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In early August 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait and declared it to be his nation’s lost 19th province.
Said George H. W. Bush, “This will not stand!”
Translation: Get out of Kuwait, Saddam, or we will come over there and throw you out.
Six months later, after a five-week air assault on Iraq, a U.S.-led army of 500,000, in a 100-hour ground war, sent Saddam’s legions back up the road to Basra and Baghdad.
President Bush was a serious man.
A decade later, Barack Obama warned Syria’s Bashar Assad that if he used chemical or biological weapons in his civil war, this would cross his “red line” and Obama would respond.
Thus, when chemical weapons were used, allegedly by the regime, Obama prepared to make good on his warning.
Unfortunately for Obama, Americans arose in protest against his taking us into Syria’s civil war and Congress balked at authorizing an attack, though Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded and promised that the U.S. strike would be “unbelievably small.”
When America did nothing after Obama’s red line was crossed, U.S. credibility suffered.
In April 2018, after Assad allegedly used chlorine gas in his civil war, Trump joined our NATO allies in launching 120 cruise missiles.
Presumably, U.S. credibility was reestablished.
Of late, Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s foreign policy team have both been drawing red lines and warning Iran and China not to cross them or they’d face U.S. military action, even at risk of a wider war.
Trump has reportedly put out word that any killing of an American anywhere in the Middle East, traceable to Iran or its proxies, will result in U.S. action against Iran itself.
A general of the Iranian Republican Guard has reportedly warned Iran’s militia allies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to hold off any attack on Americans so as not to give Trump an excuse to launch a war.
Other red lines have lately been drawn.
In a Nov. 12 phone call with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Joe Biden apparently agreed that the U.S.-Japan security treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China. Almost every day of 2020, China has sent ships into the waters around the Senkakus.
Said Suga, “President-elect Biden gave me a commitment that Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands.”
If taken literally, this means the U.S. would treat a Chinese attempt to seize these rocks as we would treat a Chinese attack on the Japanese Home Islands.
The newest red line was drawn by Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
A year ago, a Chinese ship smashed up a wooden trawler with two dozen Filipino fishermen aboard near Reed Bank in the South China Sea. Fortunately, the Filipinos were rescued by a Vietnamese fishing boat. Reed Bank is also claimed by China.
On a trip to Asia, O’Brien told Philippines officials that the U.S. does not recognize the Chinese claim, and they should go ahead and exploit the resources around Reed Bank. And if Philippine vessels come under attack, our mutual security treaty dating to the 1950s will be invoked and America will come to the defense of the Philippines.
What this sounds like, indeed, appears to be to Beijing, is a U.S. commitment to fight to defend Manila’s claims to shoals, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea. Earlier this fall, Manila announced plans to restart oil and gas exploration around Reed Bank.
O’Brien said bluntly of the territories around Reed Bank:
“They belong to the Philippine people. They don’t belong to some other country that just because they may be bigger than the Philippines they can come take away and convert the resources of the Philippine people. That’s just wrong.”
O’Brien added: “Any armed attack on Philippine forces aircraft or public vessels in the South China Sea will trigger our mutual defense obligations.”
Beijing is visibly angered by the U.S. assertions that they have no legitimate claim to the Senkakus in the East China Sea or to the Manila-claimed islets, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea, and that the U.S. military will take the side of Tokyo and Manila in a collision with China.
Red lines are, at root, war guarantees. And, often, the result of issuing such war guarantees is that they are called in and lead to wars that are sometimes fatal to the great powers that issue them.
In 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm issued his famous “blank check” to his Austrian allies to punish the Serbs for complicity in the assassination of their archduke. Austria’s attack on Serbia led to World War I, and the end of the Kaiser’s Hohenzollern dynasty.
In late March of 1938, Neville Chamberlain gave an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland, to come to its defense if the Polish colonels refused to negotiate with Berlin over the German port of Danzig.
How did that one work out for the Brits?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
Copyright 2020 Creators.com.
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It’s all connected.
American Exceptionalism and BLM(aka black exceptionalism).
Typical, Exceptional! dribbles of whitewash for Uncle Sam’s efforts to control as much of the world as possible, and to destroy what he can’t.
> Saddam Hussein was a “dictator” with “legions”
> the government of Syria is Bashar Assad’s “regime,” and the effort to destroy that country is a “civil war”
> the protection rackets in countries near China are matters of “mutual security” and “mutual defense”
> undeclared wars in violation of the Constitution are waged alongside “our NATO allies”
And notice how that last one is worked into the inevitable appeals to “our” courage, constancy, and pride:
Whether Mr. Buchanan’s anti-imperialist campaign rhetoric decades ago was sincere or lies like those since told by candidates Bush II, Obama, and Trump is no longer even relevant. The man, if he’s still the author of these columns, is now an openly shameless shill.
The difference between Kaiser Wilhelm, Neville Chamberlain and the USA is that everyone knows we’re lying sacks of crap. We’ll never back up a pledge. Those are for domestic manipulation.
The Philippines and China have just signed an agreement for the joint exploitation of the seabed resources claimed by the Philippines. China provides most of the financing and technology and gets 40% of the proceeds, and the Philippines gets 60% of the proceeds.
A couple of weeks ago China and the Philippines joined 14 other Asian and Pacific countries in forming a free trade zone (RCEP). The US (and India) was excluded. However five American allies were included: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea. Two of them are Five Eyes. All of the signatories have more trade with China than they do with the US.
For all Obrien’s bluster, it is obvious that East Asian, East Indies, and South Pacific countries have decided that their future lies with China, not the US.
Total horseshit Pat.
Allegedly by the regime?
Assad never used chemical weapons.
You’ve lost it.
No respect for you ever again.
Right…Read my lips, no new taxes.
US credibility has been suffering for decades. US credibility has been squandered on an exponential scale.
Is this a comedy routine? You should have retired at least ten years ago.
Another very silly screed by the geriatric Papist Paddy. There is zero chance of a war with China or anyone else with an expanding nuclear arsenal / missile delivery system. The jew would willingly sacrifice most US cities and any number of lives to advance its ambitions…..but never its own in heavily jew populated cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Jerusalem, etc. Proof: Trumpstein over there fellating nuke armed Kim’s three incher repeatedly.
We don’t know when to back up or when to stand down . Its a robot but a robot with a lot of malfunctioning bugs . We do react and stand up when Zion asks for it. We do as told . But we are an old robot .So we are not a good model .We spontaneously make noises out of bad habit or careerism ( I mean to get some new parts for the robot These parts prattle about values and more values and responsibilities and more responsibilities ). These noises unfortunately are then used by other actors outside ME .In ME we are simply given the lists to do by the Zion .
Just a nitpick:
That was in late March of 1939, not 1938. Otherwise, I do agree with the main points.
Saddam had publicly ordered the withdrawal of his troops from its former province of Kuwait. The Americans attacked as they were withdrawing. This action left the world much worse off.
Heck, who’s counting?
I guess he had intended to work in the GWOT? It all runs together after a while.
Pathetic.
“red lines” or rubicons to use the historical analogy often lead to false flags to create false accusations. This happened repeatedly in Syria. The spy agencies created the incidents and the yankee regime had its excuse to follow it up. The Syria thing under Biden failed because the British parliament didn’t believe the false flag, and some in the US congress didn’t buy it either. Because the media power structure was less intense than now, the truth emerged to a great enough extent to prevent the war then. Trump’s victory was probably in part a product of this event, though Trump himself was manipulable once he was in office, though to a more limited extent than the democrats who have evolved from antiwar to warcrime neocons.
Hopefully, the economic collapse caused by their covid policies will weaken the yankee state enough so that it will be unable to start an armageddon under the revived neocon regime, should the evidence that the regime is being reinstalled as a result of massive electoral fraud be frustrated by courts, etc which refuse to act on this information.
I don’t see the connection.
I believe your assessment puts the lie to the author’s world view, and captures the big picture in a nutshell.
WRT this –
I’ve come to the view that the only guaranteed safety valve for the planet would be the implosion and disintegration of the USA. At worst, it might delay dystopia for a few more decades, and at best, we might enjoy a blossoming of unprecedented global harmony.
Otherwise we can expect to continue marching in lockstep toward the elites’ eugenic Great Reset or the equally eugenic WWIII.
He’s just saying Assad was accused, not that he or his were guilty.
License to Kill, License to Steal.
You see, blacks are oh-so-noble and holy because of ‘muh slavery’ and awesomeness in sports. They are tragic and magic. And that means whatever they do is super and great. If blacks loot and burn, just get on your knees and wash their feet and kiss their ass.
You see, America is so great and wonderful because of ‘muh democracy’ and awesomeness of might — it is the heavyweight champion of world military. US is about hope and redemption. And that means whatever the US does is super and great. If the US drops bombs and invades and subverts and rapes other nations, just get on your knees and submit to the exceptional greatness of the US.
Black Lives Matter but who cares about the victims of black thuggery? Black Lives are more precious.
American Soldiers are HEROES but who cares about all the victims of US war-mongering?
You see, what the US did to Libya is not a tragedy even though the whole nation was turned into a hell hole. But those four Americans who died in Benghazi? What tragedy because American Lives Matter.
USA a war monger —-11 years total not at war –war is a profitable enterprise for the munition makers and lobbyists and Wall Street gang. The mainstreet American has been hosed- and good.
Typical weasel wording targeted to the vast majority of propagandized Americans, who will not draw your distinction.
Look at the other examples that have been called out in comments here, month after month. Do you not see the pattern, the Establishment-serving way that he frames the Right sash of the Overton Window?
“Mr. Paleoconservative” is one of Uncle Sam’s gatekeepers.
Back in June, Mr. Buchanan wrote that “the killing of George Floyd was an atrocity that cries out for justice” (June 2), a “sadistic public execution” (June 9). He then eased off for a while with the ambiguously passive “death under the knee of” Mr. Chauvin. Then, for a couple months, Mr. Floyd’s was a simple “death,” the official start of political summer.
And that, for Mr. Buchanan, was the end of the story. He couldn’t have cared less about the official autopsy or the video footage suppressed by DA Keith Ellison. He had moved on because he, too, serves an Establishment that uses media-curated atrocities to keep the sheep fighting among themselves.
Speaking on behalf of 1.4b Chinaman, bring it on. Let’s get this party stated.
These little islands and Taiwan will be American ‘s “Suez Crisis “ moment that signals the end its hegemony and power. Eisenhower threaten Britain it will sell its holding of Gilts government bonds if Britain did not retreat. Britain complied. It was the end of the British empire.
This time…Not only will China sink America’s financial markets by selling it massive holding of bonds and stocks ( I won’t miss out on this trade for sure), it will also sink one of America’s aircraft carriers with hypersonic missiles that goes at 20 time the speed of sound. America have no way to counter this now.
That will be the end of America. Non-whites and the underclass will revolt when all the cheap Chinese stuff that allow them to survive disappears. America will descend into civil war, hyperinflation and then disintegrate into numerous entho-states, It will be a good thing for the world and for white people. This day is not too far now.
Do it. Test that red line. We are confident we will prevail.
Do you have any idea what the Russians did to Warsaw while the allies stood back??
“In late March of 1938, Neville Chamberlain gave an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland, to come to its defense if the Polish colonels refused to negotiate with Berlin over the German port of Danzig.
How did that one work out for the Brits?”
It worked very well.
By April 1939 it was clear to the British establishment that the war is coming.
But Britain needed time to prepare for war.
By giving unsolicited guarantee to Poland they almost ensured that Hitler would attack Poland first.
At the end, they gained almost a year.
It gave them time to reset economy on war footing, multiple production of air fighters and it paid off
in the summer of 1940.
A few years later they sold Poland and Central Europe to Staling.
After all, it was a small price to pay for beating Hitler.
Nonsense. Pure. Unadulterated.
Credible investigators such as world leading rocket expert Theodore Postal and two time Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh cast doubt on the claim that Dr. Assad used chemical weapons during Obama’s administration. The OPCW’s own engineering team cast serious doubt on the attack Trump used as a pretext to bomb Syria. The recently deceased Robert Fisk, who did not mask his loathing for Assad, investigated the claims and found that they had no basis in fact.
What a load zionist garbage.
What happened to you Buchanan?
What I find strange is that during the Iraq invasion, there were journalists embedded with US platoons and we had to watch and listen to a 24 hour , nonstop barrage of the good guys wiping out the bad guys. All making for good entertainment of course, sitting down to your tv meal with a side order of barbarism. Fast forward to NZ, where a white guy, obviously a goddamn nazi decides to perform his version of it, only this time on twatter. Look out. The sky is going to fall in.
I also remember the poor old Kurds being hung out to dry, waiting in vain for the US to come to their aid after the war, when they started to make moves against Saddam as well. They unfortunately learnt the hard way.
How did it work out for the Brits?
They launched the Second World War, which they lost. They defeated Germany, largely with the support of the Russians and the Americans. But they lost the one thing they wanted to keep – their empire. History warns that nations should be careful about the wars they embark upon, lest they get the war they are trying to avoid. That applies today more than ever.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
“A year ago, a Chinese ship smashed up a wooden trawler with two dozen Filipino fishermen aboard near Reed Bank in the South China Sea.”
It is important to note that the Chinese “ship” was not a warship, but a fishing vessel. And that “smashed up” consisted of ramming. This was not a warship firing its guns. There has been increased use of Coast Guard deployments by China, Japan, and the U.S. With CG vessels, you can create a “presence” around the rock islands and other areas without risking WWIII. The worst-case scenario is that small-arms fire is exchanged. I hope this sound practice does not change under Biden. I hope inter-service rivalry does not destroy this.
after he had his ambassador to Iraq; April Glaspie- effectively giving him the green light to attack Kuwait.
ooh!
that’s so tough and manly! Golly, that pencil-necked, silver-spooned CIA dork GHWB sure could channel the Duke when he wanted to.
where they were slaughtered in a cowardly act of murderous treachery. And all so that the big, stupid golem could de-fang CIA stooge Saddam once he wasn’t using the chemical weapons Bush and Rumsfeld had given him to use on Iranian Persians.
but he had his comedic side!
look at him telling a doozie here about some babies in incubators
IOW, his big, tough-guy moment, was all based on lies, that got Americans and Iraqis killed serving Israel’s interest.
And Pat knows it.
Sometimes I don’t know who’s worse, the lying, treasonous politicians, or those urinalist whores who shill their praises.
who’s this zio-turd who’s writing for Buchannan these days, eh?
allegedly Iraqi solders put ‘the babies on the cold floor’
allegedly Pat Tillman was killed by the Taliban
allegedly Jessica Lynch was wounded fighting the Taliban
allegedly Saddam had WMD
allegedly Osama took out three WTC buildings with two planes.
many Americans even believe Saddam (or Osama) was responsible for 9/11, because of the relentless lies of our politicians and urinalists like “Pat” here.
It’s bad enough all we hear from the ((media)) is agenda-driven lies 24/7
It’s kind of sad to hear the same worthless bile excreting out of Pat Buchannan.
Howdy Rurik –
How are you doing?
As usual, great post.
Speaking of the Duke, he was right on the Panama Canal whereas Pat and Ronald Reagan were wrong.
Today’s populism is more virtuous than that of 1977-78 insofar as that version embraced the proposition that since American imperialism paid for it, America must keep it and continue to pay for it.
I saw the Movie the Caine Mutiny..I remembered Jose Ferrer relying on the testimony of one the exec fficer (Fred Murray) to defend the chief Captain being court martial for insubordination (against Humprey Bogart)..At the Trial Murrays Character recants his testimony and gives a PC version of the events so that his career would not be in danger. Ferrer is furious but restrained…ultimately Bogarts is found mentally unstable and the case is dismissed. During a party celebration Ferrer walks into the room…looks at Murray straigh into his eyes and throws a glass of wine into his face…Calls him a coward without honor and character. Then Ferrer invites Murray to step outside to fight it out, Murray refused and walks away dishonored. Murray is the PERFECT PICTURE FOR PAT BUCHANAN ….the avatar of Conservatism (as he likes himself to imagine) in the faceof mega electoral fraud…HE goes MIA…writing stupidity…
You should have added, at the behest of the US. Remember, that US amassador, April Glaspie, gave Sadam a green light to invade Kuwait. This was a way for the US to get back in the Middle East after Iran was lost. George H.W. Bush sent in highly trained 500,000 troops for a tiny country and Sadam dutifully retreated with his republican army intact. Some credibility.
An allegation based on lies, a false flag operation, if there was one. Sitting at hope sipping martini, Trump launched 120 cruise missiles and achieved nothing. Some credibility.
Obama responded to the public opposition to the war, that the congress refused to authorise and the credibility suffered. What a joke of credibility.
Crossing the red lines is only fatal to the small countries. For Russia and China, the red line keeps shifting or North Korea who has a Nuke or two.
With more than half of a trillion dollar budget, the US mighty war machine cannot defeat Taliban after 19 years, could not defeat ISIS, its own creation, either in Iraq or Syria. A bunch of Iraqi volunteers, responding to a fatwa of a Grand Ayatollah, defeated the ISIS in less than 14 months, that a US General predicted will take 30 to 40 years to defeat.
Not just the Kurds, the Shiites as well, all poorly armed. They begged the US to give them the arms and they will fight. The US refused. Then the US set up red lines for Saddam, which he constantly crossed and the US millitary, under orders not to interfere, watched in frustration as he slaughtered the Shiites in the South of Iraq.
Good Mike, thanks. Hope you’re doing well..
I remember at the time, thinking.. what is this liberal Jimmy Carter up to now? Didn’t America pay for and build that thing at great expense in lives and treasure? But I never really knew the details of the issue, and confess I still don’t.
In any case, I wonder if Panama might not be a good ultimate destination one day, as it seems like a pretty good place to retire. I like the Panamanians I’ve known, and Panama is a beautiful country.
it now generates a handsome profit, at least from quick Internet search.
Back to topic.. (sort of), as someone here just mentioned, the fate of the ZUS, (and the trajectory of our planetary destiny) is in the hands of the Supreme Court, as we speak.
Isn’t it curious that Buchannan had nothing to say about that? What with him being the go-to guy for Red vs. Blue partisanship uber-alles? (at least according to some here ; )
The best ‘Pat’ can muster is “Of late, Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s foreign policy team have both been drawing red lines”, as if the election fiasco didn’t even exist.
And perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s all a circus for the distraction of the sheople. Who knows.
Cheers Mike
P.S.
I like the image of MacMurray standing there (great movie) with wine dripping off his coward’s face, as the “avatar” of modern conservatism these days.
here’s the scene