Mark, you're right. But Buchanan is a rad trad [drink], and therefore, according to your blog, an anti-semite. Therefore, his opinion must be wrong. Which makes it necessary to support war with Iran.

I say this, not merely to beat a dead horse, but because I intend it as a helpful suggestion-- there really aren't a whole lot of "rad trads", and traditional Catholics, by and large, aren't anti-semitic because some oppose the policies of the government of Israel.

I know you could respond (and have, in the past responded) that not all trads are rad trads, but you can bet that 98%of your blog readers would classify Buchanan as one.

Thus the danger of the broad brush.
tim | 01.30.07 - 5:57 pm | #

We won't get fooled again.
c matt | 01.30.07 - 6:12 pm | #

Well, on this issue on general I agree with Buchanan. I find it strange to admit this, since I'm no Buchanan fan. As I wrote before, I think we are exaggerating the threat we are facing from Islam. I doubt he'll change many minds, but here is how an historian looks at it:

"...the war against terrorism has not yet been much of a war at all, let alone a war to end all wars. It is a messy, difficult, long-term struggle against exceptionally dangerous criminals who actually like nothing better than being put on the same level of historical importance as Hitler — can you imagine a better recruiting tool? To fight them effectively, we need coolness, resolve and stamina. But we also need to overcome long habit and remind ourselves that not every enemy is in fact a threat to our existence."

A good piece. To read the whole thing go to:

http://www.latimes.com/news/ opin...0,3764261.story
"Putting 9/11 into perspective"
Phil | 01.30.07 - 6:17 pm | #

Remember, the converse lessen to the story of the boy who cried wolf is that sometimes the boy is right...
Jack Grimes | 01.30.07 - 6:32 pm | #

Tim:

That was a spectacular feat of putting words in my mouth. I had no idea that I really believe all Trads are Rad Trads and therefore that all Trads are anti-semites (this will come as a shock to my son who likes the Tridentine Rite) and that I therefore regard Buchanan as a Rad Trad (because a bunch of other people allegedly do) and that he is therefore an anti-semite too. I'm astonished to be informed I think this. I had no idea. Please do keep telling me what else I think. Pretty please! Do it again!
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 01.30.07 - 6:34 pm | #

Sorry, I just don't buy that Iran is bent on suicide. Even of they had nukes, they would be insane to use them on us or Israel - it would spell immediate retaliation and disaster. Their best and highest value for Iran is to prevent regime change. I am not convinced they are that crazy.
c matt | 01.30.07 - 6:39 pm | #

"they would be insane to use them on us or Israel - it would spell immediate retaliation and disaster."

If fired on Israel and given that it is a small country in geographic area, it would seem to me that thousands and thousands of Palestians would be killed and injured too.
dpt | 01.30.07 - 6:41 pm | #

Buchanan and American politics aside, it is a safe bet that:

1) Iran's leaders will press forward to build nukes.

2) No way in heck will Israel let them do just that.

You do the math. If we don't do anything to Iran, which is becoming likely due to the US's political standing; the Israelis will.

Not saying it's a good thing. Just saying its gonna happen.
ShortRound | 01.30.07 - 6:46 pm | #

Had the November elections gone the other way, we'd probably be well on the way to war with Iran right now. The November '06 elections kaiboshed that.
Mark S. (not for Shea) | 01.30.07 - 7:10 pm | #

Mark, I figured that I would get a small beating from you re: my last post. Fair enough. Sorry.

BUT, I am a traditional Catholic, one that I don't believe you would label a "rad trad", and from my vantage point your blog is the site of semi-regular "rad trad" bashing of the sort that broad-brushes these potemkin rad trads with the charge of broad anti-semitism. Not just calling "people" out on anti-semitic actions/attitudes, etc., but calling "rad trads" out. Which, to the casual reader of this or most blogs, would be interpreted as "trads", full stop.

That is why citing Pat Buchanan for your anti-Iran war thread is a little ironic. The media, and most people in general, including most people here, consider him anti-semitic. I don't agree,and I agree with his, and your, position here.

I guess I was trying to make a point to lay the rad trad bogeyman to rest. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth-- consider them removed.
tim | 01.30.07 - 7:13 pm | #

Tim:

No sweat.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 01.30.07 - 7:22 pm | #

I'm not convinced that Israel will do anything. Do they think they can keep their neighbors in the stone age forever? I don't think they are that dumb. They would have prevent almost any technological development in Iran if they want to stop the Iranians from getting nukes. Nukes are a 60 year old technology. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inevitable unless EVERYBODY gets rid of them. Pakistan has them and would almost certainly start passing them round if Israel was really serious about causing the destruction needed to prevent proliferation in the Middle East. Pakistan may not like Iran's government, but Muslim pride and sense of community would lead them to do it. If you think Iranians, even the sane ones , are going to accept us lecturing to them that they can't have nukes when we (well, I'm Canadian, but that doesn't matter that much here) do then you really need to take a good long drink of hard cold reality. The effort and cost of controlling its neighbors is too much already for Israel to carry with U.S. help. I don't think they will try. I think this is sabre rattling and not much else.

Ingvar
Ingvar | 01.30.07 - 7:28 pm | #

Mark,

Thanks. Last comment. One of the reasons I come around here is your willingness to take a little, and to put up with those like me.

God bless.
tim | 01.30.07 - 7:32 pm | #

Why do people seem to think that war will always be at our choosing? If Iran makes war on America, then we have a war whether we want it or not.

I happen to think that Iran will use nukes once they have them. For a while now, I've basically resigned myself to the fact that nuclear war is going to happen in my lifetime, probably within 5-10 years or sooner.

Even if you disregard all of that, do people here think that the so-called war agitators are LYING about their fears regarding Iran? I mean, if you don't want to call them liars, then their fears are genuine and they're making decisions based on them. And wouldn't it be an issue that most of the West's political leaders across the ideological spectrum seem to believe that Iran is doing something that could lead to a "second Holocaust"?

If they're not LYING about their fears, then are they engaged in self-deluded hysteria? How do you calm them down? And how CAN you calm them down when nobody can say what Iran is going to do with its nukes?
Sydney Carton | 01.30.07 - 7:58 pm | #

Calm down, Sydney. Don't be hysterical.
Phil | 01.30.07 - 8:34 pm | #

Phil,

I'm pretty calm about it. I've RESIGNED myself to the fact that a nuclear war is coming. After you accept that, you're pretty calm. The way I figure, being vaporized from a nuke is actually not a bad way to go. I can think of worse ways, certainly.

I think that the "hysteria" that Mark bemoans happens to result because the politicians aren't accepting the fact that a nuclear war is coming. Once they accept it, they'll calm down, because they'll realize that NOTHING they do will prevent it.
Sydney Carton | 01.30.07 - 8:43 pm | #

Sydney, I don't share your sense of alarm. I think we should be vigilant and assertive and steadfast, but I really don't think that either Muslim terrorists or Iran are such a huge threats to us. I think the threat to America is more internal than external, but it's always easier to focus on external threats. But that's another huge topic.

In any event, I'm sorry about my previous comment--it was unkind of me. I'll retire from here for a while. Best wishes to you and to everyone else.
Phil | 01.30.07 - 9:00 pm | #

Buchanan is right on target. I'm so sick of the hysterical-paranoid-bedwetting-warmongers who pretend to know the dangers that face us all. Dear God, protect us from these meddling morons with messiah complexes! Want to end terrorism ? Lets get our red, white and blue asses out of other peoples countries and business. The same goes for the Israelis. Is the rest of the world supposed to put up with this nonsense?
canwetalk? | 01.30.07 - 9:08 pm | #

Sydney,

If you firmly believe that NYC is going to vaporized, why on earth haven't you moved?
Publius | Homepage | 01.30.07 - 9:22 pm | #

Mr. Buchanan is certainly not hysterical. He knows exactly how we should deal with our enemies.
Tom Connelly | 01.30.07 - 9:25 pm | #

Tom,

Never noticed that Buchanan column before. I gotta believe that people who praise him now will probably eventually regret it later.

Publius,

Because who would want to live in a world without New York City? I sure as hell wouldn't. Besides, I never understood the entire "live as long as you can" mentality.
Sydney Carton | 01.30.07 - 11:07 pm | #

Buchanan's pro-torture and pro-Hiroshima? Dang.
Kevin Jones | Homepage | 01.31.07 - 12:26 am | #

Buchanan's wrong on numerous things. And the reason that justifies the hysteria he documents in his column is...
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 01.31.07 - 12:47 am | #

"Buchanan's wrong on numerous things." Just like most of us.
William | 01.31.07 - 5:57 am | #

Buchanan's wrong on numerous things.

Yeah, Mark, but he's wrong on the big thing: unambiguously (no "fog" here) and unapologetically.

Which is why I wonder about the contrast between this reaction and "Buchanan's wrong on numerous things."
Tom Connelly | 01.31.07 - 8:19 am | #

Never noticed that column before because it looks like it was written/published today. He is wrong on torture. He was right that Iraq presented no existential threat to the US. He was probably wrong on who would win the 1998 World Series.

If this is going to turn into a torture thread, don't break out the bubbly until Zippy gets here.
c matt | 01.31.07 - 9:45 am | #

Krauthammer has been right on things and wrong on things as well. The thread you linked to was on torture; this thread is on attacking Iran/does it pose a sufficient threat? I don't see where the conflict in reaction exists (plus, the PB torture column looks pretty recent). If Krauthammer also thinks Iran does not pose a sufficient threat to warrant attacking it, I would assume the reaction would be the same.
c matt | 01.31.07 - 9:49 am | #

If this is going to turn into a torture thread, don't break out the bubbly until Zippy gets here.

No doubt. Buchanan on Iran is an example of a stopped clock being right twice a day.
Scott W. | Homepage | 01.31.07 - 10:18 am | #

c matt,

I wish that Mark would steer clear of Buchanan.
Tom Connelly | 01.31.07 - 10:20 am | #

BTW, c matt.

Buchanan's torture apologia dates from March 2003.
Tom Connelly | 01.31.07 - 10:22 am | #

I'm not looking forward to escalation with Iran (it's coming) but Buchanan's claim that "Not once since its 1979 revolution has Iran started a war" is laughable.

Does Buchanan not deem the Khobar Towers bombing or the 1983 bombing of the American embassy in Beirut acts of war? I don't believe Iranian involvement in either attack is really disputed.

Iraq wants escalation with the US, because the Iranians think they can win, and drive us out of their sphere of influence.

That's why Iran just responded to our detention of their agents in Iraq with the attack, attempted kidnapping, and then execution of Amnerican soldiers.
Rick | 01.31.07 - 11:19 am | #

Tom:

For some reason, people seem to think that if somebody disagrees with me on one point, that means everything they say is automatically wrong. I don't even thing this about the Coalition for Fog types. Hell, I don't even think it about Joe D'Hippolito, who manages to be radically wrong more often than most men manage it. Joe's (and the Coalition's) secret is that they are johnny one notes. They keep approaching the same subject again and again and they keep being wrong. But a person who writes about lots of subjects (like Buchanan) is likely to be right about some things and wrong about others. When he records, for instance, that Newt Gingrich gave a hysterical speech and quotes the man, that quote is either accurate or inaccurate. Buchanan could be torture-favoring cannibal from Borneo who worships Kali and he would still be accurate in the quote and in the assessment of what it means: that Gingrich is fanning the flames of hysteria.

I honestly don't get the constant tribalism that lies behind so much criticism of ideas: as though a true observation is somehow disproved simply by the mouth it came out of.

So yeah: Buchanan's wrong about a lot of stuff. I don't think he's an oracle. I do, however, think that he's done a pretty good job of analyzing why our adventure in Iraq has been a disaster.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 01.31.07 - 12:49 pm | #

"More Hysteria I Distrust"

heh. before opening the link I thought it was going to be about global warming
quasimodo | 01.31.07 - 1:20 pm | #

So to recap:

Buchanan = YAY for torture, YAY to the atomic anihiliation of cities, but NO to fighting the Nazis, NO to fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq, and NO to a ton of other things I'm sure we're going to learn about to our regret in the future.

A stopped clock is right twice a day, but an intelligent person knows that it's not really telling time.
Sydney Carton | 01.31.07 - 1:22 pm | #

For some reason, people seem to think that if somebody disagrees with me on one point, that means everything they say is automatically wrong.

I'm not one of those people Mark.
Tom Connelly | 01.31.07 - 1:46 pm | #

Buchanan is not in favor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In his memoir, "Right from the Beginning," he writes about how his training in natural law in the Catholic schools of the '50s led him to question the morality of those bombings.

In the column linked to about torture, Buchanan is asking rhetorically how those who favor the nuclear annihilation of cities can oppose torture under all circumstances. He is not indicating his agreement with Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb.
Tom Piatak | 01.31.07 - 2:07 pm | #

First, I don't believe that the Iraq war resulted from a "stampede of panic." It took 14 months from when Iraq was identified as a government supportive of terror organizations in the 2002 SOTU Address to when the bombs first hit Baghdad (with UN resolution and Congressional votes that could have STOPPED the process).
http://www.mideastweb.org/ iraqti...raqtimeline.htm

Secondly, I believe it is true that Iran is not a threat to most of America. If you happen to live near NYC, or DC, you might get nuked, but that's ok, then we (e.g. the rest of us) will obliterate Iran. And I would hesitate to go visiting Isreal anytime soon too.
mike the analyst | 01.31.07 - 5:08 pm | #

then we (e.g. the rest of us) will obliterate Iran.

Which is precisely why I find it very highly improbable that Iran would use said weapons. They are much more valuable for protecting the current regime if they are kept as blackmail (ala Cold War).
c matt | 01.31.07 - 5:32 pm | #

Yes, it's highly doubtful a nuclear Iran would launch a nuclear first strike.

What is almost certain is that Iran would escalate support for terrrorists and proxies like Hezbollah, maybe demand tribute for oil passing through the Straits of Hormuz, etc, etc, safe in the knowledge that its nuclear weapons render it immune from serious reprisal.
Rick | 01.31.07 - 6:47 pm | #

Can't argue with that "logic."
Granada | 02.01.07 - 8:14 pm | #