Pat Buchanan on Homeland Security 2000 Reform Candidate for President

Existential crisis today isn't terrorism but loss of culture

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.

Pentagon depends on foreign manufacturing to defend America

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%
• Metalworking machinery 51%
• Engines and power equipment 56%
• Computer equipment 70%
• Communications equipment 67%
• Semiconductors and electronics 64%

9/11 attack was response to US presence in Mecca & Medina

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.

Avoiding war is the way to remain a superpower

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.

Deterrence has worked against rogue nations

"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.

We are hated for what we do, not who we are

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.

Suicide killers not new; they've been legends for millennia

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.

Need new post-Cold War bottom-up strategy review

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.

Build SDI; “Retrench and rearm”

Declare war only after attack on US, interests, or honor

UK, France, & Germany should defend Europe

Transfer NATO Army to Germany & Navy to France

Annex Greenland

US hegemony will backfire to create a less secure world

NATO was conceived as a temporary alliance

We lost Vietnam because we fought on THEIR terms

No Pax Americana for post-Cold War

New World Order ties down US without vital interests

Soldiers volunteer to defend US, not UN

Expand defense budget for expanded global commitments

America must retrench and rearm

Pay soldiers more; end “social labs”; exit Balkans