Pat Buchanan takes a crack at what’s going down in Pakistan right now:
What has been the reaction of the great evangelist of Wilsonian democracy in the White House to its suspension in Pakistan?
Military aid to the regime and army will continue.
Welcome to the real world, where state interests always trump ideology. The “world democratic revolution” and the Second Bush Inaugural goal of “ending tyranny in our world” have been put on the shelf. For what is at issue is more critical than whether Musharraf is dictator or democrat.
Pakistan, a nation of 170 million with nuclear weapons, is up for grabs. And the major contenders are not democrats. On one side is Musharraf and loyal elements of the army, police and intelligence services. On the other are radicals with guns – disloyal soldiers, pro-Taliban militia, al-Qaida sympathizers and suicide bombers.
Such folks do not settle quarrels at ballot boxes.
The crisis in Pakistan brings home the reality the Bushites have ignored in their ideological crusades. For in the Pakistan crucible we see starkly who our real enemies are, whence the true dangers come and where our vital interests lie.
Musharraf is – as were Franco, Pinochet and the shah in the Cold War – a flawed friend and an enemy of our enemy. If he falls, any democratic successor, like Benazir Bhutto, would not likely long survive al-Qaida and the suicide bombers who already tried to kill her.
What is happening in Pakistan exposes, too, the limits of U.S. power and the failure of President Bush – because of the democratist ideology to which he converted after 9/11 – to see clearly the real dangers to his country. Our enemy was always al-Qaida. It was never Iraq. And it is not Iran, at whom the GOP candidates are all braying their bellicosity.
After 9/11, those who viewed the horror and asked, “Why do they hate us?” were hooted down as unpatriotic. We were told Muslim militants hate us because we are free, democratic and good, and they are evil.
Americans can no longer afford to indulge this ideological claptrap. We are hated not because of who we are, but because of what we do. Nowhere is that more true than in Pakistan.
I agree with most of this, but I think there’s more at work in the question of “why do they hate us?” than Buchanan is offering. They do hate us because of what we do, because we’re over there, because of our military and democratic imperialism, etc. But they also hate us because we are not like them - we do not profess the Islamic faith, we are not subject to sharia law.
And in that sense, they do hate us because we’re free. We’re free from the submission that Islam demands.
And furthermore, Buchanan lumps Franco in with the shah. What’s that all about?
I don’t know much about Franco, but my understanding is that despite his alliance with the Church, he wasn’t the best guy. Perhaps a case of the lesser of two evils?
Maybe someone could enlighten me on this…I’ve always wondered what the deal with Franco is but I’ve never really known where to start my research, since the world at large seems to agree that he was a beast. I don’t know where to find an honest, objective account.
Hugh Thomas’ history of the Spanish Civil War is considered to be a pretty balanced, objective account. Franco’s government allowed Davies’ 1961 edition to be published and sold in Spain. His second edition came out after Franco’s death, and there’s now a fourth edition.
I have both the 1961 and 1977 editions, and can recommend the first unreservedly, having read it twice. The second I’m still working my way through, but I haven’t seen any problems with it . The 1961 is shorter, so that might not be a bad place to start.
Thomas is an internationally respected historian, so there are no problems with crackpottery there.
Have I ever mentioned that we own a lot of books? As in, A LOT OF BOOKS?
You’re like my walking bibliography. I like that.
I have a lot of books too, Dale. I just haven’t read most of them. But they look great lining the walls of my reading room.
You have a reading room?
Other than that, we seem to share the same problem. I’m slowly pushing myself to finish books I already own, and it seems to be working.
Dale,
We live in a townhome that has a living room on the ground floor and another on the middle level, where the kitchen is. The ground floor room was the only place we could fit our big couches and our 8′ tall bookcases, so that became the “library”. We made a rule that no TVs were allowed there, though my computer ended up there since I had nowhere else to put it, and that’s a bit of a distraction.
The room doesn’t get used enough because when the little ones come down with us, the shredding of books begins. But it’s a great room with a gas fireplace…not a bad spot for naps either.
Gotcha. We have an 880 sq ft. ranch, two bedrooms. We have books in every room in the house (excluding the bathroom), and several hundred in storage. When we finally go big, we’ll probably use a finished basement for the library too. Though bringing the remaining books back from storage is going to require a UHaul and the purchase of more shelves.
Bookworms marrying leads to bound clutter.
Wow. How the hell do you fit your family into less than 900 Sq. Ft.? We have crap piled up in boxes along walls, and we have about 2000 sq. ft. of useable space (though not nearly enough closet or pantry or storage space).
Do you have a yard, at least? That’s killing us right now…not being able to send the wee ones outside to destroy nature instead of the kitchen.