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.
If that be so, how would Pat explain Arafat? IMO, Bush should have arrested Arafat months ago. If Sharon had his way, Arafat would be a just memory.
Indeed. And therein lies the problem. Those presumptions are inimical to traditional notions of "conservatism" and "the Right." Ergo...
I would like to point out that we cannot close our borders and remain engaged abroad.
As for war being engaged in self defense....you keep posting this stuff about Afghanistan, which is a war of self defense. Talibunnie leader of Afghanistan's army, bin Laden, set his thugs to attack us. They did. It was a success. We retaliated. The Talibunnies are broken. However, those weren't the questions.
I asked you if (in summation) 1: ) we never interacted with other countries, would we have had any reason to develop the technology we now enjoy, and 2:) would we never have had to engage in another foreign war after the Revolution?
RAH HA (**just imagine Garfield the cat ouncing on a burger here) !!!
Thank you sooooooooooooo much for the apt description of those who would accuse us of being National Socialists or Trotskiites just because we don't agree that we ought to shave off 200 years of normal societal progression and burn it in the woodstove.
(Flamers don't try it with the woodstove thing. I heat with a wood furnace and have a wood cookstove for supplimentary heat which I cook on in the dead of winter, which generally lasts two months up here)
BUMP to you, VHW!!
LOL: no kiddin' : If you hadn't told me, I would never have guess you thought that.
For your good common sense, I will make you an honorary jarhead. By the way, Ooh-rah is USMC, and "Hooah" is Al Pacino. ;)
So, I guess I could look at it as meaning a "new" type of conservative, or I could look at it as an offensive form or stating any conservative who thinks "abnormal" in the context of Conservativism, (neo-cons).
If I'm reading this wrong, and being unduly offended, then excuse me for it. I will try to understand this more as I look into it. Thanks for pointing out the "new" part. I hope the reference is as simple as that when being used in reference to neo-cons(neo-conservatives). I'm happy to be corrected.
Just trying to figure this one out.
Uh....that would be great....IF he could do such a thing. However, he can't. Sharon could....in a perfect world, and without UN interference. Of course, in a perfect world, the UN wouldn't exist, either.
The PA territories are, technically (NOT in the language of twisted diplomacy) Israel. Therefore, Israel, a sovereign state, has jurisdiction. No offence to the efforts of the wonderfully didicated IDF....you go guys!....but Israel is surrounded by enemy states, nationals of which comprise over a third of the 'Palestinian' population. Unfortunately, Israel requires the aid of allies such as the US to fend off the traditionally anti-Semitic EUroweenies who give shelter and comfort to those who wish to conquer the world and rule planet Earth under the flag of Sharia law.
I do not belong to any of your categories, so you better add another one: Christian Constitutionalist. In this category, moral principle is the guiding criteria (and don't ask me "whose moral principle" unless you are prepared to defend moral relativism).
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