New Pat Buchanan column...
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Where are the Christians
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war," the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed.
First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran.
Now Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon -- smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy -- has exposed Bush's folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.
The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its air strikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.
What Israel is up to was described by its Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz when he threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years."
Olmert seized upon Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers to unleash the IDF in a pre-planned attack to make the Lebanese people suffer until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah, a task the Israeli army could not accomplish in 18 years of occupation.
Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians. To punish these people for the crime of electing Hamas, Olmert imposed an economic blockade of Gaza and the West Bank and withheld the $50 million in monthly tax and customs receipts due the Palestinians.
Then, Israel instructed the United States to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, though Bush himself had called for the elections and for the participation of Hamas. Our Crawford cowboy meekly complied.
The predictable result: Fatah and Hamas fell to fratricidal fighting, and Hamas militants began launching Qassam rockets over the fence from Gaza into Israel. Hamas then tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers, captured one, took him back into Gaza, and demanded a prisoner exchange.
Israel's response was to abduct half of the Palestinian cabinet and parliament and blow up a $50 million U.S.-insured power plant. That cut off electricity for half a million Palestinians. Their food spoiled, their water could not be purified, and their families sweltered in the summer heat of the Gaza desert. One family of seven was wiped out on a beach by what the IDF assures us was an errant artillery shell.
Let it be said: Israel has a right to defend herself, a right to counter-attack against Hezbollah and Hamas, a right to clean out bases from which Katyusha or Qassam rockets are being fired and a right to occupy land from which attacks are mounted on her people.
But what Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.
But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims?
When al Qaeda captured two U.S. soldiers and barbarically butchered them, the U.S. Army did not smash power plants across the Sunni Triangle. Why then is Bush not only silent but openly supportive when Israelis do this?
Democrats attack Bush for crimes of which he is not guilty, including Haditha and Abu Ghraib. Why are they, too, silent when Israel pursues a conscious policy of collective punishment of innocent peoples?
Britain's diplomatic goal in two world wars was to bring the naive cousins in, to "pull their chestnuts out of the fire." Israel and her paid and pro-bono agents here appear determined to expand the Iraq war into Syria and Iran, and have America fight and finish all of Israel's enemies.
That Tel Aviv is maneuvering us to fight its wars is understandable. That Americans are ignorant of, or complicit in this, is deplorable.
Already, Bush is ranting about Syria being behind the Hezbollah capture of the Israeli soldiers. But where is the proof?
Who is whispering in his ear? The same people who told him Iraq was maybe months away from an atom bomb, that an invasion would be a "cakewalk," that he would be Churchill, that U.S. troops would be greeted with candy and flowers, that democracy would break out across the region, that Palestinians and Israelis would then sit down and make peace?
How much must America pay for the education of this man?
http://www.theamericancause.org/
While Pat's person ideology is often-times way out there, he is often dead on with his analysis.
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war," the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed.
First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran.
Now Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon -- smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy -- has exposed Bush's folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.
The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its air strikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.
What Israel is up to was described by its Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz when he threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years."
Olmert seized upon Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers to unleash the IDF in a pre-planned attack to make the Lebanese people suffer until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah, a task the Israeli army could not accomplish in 18 years of occupation.
Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians. To punish these people for the crime of electing Hamas, Olmert imposed an economic blockade of Gaza and the West Bank and withheld the $50 million in monthly tax and customs receipts due the Palestinians.
Then, Israel instructed the United States to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, though Bush himself had called for the elections and for the participation of Hamas. Our Crawford cowboy meekly complied.
The predictable result: Fatah and Hamas fell to fratricidal fighting, and Hamas militants began launching Qassam rockets over the fence from Gaza into Israel. Hamas then tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers, captured one, took him back into Gaza, and demanded a prisoner exchange.
Israel's response was to abduct half of the Palestinian cabinet and parliament and blow up a $50 million U.S.-insured power plant. That cut off electricity for half a million Palestinians. Their food spoiled, their water could not be purified, and their families sweltered in the summer heat of the Gaza desert. One family of seven was wiped out on a beach by what the IDF assures us was an errant artillery shell.
Let it be said: Israel has a right to defend herself, a right to counter-attack against Hezbollah and Hamas, a right to clean out bases from which Katyusha or Qassam rockets are being fired and a right to occupy land from which attacks are mounted on her people.
But what Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.
But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims?
When al Qaeda captured two U.S. soldiers and barbarically butchered them, the U.S. Army did not smash power plants across the Sunni Triangle. Why then is Bush not only silent but openly supportive when Israelis do this?
Democrats attack Bush for crimes of which he is not guilty, including Haditha and Abu Ghraib. Why are they, too, silent when Israel pursues a conscious policy of collective punishment of innocent peoples?
Britain's diplomatic goal in two world wars was to bring the naive cousins in, to "pull their chestnuts out of the fire." Israel and her paid and pro-bono agents here appear determined to expand the Iraq war into Syria and Iran, and have America fight and finish all of Israel's enemies.
That Tel Aviv is maneuvering us to fight its wars is understandable. That Americans are ignorant of, or complicit in this, is deplorable.
Already, Bush is ranting about Syria being behind the Hezbollah capture of the Israeli soldiers. But where is the proof?
Who is whispering in his ear? The same people who told him Iraq was maybe months away from an atom bomb, that an invasion would be a "cakewalk," that he would be Churchill, that U.S. troops would be greeted with candy and flowers, that democracy would break out across the region, that Palestinians and Israelis would then sit down and make peace?
How much must America pay for the education of this man?
http://www.theamericancause.org/
While Pat's person ideology is often-times way out there, he is often dead on with his analysis.
My whole life
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
What do they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?
Shows how for some, hating Israel trumps every other moral, value, and political principle they claim to hold dear. Sort of transparent, no?
not sure if that was directed at me, but I am far from a hardened leftist, and have been a fan of Pat's commentary and writing for a long time... His personal beliefs scare the hell out of me, but as an analyst he is very good.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
and what about the posted article did you disagree with...? oh wait, I'm sorry, anything or anyone that is critical of Israel is Jew-hating...
I don't believe in that but that is one of the charges that has been thrown at Buchannan by the left in the past. Now that he disagrees with the President though, they are embracing the man who they used to refer to as a racist.
http://www.drudgereport.com/mattpjb.htm
Take my hand, my child of love
Come step inside my tears
Swim the magic ocean,
I've been crying all these years
WHAT ABOUT USA DOING THE SAME IN IRAQ AND PREVIOUSLY ON ABOUT 10 OTHER COUNTRIES. OR IS THE PROBLEM WITH THE "SUBCONTRACTING" - SOME AMERICANS LIKE PAT WOULD MUCH RATHER USA DID THE "SMASHING" THEMSELVES??
The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its air strikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.
HE SOUNDS A LOT WORSE THAN THAT IN ANY CASE.
What Israel is up to was described by its Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz when he threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years."
NOTHING COMPARED TO HOW THE CLOCK HAS BEEN TURNED BACK 100 YEARS IN IRAQ, OR 50 ODD IN VIETNAM, KAMPUCHEA, ___(FIL IN THE BLANKS)___
Olmert seized upon Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers to unleash the IDF in a pre-planned attack to make the Lebanese people suffer until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah, a task the Israeli army could not accomplish in 18 years of occupation.
SORT OF LIKE HOW USA ATTACKED IRAQ ON THE PRETEXT OF 9/11 AND ATTACKED VIETNAM ON THE CLASSIC REDNECK "DOMINO EFFECT" HOGWASH.
Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians. To punish these people for the crime of electing Hamas, Olmert imposed an economic blockade of Gaza and the West Bank and withheld the $50 million in monthly tax and customs receipts due the Palestinians.
DOESNT USA "PUNISH" COUNTRIES LIKE NORTH KOREA, VENEZUELA, IRAN FOR ELECTING THE WRONG LEADERS??
Israel's response was to abduct half of the Palestinian cabinet and parliament and blow up a $50 million U.S.-insured power plant. That cut off electricity for half a million Palestinians. Their food spoiled, their water could not be purified, and their families sweltered in the summer heat of the Gaza desert. One family of seven was wiped out on a beach by what the IDF assures us was an errant artillery shell.
JUST LIKE THE BABYFOOD FACTORY IN SOMALIA WAS WIPED OUT. AND GOD KNOWS HOW MANY OTHER PLACES AND PEOPLE IN OTHER WARS.
But what Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians,
AND WHATS USA DOING IN ABOUT 3 COUNTRIES??
collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them.
NORTH KOREA. AND ALL COUNTRIES UNDER TRADE EMBARGOS. IRAQI KIDS STARVING COS SADDAM WAS A BAD GUY (THATS WHY THE OIL FOR FOD WAS STARTED).
Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests.
IRAQ WAR VIOLATES WHAT??
It is un-American and un-Christian.
BOMBINGS ON 18 ODD COUNTRIES, ABU GHARIB, MY LAI, HIROSHIMA ETC ETC ARE MEANWHILE ALL CHRISTIAN AND AMERICAN??
But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims?
COS HE IS THE EX HITLER YOUTH, PANZER POPE.
When al Qaeda captured two U.S. soldiers and barbarically butchered them,
MY LAI?? SHOCK AND AWE???
That Tel Aviv is maneuvering us to fight its wars is understandable.
HOW SO??
Already, Bush is ranting about Syria being behind the Hezbollah capture of the Israeli soldiers. But where is the proof?
WHERE'S THE PROOF OF THE WMD'S EH??
Take my hand, my child of love
Come step inside my tears
Swim the magic ocean,
I've been crying all these years
If your arguing against Buchanan, he is also outspoken against the Iraq war.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
He was right too! He said Bush needs to act like a president and quit saying that we don't deal with these kinds of people.
He pointed out that our hands are not so pure that we don't...and many presidents had to go and have talks with some nasty leaders, its what leaders do!!!
Its a dirty job, but to just say we don't deal with them is insane and basically chicken shit.
The only way to solve some of this crap is to deal with them.
Ignoring them and just putting everyone who disagrees with him under the umbrella as terrorists is a cowards way out. Just where is his foreign policy?
Buchanan feels Bush is not doing his job.
Dammit, Israel started this...not Lebanon!!!
Take my hand, my child of love
Come step inside my tears
Swim the magic ocean,
I've been crying all these years
You know lots of thinsg don't make the news...Like the US was bombing Iraq on a regular basis ever since Bush Sr. did it. It never stopped. Asks the people who live there!
The same with Lebanon...Israel never let up on them completely.
Just as Israel has a right to defend itself, so does Lebanon.
I have friends in Lebanon...they have told me this stuff all along, and the deputy foreign minister of Lebanon said this on TV tonight. My friend there used to live here and is an old friend I have known for 25 years. He has duel citizenship. I believe him, and the deputy foreign minister said the same thing.
Don't fall for the US media propaganda...Israel does not have clean hands in this!
Washington started this...don't kid yourself...
who's paying the bill?
Take my hand, my child of love
Come step inside my tears
Swim the magic ocean,
I've been crying all these years
Although I agree that Lebanon has a right to defend itself, the spark for this conflict was not struck by the Lebanese government.
I don't get upset at generalizations of the right. I get upset at generalizations of me. I was not singling out any one person with that post. It was only a post to state observations that I remember from 1992-2000.
yep
i believe this is completely false... israel is the second largest beneficiary of US foriegn aid...slightly behind egypt
the large majority of that "aid" is spent on the military
without east european jews hollywood would have been a joke. intel and google and microsoft would not be the companies they are. the 20 odd big tv channnels and news papers of usa wouldnt exist. starbucks coffee neither. lehmann brothers and goldman sachs neither. computer comanies like dell would not exist. heck computers would not exist even given john von neumann is the father of computers. the physics, chemistry, atomic energy, biology, medicine scene of usa wouldnt be anything like it is. the publishing houses of new york wouldnt be there. half the americans would not have jobs (and hence would not be able to pay any taxes - so much for american taxpayer's money going to israel) but for jews creating the jobs for them. come to think of it the measly 4 billion that usa gives israel is peanuts for at least a 50 jewish americans - each of them are worth a lot more than that, and should they walk out usa would be poorer by scores of billions and a million jobs.
Take my hand, my child of love
Come step inside my tears
Swim the magic ocean,
I've been crying all these years