Free Republic

Between Sept. 11, 2001, and his State of the Union Address in 2002, George W. Bush had America in the palm of his hand. But in that speech, Bush blew it. Singling out Iran, Iraq and North Korea as state sponsors of terror seeking weapons of mass destruction, Bush yoked them together in an "axis of evil" and issued this ultimatum: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's...

Republican calls president 'derelict' in duty: 'This is not Ellis Island, this is an invasion' Author Pat Buchanan says President Bush should be impeached for failing to stop the invasion of illegal aliens across the U.S. border with Mexico. "I think he's committed an impeachable offense in refusing to enforce the immigration laws and in failing to uphold the Constitution by defending the states against this invasion," Buchanan told radio talk-show host Curt Smith this weekend on National Public Radio stations in upstate New York. "When you have 6 million people apprehended on the border and several million got in...

Republican firebrand Patrick Buchanan said yesterday that President Bush should be impeached for failing to stem the "invasion" of illegal immigrants across America's Southern border...

Defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern "Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone. They will not leave us alone. They will follow us. The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad." President Bush, speaking on 9/11, had a point. Even some who believe the invasion of Iraq to have been a strategic blunder concede that, if Americans head for the exit ramp, the consequences could be...

"The war we fight today is more than a military conflict," said President Bush to the American Legion. "It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century." But if the ideology of our enemy is "Islamo-fascism," what is the ideology of George W. Bush? According to James Montanye, writing in the Independent Review, it is "democratic fundamentalism." Montanye borrows Joseph Schumpeter's depiction of Marxism to describe it. Like Marxism, he writes, democratic fundamentalism "presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly,...

The Democrats are determined to make the election of 2006 a referendum on Bush and the war in Iraq. And, as of now, that is how history will likely record it. But beneath the surface of the national election, a different plebiscite is being held, within the conservative movement, on the ideology George Bush imposed on Ronald Reagan's party. What are the elements of Bushite neoconservatism? First, an interventionist foreign policy, using U.S. power to impose democracy and "end tyranny on this earth." Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are the laboratories and proving ground. Second, "Big Government Conservatism," as seen in...

Pat Buchanan, not satisfied merely looking like a Herblock depiction of a bigot, a man who never allows an opportunity to slam Israel slip through his fingers, has been on a rampage because Israel has finally gone after the murderous thugs and sadists of Hezbollah. The fact that the terrorists don’t wear uniforms means that every time the Israelis kill one of them, Buchanan and his ilk get to insist that Israel is targeting civilians. Buchanan’s concern for civilians isn’t nearly so evident when it’s Jews who are targeted by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO’s suicide bombers. One of the...

"Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah," roared Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon on July 27. "Every village from which a Katyusha is fired must be destroyed," bellowed an Israeli general in a quote bannered by the nation's largest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. The Israeli paper then summarized what the justice minister and general were saying: "In other words, a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire." That was Thursday. Sunday, in Qana, 57 of Haim Ramon's "terrorists," 37 of them children, were massacred with precision-guided bombs. Apparently, Katyushas...

Within 48 hours, it was apparent Israel was exploiting Hezbollah's attack to execute a preconceived military plan to destroy Lebanon – i.e, the collective punishment of a people and nation for the crimes of a renegade militia they could not control. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police going berserk, shooting, killing and ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had ambushed and killed cops. If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead...

My country has been "torn to shreds,"said Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon, as the death toll among his people passed 300 civilian dead, 1000 wounded, with half a million homeless. Israel must pay for the "barbaric destruction," said Siniora. To the contrary, says columnist Lawrence Kudlow, "Israel is doing the Lord's work." On American TV, former Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the ruination of Lebanon is Hezbollah's doing. But is it Hezbollah that is using U.S.-built F-16s, with precision-guided bombs and 155-mm artillery pieces to wreak death and devastation on Lebanon? No, Israel is doing this with...

My country has been "torn to shreds," said Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon, as the death toll among his people passed 300 civilian dead, 1,000 wounded, with half a million homeless. Israel must pay for the "barbaric destruction," said Siniora. To the contrary, says columnist Lawrence Kudlow, "Israel is doing the Lord's work." On American TV, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the ruination of Lebanon is Hezbollah's doing. But is it Hezbollah that is using U.S.-built F-16s, with precision-guided bombs and 155-mm artillery pieces to wreak death and devastation on Lebanon? No, Israel is doing this,...

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war," the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed. First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran. Now, Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon – smashing airport runways,...