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.
No....you have it right. Also, I believe many Buchananites on this thread are indulging in a little transferrance at the expense of the majority in the enormous blue area of the 2000 election map. They're being rather transparent.
Since we're being accused of being Nazis and Trotskyite Socialists on this thread...I would hazard the guess that some on this thread are using it in a disparaging way.
Mainstream America does not take well to being accused of being that which our families fought against. That is why we take offense.
Agreed, 1000%.
As I said before, I have never read the term "neo-con" used in any BUT a disparaging way by either the far right or the entire left....therefore we can safely assume the term is, and is meant to be, an insult to put those who disagree on the defensive...thus giving the far-right and entire left a small tactical advantage over the statistical majority.
Good points!! Thanks!
My post was meant to CLARIFY, not confuse....so of course exactly the opposite happened. I mean the mainstream Alerica doesn't take to being accused of being the things their families fought against....in your reply to me you reacted exactly the way mainstream America does....the way all of us on this very thread, who are being accused...and I DO mean accused, of being 'neo-cons' are!
Sheesh...I have to make supper....have a good night, and don't let the venomous ones on this thread confuse you.
Exactly. Remember when Saddam launched scuds at Israel during the Gulf War and we got them not to retaliate? That shows me who is really running the show.
How is that a threat if we do not let Al-Queda near our borders? I think the point is that we can do all this without putting any troops on the ground.
BOO!
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