Cutting through Inaugural rhetoric

[iamthewalrus109]

Today in Pat Buchanan's WorldNet daily article he cuts through one of the biggest inconsistencies of the new and improved Bush doctrine as stated in his inaugural address of 1/20/2005, saying:

"President Bush is championing a policy of interventionism in the internal affairs of every nation on earth. But did we not learn from 9-11 that intervention is not a cure for terrorism, it is the cause of terrorism.

Clearly, the president does not understand this, or believe it. For, in his inaugural, he describes 9-11 as the day "when freedom came under attack." But Osama bin Laden did not dispatch his fanatics to ram planes into the World Trade Center because he hated our Bill of Rights. He did it because he hates our presence and our policies in the Middle East."

This is a telling observation, one with which I agree. Bush's intnent has a far greater reach than say, Woodrow Wilson. Buchanan ends the article aptly noting that such a policy will end only in dissillusionment and grief for the people of the United States.

-Walrus

Article can be found at: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42557

[Happy Monkey]

The Republican Party has fallen a long way when Pat Buchanan is the one sounding reasonable.

[Torrere]

Pat Buchanan has been a contributor to antiwar.com for over a year, and he's held these opinions for some time. However, he still voted for Bush.

[Happy Monkey]

I know. It's the rest of the party that has gotten worse, Buchannan has remained where he always was.

[Troubleshooter]

You could almost believe that he has classic liberal leanings.

[Happy Monkey]

Add Ron Paul (R-TX) to the list of liberal-leaning Republicans.

[iamthewalrus109]

When one thinks about it, in many ways, some classic conservatives would be considered liberal today. Two great cases are Dick Nixon and Barry Goldwater. The glaring example from Goldwater's idealogy is the concept of not invading people's homes with what the government thinks, period. Before his fairly recent death, he was not pleased with the Christian right's attempt to intrude on the lives of citizens through gestures to Bush, he believed in no overt government intrusion in the personal lives of citizens. With Dick Nixon, there's a number of examples, but one striking one, one that made him many enemies, is detente, and his backdoor shuttle diplomacy. There's no way people on the JCS, defense contractors, and the military-industrial complex would ever want detente with the Russians, especially then.

-Walrus

[russotto]

You only learn that interventionism is a cause for terrorism if you take some of Osama bin Laden's proclamations at face value.

Perhaps Osama would have preferred if the US had failed to intervene in Afghanistan.... when the USSR held it.

[Torrere]

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/link...brzezinski.htm

According to Carter's NSA advisor (trying to take credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union), the United States began stirring up the mujahideen several months before the Soviet invasion, in an attempt to give the Soviets a Vietnam of their own.

[Griff]

Pretty damning of the Carter administration. eh? Is the interview real?

[iamthewalrus109]

Originally Posted by russotto

You only learn that interventionism is a cause for terrorism if you take some of Osama bin Laden's proclamations at face value.

Perhaps Osama would have preferred if the US had failed to intervene in Afghanistan.... when the USSR held it.

Regardless of the comment above, and regardless of the Afgan war, the effects of interventionism, starting with our imperial era conquest of the Phillipines, has always landed the US into more trouble than its worth. As we "export" "democracy", our own democratic rights and freedoms are impinged due to the metteling of the defense/corporate arm of this country. Capitalism depends on new enterprises and an abundacy of resources. As we strafe the earth of what's left, precious time and the environment are laid to waste. For the world to be entirely free and enterprising a new frontier has to be saught and as long as jaugernauts like the US bully smaller countries into our way of thinking, resentment will be at a all time high.

As far as intervention goes, it comes down to rationale. What is the United States' true rationale for interveing or invading, many see it as greed and averest. Even at the most idealistic, the US invades a country like Iraq, for it's own security and freedom, which in and of itself is greedy and selfish. As I have said before its all but for a few. The biggest lemon sold to the US public is that the rich's intrests and money making is what makes the peons money.

-Walrus

[russotto]

We tried isolationism. The world wouldn't leave us alone (Britain in WWI, Japan in WWII). That avenue is closed to us.

[Torrere]

The article with Le Nouvel Observateur is said to be confirmed by material from the Carter-Brezhnev Project's archives, and:

In his memoir published in 1996, the former CIA director Robert Gates made it clear that the American intelligence services began to aid the mujahedin guerrillas not after the Soviet invasion, but six months before it. http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=3927

At that time, there was already a Soviet-supported communist government in Afghanistan.

"The anti-Communist revolt that began at Herat in western Afghanistan in March 1979 originated in a government initiative to teach girls to read. The fundamentalist Afghans opposed to this were supported by a triumvirate of nations – the U.S., Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia"

[Undertoad]

So you guys are big fans of the USSR?

[Happy Monkey]