‘non-interventionism’ is a complete fraud and abous as anti-Liberty in this day in age as you get.

jp on August 19, 2008 at 4:58 PM

That is ten tons of BS.

Every well-raised five year old child is aware of the concept of Minding Your Own Bloody Business. Why whole nations can’t grasp that idea is beyond me.

If Putin can’t see all of those things for what they are, then he is an idiot. Buchanan went off the deep end apologizing for him.

Buchanan seems to be saying otherwise, that not only should we get out of Putin’s way, we should actually informally (or formally?) recognize Russia’s dominion over those satellites.

This is sufficiently ridiculous to merit reasonable comparison to Buchanan’s idiotic “we should have ignored Hitler” tripe. He’s not stupid – he’s crazy.

Putin, a guy known for bumping off journalists who cross him

Allah, I am no fan of Putin or Russia for that matter, but I don’t think that anyone has ever proven that Putin was involved in ” bumping off journalist”.

alphie on August 19, 2008 at 5:13 PM

And your obsession with bashing Christians does not sound like Reagan.

Buchanan is a Reagan Republican…just like me, Terrye.

Nice to see he’s got you Rapture Republicans throwing hissy fits.

alphie on August 19, 2008 at 5:13 PM

Seems like you said you were on the left; which is it?

Should we try expanding into Sudan or other parts of the world in the name of democracy or better military bases? Georgia may be in the spotlight this month, but you need to have a consistent strategy.

Look at the causes of WWI and think about how many treaty commitments the US should make in the name of the most recent struggle for democracy and freedom.

bayam on August 19, 2008 at 11:29 PM

The Georgians seem to be democracy and freedom loving people. I doubt that the Suddenness are. I don’t think that the Iraqis are. Democracy and freedom on the one hand and Islam on the other are not exactly natural fits to say the least.

Americans have a tradition of establishing bases according to those bases’ strategic value to the Americans’ strength and liberty

How does a presence in the Caucuses make the US or NATO stronger? How does it give Americans more liberty? Should we try expanding into Sudan or other parts of the world in the name of democracy or better military bases? Georgia may be in the spotlight this month, but you need to have a consistent strategy.

Look at the causes of WWI and think about how many treaty commitments the US should make in the name of the most recent struggle for democracy and freedom.

The problem with Buchanan’s isolationsism is that it was shown to be wrong by the events that culminated in World War II. Buchanan knows it, and that is why I think he wrote his revisionist “history” of World War II that idiotically blames Chruchill. It is bad stuff. Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens tear apart Buchanan’s false revisionism in a published interview that can be found on National Review Online.

Too much attention is given to Buchanan. Buchanan is wrong about World War II. Buchanan is wrong about Georgia.

Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.

Yalta ceased being the vacation resort of the czars 91 years ago; the Americans can scarcely make Yalta any less a possession of the czars than it already is. My weak sentimental attachment to the extinct royalty of Russia’s former inhabitants doesn’t extend at all to the Russian Black Sea Fleet; nor am I aware of some distance beyond which the U.S. Sixth Fleet simply must not establish a base. If Buchanan wants Americans to respect traditions, then let me observe that the Americans have a tradition of establishing bases according to those bases’ strategic value to the Americans’ strength and liberty.

It’s pretty funny that Buchanan invokes A Bridge Too Far to describe the Americans’ working together to further their own common advantage. Here, Buchanan is the one constructing a rationale on behalf of one of the Americans’ enemies, yet he seems unconscious of having gone a bridge too far.

Russia’s actions brought on the world’s mistrust, not the other way around. You are completely reversing cause and effect.

I never claimed that there’s a cause and effect or any other way to justify Russian actions. Russia is basically run by a group of bureaucratic thugs closely tied to the mafia. Only its massive energy resources prevent it from economic decline.

The US policies toward Russia were implemented before its actions in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Russia, as a major energy supplier and strong cultural influence in the region, can easily have friendly neighbors along its borders. All it has to do is refrain from poisoning their politicians, threatening to nuke them, and the like.

The world is begging to be Russia’s friend. They just have to stop acting like psychopaths.

Russia’s actions brought on the world’s mistrust, not the other way around. You are completely reversing cause and effect.

Russia is a huge, proud nation accustomed to having an empire, which has disintegrated after the fall of Communism. The Russian people are accustomed to blindly following “strong” leaders who lead them to victory, either the Tsars or Lenin, Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, or Putin.

That’s all very true. But it’s not the complete picture.

Buchanan is correct on one other point: over the past 8 years, the US has treated Russia with nothing other than contempt. Across a range of issues, from unilaterally canceling the anti-ABM treaty to establishing missile bases in E. Europe, America has treated Russia like an insignificant power that hardly deserves recognition. Want to cancel a treaty? No reason for discussions or negotiations that allow Russia to save face and claim an advantageous outcome and mutual decision to cancel the treaty. Instead, simply announce to the world that the treaty has been terminated, a gesture similar to kicking a two bit hooker out of a bar. You have to realize that to any nation that sees itself as a power, this kind of treatment is ultimately humiliating. Our actions are seen as attempts to disregard and undermine Russian’s sphere of influence in Europe, and thwart Russian national security goals. When your nation has faced multiple, massive invasions over the last century by foreign powers (and more before that), keeping a few friendly neighbors along your borders will be integral to national security policy.

This point by no means justifies Russian actions in Georgia. But it does suggest that perhaps there’s room to avoid a second Cold War. It’s not as if Russia owes the US any favors based on recent history.

Sorry Georgia! You’re too much of a tinderbox. Hope you enjoyed your freedom while it lasted. The Russians won’t murder and rape your people too much! We could have helped out, but hey – We don’t want to get on Putin’s bad side. SORRY!!!

*kisses*!/

Supporting democracy in Georgia and Eastern Europe is important policy. But admitting Georgia to NATO will lead to many more problems than it will solve.

What kind of isolationist apologizes for another country’s expansionism, anyway? Answer: The same kind that thinks Churchill was the chief warmonger of the early 1940s, I guess.

There’s a certain logic and consistency to Buchanan’s world view here. An isolationist America only works if there are other Great Powers to take up the slack, so to speak, of policing the world.

If and only if they don’t take up the burden, then America must. In such a mindset (and others as well), one of the reasons we are required to exert ourselves and our treasure on the world stage is precisely *because* those former powers are no longer the global heavyweights. Thus, for someone seeking to return America to a period of blessed isolationism, reconstituting, re-energizing and re-enabling those global powers is the best thing imaginable. Here, inconsistency is everything. It’s a prerequisite, actually.

(And whether those Powers are imperial Britain, France, or Old Russia, is to some degree irrelevant in this line of thought; the only kind of power that can’t be tolerated by an isolationist America is an ever-expanding cannibalistic one that eventualls threatens to cross the ocean like Communism, Nazism or political Islam – thus his feverish determination to see some of these monsters as anything but, in his own mind.)

In a way, this line of thought reflects Buchanan’s own version of American exceptionalism, where the nature of our government is incompatible with the kind of moral compromises that empires and global hegemons must reach in order to be truly effective at World Management.

I suspect he thinks that our very nature makes it impossible for us to do the job, even if we wanted to (which he doesn’t).