas.

Angeleyes

2005-05-19 05:35 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Ponce]Don't lay down to long with the dogs Angel or you will catch fleas.[/QUOTE] Which dog, amigo? :dry:

Angler

2005-07-11 03:53 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Angeleyes]Sorry, that's a bit of cheap pictorial rhetoric. It's also absolutely correct. Bush is a Zionist puppet. That's as clear as day.

Every thing about the Middle East is complicated by our relationship with Israel, which "we" helped create, since the fundamental Arab position is "Israel should not exist and must be wiped from the face of the earth." That does NOT equal "Israel has their hand up American President's arse and is blithely doing puppet stuff." Geopolitics is a continuum. That is exactly where Israel's hand is. AIPAC practically owns Congress and the President. And Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, and the rest of the Zionist plants in key US government and advisory positions all had Bush's ear. The Jews decided that [url=http://www.acpr.org.il/publications/policy-papers/pp141-xs.html]Islam had to be "democratized"[/url], starting with Iraq, and Bush took the ball and ran with it.

I'll be happy to discuss that complex dynamic if you are willing to drop the nonsense. What nonsense? That Jews control the US government? It's not nonsense. Their power over the US is limited only by their need to temper their actions so as not to make too many people aware of the truth about who's running things. That's the only complexity involved. Apart from that, Israel gets whatever it wants from the US.

There is so much proof that Jews exert tremendous control over the US government, it's not even funny. Here's a bit for starters:

(1) The entire USS Liberty incident, particularly the recall of the rescue jets and the later cover-up which continues to this day.

(2) The billions of dollars in aid sent to Israel every year -- more than any other nation, despite Israel's high standard of living and powerful military -- as well as the fact that Israel is unique among aid recipients in receiving its aid all at once (so it can be used to acquire interest) and does not need to account for its use.

(3) The fact that the Iraq war was started for Israel's benefit on the basis of lies by known Zionists (Wolfowitz, et al, plus shabbos goys Rice, Cheney, etc.).

(4) The law forbidding US companies from participating in an economic boycott of Israel: [url]http://www.bxa.doc.gov/AntiboycottCompliance/OACRequirements.html[/url]

(5) The US using its veto power to shoot down all UN resolutions critical of Israel, no matter how deserved the criticism (even when every other nation votes in favor).

Because the US government is not a single, monolithic entity, Israel's power over it is not complete, of course. But key individuals in the government are always working for Israel's interests first.

No, I am not a Jew, and while none of my best friends are Jewish, I've met some great folks who are. I have also travelled to Israel (20 years ago) and the folks there were fantastic.[/QUOTE]I'm sure there are a few personable Israelis. Most deserve to die, though, for their complicity in crimes against innocent Palestinians.

kane123123

2005-07-11 04:05 | User Profile

I think there is actually some dissent towards Ariel Sharon Israel, but not as much as there should be.

Ponce

2005-07-11 05:38 | User Profile

This coming weekend a delegation from the state of Israel is coming to Washington in order to ask for 2.2 BILLIONS DOLLARS from the US as a "special gift" in order to "disengage" from the Palestinians, the 2.2 billions has to be approved by Congress.

But meanwhile.......

The Zionists are building the fence around Jerusalen in such a way that it will keep out 55,000 Palestinians who now live in Jerusalen and bring in 22,000 Jews from near by settlements in order to make them part of Jerusalen.

Another 14 year old Palestinian child was killed while working in the field by an IDF soldier, that makes 4 kids 14 and under killed in one day.

How can the country that I came to live in support such people?.

By the way, the arms deal between the state of Israel and China is still going on, there is a quiet war between the US and the state of Israel on this.

The US sold four mobile radars to China in order to supplement the outdated radars that China is using at this time, this radars are capable of distinguishing between civilian and military planes......what the hell is going on?

While America buys shoes, clothing, tv and more toys from China the same are buying natural resoursers and weapons from everywhere.....one way to get rid of the fiat.

I still say that oil is to 80 or 100 bucks by xmas.

Texas Dissident

2005-07-11 07:19 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Ponce]How can the country that I came to live in support such people?.

Horrifying, isn't it? You should move back to Cuba immediately in protest.

Personally, I just don't give a rat's rear end what goes on between Israel and Palestine. I just want my country completely the heck out of it. Let 'em all kill each other, who cares? Ultimately, we've got no dog in that fight and should count our blessings to be half a world away from that cesspool.

van helsing

2005-10-16 03:54 | User Profile

i tend to think that bush like any other major politician thought that the jews were just one other obstacle he had to work around, and he never had any intention of seriously challenging any major tenets of what passes for 'merican public policy. maybe poppy warned him and he didnt listen.

i bet the aipac/media crowd told him on erection nite 2k (remember that furren media pitch that algore won fla and the erection!) that they had the skids greased and he would lose unless he agreed to all kinds of stuff.

ergo, we be where we be.

he isnt conservative. he isnt even literate, for God's sake. will try to find sobran quips on all that. man is it painful to watch him speak.