excellent article by Pat Buchanan

[dr. freeze]

http://www.amconmag.com/3_1_04/cover.html

i really like this guy....actually puts forth some reasonable arguments as to why we need to get out of Iraq.....unlike the banter and rhetoric we hear from the left.....

its nice to read a coherent viewpoint against what we are doing right now.....

 

[Chopsticks]

Is there actually anything "reasonable" that comes out of that man???

 

[kosar]

It's a good article. It's interesting that you like this one, freeze. I guess it depends on who's the messenger as to whether you agree with someone or argue with someone. In a lot longer form, all he's saying is what a lot of us have been saying for a year:

1. We had absolutely no exit plan in Iraq.

2. Almost all the countries that the neo-cons have on their hit list have done nothing to us, including Iraq, and we have no right to arbitrarily invade countries.

3. This world domination policy that we're heading towards is doomed to fail for many reasons.

I especially liked this part of the article, where Buchanon writes,


--Bush must be muttering, ?What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damn fools said would happen has come to pass.?--

 

[dr. freeze]

yeah i like coherent arguments against the war and against what we are doing....this whole "bush lied" and "Halliburton and Cheney" is a bunch of BS and very tiresome

i think we had the right to invade Iraq based on the whole noncompliance issue...but i am not sure that we shoudl have done so.....

i wish we would just tighten down the borders and deliver Mexico an ultimatum....but because of the pandering to the Hispanic vote by both political parties, that will never happen

other thing that concerns me is the whole oil industry....i dont know what we are doing and how we are doing it, but we do need (to my knowledge anyway) the Middle Eastern oil....and i could care less how we get it -- bribery to Saudi Arabia whatever -- if it is in our best interest, we should get it....and i ma not sure how the whole oil industry is affected by our current foreign policy or what would have happened had we not invaded....i give Bush the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making the right decisions concerning this

 

[gardenweasel]

one thing is for sure....

one thing is for sure....

oil is this country`s life`s blood.....you absolutely need no other explanation than "oil " to rationalize anything we do......if we were denied access to middle eastern oil,and couldn`t get enough from the venezuela`s, canada`s and mexico(last time i checked,saudi arabia was our second largest supplier).... we`d be forced to take even more extrordinary measures than invading iraq to obtain it(even though invading iraq was less about obtaining oil than it was about keeping a-holes like hussein from potentially plunging the middle east into a full- fledged conflict)....

that`is,if everyone on this board likes living in the manner that they have become accustomed....

no war for oil?....i say bullsh-t ....unless your o.k. with the united states becoming a "high brow" third world nation...

it`s just a damned shame that it`s not politically expedient to tell it like it is......

forget the moon....put that money into finding an alternative energy source....so we can extricate ourselves from the middle eastern morass...

unfortunately,sooooo many politicians are in bed with the oil corporations that the alternative energy question gets little more than lip service....

free us from oil dependence....and let `em kill each other....

 

[kosar]

Garden,

I didn't realize that we were having a problem getting oil before we occupied Iraq. Although your scenario of us getting cut off from oil is incredibly far-fetched, I would agree that in that case, we would have to take action.

I'm not sure exactly if you were saying this, but pre-emptive thievery of another countrys oil is not a reason to start a war. If they(multiple countries colluding to leave us very short-and I don't mean some price fixing by OPEC-our gas is very cheap, in general and compared to other countries) were to start playing games with oil, then we could take care of that.

Definitely agree about alternative energy focus. I would also add that we can't even drill a lot of our own oil, which is BS. We should put a wall up around North Dakota and plunk everybody from PETA and Greenpeace down and let them have a blast.

Freeze,

Agree on the immigration issue and the reason nothing is ever done about it.

 

[gardenweasel]

k

k

i wasn`t making the case that the iraqi invasion was to obtain oil.....just trying to make the case that this country gets very antsy regarding any potential destabilization of the middle east(translation...the oil supply)....

i hate to rehash ancient history,but,i keep thinking back to the kuwaiti crisis and what may have happened had saddam had a nuclear capapbility when he made his bold move to try and regain his old territory.......he may have had it,if the israeli`s hadn`t bombed the Osirak(french-assisited and the "hot cells were provided by the germans) research reactor near baghdad in "81"....and if he`d had nuclear capability then,he`d either still be in possesion of a good portion of kuwaiti`s oil fields,or maybe he`d have lobbed nukes instead of scuds into israel to rachet the stakes up a bit......certainly getting return nuclear attck from an assuredly devastated israel...and getting his arab brethren into the anti-israeli conflict....

and doing who knows what to the continuing oil flow coming out of the middle east....not to mention starting ww 3...

"In a bombing raid that took months to prepare, on June 7, 1981 the Israel Air Force robbed Saddam Hussein of the
ability to produce nuclear weapons for at least another decade....


actually,after the attack, IAEA(int`l atomic energy agency) arms inspector Roger Richter resigned from the agency to defend Israel's action.... He had helped negotiate the IAEA's "safeguards" arrangement for the reactor and later told Congress that the agency had failed to win sufficient access to detect plutonium production for weapons......





israel caught hell for their actions...either were sanctioned by the u.n...or fell just short of sanctions....i for one,am glad the israeli`s did what they did.....the man isn`t stable...the whole world knows that...was anyone surprised that he set fire to the oil fields as he retreated.....causing untold economic and ecological damage...the guy has proven time and again that he`s a psychopath....


Saddam had referred to his having nuclear weapons circa 1980 as the "Sword of Nebuchadnezzar" to be used to destroy Iraq's foes and restore the splendor of Babylon to the Arab world......man,that`s scary stuff...the guy had delusions of grandeur....about making himself the leader of a powerful,united arab world.....with guess who as the arch-enemy....



i see both sides of the invasion argument... i feel the lack of an exit strategy will be the death of this administration.....

the guy`s past history and the failure(over a period of decades)of inspections....and saddam`s reticence to throw open the doors and come clean despite multiple u.n. resolutions,i guess,made the administration feel like the guy was to dangerous to continue to play the game with....after iran,,,kuwait,,,the kurds,,,the atrocities,,,the issue of israel`s security...l...


was israel right for destroying the nuclear reactor?.....i don`t know...i know,in hindsight,i`m glad they did....

were we right in undertaking regime change?..was it really necessary?...who knows...... maybe things will become clearer in time.....

but,if things don`t improve(i know it`s early),george will have a major problem on his hands...as will this country....

 

[kosar]

Garden,

Israel definitely did the right thing in bombing that reactor. They did more good in that quick raid than we've done in a year of occupation. And even better, for them, it didn't cost them much in dollars and nothing in lives.