Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

It's a long article, so I'll just link it. Is this the same Pat Buchanan who is well known from TV and attempts to become president?

Well, he isn't any sort of fan of Israel, which is OK, because I'm not, either. But then he accuses Isreal:

quote:

---

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.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Sep 2001
Location: ........
Posts: 15003

quote:

---

Israel attacked a US ship?

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2002
Location: Just to the right of the moon
Posts: 3141

quote:

---

Originally posted by skalie
That would be the USS Liberty.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

And if you behave like this, the US pays you money? Al Quaida should be floating on the stock market, then.

Hmmm.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

international politics is cool huh?

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2001
Location: China
Posts: 11795

Don't forget their dealings with South Africa.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

The bit about Pollard is also correct, although the suppositions regarding Israel selling the documents to Russia or China are nothing but speculation on Buchanan's part.

Buchanan was on the ballot in every state in the last Presidential election. He won 500,000 votes, less than one half of one percent. The entirety of his political cache was built on him being an organ of the Republican party; once he lost that vehicle, he lost pretty much all his support.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

Mossad spys on everyone. Read Gideon's Spies. I think it said they do most of their work in the US.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

I hate to link WSJ's Best of the Web Today blog all the time, but they had a good piece on this. They followed it up today, but I can't link it properly (you'd have to scroll down and everything) so the original should suffice.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Harm's Way
Posts: 557

Israel sucks worse than the Arabs. I hope we pave them next.

If Buchannan read Nietzsche instead of the Bible he would have my vote.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

quote:

---

Originally posted by DevilMoon
I hate to link WSJ's Best of the Web Today blog all the time, but they had a good piece on this. They followed it up today, but I can't link it properly (you'd have to scroll down and everything) so the original should suffice.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

Well they actually use two points of the zionist cabal theory, a) is that the war will cause regional chaos and more terrorism and b) that it is not in the US's interest and is being waged on Israel's behalf. They are pointing out that if a) is true, then b) doesn't follow. I don't think they are negating Israel's support, but rather saying that it is in Israel's interest for the same reason it is in our interest, removing a malignant presence in the region and replacing it with a free society, which should lead to stability. Whether or not that is pie in the sky is, of course, hugely debatable.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

You could make a case for some terrorism being in the interests of the hardline Israeli parties, who favour harsh action against the Palestinians (as a precursor to them being forced out of the land that they currently occupy), if a conspiracy theory is afoot. Additionally a chaotic Middle East is not that bad for Israel, at least compared to an arab world uniformly aligned against them; I would say that it serves Israeli interests to have arab nations at loggerheads (and fortunately for them, that is the commonplace state of the arab nations on many issues). Terrorism aimed at that US would possibly also benefit Israel's interests, I think (Sharon was very quick to call his own hardline actions part of the 'War on Terror', which although the US didn't seem to buy at first, became more acceptable for some reason, as time went on). I don't buy the conspiracy theory, but it could be in line with some zionist motives; for anything to be as clear cut as all this seems rather unlikely (our own motives for war, quite aside from hypothetical zionist cabals pulling the strings, are probably very complicated anyway).

I certainly don't think that it would be in Israel's interests, though, to have a democratic arab client state of the Unites States just next door. Such a state would have the ear of the US, and democracy probably wouldn't lower support for the palestinians (the palestinian cause is very popular with the average arab in the street, apparently). So if there was some zionist cabal, they would have to be pretty confident that democracy won't work there (which many people who know the region are confident about, incidentally).

Last edited by Smug Git on 03-25-2003 at 07:47 AM

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

I have long wanted to read the wisdom of Lyndon Larouche (I only learnt about him from flocat, whose father is a Larouche fan). So, what does Larouche have to say? Well, a lot (and can I take this opportunity to apologise on behalf of the British for assassinating President McKinley?), some dubious and I suspect misunderstood mathematical history for a start, but then:

quote:

---

Now, are these guys the cause of the war? No. They're only lackeys. Israel, for example: If Israel, under Sharon, continues its present course, Israel will be destroyed. If Israel goes to war in the Middle East, Israel will be destroyed, like a hand grenade, which has been thrown: When it reaches its destination, it explodes. It does the job, and then it fragments--it doesn't exist any more.

So, is Israel behind this? No. Israel is a hand grenade being thrown at the Arab world. So, Israel is not behind this. George Bush hasn't got the brains to be behind it. Who's behind it? The people I referred to, in January 2001: the independent central-banking-system crowd, the slime-mold. The financier interests. The same type of financier interests: descendants of the same interests that were behind the Hitler project, when the head of the Bank of England, backed by Harriman money, and by the grandfather of the present President of the United States, moved the money to refinance the Nazi Party, and the pressure to bring Hitler to power, on Jan. 30, 1933: This is what is happening now.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

A really good book on Iraq in the years sandwiched between these two wars and US involvement in it is Robert Baer's See No Evil. The book shows a specific example from 1995 where the US Government encouraged a revolt, then withdrew support at the last possible moment and left people twisting in the wind who had already stuck their necks way out. This, combined with the 1991 uprising, shows where the dubiousness of the Iraqi people stems from (besides the occasional stray missile) and why it is going to take quite a bit to prove that this time we are serious. People have died for supporting our half-assed attempts at this in the past. Not that it has much to do with this thread, but an excerpt (which talks more about London than the Middle East, unlike most of the book) is here

Also, sort of unrelated, I saw this quoted in a recent article about Donald Rumsfeld, and searching around for it shows it being used as propaganda for both sides in the Israel/Palestine issue (in many cases linked to a .mil page which no longer exists):

quote:

---

My feeling about the so-called occupied territories are that there was a war, Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved in it once it started, they all jumped in, and they lost a lost of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict. In the intervening period, they've made some settlements in various parts of the so-called occupied area, which was the result of a war, which they won.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

Of all the things that Israel has done, even including the killing of civilians, the settlements are the things that paint them the blackest, I think, because they make it extremely hard to gain peace in the future (something that Bush himself apparently feels, even if Rumsfeld doesn't mind them).

I think that the Rumsfeld statement that you quoted is morally bankrupt. The people that the Israelis were fighting (fighting, indeed, for their survival) often weren't the same as the people who were displaced from their land, the land that was then 'settled' by jewish people. The land was taken, allegedly to protect Israel from further attacks (which seems reasonable enough, as Israel's situation was extremely fraught then) and then it was settled (which wasn't reasonable). Israel's dream of offering sanctuary to every jew in the world, and the fact of its limited size, are going to cause problems, obviously, but why should a Palestinian farmer (with, don't forget, no real control over the actions that led to the Israelis responding by taking his land) be paying that price?

It is a modern day imperialism, the settlement policy (but beloved of the hardliners, including those who want all the Palestinians out altogether), and imperialism isn't nice, it is theft. Taking the land for the original stated purposes wasn't imperialism, but settling it is. Larouche might be a nut, but British imperialism, however you might excuse it, involved a large element of theft; the only nice thing to say about it is that it is mostly finished with (apart from the remnants that are difficult to extricate ourselves from). I fully understand and support the fact that the US helps Israel, but I don't understand the moral blank cheque that appears to have been written it (I should write this in another thread, really, because I have no interest in or sympathy for the views of Pat Buchanan). Sharon is dragging your name (the US) and reputation and aspirations through the slime; Israel itself isn't suddenly bad because of Sharon, but there needs to be a distinction between state and leader. Supporting Israel doesn't have to mean waving Israeli tanks into civilian areas and in any case, it isn't working. It just seems bizarre to me that the US would, in effect, sponsor imperialism when this is something that they have long opposed pretty much everywhere else.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

Not to come off as a rabid zionist (to be honest, the Arab-Israeli conflict is low on my list of priorities, its something I am pretty well convinced will never be sorted out) but your post reminded me of an interview I read with Alan Dershowitz from last September where he was apparently pimping a book he wrote called Why Terrorism Works. I have no idea if the book is any good or garbage, and it seems Dershowitz is often a nut (advocating evacuating and then levelling Palestinian villages in response to attacks, for example) he has some points in the interview where he talks about colonalization and also addresses how the Palestinian plight became a cause celebre through the use of terrorism.

quote:

---

Why has the pope met with Arafat seven times and never met with a Kurdish leader or an Armenian leader? It's a reflection of the success of Palestinian terrorism.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35656

The plight of the Eastern Timorese became a cause celebre without terrorism, so I don't think that there is a necessity to using terrorism, somehow. The catholics were into East Timor primarily because they were catholics being murdered, I should think; the Catholic church has a big interest in the Holy Land too, obviously (not because it is full of catholics but because of the whole Jesus thing). His argument would be, then, that although the kurds have practiced terrorism, that they haven't been successful enough at it? I think that he also makes the simplification that Arafat characterises Palestinian terrorism (and not, despite his current leadership, Palestinian government) and that is dangerous, because it really isn't that simple. The relationship between Hezbollah and Arafat, for example, is hardly a simple one of master and servant, in either direction.

quote:

---

There's never been a group in the world as bad as Palestinian or Islamic terrorists, ever.

---

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3876

The company I used to work for put all of the equipment in the U,S. S. Liberty. We also outfitted the U.S,S, Pueblo.

__________________

[Ignore Sig]

oxsan


Don't kick until yer spurred.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3876

Your title for the thread would be increased in accuracy if you merely replaced the question mark by an exclamation point. Buchanan is indeed a looney (American spelling). At one time he had quite a following in middle America and among the fundamental Christians but I think that he has lost it completely. He used to appear on PBS as the sole voice of conservativism . Now he is rarely seen as a guest on TV. I say let's let him fade into the deep gloom of senility.

__________________

[Ignore Sig]

oxsan


Don't kick until yer spurred.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

quote:

---

Originally posted by oxsan
I say let's let him fade into the deep gloom of senility.

---

I take it that's a lonely place and you're looking for a companion? Cheer up. I'm sure you'll find Reagan in there somewhere.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3876

Your concern for my well being and happiness is deeply appreciated Chips Jr.

__________________

[Ignore Sig]

oxsan


Don't kick until yer spurred.

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged