I know ya'll don't like Pat that much, but it is surprising to hear this from a "conservative" person.
USA is not wanted in Iraq
Fri Nov 15, 7:36 AM ET
Patrick J. Buchanan
For some among our Beltway elite, even a U.S. invasion that effects regime change in Baghdad isn't enough. Their vision: a MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, a Pax Americana, a benevolent American empire in the Middle East. As with Hitler's Germany, we must ''de-Nazify'' all of the ''Islamo-fascist'' states -- Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Lebanon and Libya -- and tutor their people in the blessings of democracy and free markets.
What is wrong with this vision? Only this. It is a century too late. Jefferson's idea, that ''all just powers come from the consent of the governed,'' and Wilson's idea of the self-determination of peoples have taken root in the souls of men.
The West long ago lost the will to colonize, civilize and ''Christianize'' what Kipling called the ''lesser breeds without the law.'' The age of Western empires is over.
Lest we forget: America was born in a revolution against an empire. To emulate Rome would betray our heritage and dishonor the memory of the Founding Fathers. Nor is there the will to rule other nations among our people.
American empire is an intellectual construct of scribblers and think-tank denizens more familiar with the hazards of graduate school than of gunnery school. Americans won't send their sons to die for an empire concocted by talking heads whose boys won't be patrolling that empire.
Look at what became of the British in Palestine, the French in Algeria. Do we really want our own Battle of Algiers in Baghdad? Our own intifada? An American empire in the Islamic world would put us at endless war in that most volatile of regions, and with its most violent forces: Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Calls to jihad on America would echo in every mosque from Morocco to Malaysia.
Interventionism is the mother of terrorism. The killers of 9/11 were over here, because we were over there. Let us come home from a region where we are not wanted, and let the Islamic world work out its own destiny. As we see in Iran, where the youth are turning against the ayatollahs and toward the West, time is on our side.
As it was in the Cold War.
Patrick J. Buchanan is a syndicated columnist and co-editor of The American Conservative.
USA is not wanted in Iraq
Fri Nov 15, 7:36 AM ET
Patrick J. Buchanan
For some among our Beltway elite, even a U.S. invasion that effects regime change in Baghdad isn't enough. Their vision: a MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, a Pax Americana, a benevolent American empire in the Middle East. As with Hitler's Germany, we must ''de-Nazify'' all of the ''Islamo-fascist'' states -- Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Lebanon and Libya -- and tutor their people in the blessings of democracy and free markets.
What is wrong with this vision? Only this. It is a century too late. Jefferson's idea, that ''all just powers come from the consent of the governed,'' and Wilson's idea of the self-determination of peoples have taken root in the souls of men.
The West long ago lost the will to colonize, civilize and ''Christianize'' what Kipling called the ''lesser breeds without the law.'' The age of Western empires is over.
Lest we forget: America was born in a revolution against an empire. To emulate Rome would betray our heritage and dishonor the memory of the Founding Fathers. Nor is there the will to rule other nations among our people.
American empire is an intellectual construct of scribblers and think-tank denizens more familiar with the hazards of graduate school than of gunnery school. Americans won't send their sons to die for an empire concocted by talking heads whose boys won't be patrolling that empire.
Look at what became of the British in Palestine, the French in Algeria. Do we really want our own Battle of Algiers in Baghdad? Our own intifada? An American empire in the Islamic world would put us at endless war in that most volatile of regions, and with its most violent forces: Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Calls to jihad on America would echo in every mosque from Morocco to Malaysia.
Interventionism is the mother of terrorism. The killers of 9/11 were over here, because we were over there. Let us come home from a region where we are not wanted, and let the Islamic world work out its own destiny. As we see in Iran, where the youth are turning against the ayatollahs and toward the West, time is on our side.
As it was in the Cold War.
Patrick J. Buchanan is a syndicated columnist and co-editor of The American Conservative.
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