Conceding “a dramatic departure from what I’ve argued and believed,” Buchanan today called for an end to economic sanctions by the White House as a “sword that slaughters children” and entrenches dictators. “Our sanctions are sowing seeds of hatred that
will one day flower in acts of terrorism against us.” Buchanan said his decision to oppose sanctions grew out of recent reporting on the effects of sanctions in aggravating the health and nutrition problems of rogue nations like Iraq. “When Arab
terrorists murder Israeli children, we Americans are rightly filled with horror and disgust. But what do Arab peoples think of us when US sanctions bring death to literally thousands of Iraqi children every month?“
Sanctions, he continued, ”may fairly be called America’s silent weapon of mass destruction whose victims are almost always the weak, the sick, the women, and the young.“
Source: NY Times, p. A22
Dec 17, 1999
Endorses Arafat as Palestine Pres., despite “repulsiveness”
[Buchanan] endorsed Yasser Arafat’s goal of becoming “the first president of a Palestinian state” long before the chieftain agreed to renounce terrorism and seek peace with Israel. Did he really want to see an international criminal as a chief of
state? “There are a lot of repulsive guys running government around the world,” he said.
Source: Jeff Jacoby editorial, Boston Globe
Sep 20, 1999
Kuwait: Predicted a “Korea-style bloodbath”
[Buchanan] railed against the Gulf War, predicting that “a US ground assault would be a bloodbath” and warned that “America would find herself in a Korea-style meat-grinder.”
Source: Jeff Jacoby editorial, Boston Globe
Sep 20, 1999
Kuwait: using force on Iraq was a non-vital imperial burden
Iraqis saw in Kuwait oil-rich and undefended land left behind by a defunct British Empire. In 1991 America had the power and will to force Iraq to disgorge Kuwait. But the day is coming when Americans
will tire of imperial burdens. The Gulf, too, will come to be dominated by the most powerful of its littoral states. America must one day soon decide what is vital and what we can let go.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.102
Oct 9, 1999
Click here for 32 main quotations from Pat Buchanan on War & Peace.
