By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 30, 2001

To make the Islamic world hate America, the Taliban may poison food packages the U.S. air-drops to Afghan children. So the Pentagon warned last week. After anthrax, food terror may be the next weapon unleashed. Congress is worried.

But if food terror comes to America, it will not be the first such attack. In 1980, the Rajneesh religious cult used salmonella bacteria to poison 10 salad bars in Oregon and sicken 750 people. Chemical and biological agents have also been used to poison food and murder enemies abroad. In 1992, Kurdish rebels tried to poison the water supply of a Turkish military base with potassium cyanide. In 1995, in Tajikistan, nine Russian soldiers died from a New Year’s bottle of champagne laced with cyanide by Tajik enemies.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 26, 2001

In June 13, 1942, eight trained saboteurs paddled ashore on rafts from Nazi submarines in Florida and Long Island. Carrying fake IDs, explosives and $175,000 in cash, Hitler’s agents had come on a mission: Blend into American society and blow up U.S. factories.

On Long Island, four were spotted. Two defected and betrayed their comrades. FDR ordered all eight to be tried by military tribunal. On August 8, six were executed in a D.C. jail, buried in unmarked graves. America was a deadly serious country in the summer of ‘42.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 23, 2001

Neither the Taliban, nor al-Qaida, nor bin Laden is in the bag yet, but the war drums have already begun beating for phase II. If the war hawks have their way, Iraq is next on the target list.

Three weeks ago, President Bush was warned in an open letter that his failure to attack Iraq “will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 23, 2001

FDR “lied us into war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it,” Rep. Clare Luce blurted out in 1944.

The target of Luce’s accusation was a president who by then had entered the pantheon alongside Lincoln and Washington. FDR’s courtiers savaged the lady for maligning the Great Man, but few could credibly deny the truth of what she had said.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 20, 2001

“Israel controls the Senate,” said J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in 1973. “We should be more concerned about the United States’ interests.” That nothing has changed was evident this weekend. Secretary of State Powell received a letter, instigated by the Israeli lobby and signed by 89 U.S. senators, directing him not to interfere with Israel’s crushing of the Palestinian uprising.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 19, 2001

In September, 1929, “the Roaring Twenties,” “the Era of Wonderful Nonsense,” of sex, booze, and jazz, ended with the stock market crash that began the Great Depression. There followed the “low dishonest decade” of poet W.H. Auden’s depiction, as Western statesmen sought to appease their way to security and peace.

On September 11, 2001, as the two 767s smashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, bringing them crashing to earth with 5000 dead Americans, another unserious era, of sex scandals and stock market silliness, came to an end.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 17, 2001

A month after the massacres, and the ugly scenes of Arabs and Moslems cheering the wounding of America, millions are still asking the question: What did we do that they should hate us so?

Last week, the president professed himself “amazed” to “see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred of America.” “I’m amazed that there’s such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us … like most Americans, I just can’t believe [it]. Because I know how good we are.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan – October 16, 2001

Nov. 13 was a good day for America and a great day for George W. Bush. Kabul fell, the Taliban were suddenly on the run, and the president’s men and U.S. armed forces seemed to have engineered a brilliant victory without the loss of a single American in combat.

A surge of national confidence sent the Dow soaring, and the NASDAQ rose 3 percent. Bush’s next poll should find him near the 90 percent approvalrating in which his father basked after Desert Storm.