Your email address is safe with us. View our Privacy policy.
Author Bio:
Having been advisor to three presidents, a candidate for Republican presidential nominee twice, and the Reform party nominee once, Pat Buchanan has...
Read more about Patrick Buchanan.
Having been advisor to three presidents, a candidate for Republican presidential nominee twice, and the Reform party nominee once, Pat Buchanan has...
Read more about Patrick Buchanan.
The American Way of Abandonment
Patrick Buchanan
When America is about to throw an ally to the wolves, we follow an
established ritual. We discover that the man we supported was never
really morally fit to be a friend or partner of the United States.
When Chiang Kai-shek, who fought the Japanese for four years before Pearl Harbor, began losing to Mao's Communists, we did not blame ourselves for being a faithless ally, we blamed him. He was incompetent; he was corrupt.
We did not lose China. He did.
When Buddhist monks began immolating themselves in South Vietnam, the cry went up: President Diem, once hailed as the "George Washington of his country," was a dictator, a Catholic autocrat in a Buddhist nation, who had lost touch with his people.
And so, word went out from the White House to the generals. Get rid of Diem, and you get his power and U.S. support. Three weeks before JFK was assassinated, Diem and his brother met the same fate.
When the establishment wished to be rid of a war into which it had plunged this country, suddenly it was "the corrupt and dictatorial Thieu-Ky regime" in Saigon that was simply not worth defending.
Lon Nol, our man in Phnom Penh, got the same treatment.
"In this world it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal," said Henry Kissinger.
The army of South Vietnam and the Saigon government, the boat people of the South China Sea and the million victims of Pol Pot's genocide can testify to that before the judgment seat of history
Thus the daily attacks on Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- who sat beside Laura Bush as guest of honor at the 2002 State of the Union and got a standing ovation -- as the corrupt ruler of a corrupt regime, whose brother, a narcotics trafficker, has been on the CIA's payroll, seems a signal that the ritual is about to begin. The Karzai brothers should probably read up on the fate of the Diem brothers.
Yet never has an ally been more egregiously insulted in wartime than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's insulting of the Pakistanis on her "fence-mending" trip last week. In a meeting with editors, Hillary was asked why the United States was focusing its Predator strikes in the war on terror so heavily upon Pakistan.
Said Hillary, "Al-Qaida has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. ... I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to."
This is charging the Pakistani government, army and intelligence services with cowardice or collusion with bin Laden and al-Qaida in the war on terror. That it was made within hours of the bloodiest in a long series of terror attacks that have killed hundreds of Pakistanis only magnifies the insult.
So, too, does the fact that the Pakistani army, after cleansing the Swat Valley of the Taliban, is now fighting in South Waziristan in the most critical battle of the war.
But, if this is what the Obama administration and the Congress believe, why are they sending $7.5 billion in new aid to such a regime?
Moreover, the charge is, on its face, demonstrably false.
If Pakistan's intelligence services, army and government all knew the exact location of bin Laden, we would know it. For we have people inside sympathetic to us, just as some are sympathetic to al-Qaida.
And if people inside discovered the exact location of bin Laden or al-Qaida, they would leak it to us, if only because the money on the table for such intelligence is irresistible.
Is Secretary Clinton suggesting there are people throughout the Pakistani government who have information that could make them rich for life, but refuse to reveal it out of purest loyalty to a gang of terrorists who are massacring their countrymen as well as Americans?
That there are warlords who are war criminals, allied with the Afghan regime and us, that drug-traffickers are abetted by high officials, that Karzai stole the election, no one denies.
That the Pakistani intelligence services are shot through with elements loyal to a Taliban they helped bring to power in Kabul, that there are Pakistani army officers who believe they should be defending their country against India, not fighting America's war in Waziristan, is also undeniable.
But what does it avail us to insult these people who have cast their lot with us, many of whom will, with famines and friends, pay a far more terrible price than we if we lose these wars.
And if we are going to abandon these people, as we have so many others in the past, let us at least tell them, and ourselves, the truth. We didn't know what we were getting into. We don't have the stomach for a long war. We're sorry we got you into this. Your big mistake was in trusting us. You folks should have known better.
========
Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
Copyright 2009 Creators Syndicate Inc.
This news arrived on: 11/03/2009
Printer Friendly Version | Send this page to a friend | Post Comment
Rate This Story:
Great - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Bad
Posted Comments:
11-05-2009 22:17
Gerry wrote:
History
Mr. Buchanan,
Normally I have tremendous respect for your intelligence and knowledge of history. In this particular case, I got a chance to see much of the SE Asian history up close and personal and then worked a bit in the Mideastern theatre before retiring. This is a horrendous and misinformed oversimplification. You need to make a retraction.
Sincerely,
Gerry
Normally I have tremendous respect for your intelligence and knowledge of history. In this particular case, I got a chance to see much of the SE Asian history up close and personal and then worked a bit in the Mideastern theatre before retiring. This is a horrendous and misinformed oversimplification. You need to make a retraction.
Sincerely,
Gerry
11-05-2009 19:48
old cowboy wrote:
Right or Left
I was appalled when I listened to the amounts of money spent during the 10/3/09 elections. Whether from the Right or Left these crooks are not spending all that much money out of a desire to serve. Honest people don't spend that way for a job that never will bring a return on the investment that in any way most of us would consider legal. Relatively speaking, those jobs just don't pay that well.
11-05-2009 17:18
JCE wrote:
While we may have a far better president than the last one, and we do, our government is not better, because we still have the same NWO oligarchs controlling it. Our government started declining when the first republican president invaded the south to take the states rights away. While people are often confused about the Confederacy and its stubborn refusal to give up slavery, which is what cost them the war, it also cost the country states rights. Which the federal government has no intention of ever giving back. Which the people will never get back by whining. Only by taking back their local governments, which can then take back the state governments. Then strong state governments can deal with the federal government. But the people have become like loud, angry sheep. As long as the country has a dozen or more issues to be divided on, and we are trying to meddle all around the world, it will keep the peoples mind off of the fact that they need to focus on and clean up their local and state governments, not worry so much about what other states, and other countries are doing.
11-04-2009 10:28
Redneck wrote:
Best government??
Casey42, You better take your meds, it's beginning to show, and the men in the white coats will throw the net over you and take you to the rubber room again! As you said "the best government we hve had in SOME TIME" right! since Jan 25th !! Also remember Manuel Ortega and the Castro brothers, WE supported them The public wasn't told they were communist! Maybe we need to stay out of other countrys problems! Honduras took care of their own "would be dictator"!
11-04-2009 09:35
Wondering wrote:
Best government ever?
casey42: Look at your history books. The best government we've had in America is where the government followed the Constitution, let the free market take care of itself, which would inspire Americans to do the best they could, which in turn provided goods and services beneficial to all Americans. The government we've had since the mid-1900s or so has continued to encroach upon our freedoms, which suggests government hasn't been for the greater good of the citizens in America.
Comment archive | Comment FAQ's
 |
 |
View Patrick Buchanan ezine stories by date or visit the complete archive |
The ArcaMax Politics channel is one of 70 content categories offered by ArcaMax Publishing on this ... |
VideoSquares.com
