Buchanan: Baiting a (Syrian) Trap for Bush?

[Martin Eden]

Baiting a Trap for Bush?

by Patrick J. Buchanan
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=4894
If Syria's Bashar Assad was behind the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon, he is, in the edited version of Gen. Tommy Franks' phrase, "the dumbest … man on the planet."

The Beirut car bombing that killed Hariri smashed Assad's hope of any rapprochement with the United States, forced him into a collision with President Bush, united the Lebanese in rage at Damascus and their own pro-Syrian government, and coalesced world pressure on Assad to get his 15,000 troops out of Lebanon.
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If the testimony of CIA chief Porter Goss and the director of defense intelligence, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, is accurate, we are less secure today than before we invaded Iraq. "Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists," Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.
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But the losses are known. Two years after invading, we have 1,500 dead, 10,000 wounded, and no end in sight to the fighting and dying. We have killed scores of thousands of Iraqis, crippled our alliances, and bred hatred of America across the Islamic world. We are $300 billion deeper in debt. And the War Party, which was 100 percent wrong about Iraq, is telling Bush the right thing to do is to attack Syria and Iran.
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http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=4894

[OneMind]

1. Buchanan is making sense, and, no, Assad was not behind it. n/t

[hlthe2b]

2. Perhaps the neocons were behind it....?

Makes one wonder though if paleoconservative Buchanan can so consistently see the truth on this issue, why can't our own Dems? That Hillary is now parroting the neocon party line is just devastating to me.

[Martin Eden]

3. Who is behind it?

I think Buchanan implies the jihadists are likely behind it, because they gain by eliminating the pro-Western Hariri and by provoking a clash between the U.S. and Syria. They want America suckered into and bled dry by a wider conflagration that will inflame Islamic passions and promote their radical brand of Islam.

Hillary has "learned" the political lesson of the 2004 election that if you don't jump on the neocon bandwagon you miss the train. She's not really a neocon -- she just believes it is political suicide to disparage our mission in Iraq, even if it means buying into the lies surrounding this entire endeavor.

[OneMind]

4. Unfortunately, Hillary.....

has become a professional POLITICIAN.

[yurbud]

5. once again, the sanest republican

[applegrove]

6. USA bainted Soviet Union into Afghan War. Islamist sholdiers there like

Osama bin Laden took notes. Then Osama baited Bush into War in the middle East: ensuring that their dwindleling Islamist revolutionary numbers would increase (instead of all the thousands who just used the 'training camps' as a fun thing to do before you went back home and didn't get involved. Now all the nut-cakes get involved in Iraq.

Time for osama to bait Bush again? I wouldn't put it past the monsters.

[necso]

7. Pat has good sources.

It will be interesting to see his next few "plays" (after separating out the mandatory shilling, of course).

Mr Buchanan is pretty much an outsider these days, having been rather a wheel in the past. But he is also a skilled player, if somewhat of a paleo in this regard.

Given a great deal of tolerance, it can be rather entertaining to watch his maneuvering from the outside, criticizing, skirmishing -- but never going too far -- and limiting his attacks to carefully selected areas. (A skirmish can look like an all out attack -- but one must look at the breadth of the attack, not merely the ferocity.)

Too bad old-school politics is dead. You simply can't take the Light Horse up against the Panzer Armee... not if you want to win.

"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre."