Pearl Harbor - Isn't that an elephant here in the room with us-Nah!

Pearl Harbor Day was Wednesday and was remembered less then when I was young. All my relatives who were in The Second World War are no longer with us.

No matter, the great epic is still with us. A film or documentary can be counted on every so often. The main thing for the great and good is to keep up the front that this was a holy war led by holy men. With great effort this can be done with Churchill and Roosevelt. Stalin is a problem. You might find a few of his defenders on the north bank of the Charles River, but even there, they are sparse.

The Diane Rehm show commemorated the day with guest host Tom Gjelton and two authors.; Ian Toll and Steven Gillon. According to the bio notes, Mr. Stoll is a former Wall Street analyst, Federal Reserve financial analyst, political aide and speechwriter; he the author of a previous book on naval history, "Six Frigates." Steven Gillon is a history professor and author of numerous books, including "The Kennedy Assassination - 24 Hours"; resident historian for The History Channel. The two men discussed the events leading up to the attack. It was informative, but what it does not address in detail is Herbert Hoover’s book, Freedom Betrayed. Talk about large elephants in the room and everyone pretending to “normalcy.” Whatever one might think about Herb and the Depression, is there anyone who thinks he was a nut or a liar? To not mention the book or address Hoover's points about an FDR campaign to inveigle the Japanese into war when such a book has been out since November 7 is cute or maybe the lads didn't know about the tome?

Pat Buchannan, as expected, has been all over it. With a review of the Hoover book, he details the efforts of the Roosevelt administration to get a war against the wishes of much of the nation. He details Hoover's account of Japan's efforts to avoid war and Team Roosevelt's work to avoid avoiding war. His piece is all over the web including TownHall which all too often appears to be Neocon heaven.

It has been the practice in this country mainly to ignore challenges to the orthodox doctrine. On occasion, the challenge is taken up to dismiss efforts.

So how does the Neutralist see this. In 1954, the great military historian and theoretician, Basil Liddell Hart wrote:

In reply President Roosevelt demanded , on the 24th July 1941, the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Indo-China ----and to enforce his demands he issued orders on the 26th for freezing all Japanese assets in the U.S.A. and placing an embargo on oil supply. Mr. Churchill took simultaneous action and two days later the refugee Dutch Government in London was induced to follow suit----which meant, as Mr. Churchill has remarked, that ‘Japan was deprived at a stroke of her vital oil supplies.’

In early discussions it had always been recognized that such a paralyzing stroke would force Japan to fight, as the only alternative to collapse or the abandonment of her policy. It is remarkable that she deferred striking for more than four months, while trying to negotiate a lifting of the oil embargo. The United States Government refused to lift it, unless Japan withdrew not only from Indo-China but also from China. No government, least of all the Japanese could be expected to swallow such humiliating conditions.*

There is much controversy in the life of Liddell Hart. Suffice it to say, he had no political ax to grind, and it was no way controversial to say Roosevelt wanted to get into World War II at the time LH wrote. Point to Hoover.

The Neutralist position is that war cannot always be avoided, and the Neutralist never wants to see us ever lose, but greatness exists in avoiding committing your countrymen to death and destruction, while insuring that the interests of the nation are accomplished.

All else, even with victory, is failure.

Strategy,by B.H. Liddill Hart, 1954, 1967 by Faber & Faber Ltd., London, England, Page 254.

Well, what do you expect. Of course you'd want a president to be a führer if your name was Donald the German

Donnie Deutsch and Pat Buchannan the constitution out the window to protect our soldiers over there. Arrest the Koran burner to protect the troops.

May I point out the supreme irony. A military is supposedly* deployed to protect us. We are not supposed to protect the troops. Anyway, you can watch Mr. Deutsch having the vapors here.

Hat tip to the Daily Burkeman. The link on Burkeman is "this speaks for itself. If a foreign policy gets to the point where we have to arrest our own people, no matter how goofy, because our armed troops, who are pretending to be building a free country overseas might be shot at, then res ipsa loquitur. I agree with Chris Dowd. Donnie and Pat are scarier than Terry.



*our military is not deployed overseas to protect us.

They know

The Southern Avenger, Mr. Jack Hunter, is accomplished in the art of the youtube video. Actually, I can’t say that the youtube video is art. Merely can I say that he goes farther with it than I could, which is not into the realm of overachieving.

Still, I generally agree with his thoughts even if he only hits a single. In his February 6, 2010 offering, he blasted it out of the park with just one tiny particle,

Comparing Paul’s foreign policy stance to that of the congressman’s fellow non-interventionist Pat Buchanan, Coulter added “Whenever I listen to Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan I always think ‘I can’t listen too long or they might convince me.”

Bingo. What Ann really said, once parsed is, I know they are right, but pretend they are wrong. I like to think she is not merely a shill, but if she abandoned neoconnery, to come over to the less financially lush side of non-interventionism, well maybe she would not be so fashionable. Ann doesn't really, really believe and the rest don't either.

Even if you hate the muzzies and think they all should be extirpated, you have to see, we are losing. It matters not how many of them we kill if we bankrupt ourselves. Granted, we are trying manfully and womanfully to ruin ourselves on many other non military fronts, but so what. Why waste the flower of our youth on a losing strategy.

Somehow, I think everyone with some modicum of intelligence, knows this. I’ll let others work out why they can’t say it. For now.

Also, the sensible policy of how to deal with Bin Laden was given us by Rep. Paul with a further comment by Mr. Hunter.

Despite what his critics portray, Paul’s approach to Islamic terrorism is not to ignore it, but to examine motive and develop a sound strategy by pinpointing our defense. Just one month after 9/11, Paul introduced the “Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001,” legislation that would have allowed Congress and the President to specifically target Bin Laden and his associates by placing a bounty on Al-Qaeda leaders. Paul said the Act “allows Congress to narrowly target terrorist enemies, lessening the likelihood of a full-scale war with any Middle Eastern nations. The Act also threatens terrorist cells worldwide by making it more difficult for our enemies to simply slip back into civilian populations or hide in remote locations… Once letters of marque and reprisal are issued, every terrorist is essentially a marked man.”

In hindsight, what would have been the more conservative, productive approach after 9/11—spending three trillion dollars in Iraq or placing a $1billion bounty on Bin Laden and every other Al-Qaeda member’s head?


Watch the video here:

Pat Buchanan has a Neutralist Column-Is he channeling?

Honorable Exit From Empire, a July 25, 2008 column from Pat Buchanan is pitch perfect as a neutralist manifesto. It is as if it were the culmination of a public life that started in cold warriorhood and through constant reflection due to his circuitous time in different political wildernesses, came to a clear world view.

The world owes Nixon a debt of gratitude. If Pat had actually been able to salvage that presidency, he might have gone on to all the honors that life as a courtier brings. Instead, he has attained Neutralism.

Why do we think he might have come to enlightenment through channeling us?

Pat finishes with,

Because, if all U.S. troops were brought home from Europe and Korea, 10,000 rice bowls would be broken. They are the rice bowls of politicians, diplomats, generals, journalists and think tanks who would all have to find another line of work.

And that is why the Empire will endure until disaster befalls it, as it did all the others.

Well' isn't that just a more stylistic and succint way of putting what appeared in the neutralist on February 7, 2007,

My guess is that our "best and brightest" are smart enough to devise a strategy of an acceptable level of mayhem such that the bleeding won't be noticeable until the last drop has drained away. Our army will change, our nation will change until Odovacer drags Romulus Augustulus out of the Oval Office.

The Neutralist is glad to accept Pat into our ranks, whether he wants it or not. We award him The Order of Neutralismo, First Class.