Buchanan Op-Ed an Analysis of Term Paper

Zionism is even being identified with Christianity, with evangelicals uniting themselves to Israeli interests. Need we remind ourselves that Zionism is a politico-religious belief that is diametrically opposed to Christian values? The post-war propaganda that followed WWII even helped obliterate the notion of Jesus Christ as Holocaust and replace it with the Shoah, the Jewish holocaust. At the heart of Zionism is the eradication of Christian culture and the elevation of Zionist policies like the one currently being enacted on the Gaza Strip. Israel is an apartheid state and has been murdering Palestinians for years -- and now it has convinced millions of Christians and evangelicals that they must destroy the Arab before he destroys them. What kind of value is this? It is a diabolical one.

Refusing to embrace diplomacy also undermines our prosperity. Rather than attacking and occupying countries in the Middle East, we should be working with them. Rather than sanctioning Iran, and pushing the country into a corner (and making war inevitable), why can we not exercise diplomacy? Our nation's wealth is being drained by bailouts and war: we are financing a costly war in order to "protect" ourselves -- or so we are told. The reality is another story altogether.

Oil is a major commodity and many countries are affected by what happens in the Middle East -- Russia, China, and the West. But there is another commodity that is also useful -- opium. Maintaining the opium trade is a way to gain funding for Black Ops. Oil, drugs, politics, economics, and ideology all go together in the Middle East. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following 9/11 allowed the opium trade to flourish once more (the Taliban had shut it down previously), and it also opened the door for a new pipeline similar to the BTC: "Afghanistan is not only positioned as the final slot for the TAP pipeline, the equivalent of an Eastward BTC line to feed oil hungry Asia, it is also undoubtedly the world's capital for opium production" (Dawson). On the list of motivations for invasion and war are opium and oil -- not security, not values, not prosperity for average Americans.

And neither is international order on that list. U.S. occupation in the Middle East has rather resulted in international disorder. Daily we are being fed reports of Iranian terror plots with hints that Russia will support Iran if Israel or America strikes it. Russia sees its own interests threatened by U.S. hegemony -- and Iran knows that Israel wants to destroy it. What we need now more than ever is mutual respect for these foreign countries -- not more war rhetoric. We cannot afford more war -- our country is financially exhausted, our dollar is being devalued by the Fed, and our debts are increasing exponentially. We are so divorced from economic reality that we continue to support politicians who are indistinguishable from the very ones we presume to loathe. But why do we loathe them? Again, the mainstream media supplies us with reasons -- but none of them are good ones and all of them deter us from examining the real causes of our current predicament: Imperialism. As Buchanan states, "Medvedev believes that Saakashvili launched his 2008 attack after a visit by Condoleeza Rice, during which he may have been flashed a green light…if there is another invasion of Georgia and a new war, the U.S. Senate will not be without major moral responsibility" (Buchanan). Therefore, let us return to the Golden Rule, advocated so eloquently by Ron Paul during the Republican Primary debates -- yet booed so outrageously by the warmongers and chickenhawks unwittingly supporting a murderous apartheid state and a disastrous campaign that is bringing international disorder. To restore order in the international community, we should first get the mote out of our own eye.

How Diplomacy would affect Georgia, Russia, and Other Neighboring Countries

First off, Russia is right to be suspicious of the West. If Rice encouraged Georgia to invade Ossetia, it is not difficult to imagine that Clinton has been encouraging revolt in Russia. Putin is largely painted in Western media as a tyrant and an egomaniac (yet such labels are never applied to our own tyrants and egomaniacs). If there were more honesty in the press, we might see Putin in a different light. Certainly there is much to be gained by diplomatic efforts with Russia -- not least being some kind of understanding concerning pipelines in the Middle East. Currently, Russia has some control over the flow of oil there -- but there is no reason that we cannot come to an agreement without war and subterfuge.With Georgia, diplomacy would certainly have an effect as well. As Buchanan observes, "the Russians are far more welcome [in Abkhazia and South Ossetia] than are the Georgians" (Buchanan). Recognizing this fact officially would not only deter the Georgians from thinking that we support them, it would also show that we truly believe in democracy -- the right of the Ossetians to govern themselves. This position might affect business, as the BTC flows through Georgia -- but, again, diplomacy is effective in business as well as in politics and it is not unreasonable to think that a solution can be found.

Ossetia and Abkazia would also be allowed to exercise their independence. This good will on our part would also go a great way in establishing international order prior to the Winter Olympics scheduled to be held in "the Russian city of Sochi on the Black Sea" in 2014 (Buchanan). Would it not be a far better climate -- one of toleration and good will -- were we to take a realistic stance rather than a politically-motivated pedagogical one?

This same mood of good will could then be extended to the neighboring countries in the Middle East -- to Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Instead of bombing these countries, we could be showing respect for their culture and civilization. Rather than occupying Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and surrounding Iran with bases which must appear all too hostile for Iran's taste, we might try using diplomacy to talk to these countries and seeing if we cannot come to a solution.

But, of course, to do so we first need to reassess our reasons for being there in the first place -- and that means we must reassess our relationship to Israel. Good will and diplomacy will have no greater effect on any country in the Middle East than on Israel, for good will and diplomacy are antithetical to the political principles propounded by AIPAC and PNAC. Our removal of troops from the Middle East will allow Israel to fend for itself -- as it has stated it wants to do. Therefore, we should allow Israel to fight its own wars, to exercise its own independence. But if we are going to promote democracy and freedom, we should begin to distance ourselves from the apartheid principles of Israel, and we should be condemning the confiscation of Palestinian land by Israeli soldiers.

Yet, we seem to prefer to exercise a double standard: terrorists are bad -- unless they are our terrorists; tyranny and oppression is bad -- unless it is done by tyrants we support, and by oppressors who are on our side of the political-economical-ideological game. Let us not be confused about this war. Let us remember that true conservatism is about holding onto the traditions and the order that has allowed us to see this day; it is not about sudden upheaval and regime change. The neocon agenda is for upheaval and it is for regime change. It is for U.S. hegemony and it is for Imperialism. It is for murder and it is for subversion. It does not cherish good will and it does not hold the Golden Rule as a principle to be followed. If it did, the situation in the Middle East, the situation in Ossetia, the conflict between Russia and Georgia, and the conflict between the U.S. And Iran would not exist.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we must voice our support for the one candidate who does speak for the Golden Rule, who does value life and liberty over totalitarianism and Zionism. We will lobby for the ideas of the Ron Paul campaign because they are ideas founded upon truth -- identity between intellect and reality. With his ideas, we can see an end to the wars in the Middle East, an end to the Fed that keeps our economy from recovering, an end to the war on drugs. By investigating the truth behind 9/11 we will see who the real enemy in the Middle East is. By employing diplomacy rather than militarism, as Buchanan proposes, we will help restore respectability to our name and our nation. We….....