by Pat Buchanan?

Hi. Still doing my bit in the fight against dread holiday torpor.
It occurs to me that the Thursdays' X-mas/New Years combo would
advantage a putsch or other nefarious deeds.

Amy Goodman just announced (after I wrote the above) that the head of
the Iraqi Council just said in an interview in London that
Saddam's Trial will likely be secret, because he may mention names that
will compromise future relations with other countries. Hmmm,
what's next?. -Ed

Buchanan is "an arch right winger" but it is interesting to see
how sound some of his points are, and how sharp the divisions are
within the conservative and hard right community.

David McReynolds

Pat Buchanan on the Empire Crusade.

Excerpt:

"If one-man, one-vote comes to Pakistan, what do we do if that nuclear
nation supports a return of the Taliban? What do we do if the Iraqi
regime that takes power after free elections tells us to pack up and get

out, and declares the liberation of Kuwait and its return to the embrace

of the motherland to be as vital to Baghdad as the return of Taiwan is
to Beijing?"

Here We Go Again
by Pat Buchanan
December 10, 2003

A close read of President Bush's November addresses at the National
Endowment for Democracy in Washington and at the Whitehall Palace in
London leads a traditionalist almost to despair.

George Bush did not write this democratist drivel. This is the kind of
messianic rhetoric he probably never heard before he became president.
Who is putting these words in his mouth? For if George Bush truly
intends to lead a "global democratic revolution," and convert not only
Iraq but the whole Middle East to democracy, he has ceased to be a
conservative and we are headed for endless conflicts, disappointments,
disillusionment and tragedy.

At London, he called a "commitment to the global expansion of democracy"

both "the alternative to instability and to hatred and terror" and "the
third pillar of our security." But before he wagers our security on a
crusade for democracy, Bush should ask the hard questions no one seems
to have asked before he invaded Iraq.

Where in the Constitution is he empowered to go around the world
destabilizing governments? Can he truly believe that by hectoring such
autocracies as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, America is more secure?

Who comes to power if Mubarak goes in Cairo, the Saudi monarchy falls,
or Musharaff is ousted in Pakistan? If memory serves, the last wave of
popular revolutions in the region gave us Nasser, Khadafi, Saddam and
the Ayatollah.

With $200 billion sunk into democratizing Iraq and Afghanistan, how many

more wars does Bush think Americans will support before they decide to
throw the interventionist Republicans out?

Where did he get the idea we are insecure because the Islamic world is
not democratic? The Islamic world has never been democratic. Yet,
before we intervened massively there, our last threat came from Barbary
pirates. Lest we forget, Muhammad Atta and his comrades did not plot
their atrocities in the Sunni Triangle, but in Hamburg and Delray Beach.

Surveys shows that Islamic people bear a deep resentment of U.S.
dominance of their region and our one-sided support for Israel.
Interventionism is not America's solution, it is America's problem.

It was our earlier intervention in the Gulf War and our huge footprint
on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia that lead directly to 9-11. They were

over here because we were over there.

If one-man, one-vote comes to Pakistan, what do we do if that nuclear
nation supports a return of the Taliban? What do we do if the Iraqi
regime that takes power after free elections tells us to pack up and get

out, and declares the liberation of Kuwait and its return to the embrace

of the motherland to be as vital to Baghdad as the return of Taiwan is
to Beijing?

Freedom, the president said, "must be chosen and defended by those who
choose it." Exactly. Why not then let these Islamic peoples choose it on

their own timetable and defend it themselves?

It is "cultural condescension," says Bush, "to assume the Middle East
cannot be converted to democracy. ... Perhaps the most helpful change
we can make is to change in our own thinking."

But if 22 of 22 Arab states are non-democratic, this would seem to
suggest that this soil is not particularly conducive to growing the kind

of democracies we raise in upper New England. This may be mulish
thinking to the progressives at NED, but it may also be common sense.

What support is there in history for the view that as we meddle in the
affairs of foreign nations, we advance our security? How would we have
responded in the 19th century if Britain had declared a policy of
destabilizing the American Union until Andrew Jackson abolished slavery?

"Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity and the best hope for
progress here on earth." Is it? Before democracy became our god, we
used to believe that salvation was Heaven's plan for humanity, and Jesus

Christ was the way, the truth and the life.

The neocons have made democracy a god, but why is George W. Bush
falling down and worshiping their golden calf?

The last time we heard rhetoric like Bush's at NED and Whitehall Castle
was the last time we were bogged down in a war. LBJ declared that
America's goal was far loftier than saving South Vietnam. We were going
to build a "Great Society on the Mekong."

Like Woodrow Wilson, Bush has been converted to the belief that
democracy is the cure for mankind's ills. But our Founding Fathers did
not even believe in democracy. They thought they were creating a
republic - a republic that would be secure by remaining free of the wars

of the blood-soaked continent their fathers had left behind. How wrong
they were.

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
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