Hi Pearly_Button; Re: "Chickenhawks Crow for War" article by Matt Bivens.
Pat Buchanan isn't in favor of war with Iraq. Here's his latest column:
The Cheney doctrine -- war without end
Pat Buchanan, September 2, 2002
Vice President Dick Cheney has just made the most powerful case yet for the Bush Doctrine of Pre-emptive War.
...
But this description applies not only to Saddam Hussein. It applies to Khadafi, Assad, the ayatollahs and Kim Jong-il, all of whom might well conclude that, after Saddam goes down, their turn comes next. By the Kissinger formula, they should all be targeted "for pre-emptive action." For America, the logic of the Bush Doctrine of Pre-emptive War points to war without end.
townhall.com
It's not like Pat Buchanan is being shy about this. Here's some more columns of his, hardly a proponent of war with Iraq:
Who gave mankind the gift of WMD?
August 28, 2002
townhall.com
Has Bush been mouse-trapped into war?
August 21, 2002
townhall.com
Congress steps up to the war issue
July 22, 2002
First among them is why. Why, when Iraq was not involved in 9-11 and has never attacked us nor used biological or gas weapons on U.S. troops, are we launching this war on Iraq? Has deterrence failed us? How so? And who is the aggressor here?
townhall.com
What, exactly, is terrorism?
July 17, 2002
If Congress will not force our War Cabinet to tell us exactly who we are fighting and what the expectations are of the war's duration and the war dead, it will leave us in this dangerous limbo of confusion columnist Prager rightly deplores. If we do not do this, this war on terrorism could end like the war on drugs, in a twilight struggle in which Americans soon lose interest, that results only in a steady loss of our freedom to the true enemy of American liberty: The Leviathan State.
townhall.com
Heading into a new Afghan war
July 10, 2002
President Bush may soon face a decision as critical as that of Liberalism's Best and Brightest to fight the Vietnam War.
Clearly, the days of easy victories are over. When the Taliban decided to stand and fight U.S. power, it was suicidal. Smart bombs guided to their targets by U.S. Special Forces destroyed the Taliban positions before they could engage the Northern Alliance.
But while crushing a Taliban army in conventional war may be a warm-up exercise for the United States, running down assassins and cells of Pashtun fighters in the countryside and the cities of Afghanistan and Pakistan will be a longer, bloodier assignment for U.S. ground forces, if Bush orders them to undertake it. He might ask the Israelis what it was like fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
townhall.com
Do we have a license to kill?
June 19, 2002
Do we really want to get back into this assassination business?
...
None of this is said in defense of Saddam or Fidel, but it is said in contempt of a Congress that is alone empowered by the Constitution to declare war. Do members of Congress retain even a vague understanding at what is required of them by the oaths they all took?
townhall.com
This next article brings back memories of my post #reply-17328755 April 14, 2002. Does Pat read FADG?
American roots of 21st century wars
June 5, 2002
Why, British and French asked, should we fight a war to the death against Nazi Germany to keep Sudeten Germans and Danzigers from rejoining their cousins, when they should never have been separated at Versailles and want to go home. If 90 percent of Taiwan's people demanded to go home to China, would Americans fight to prevent an Anschluss with Beijing? Of course not.
"Munich" is a curse word today, but we should remember that in the Munich and Danzig crises, it was Hitler who was invoking, if cynically, the Wilsonian principle of the self-determination of peoples.
townhall.com
The above are just from the last few months. Buchanan's opposition to war with Iraq dates to last year. I don't have sources before this one, but November 17, 2001 is getting fairly close to September 11:
Why the War Party may fail
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The War Party has already begun to pound the drums. The first ragged foot soldier of the Northern Alliance had not stumbled into Kabul before the "On-to-Baghdad!" boys were back waving the bloody shirt. Not a day passes that some hawkish journalist does not discover a new link between Saddam and the suicide pilots, or between Iraq and the anthrax, though the Bush administration repeatedly denies it.
Who leads the War Party? Thus far, leadership is confined to the chattering classes – radio and TV talking heads, think-tank scribblers, editorialists at The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard, National Review and The New Republic, and columnists on the op-ed pages of the Washington and New York papers. But the War Party yet lacks for a powerful political leader. Look for John McCain to fill the void.
...
Given the clamor for a wider war from within his own camp of media allies, and the scourging he will receive if he fails to take the war to Baghdad, why is Bush holding back?
First, Colin Powell does not want a wider war.
Second, Bush has been put on notice that no NATO ally, not even Tony Blair, will support a new war on Iraq. Europe wants a new American peace initiative. Nor will any major Arab ally support us. The Saudis have already declared their bases off-limits to the United States for a second Desert Storm.
Third, where the president's father had unanimous Security Council support for the first Gulf War, the son would face a Chinese, Russian and perhaps French veto, and U.N. condemnation.
Fourth, while Saddam is far weaker than he was before he ran afoul of Gen. Schwarzkopf, so are we. Since 1991, the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force have been cut in half. If we are to march up the road to Baghdad, this time it will take more than six months to build up the necessary forces in the Gulf. And, unlike Afghanistan, there will be no Northern Alliance to do the fighting. All the ground troops will be Americans.
For these reasons, and because his father still believes he was right not to march on Baghdad, the son will probably not invade – and the War Party will probably not prevail, unless hard evidence is found of Saddam's involvement in Sept. 11.
But if Bush spurns the War Party, will he lead the Peace Party, collar Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, and be the godfather of a new Palestinian state? Or is that Mission Impossible?
Bush should enjoy his triumph. Difficult days lie ahead.
townhall.com
-- Carl |
