The Anti-ConservativesFebruary 28, 2005 Issue | Copyright � 2005 The American Conservative | by Patrick J. Buchanan
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A conservative knows not whether to laugh or weep, for Mr. Bush has just asserted a right to interfere in the internal affairs of every nation on earth. Why? Because the “survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” But this is utterly ahistorical. The world has always been afflicted with despots. Yet America has always been free. And we have remained free by following the counsel of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams and staying out of foreign quarrels and foreign wars.
Who is feeding the president this interventionist nonsense?
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Who and what converted a president who came to office with no knowledge of the world to the idea that only a global crusade for democracy could keep us secure? Answer: 9/11—and the neoconservatives.
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The 9/11 killers were over here because we are over there. We were not attacked because of who we are but because of what we do. It is not our principles they hate. It is our policies. U.S. intervention in the Middle East was the cause of the 9/11 terror. Bush believes it is the cure. Has he learned nothing from Iraq?
In 2003, we invaded a nation that had not attacked us, did not threaten us, and did not want war with us to disarm it of weapons it did not have. Now, after plunging $200 billion and the lives of 1,400 of our best and bravest into this war and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, we have reaped a harvest of hatred in the Arab world and, according to officials in our own government, have created a new nesting place and training ground for terrorists to replace the one we lately eradicated in Afghanistan.
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Urging Bush not to press Israel into making peace with the Palestinians until Palestine embraces democracy is a clever way to postpone peace indefinitely and let Israel expand its settlements and consolidate its hold over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That may be in Israel’s interest. But it is not in America’s interest. Sharansky’s idealism just happens to coincide with Sharon’s agenda. Can President Bush not see this?
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Given that the neocons were wrong on every count about Iraq, does Bush truly wish to gamble the Middle East on their confident predictions that, once the Arab monarchies fall, Western democracy will flourish among people who seem to revile Bush and revere Osama bin Laden?
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Giddy with excitement, the neocons are falling all over one another to hail the president. They are not conservatives at all. They are anti-conservatives, and their crusade for democracy will end as did Wilson’s, in disillusionment for the president and tragedy for this country.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post: "Tuesday February 15, 2005 7:16 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East with added responsibilities.
Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in the first Bush administration, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.
A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and Poland, she left her State Department post to work in her father's re-election campaign last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East with added responsibilities.
Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in the first Bush administration, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.
A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and Poland, she left her State Department post to work in her father's re-election campaign last year.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Pentagon Spy Agency's Leader Quits After Disclosures: Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago
courant.com | Pentagon Spy Agency's Leader Quits After Disclosures: "February 13, 2005 | By BARTON GELLMAN, Washington Post
The leader of a new Pentagon espionage unit has resigned shortly after public disclosure that the Defense Department is expanding into clandestine operations traditionally undertaken by the CIA.
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The Post disclosed last month that Rumsfeld has reinterpreted U.S. law to grant him broad authority to dispatch clandestine teams into friendly and unfriendly nations, whether or not conventional war is in prospect. Designed to help cure what Rumsfeld described as his "near-total dependence on CIA," the Strategic Support Branch gathers intelligence alongside newly empowered forces from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
In Congress, the House and Senate intelligence committees have held closed briefings in the past two weeks with senior Defense officials, including Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. In sometimes heated exchanges, witnesses said, members of both parties complained to Cambone about learning from a newspaper account that the Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago, using funds "reprogrammed" from congressional appropriations. Members of Congress also asked about Pentagon legal theories under which Defense personnel could conduct "routine" and "traditional" operations without notifying Congress.
The leader of a new Pentagon espionage unit has resigned shortly after public disclosure that the Defense Department is expanding into clandestine operations traditionally undertaken by the CIA.
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The Post disclosed last month that Rumsfeld has reinterpreted U.S. law to grant him broad authority to dispatch clandestine teams into friendly and unfriendly nations, whether or not conventional war is in prospect. Designed to help cure what Rumsfeld described as his "near-total dependence on CIA," the Strategic Support Branch gathers intelligence alongside newly empowered forces from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
In Congress, the House and Senate intelligence committees have held closed briefings in the past two weeks with senior Defense officials, including Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. In sometimes heated exchanges, witnesses said, members of both parties complained to Cambone about learning from a newspaper account that the Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago, using funds "reprogrammed" from congressional appropriations. Members of Congress also asked about Pentagon legal theories under which Defense personnel could conduct "routine" and "traditional" operations without notifying Congress.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Natan Sharansky [Israeli political official], [...Bush ... ] and US Israel Policy: Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Natan Sharansky and US Israel Policy - by Tom Barry: "February 8, 2005
There is little doubt that George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, a Soviet �migr� who is a top political official in Israel, share a similar perspective about international affairs, especially in the Middle East.
Following his inaugural address, the U.S. president said that Sharansky's book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, published last September, confirmed what he already believed. He added that the Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Paralleling Bush's own description of international affairs as a divide between good and evil, and those who are fighting terrorism and those who support it, Sharansky writes in his book that the world is "divided between those who are prepared to confront evil and those who are willing to appease it."
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The November session between Sharansky and the president was not the first time that Bush had met Sharansky. On an official visit to Israel in 1998, Bush, then governor of Texas, met with then Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Industry Minister Sharansky.
According to Bush, who had dinner with Netanyahu and was personally escorted on a helicopter tour of the occupied territories by Sharon, "Israel has got a tremendous amount of talent – smart folks – many of whom have immigrated from Russia."
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During his stay, Gov. Bush visited weapons-manufacturing plants, defense facilities, antiballistic missile sites, and industries doing business with Texans.
"I saw democracy firsthand in Israel," said Bush, adding that Israel "is short on natural resources in terms of resources you find in the ground, but it's very long on the most natural resource of all, which is brain power."
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The United States and Israel have much in common, according to Sharansky. One of the links, he said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, which was the basis for an article in Commentary, the journal of the American Jewish Committee, is the spreading scourge of anti-Semitism.
"Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and anti-Americanism in Europe are in fact linked," argues Sharansky, because "both bear an uncanny resemblance to anti-Semitism."
There is little doubt that George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, a Soviet �migr� who is a top political official in Israel, share a similar perspective about international affairs, especially in the Middle East.
Following his inaugural address, the U.S. president said that Sharansky's book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, published last September, confirmed what he already believed. He added that the Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Paralleling Bush's own description of international affairs as a divide between good and evil, and those who are fighting terrorism and those who support it, Sharansky writes in his book that the world is "divided between those who are prepared to confront evil and those who are willing to appease it."
...
The November session between Sharansky and the president was not the first time that Bush had met Sharansky. On an official visit to Israel in 1998, Bush, then governor of Texas, met with then Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Industry Minister Sharansky.
According to Bush, who had dinner with Netanyahu and was personally escorted on a helicopter tour of the occupied territories by Sharon, "Israel has got a tremendous amount of talent – smart folks – many of whom have immigrated from Russia."
...
During his stay, Gov. Bush visited weapons-manufacturing plants, defense facilities, antiballistic missile sites, and industries doing business with Texans.
"I saw democracy firsthand in Israel," said Bush, adding that Israel "is short on natural resources in terms of resources you find in the ground, but it's very long on the most natural resource of all, which is brain power."
...
The United States and Israel have much in common, according to Sharansky. One of the links, he said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, which was the basis for an article in Commentary, the journal of the American Jewish Committee, is the spreading scourge of anti-Semitism.
"Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and anti-Americanism in Europe are in fact linked," argues Sharansky, because "both bear an uncanny resemblance to anti-Semitism."
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Elliott Abrams -- Iran-Contra Figure [pardonned] promoted to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad
Iran-Contra Figure to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad: "From News Services | 02/03/05 'Washington Post' --
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team. "
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team. "