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Pat Buchanan on Homeland Security
2000 Reform Candidate for President
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Existential crisis today isn't terrorism but loss of culture
The existential crisis of Western civilization does not come from Islamic terrorism. Even with an atom bomb, terrorists could do but a fraction of the damage we inflicted on our civilization between 1914 and 1945, when scores of millions of our
best and bravest perished as Europe was devastated by the Nazi and Red armies and round-the-clock bombing by the British and Americans.
The crisis of the West is of a collapsing culture and vanishing peoples, as a Third World that grows by 100 million people--the equivalent of a new Mexico--every 18 months mounts the greatest invasion in the history of the world.
If we do not shake off our paralysis, the West comes to an end.
By 2050, a depopulated Europe will have been overrun by African and Arab peoples.
Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p.245
, Oct 2, 2007
Pentagon depends on foreign manufacturing to defend America
In 2003, Pentagon officials who buy for the U.S. armed forces and U.S. defense industries spoke out in opposition to a law that would require a 65% American content in U.S. weapons.
Our missile defense system and Joint Strike Fighter would be imperiled, the Pentagon said, if two-thirds of their components had to be made in the USA.
Pat Choate, author of ‘Agents of Influence’, gives the following levels of U.S. dependency on foreign suppliers for critical goods:- Medicines and pharmaceuticals 72%
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Metalworking machinery 51%
- Engines and power equipment 56%
- Computer equipment 70%
- Communications equipment 67%
- Semiconductors and electronics 64%
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.163-4
, Sep 1, 2004
9/11 attack was response to US presence in Mecca & Medina
US dominance of the Middle East is not the corrective to terror. Were we not over there, the 9/11 terrorists would not have been over here. And while their acts were murderous and despicable, behind their atrocities lay a political motive. We were
attacked because of our imperial presence on the sacred soil of Mecca and Medina, because of our enemies' perception that we were strangling the Iraqi people with sanctions and preparing to attack a second time, and because of our uncritical support of
[Israel].Terrorism is a symptom, terrorism is not the disease. Behind almost every act of revolutionary terror lies a political purpose. What is it the Islamic militants seek? They want us out of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and they want to bring down all
pro-Western regimes in the Middle East. That is what 9/11 was all about.
Terrorism is the price of empire. If we do not wish to pay it, we must give up the empire. Strategic disengagement is not a strategy of defeat but a recognition of reality.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.238-239
, Aug 12, 2004
Avoiding war is the way to remain a superpower
America stayed out of the world wars longer than any other power and thus suffered few losses. Not until 4 years after British, French, Germans, and Russians had started slaughtering one another at a rate of 6,000 a day did the Doughboys arrive, only six
months before the armistice. Not until 4 years after Hitler overran France did the US boats appear off Normandy, just 11 months before V-E Day. During the Cold War, America avoided a war with a Soviet Union that could have wreaked far greater havoc and
destruction.We are the last superpower because we stayed out of the great wars of the 20th century longer than any of the other powers, and we suffered and lost less than any of them.
Since the
Cold War's end, however, from the arrogance of power to the alienation of allies to the waging of imperial wars where no vital U.S. interests were at risk, America now goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p. 4-6
, Aug 12, 2004
Deterrence has worked against rogue nations
In 2002, the White House issued a 33-page National Security Strategy. Why cannot Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea be deterred as were Stalin's Russia and Mao's China? Declared the NSS:"Deterrence is less likely to work against leaders of rogue
states more willing to take risks, gambling with the lives of their people, and the wealth of their nations. Our enemies see WMD as weapons of choice. These weapons may allow these states to attempt to blackmail the US. Deterrence has worked. With the
exception of Korea, 1950, deterrence has never failed us. No rogue state has ever attacked the US--for fear of the massive retaliation that would surely follow."
From the passage above, the Bush administration appears to fear that if nations like
Iran acquire nuclear weapons, they will use them not to attack us but to curtail our freedom of action and end our dominance of their region--as Moscow's nuclear arsenal deterred US intervention to effect regime change in Eastern Europe in the Cold War.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p. 25-26
, Aug 12, 2004
We are hated for what we do, not who we are
"Why do they hate us?" Americans asked after 9/11. Pres. Bush professed himself shocked even by the implications of the questions. "I am," he declared, "amazed that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred of America. I'm amazed
that there's such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us."When others probed for a deeper answer, they were charged with "blaming America first." With due respect, these answers insult the intelligence of a 2nd-grader.
Did the Japanese attack us at Pearl Harbor because we were free, rich, good, and how low marginal tax rates?
We are not hated for who we are. We are hated for what we do. It is not our principles that we have spawned pandemic hatred of
America in the Islamic world. It is our policies. Nothing justifies the mass murders of 9/11. If we wish to avert a clash of civilization, from which we have nothing to gain, we need to listen to what they say--not what we say--about America.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p. 79-80
, Aug 12, 2004
Suicide killers not new; they've been legends for millennia
Ours is the time of the terrorist, from Mohammed Atta and his eighteen accomplices to the suicide bombers of Jerusalem. Yet famous suicides have been canonized in legend and myth.In the Old Testament, the warrior-hero
Samson, blinded by his own folly, used his strength to move pillars and bring the roof of the temple down on the Philistines. Kamikaze pilots gave up their lives for Japan and the emperor to cripple and sink US warships moving toward the Home Islands.
Even today the Japanese honor their memory. The most famous act of collective suicide in the annals of war occurred in A.D. 73 in the fortress of Masada. As the
Romans prepared to scale the cliffs, the defenders resolved not to be taken alive, and committed mass suicide. Two women and three children survived. Atop Masada today, the soldiers of Israeli armored divisions take their oath of allegiance.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.121
, Aug 12, 2004
Need new post-Cold War bottom-up strategy review
Q: How would you handle the defense budget?A: What we have not had is a bottom-up review of American foreign policy in the post-Cold War. Gore and Bush are caught in a Cold War prism. You ought to bring American troops home from Korea, from Okinawa,
from Japan, from Europe, bring them home to the US, use the savings to build up American armed forces, to enhance their morale and fighting capability, so they can deal with a great threat to the West or our vital allies. The idea that 55 years after the
Korean War, Americans would be the first to die in a second Korean war is absurd, only an adherence to doctrines that should have died in 1989, 1990, 1991. I’ve been fighting this battle for 10 years for a new foreign policy for this
country that puts our own nation and its vital interests first, and we don’t go to war unless our honor, our integrity, our citizens or our interests are threatened.
Source: Nader-Buchanan debate on ‘Meet the Press’
, Oct 1, 2000
Build SDI; “Retrench and rearm”
Background: The US government spends about 16% of its budget on defense, down from about 50% in the early 1960s. The number of active-duty troops has dropped by about one third since the end of the Cold War. Buchanan’s views: : “Retrench
and rearm,” return many troops from abroad, build national missile-defense system. Assure Russia of no more NATO expansion on condition of Russia’s non-intervention in nearby states. Opposes nuclear test ban treaty.
Source: NyTimes.com Politics Library
, Feb 3, 2000
Declare war only after attack on US, interests, or honor
“My vision is of a republic, not an empire -- a nation that does not go to war unless she is attacked, or her vital interests are imperiled, or her honor impugned. And when she does go to war, it is only after following a constitutional declaration
by the Congress,” Buchanan said. “We are not imperialists; we are not interventionists; we are not hegemonists; and we are not isolationists. We simply believe in America first, last and always.”
Source: Associated Press, “Attack World Government”
, Jan 6, 2000
UK, France, & Germany should defend Europe
With the Cold War won, it is time that Europe re-assumes full responsibility for its own defense. Western Europe has never been more secure. France & Great Britain, with nuclear weapons, are capable of defending themselves.
A united and democratic Germany is fully capable of resuming its historic role of defending Central Europe. How long should 260 million Americans have to defend 360 million rich Europeans -- from 160 million impoverished Russians?
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.384-5
, Oct 9, 1999
Transfer NATO Army to Germany & Navy to France
The US should withdraw all its ground troops from Europe and amend the NATO treaty so that involvement in future European wars is an option, not a certainty. Transfer command of NATO ground forces to a German general, and, after detaching the
US Sixth Fleet, transfer NATO’s southern command to a French admiral. The role of America in Europe should not be as a frontline fighting state, but as the arsenal of democracy and strategic reserve of the West.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.385-6
, Oct 9, 1999
Annex Greenland
As for Greenland, the last great empty space in the Western Hemisphere, this huge island should remain permanently inside the US defense perimeter, and eventually be formally annexed by the US. Greenland lacks the requisites of nationhood.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.370
, Oct 9, 1999
US hegemony will backfire to create a less secure world
Our hegemonists our confident that America’s power is too great for any to resist. History teaches otherwise. Every attempt to establish hegemony incites resentment and hostility. Weaker nations
instinctively seek security in each other, creating the very combinations the hegemonists most fear. It is a law of history: The thesis calls into being the antithesis; the weak collude to balance off the strong.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p. 24
, Oct 9, 1999
NATO was conceived as a temporary alliance
Did America’s Cold War alliances -- NATO, CENTO, SEATO, the ANZUS and Rio pacts, and security treaties with Korea, Japan, Taiwan -- violate George Washington’s “great rule” against permanent alliances? No. When created, these were to be temporary
alliances to endure only as long as the crisis endured. US troops would remain in Europe only until Europe could rise to its own feet to man its own defenses. Eisenhower estimated that would take ten years.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.310
, Oct 9, 1999
We lost Vietnam because we fought on THEIR terms
[Vietnam] was an attempt to defeat the enemy on the enemy’s terms, a concept that ran counter to every strategic principle of warfare, but appealed to the academic-minded “best and the brightest.” Although the US had more than adequate power to
defeat Hanoi, it never had a strategic plan for final victory or the will to pursue such a strategy. Johnson picked the most expensive war option, and then pursued it incrementally to avoid the higher costs--a formula for failure that produced failure.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.313-4
, Oct 9, 1999
No Pax Americana for post-Cold War
A 1989 forum on a new foreign policy for an era in which no great enemy threatened [elicited] calls for imposing a “Pax Americana” or “global hegemony.” Columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that we should “integrate” America, Europe, and Japan in a
“supersovereign” entity. This “new universalism,” he wrote, “is not as outrageous as it sounds.” Not to Krauthammer, but surely to the Patriot Fathers. The Krauthammer superstate would be a betrayal of everything for which the Republic stood. In a
rebuttal piece titled “America First -- and Second, and Third,” I wrote that Krauthammer’s vision was un-American, and failed “the most fundamental test of any foreign policy: Americans will not fight for it.” A nation’s purpose, I added, is to be
“discovered not by consulting ideologies, but by reviewing its history, by searching the hearts of its people.” Urging adoption of a policy of “enlightened nationalism,” I wrote [that we should pursue] “total withdrawal of US troops from Europe.”
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.325
, Oct 9, 1999
New World Order ties down US without vital interests
[With the collapse of the USSR], all that America had ever sought had come to pass. Yet rather than seize the opportunity to pull up our “trip wires” around the world and shed unwanted commitments -- to recapture our freedom of action and restore a
traditional foreign policy -- internationalists joined with globalists to tie down America like Gulliver in some “New World Order” where US wealth and power would be put at the service of causes having nothing to do with the vital interests of the US.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.327
, Oct 9, 1999
Soldiers volunteer to defend US, not UN
The men and women of the US military volunteer to defend America -- its honor, citizens, and vital interests -- not to serve as Hessians of a New World Order. Not every beast needs to be hunted down and killed; some are best left alone to live and die in
their part of the forest. No “world community” can ever replace the patria. Ultimately, men fight and die for the “ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods”, not some New World Order. Who would give his life--for the United Nations?
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.362
, Oct 9, 1999
Expand defense budget for expanded global commitments
Under Clinton-Gore, our global commitments have expanded, but our defenses have declined. A Buchanan Administration will restore funding to our hollowed forces, honor to our ranks, and safety to our shores. We will not splinter our strength by committing
American forces where no vital national interests are at stake, and will reclaim international credibility by establishing a clear, consistent foreign policy that keeps our interests first, our forces strong, and our nation secure.
Source: www.GoPatGo.org/ “Issues: Rebuilding Military”
, Jun 12, 1999
America must retrench and rearm
We cannot police the planet on a defense budget of 3% of GDP, and unless America is prepared to restore our military might, we cannot contain a rearmed Russia, patrol the Balkans, roll back a second Iraqi attack on Kuwait, repel North Korea, and prevent
another of Beijing’s bullying assaults on Taiwan. America must retrench and rearm. We must reclaim American invincibility on land, sea and air, and complete the Reagan legacy by deploying a missile defense system.
Source: www.GoPatGo.org/ “Issues: Rebuilding Military”
, Jun 12, 1999
Pay soldiers more; end “social labs”; exit Balkans
We will rebuild America’s military might and pay our soldiers a livable wage. I will stop the Clinton practice of treating the armed forces as social laboratories for experiments by aging ‘60’s radicals. The absurd Clinton-Gore policy that wastes $10
billion policing the Balkans, but cannot spare a dime to keep Communist China from encroaching on the Panama Canal, will be ended.
Source: www.gopatgo2000.com/000-c-foreignpolicy.html 5/28/99
, May 28, 1999
Page last updated: Oct 01, 2016