European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 14, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday december 14, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary George Wil Buchanan could become Thorn in Bush s Side Pat Buchanan is a Irish confetti Quot for George Bush. Parts of Manhattan were paved with extremely hard belgian stones romans used such stones on the App Ian Way which first served As ballast in lightly loaded ships coming to America. Irish immigrants including some As turbulent As their descendant Buchanan expressed disagreements with cops by chucking belgian stones at them. The cops called these Bone breaking showers a Irish  Buchanan the pugnacious political aide to presidents Nixon and Reagan and commentator is challenging Bush for the Republican nomination beginning in new Hampshire where a Boston Globe poll i gives Bush an approval disapproval rating i of 42-47. Republican discontent is finding Many forms of expression. For example democratic candidate Bill Clinton received a respectful hearing last week from influential republicans in Southern California s Orange county. Buchanan May be particularly troubling to Bush because he is two things Bush is not articulate and ideological. Consider Buchanan s budget cutting strategy. It is to propose deep cuts and when Congress rejects them to veto Congress appropriations Bills or continuing resolutions. The result will be havoc recrimination polarization president Buchanan will be in his element. Then the government shuts Down. Bliss social Security recipients raise hell. Buchanan tells Congress ill sign Only what it takes to keep social Security flowing. Buchanan favors a the politics of confrontation. Consensus Compromise Haven t done it for 25 years. Why not try something  grab a Stone. Buchanan a style May Appeal to working class and lower Middle class former democrats who recently have voted Republican and now polls show Are the most disaffected americans. David Duke is after them too. Buchanan rightly insist that David Duke s use of such issues As welfare dependency and racial quotas docs not make those issues off limits for decent politicians. Hitler built autobahn a Eisenhower was not Hitler can because he built the interstate Highway system. Anti communism was right even though Joe Mccarthy was an anti communist. Furthermore one function of insurgent candidacies within and outside the two Barties a from Robert la Follette Eugene a webs and Norman Thomas through George Wallace and Eugene Mccarthy a is to put topics on the table that More conventional politicians Are too timid to touch. One such topic today is immigration. It brings out Buchanan s strength a his eagerness to talk about whatever is troubling people a and his weakness do not expect from him nuances of thought or delicacy of expression. He correctly warns that there can come a Point when indiscriminate diversity in a population produces National incoherence by blurring identity and diluting Community feelings. He is right that Quot culture language background not illegitimate criteria for us to discuss when we discuss Legal  but it won t do to say As he does that a million English immigrants would be easier for Virginia to assimilate than a million zulus. A Quot who Quot he asks Quot Speaks for the euro americans who founded the ?is it not time to take America Back a in what sense Quot take Back Quot Back from whom a no one a he says a questions the right of the arabs to have an Arab nation of China to be a chinese nation. Must we absorb All the people of the world into our society and submerge our historic character As a predominantly caucasian Western society Quot gracious. A fall the people of the world Quot Quot submerge Quot such hyperventilating is not helpful. Besides Buchanan evidently does not understand what distinguishes american nationality a and should Rescue our nationalism from nativism. Ours is As the first Republican president said a nation dedicated to a proposition. Becoming an american is an act of political assent not a matter of membership in any inherently privileged or especially appropriate group caucasian or otherwise. Bush May come to envy new Yorkus 19th-Century cops. They got the City to put Asphalt Over the belgian stones. Bush s solution to his Quot Irish confetti Quot problem May not be so simple. C Washington Post writers group William f. Buckley . Should feel self reproach not anger concerning the reflections we were All called upon to engage in on Pearl Harbor a 50th a week ago herein my own a it want really a Day that will live in infamy. Several of the same docudrama that highlighted that heavy phrase also gave us a still picture of president Roosevelt and aide Harry Hopkins. It was a picture taken on nov. 26, and Hopkins diary records that on that Day Roosevelt had said to him a this Means  a a this meant the reaction by the japanese to our a ultimatum and b our embargo of Oil and scrap Iron. The ultimatum would not be answered in detail until the Day of Pearl Harbor but the very last part of its 14 parts declaring that negotiations were no longer possible had been intercepted. So that Roosevelt knew before even the japanese Diplomat the Content of part Xiv. And As we have seen he anticipated that it would be War. It was this simple the japanese were not ready to renounce imperialism. After a 10-year bloody struggle the japanese had conquered Manchuria and much else of China and were ready to Spring against Indochina and the East indies. The United states had said give it All up every hit of it and go Home or our embargo will continue. The japanese could not survive let alone expand without the raw materials we were withholding front them. A so that the attack on Pearl Harbor was Only infamous if one is prepared to classify All Surprise attacks As infamous and this we Arentt really prepared to do. Are we was the Trojan horse an act of infamy or the Entebbe raid or. For that matter the Normandy land ing to say nothing of Hiroshima. The japanese pulled off a Brilliant military Man Euver. If one wishes to go to primary causes we can argue that the japanese were not entitled to wage War against China and that therefore the United states was Correct in putting obstacles in Japan a Way. But the heavy breathing Over that one reminds us of the difficulties in identifying the original propulsive act. Most historians Are agreed that Versailles had a great Deal to do with bringing on world War ii but then it is also True that German imperialism had a lot to do with bringing on Versailles and so on until the memory reels. A we were then left last saturday with Only the obligation to Honor the dead at Pearl Harbor and to be grateful that the japanese air Force did no to come Back for yet another round. Had they done so they would have put an end to the regenerative capacity of Pearl Harbor. And after All six months after Pearl Harbor we had greatly damaged the japanese Fleet. Admiral Yamamoto who programmed the Pearl Harbor attack never said it would bring Victory for Japan. The most he could Hope for was the immobilization of the United states for As Long i period As possible with the possibility of a negotiated peace president Bush was very careful to say just the right thing that the past is past the future is what we need to think about and that after Pearl Harbor the United states having a a crushed the totalitarians proceeded to help our sometime enemies. We did no to of course crush the totalitarians. We crushed Only the nazis and the japanese. The surviving totalitarians weren tour enemies they were our friends. And there Wasny to a Day in the history of the soviet Union that the government did no to Slaughter More human beings than the japanese killed the Day of Pearl Harbor. A so then what about the future our attention is drawn to it and most of the commentators spoke of a new hostility that is being fed by the japanese commercial Edge Over us. Now that is a hostility that is indeed Worth reflecting upon. And the problem we have in getting mad at the japanese is that they arc putting into practice those qualities that have marked american Success since the Industrial revolution. When asked what is it about America that accounts for its Success what is the Well schooled Schoolboy supposed to answer americans work hard they save their Money and invest it they learn the arts of manufacturing and of merchandising and before your eyes in a single life Span you see things like the Ford motor co., Boeing lbs ism and the University of California a $5 trillion Economy and a poverty level reduced to 13 percent. So the japanese take our Lead Only they spend More time than we do on education and training More on Quality control and automation and they save More. And in much less than one life Span one sees such Phenomena As Mitsubishi and Sony and Toshiba. Why should that anger us anger ought to he different from self reproach c us Refsal in in syn Onate