Keith In Tampa <[email protected]> wrote: "Sadly, I find myself in agreement with Buchanan. I seem to be agreeing with him a lot here, the last year; eighteen months or so....
I know exactly how you feel; I went through this with Buchanan myself. He was one of the first to expose the neo-cons in "Where the Right Went Wrong," an excellent book. He followed that up with "State of Emergency," which made the claim that Illegal Immigration was actually a military strategy being used by the Mexican government to reconquer the Southwest. So illegal immigrants pay coyotes $10,000.00 to lead them on a 10 hour walk across a hot desert w/ no water across the border, where they allow themselves to be stuffed like cattle into a vehicle that takes them on a 36 hr non stop drive to Detroit where they will work 80 hrs per week at $5.00 an hour, all because of why? This is a military strategy used by Mexico to reconquer the Southwest? Yet then he writes some great op ed columns, other times seems like a clown. Then I realized what Buchanan's deal was; When he's being serious I like him a lot but he's often paid to be a partisan hack on MSNBC or pressured to do so to sell papers or a book. At those times he seems like a whack job. I just ignore the whack job Buchanan; that's the false one anyway... On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Keith In Tampa <[email protected]>wrote: > Sadly, I find myself in agreement with Buchanan. I seem to be agreeing > with him a lot here, the last year; eighteen months or so..... > > =============== > > *The Long Retreat * > by Patrick J. Buchanan > 02/20/2009 > > http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?fc_c=1366118x2843328x98163617&id=30786 > "The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating," said President Obama, as > he announced deployment of 17,000 more U.S. troops. > > "I'm absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, > the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region, solely through military > means." > > "(T)here is no military solution in Afghanistan," says Secretary of Defense > Robert Gates. Said U.S. Commander Gen. David McKiernan yesterday, U.S. and > NATO forces are "stalemated." > > Such admissions by our military and political leadership in a time of war > call to mind other words heard back in 1951, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur > delivered his farewell address to the Congress: > > "(O)nce war is forced upon us," said MacArthur, "there is no other > alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. > War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. > > "In war, there is no substitute for victory." > > But if victory over the Taliban has been ruled out by the United States, > have the Taliban ruled out a victory over the American Empire to rival the > one their fathers won over the Soviet Empire? > > What price are we prepared to pay, in "prolonged indecision," to avert such > an end to a war now in its eighth year? > > America had best brace herself for difficult days ahead. > > For stepping back from the dreary prognosis for Afghanistan, a new reality > becomes clear. The long retreat has begun. > > Whether it is in the 23 months Gen. Petraeus favors, or the 16 months Obama > promised, the United States is coming home from Iraq. > > The retreat from Central Asia is already underway. Expelled from the K-2 > air base in Uzbekistan in 2005, the United States has now been ordered out > of the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan. Abkhazia and South Ossetia, ripped away > from Georgia by Russia last August, are never going to be returned. And we > all know it. > > Georgia and Ukraine, most realists now realize, are not going to be > admitted to NATO. We're not going to fight Russia over the Crimea. And the > U.S. anti-missile missiles and radars George Bush intended to deploy in > Poland and the Czech Republic will not now be deployed. > > For Washington has fish to fry with Russia, and the price of her > cooperation is withdrawal of U.S. military forces from her backyard and > front porch. And the warm words flowing between Moscow and Washington > suggest the deal is done. > > With tensions rising in Korea, too, it is hard to believe President Obama > will bolster ground forces on the peninsula, when even Donald Rumsfeld was > presiding over a drawdown and a shifting of U.S. troops away from the DMZ. > > In Latin America, the United States seems reconciled to the rise of an > anti-American radical-socialist coalition, led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez > and embracing Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba. > > Partisans of President Bush may blame Obama for presiding over a strategic > retreat, but it is the Bush administration that assured and accelerated such > a retreat. > > As Robert Pape of the University of Chicago writes in The National > Interest: "America is in unprecedented decline. The self-inflicted wounds of > the Iraq war, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account > balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States > real power in today's world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. > If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration > years as the death knell of American hegemony." > > Pape's harsh verdict is rooted in his reading of history, that the "size of > an economy relative to potential rivals ultimately determines the limits of > power in international politics." > > In other words, when a great nation's share of world product shrinks, the > nation's strategic position follows. Between 2000 and 2008, the U.S. share > of world product plunged from 31 percent to 23 percent, and is expected to > fall to 21 percent by 2013 -- a decline of 32 percent in 13 years. China's > share of world product over the same period will more than double to 9 > percent. > > Pape went back to the 19th century to correlate the rise of the great > powers like Britain and the commensurate growth in their share of world > product. He found the Bush decline had no precedent. > > "America's relative decline since 2000 of some 30 percent represents a far > greater loss of relative power in a shorter time than any power shift among > European great powers roughly from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World > War II. It is one of the largest relative declines in modern history. > Indeed, in size, it is clearly surpassed by only one other great-power > decline, the unprecedented internal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991." > > With an economy still three times that of China, America continues to be > the world's most powerful nation, fully capable of defending all of its > vital interests. We can no longer, however, defend every ally to whom we > made a commitment over the six decades since NATO was formed. > > Obama's assignment: Rebuild U.S. productive power, and execute a strategic > withdrawal from non-vital commitments. > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
