Posted on 08/28/2002 9:16:46 AM PDT by sixmil
Patrick J. Buchanan isn't giving up. He's left the Republican Party for good. And he isn't planning a fourth run for the White House.
But he is finally trying something fans have been telling him to do for years. He's founding a magazine.
The new, bi-weekly magazine will debut next month and be called "The American Conservative." Scott McConnell, former editorial-page editor of the New York Post, will edit it. Society gadfly Taki Theodoracopulos will help with cash.
Buchanan is upbeat, about the magazine at least.
"We hope to have a conservative magazine which is genuinely and authentically conservative," he said. "We hope it will be sort of a rallying point for the conservatism that is really utterly unrepresented by either the K Street conservatives or the Weekly Standard, National Review, Commentary, New Republic neocons."
IBD talked with Buchanan at his home in Virginia to get a flavor for the new journal.
IBD: How are we doing in the war on terror?
Buchanan: I think the president did a bully job of diplomacy and moral leadership from September to January. The way they fought that war and won it was outstanding. It was a moral and just war, fought in a moral and just way.
But when he got into identifying an "axis of evil" and then threatening pre-emptive strikes against all nations that might develop the kinds of weapons we've had for the past century, he lost his focus. He has disrupted alliances. He has threatened actions that we don't have the troops in place to take.
He's asserting a right to wage pre-emptive war without the approval of Congress on any nation that aspires to build the kinds of weapons we've had since World Wars I and II. I don't think he's got the right to do that, and I think a policy of warning about pre-emptive strikes is the kind of policy that could invite pre-emptive strikes against us.
IBD: What about a war with Iraq?
Buchanan: Anybody who has a state, including Saddam Hussein, is going to be reluctant to go to war against the United States or to commit any atrocity which would put them in a war with the U.S. Containment and deterrence will work with almost any state.
Saddam is terrified of the United States. He wants to hand over his power to one of these sons of his. He's got all these palaces out there.
Why in heaven's name would he want to trigger a war with the United States of America and have all that blown to kingdom come along with him, his sons, his family, his dynasty, his army, everything?
I don't think we should give up on the policy of deterrence. It frightened Joe Stalin. It frightened Mao Tse-tung. These guys are not in that league.
IBD: What should we be doing here at home?
Buchanan: The first thing we should do is get serious about border security. Since 9-11, we've only had 411,000 illegal aliens come into the United States.
If there is a weapon of mass destruction smuggled into this country, the whole idea of global interdependence and 10,000 Mexican trucks coming into the U.S. every day, almost all of them not inspected, and over a million containers - that's going to come to an end.
It will be a very powerful argument for retiring to economic independence and economic nationalism, where you do not have thousands of people crossing your border every day. One or two more of these attacks and globalization itself is in trouble.
IBD: What will that mean for an open society?
Buchanan: I'm a believer in an open society, I'm a believer in a free society, and this is why I'm opposed to the idea of an empire. They say we need a Department of Homeland Security. I thought the Defense Department was in charge of homeland security. Apparently it's in charge of empire security.
Of what advantage is all this American empire, interfering in all these quarrels around the world, if as a consequence we lose freedom at home and live in constant danger of some kind of small atomic weapon detonated on American soil?
I think the American empire is going to go, and I think that's a good thing. The reason they were over here on 9-11 is that we are over there.
IBD: Where do you see things 10 years from now?
Buchanan: I regret that for the rest of Mr. Bush's first term, we're going to be at war. The president has subcontracted out our Middle East policy to Ariel Sharon, and I think that's a dreadful mistake.
Palestinian terrorists ought to be condemned and Israel has a right to peace, but you have to give the Palestinian people some hope. And I think Bush's (June 24) speech gives them very, very little hope. I think his speech could have been written in Tel Aviv.
IBD: Will there ever be a Palestinian state?
Buchanan: I think the question is not whether there'll be a Palestinian state. There may be two. The ultimate question is whether there's going to be a Jewish state in the Mideast. I think Ariel Sharon is leading them into a cul-de-sac from which there is no way out but back through Oslo and Tabaah and the Saudi plan.
Try again. Your guilt by association only works on those who don't know any better.
I'm not such a one.
But listening at you, I guess we can throw away all that Dr. Thomas Sowell has written, since he started out as a Marxist. So did Ronald Radosh. So did David Horowitz. In my teens I would have made Farrakhan proud and Malcolm X smile.
People change.
But you won't allow people to change.
Whatever.
Your brand of "conservatism" isn't worth a bucket of warm spit. Your brand does not attempt to convince. It only casts out and repels.
But like I said, I'm up in your grill just like I'm in the face of the most rabid Leftist.
And I won't be moved.
Thanks for the advice, however, I do not take clues from Neo-cons. I march to moral principle and only moral principle. It so happens Israel has the high moral ground on this and I can logically destroy anyone's argument that says otherwise -- including Buchanan. Would you care to defend the Palestinian terrorists? I'm well versed in this arena and I am ready for any of you. I don't believe in "moral equivalence" in the Israeli/arab conflict.
But, moral aspect aside, since I am a Christian, I do believe that the jews are there for a reason, that they have won numerous miraculous victories for a reason, but secularists like Buchanan and others can't see it because they are spiritually blind.
I agree with many of his points, so I guess that makes me some kind of wacko.
His preoccupation with Isreal is bothersome and I think he does disregard some practical realities regarding the place & role of the world's only superpower, but I am in near total agreement with him on domestic issues.
Scary, huh?
I didn't change the subject. I defended my previous position, which I maintain. You are the one who refuses to support your assertions with fact.
What you said couldn't be done in years and without tens of thousands of dead Americans was done in months with 40 casualties
What, exactly, "was done" in Afghanistan?
Mutually assured destruction vs. they kill us and we do nothing.
Deterrence might work if Iraq itself were theatening to invade the US or neighboring states, but that's not what we're afraid of this time. We fear that Saddam is arming and sheltering al Qaeda. We need to define any Iraqi military facility that Saddam refuses to let us inspect as a facility that won't be there tomorrow morning.
And to that I say, "Ooh-rah!" Normally I would say, "Hooah!" But I was not a jarhead. ;-)
Actually, I always thought I was 'mainstream.' I AM a reagan Republican...so I was right: posters like Zviadist ARE saying that if we don't agree with THEIR ideas of 'conservatism'...we are Nazis.
That IS a leftist tactic.
Whew. I sit corrected....the BS is getting so hot and heavy in here with this neo-con crap that I wasn't sure.
--A Republican is for tax cuts first and never criticizes Bush. Lott is a Republican.
--A Neo-Con is for Israel first and never criticizes Sharon. Kristol is a neo-con.
--A Conservative is for America first and criticizes both Bush and Sharon. Buchanan is a conservative.
I will try to make this simple for an mind that can't seem to grasp complex ideas.
TALIBAN = ENEMY & AL QUAIDA
TALIBAN IS GONE FROM POWER in Afghanistan.
While it would be nice to "get" Osama bin laden, ONE person ALONE didn't do 9/11. Do you even know about the training camps in Jakarta Indonesia in the late 80's? Because if you do/did, you would know that this threat is a complex set of training camps and dispersing of terrorists around the world. It was not caught and stopped in time, and spread like a wildfire. To think that all our problems lay only in Afghanistan is the epitomy of ignorance.
Are we now forcing our great fighting men to play bodyguard to their unelected and ridiculous "president"? Yep. And it's degrading and disgraceful to the United States Military.
I speak to them often, and I can assure you, OUR GREAT FIGHTING MEN AND WOMEN RESPECT AND LOVE THIS COMMANDER IN CHIEF! Same goes for the Sec. of Defense Rumsfield. You really need to SPEAK to a few of them. And let me tell you something else.. it DOES matter that they are willing to fight and die at this mans words and commands.
They were NONE TO HAPPY under Clinton. His futile attempts and reactions to pervious terrorists attacks frustrated them in their inadequacy. They knew he hated people in uniform. He even asked the military people coming into the white house to come in civilian clothes. Nice huh?
Also, had they done what he did in lying under oath, they would have been court martialed. They also knew that he had protested against "our own military" while in England as a young man. He said he was going to join the Gaurd, then never did. He is a draft dodger pure and simple. And a traitor!! There never was, nor will there ever be respect for Clinton by our Nations Military! But there IS for President Bush.
As to your claim of the "UN-ELECTED President".. good GOD!!... You have GOT to be kidding? Next time put a </sarcasm so we know when you're done with the sarcasm and false innuendo's.
Or do you think we should CONTINUE to spend tons of money PROVING FOR THE FOURTH TIME, that the count was accurate and President Bush won, and further PROVE what a SORE LOSER GORE IS?
It is very obvious what your agenda is on this forum. But you are in way over your head. Next time do some research before stating such blatantly ignorant dribble.
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