Amen, homeboy. Amen. No one could do this better than Buchanan and his "amen corner." It's an obsession of his.
THREE the hard way
Posted on 06/14/2004 4:57:30 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Was Reagan the 1st neoconservative?
Posted: June 14, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Would Ronald Reagan have invaded Iraq? Would he have declared a doctrine of preventive war to keep any rival nation from rising to where it might challenge us? Would he have crusaded for "world democratic revolution"? Was Reagan the first neoconservative?
This claim has been entered in the wake of his death. Yet, it seems bogus, a patent forgery, a fabricated claim to the Reagan legacy, worked up in the same shop where they made the documents proving Saddam was buying up all the yellowcake in Niger.
Ronald Reagan was one of us, a Cold War anti-communist union leader in the 1940s when neocons were still in mourning for Leon Trotsky. He was a militant free-market conservative in the 1950s when they were still wild about Harry. He was a fiery Goldwaterite in the 1960s when neocons were going all the way with LBJ.
None can say with certitude how Reagan would have responded to 9-11. Yet, it is hard to believe he would have invaded Iraq, absent hard evidence of Saddam's involvement in Sept. 11. For, in spite of Reagan's reputation as a cowboy, prudence – that most conservative of virtues – was a hallmark of his presidency in the Cold War conflict.
In 1981, when Gen. Jaruzelski crushed Solidarity on the orders of Moscow, Reagan refused to put the regime in default on its debts, which would have collapsed the credit rating of the Warsaw Pact.
When he challenged Moscow directly, it was on the battleground of ideas. He declared its ideology, communism, to be an unnatural and evil system, not long for this world, as it denied children of God their human dignity and thus could not and did not work.
When he aided resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola and Nicaragua, it was on the periphery of Moscow's empire. And he aligned America again with patriotism, nationalism and anti-imperialism. In Iraq, it is the United States, no matter the purity of the president's motives, that is perceived as the occupying and imperial power.
While Reagan restored U.S. military might and produced the ships, planes, guns, satellites and smart bombs that won the Gulf War in six weeks, he believed in speaking softly and carrying a big stick.
His strike on Libya in 1986 in retaliation for the bombing of the Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. soldiers was a measured response. In Grenada, he seized an opportunity to sweep Moscow's most vulnerable pawn off the board. When the Soviets shot down the Korean airliner, he concluded the action had not been ordered by Moscow and declined to turn the atrocious crime into an international crisis.
When the Soviet Union deployed mobile SS-20 missiles in Eastern Europe, Reagan countered with Pershing and cruise missiles in Western Europe. But when Gorbachev agreed to take down the SS-20s, Reagan agreed to take out the Pershings. He was proud of the first strategic arms reduction treaty of the Cold War. Among the reasons he loved the Strategic Defense Initiative was that he hated nuclear weapons and wanted to see them gone from the face of the earth. Ronald Reagan was anti-war, because Ronald Reagan was pro-life.
And because he had confidence in himself, his convictions and his country, he was always ready to sit down and talk to the adversaries of the United States.
Where the neocons are implacable enemies of the Saudi monarchy, Reagan sold the Saudis AWACS and F-16s. Where the neocons are fearful of the outcome of our clash with radical Islam, Reagan was serenely self-confident of the outcome of our clash with communism. Where they are bellicose and compulsive interventionists, Reagan was cautious.
The one occasion where he did intervene was Lebanon. It was a blunder to put Marines in the middle of that cauldron of hate. But when the U.S. embassy and Beirut barracks were bombed with hundreds dead, Reagan retaliated, but pulled the Marines out.
For there was never a vital U.S. interest in Lebanon. Ronald Reagan had the courage to concede and correct a mistake, but is today denounced for not going in with massive punitive force.
As for the neoconservative demand that we put incessant pressure on dictators to reform or perish, Reagan got along fine with kings, autocrats, generals and presidents-for-life, as long as they took America's side in the war that mattered: the Cold War. When Congress voted sanctions on South Africa, Reagan vetoed them, the State Department be damned.
He took the world as he inherited it. His mission was simple and clear: Defend the country he loved against the pre-eminent threat of the Soviet Empire, avoid war, for time was our side, and accept the assistance of any friend who would stand with us.
Reagan did not harbor some Wilsonian compulsion to remake the world in the image of Vermont. When Dick Allen, his security adviser, asked him what was his basic strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union, Reagan replied with a smile, "How about, 'We win, they lose.'"
What's the difference between a conservative and a neo-conservative?
Was Clinton the first NeoDem?
All this blather attempting to split the GOP vote is getting tedious.
Kerry is the Paleodem and Gore is the first GreenieDem and so on.....actually, Gore defies description. The only word I can think of to fit him is Loon..
"Neoconservatives" were supporters of FDR, HST, Adlai Stevenson, JFK, LBJ, and HHH who began to challenge Democrat ideology on the cold war in the 1970s and defected to support Reagan in his defeat of Georgia Jimmy Carter in 1980. Though few in number, the "neocons" are large in influence. They were a driving force behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, but it is not certain that they were the main reason the removal of Saddam Hussein was undertaken by the second Bush administration. Some of the neocons also once worked for anticommunist Sens. Henry M. Jackson, D-WA, and Daniel P. Moynihan, D-NY. Many neocons retained their allegiance to the "welfare state" when they supported Republicans after 1980.
It used to be a neocon was one who supported some conservative positions but was a social liberal. Today, it is used as a term by the anti-war crowd to divide the conservatives. A typical divide and conquerer technique to try to make negative connotations with those who support the war.
Exactly.
And who else would do this better than that over-the-top, off-his-rocker doofus Pat Buchanan?
Yeah, Buchanan still thinks he is the voice of conservatives, but most conservatives have rejected Buchanan's absolute isolationism position. Buchanan is consumed with his brand of isolationism and hates Bush for not supporting it.
I was raised in a pro FDR household, was a conservative before Reagan was, did not vote for Stevenson or any dem President and supported the Iraq war...
I liked Ike, Reagan, and like Bush....I have yet to find a candidate who does everything I want and that I agree with in every policy. I am grateful if they can do two or three important things.
Amen, homeboy. Amen. No one could do this better than Buchanan and his "amen corner." It's an obsession of his.
THREE the hard way
If by "neoconservative" you mean someone who was once a liberal, but upon maturing, decided to embrace the values and ideals of the country of his birth, why yes, Reagan was a neoconservative. This is akin to a 'born-again' Christian, who may have known about the history of Christianity, and even recited all the platitudes, but until the spirit flowed into his soul, never knew the passion and ecstacy of true worship.
Romald Reagan may not have been the first "neoconservative", but he surely led a vast army of them to "morning in America".
I don't know if Reagan was the first neocon, but Patrick J. Buchanan is definately the last paleocon.
Buchanan is praising he arming of the Saudis and ignoring the virulent strain of Islam the Saudis support. Wahhabism is spread,schools financed and terrorists grow up and kill the infidels every day. The Saudis are like the USSR as allies in WW2..a necessary evil because of oil and the stability needed.
There are enough Royals and ordinary Saudis who support terror against infidels to cause great turmoil. Our days of "accepting" and supporting despots to win the Cold War are old news...Bush is facing a non state enemy....although some states are supporting terror in many ways in the shadows.
I think no one was understanding the spreading infection...
?? Who is he talking about? Who in today's politics is a conservative or Republican and in the 1940s was mourning for Leon Trotsky. Just curious.
The JOOOOOOOS!
What was Reagan's stand on the Balkan involvement?
Also, take a whole boring afternoon and read up "New American Century"--
Neocons like interventionist foreign policy, all the time, whether it serves American interests (in the case of the Balkans, we now have some very powerful Albanian Muslims who will be our problem some day)--or not. And so many of them are allergic to carrying guns in their own soft hands.
The way you can tell a neocon is how he wants to boohoo, eek-eek!! , and wet his pants over a nobody of a pundit like Pat Buchanan. Buchanan, who has no political movement around him whatsoever, but serves as the bete noir, the strawman, and the chimera of the neos.
I wouldn't be surprised if Buchanan was on the neocon payroll-so useful is he to them.
It's time to shed the paleos and the neos.
Christopher Hitchens is the only one I can think of...many who were once dems have turned Republican, some because of the communists, some because of the great change in the dems toward foreign policy and the necessity for military strength, some because there are so few conservatives in the dem party....
The dem party went way left...Clinton tried to correct that and revitalize the party as it was losing for 12 years....Kerry was an example of how far left the party went, Kennedy, Leahy,Wellstone, the Black Caucus.etc ,also come to mind.
The elitist media have always been in shock that people actually liked a "real" conservative like Reagan. In their umptienth time redefining who Reagan really was, they've decided to label him a neo-con -- translation "moderate". This puts him in the same league with that media darling John McCain.
Reagan was a conservative through and through. He was more conservative than either Bush. He had the skill and demeanor to persuade fence sitters that conservatism is the right path for our nation. Gingrich had the right arguments, but the wrong demeanor. Bush 40 had neither and Bush 42 has the demeanor, but is soft on the arguments, IMHO.
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