From: "Adam Flinton" 

--Wow.....

A) Same here
B) A major US politico saying stuff like this.....I never thought I would
live to see it. Quick call Paul Revere.

Adam

"David N. Barnett"  wrote in message
news:r31p1v0bl1pbatplv8k9csa228eadta9h6{at}4ax.com...
> It scares me when I find myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan!
>
> --dnb
>
> Ariel Sharon's Shakedown
>
> by Pat Buchanan
>
> "Tough Love for United," exclaimed the Wall Street Journal, as it
> congratulated Uncle Sam for stiffing United Airlines' plea for $1.8
> billion in loan guarantees. Rebuffed, the beloved old airline had to
> declare its bankruptcy.
>
>
> It's all for the best, the Journal assures us, maybe this tough love
> rejection will start a new government precedent, or at least we can
> dream. Fine. May we now expect the Journal to call on Mr. Bush to
> reject the $10 billion in loan guarantees demanded by Ariel Sharon?
> Don't bet on it.
>
>
> Yet, Sharon's demand is astonishing in its audacity. California and
> New York face huge budget shortfalls. The U.S. Treasury is running a
> deficit nearing $200 billion. Yet, Sharon, who ignored Bush when the
> president publicly called on him to pull his army out of West Bank
> cities, is demanding that U.S. taxpayers fork over $4 billion in new
> military aid and agree to pay off $10 billion Israel intends to borrow
> should Israel decide to default.
>
>
> Why should we do this? What does America get out of this? What has all
> the $100 billion in aid we have shoveled out to Israel bought us,
> other than ingratitude and the enmity of the Arab world?
>
>
> While Israel has a first-rate military, it is of no use to us. In
> Desert Storm, Bush I had to bribe Yitzhak Shamir with $5 billion in
> aid, $400 million in loan guarantees, and Patriot missiles to stay out
> of the fighting, lest Israeli intervention dynamite our coalition.
> Journalists and diplomats alike, returning from the Mideast, attest
> that our almost-blind support of Israel is a major cause of the
> anti-Americanism that is sweeping the Islamic world.
>
>
> When the price of Israel could be paid in dollars alone, $3 billion a
> year, most members of Congress chose to pony up rather than face the
> retribution of an Israeli Lobby that has in its trophy case the scalps
> of two chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William
> Fulbright and Chuck Percy.
>
>
> But now the price of the Israeli connection has begun to rise. U.S.
> weapons technology given to Israel has been sold to China. Only direct
> U.S. intervention prevented Israel from selling Beijing AWACS
> technology. The Patriot missile, the Phoenix air-to-air missile, the
> Lavi fighter, based on the F-16, have all been sold to Beijing.
>
>
> In the Reagan era, Israel had the loathsome Jonathan Pollard, whom it
> suborned into treason, loot our innermost national security secrets,
> some of which are believed to have been traded to Moscow. Israel
> refuses to return the roomful of documents it stole and has pressured
> presidents for Pollard's release so he can be brought to Israel where
> he is a hero.
>
>
> Now Mr. Sharon has handed us Israel's bill for abstaining from war
> with Iraq while President Bush is at maximum political risk. Not since
> 1957, when Dwight Eisenhower ordered Ben-Gurion to get his army out of
> Sinai, has a U.S. president faced down an Israeli Prime Minister.
>
>
> To his credit, the president's father tried. In 1991, having driven
> Iraq out of Kuwait, with his approval at 70 percent, Bush I was asked
> by Shamir for $10 billion in loan guarantees to bring a million
> Russian Jews to Israel. Bush assented, on one condition: Shamir must
> not settle them on the West Bank and must stop expanding settlements.
>
>
> Shamir rejected the condition, and the Lobby went to work. Bush warned
> he would veto the guarantees. An Israeli minister called him an
> anti-Semite. While Shamir was defeated in June of 1992, Bush, his own
> election in trouble, eventually gave in and gave Israel the loan
> guarantees. Who was the Housing Minister who announced new settlements
> even as Bush I was denouncing them? Ariel Sharon.
>
>
> Sharon now wants to repeat Israel's victory over Bush's father by
> making the son give Israel $4 billion in hardware and $10 billion in
> new loan guarantees as Sharon's price for permitting us to crush Iraq
> while he holds America's coat. It is a shakedown: Ariel Sharon's big
> sting
>
>
> What should Bush do? Tell Sharon the loan guarantees will not even be
> taken up until he begins to dismantle all the settlements he has begun
> to build since George W. took office. And if Sharon attempts to roll
> him in Congress, he, Bush, will go to the country and roll Sharon.
>
>
> In short, stand up for U.S. national interests and declare America's
> independence. Israel may be our ally in the war on terror. We are not
> Israel's ally in its war on the Palestinians. Our commitment is to
> Israel's security, not its settlements, which are the cause of the
> intifada.
>
>
> Sharon's opponent in January's election, General Mitzna, has agreed to
> negotiate with the Palestinians on the basis of Camp David and to
> begin withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza. If Israeli politicians
> can stand up to Sharon, why cannot U.S. presidents? If members of the
> Knesset can refuse to follow the suicidal path of Sharon & Netanyahu,
> why is Congress so cowardly?
>
>

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