issues2000

More headlines: Pat Buchanan on Foreign Policy

(Following are older quotations. Click here for main quotations.)


Cuba: US interest is peaceful transfer of power after Castro

As for Cuba, The US Cold War policy of isolation and containment succeeded. Cuba is no longer a strategic colony of a hostile empire or a threat to Central America or the Caribbean. The threat from Cuba today lies in the potential for political upheaval with the passing of Castro and Castroism. A million refugees could be sent fleeing toward Florida. America’s interests dictate a peaceful transfer of power. Castro may be the enemy of America; the Cuban people are not.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.373 Oct 9, 1999

East Europe: Focus on democracy instead of expanding NATO

That democracy is putting down roots in Eastern Europe is welcome news. But democracy was not introduced by NATO; it sprang up before NATO membership was at issue. The nation America most needs to lock onto a democratic path is Russia. Yet, by making allies of countries once part of its empire, we treat Russia as the Allies treated Germany at Versailles, rubbing its nose in its defeat... virtually designating Russia a permanent enemy. To capture a pawn we are risking a queen.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p. 14 Oct 9, 1999

Russia: Stop humiliation now to avoid a 21st century war

If rising resentment in Russia leads to Yeltsin’s replacement with an anti-American nationalist, full blame must rest squarely with a haughty US elite that has done its best to humiliate Russia. Why are we doing this? Between the vital interests of our two nations, there is no conflict. But these proud people retain thousands of nuclear weapons. A friendly Russia is far more critical to US security than any alliance with Warsaw or Prague. If the US has one overriding national security interest in the new century, it is to avoid collisions with great nuclear powers like Russia. By moving NATO onto Russia’s front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation. Europe’s sick man of today is going to get well. When that day comes, America will face a hellish dilemma: risk confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia determined to recreate its old sphere of influence, or renege on solemn commitments an see NATO collapse.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p. 18 Oct 9, 1999

Most pressing foreign policy crisis: illegal immigration

Increasingly, Buchanan is known as an enemy of immigration, especially immigration from below the Rio Grande. He wants a triple fence, heavily policed, to keep Mexicans out of the US. He calls illegal immigration -- not Russia’s nukes, not North Korea’s missiles, not Saddam’s dreams of mass destruction, but immigration -- “America’s most pressing foreign policy crisis.”
Source: (X-ref Free Trade) Jeff Jacoby editorial, Boston Globe Sep 20, 1999

Puerto Rico should not accept statehood

The brave vote of the Puerto Rican people to retain their own Hispanic culture and identity, and reject the bribe of welfare-for-statehood should be applauded - and respected.
Source: www.gopatgo2000.com/000-c-immigration.html 5/28/99 May 28, 1999

Supporting role only in case of Chinese attacks

Should China move against any of its neighbors, including Taiwan, these nations would surely arm to defend their liberty. But the first defense perimeter of Free Asia should be manned by Asians themselves, united in regional alliances, with the US relegated to a supporting role. Like Shakespeare’s Fortinbras, it has been the role of America to come in at the end, not at the beginning of the family wars of Asia and Europe. Let other nations play Hamlet.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.377 Oct 9, 1999

Kick UN out of US by 2001

Pat Buchanan told a Bob Jones University crowd Monday that the United States is being drawn into a one-world government and should kick the United Nations headquarters out of the country. “We want the United Nations out of the United States by year’s end,” Buchanan said to hearty applause. “If you have trouble leaving, we’ll send up 10,000 Marines to help you pack.”
Source: CNN.com Sep 19, 2000

End all sanctions that hurt innocent people

Buchanan cited what he called counterproductive sanctions in a dozen countries, including Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, and Serbia. He vowed that as president he would end all sanctions depriving food, medicine, and other basic necessities to the suffering subjects of rogue nations. “Embargoes and blockades are weapons of war,” Buchanan said. They must be designed , he continued, “so that innocent people are not the principal casualties.”
Source: NY Times, p. A22, on 2000 election Dec 17, 1999

Dissolve Asian security treaties, they’ll defend themselves

While the US should maintain military relations with the friendly states of Asia, we should dissolve all security treaties that require us to go to war, instantly, in the event of an attack on Thailand, Australia, or the Philippines. No vital interest of ours is at risk in those nations. Only by taking away the security blanket will we shock Free Asia into doing what is should have done long ago: organize militarily, as it has economically, to provide for the common defense.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.376 Oct 9, 1999

Warns against unsustainable commitments of US forces abroad

Buchanan’s book, “A Republic, Not an Empire” has as an overall thesis a warning against an “unsustainable” foreign policy committing American forces in “scores of nations in regions where we have never fought before.”
Source: Francis X. Clines, New York Times, p. A20 on 2000 election Sep 21, 1999

End foreign entanglements; allies pay for their own defense

We need a new foreign policy that ends foreign aid, and pulls up all the trip wires laid down abroad to involve American soldiers in wars that are none of America’s business. And we need to demand that rich allies begin paying the full cost of their own defense.
Source: www.iac.net/~davcam/pat_issu.html Jul 2, 1999

Phase out foreign aid

Today, one-fourth of America’s national debt is traceable to foreign aid, to fund “friends” who more often than not vote against the US in the UN. The looting of America for the construction of the New World Order must end. America needs a policy that phases out foreign aid. The time has come for dependent nations to quit presuming upon American benevolence and begin paying the full cost of their own development and defense.
Source: www.GoPatGo.org/ “Issues: Looting of America” Jun 12, 1999

Manifest Destiny OK; Imperialism is not

Annexation of Texas, the Southwest, and California [in the 1800s] was Manifest Destiny, not imperialism. These lands were contiguous, largely empty, easily defensible with a small army, and involved no entanglement with the great powers of Europe. Imperialism is the rule of other peoples against their will, & most Americans recoiled at the idea of colonzing Mexico. The Mexican War was a historic inevitability. Two emerging countries collided along a disputed frontier; the stronger prevailed.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.122 Oct 9, 1999

Pre-WWI US wasn’t isolationist; but expansionist

Woodrow Wilson is said to have been the first president to lead America out of “isolation,” but this is a myth. The US was never isolationist. [In the 1800s], America was the most expansionist nation on earth, and by 1900 [under President McKinley], had become an empire. [McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt] made decisions based on what would enhance US power and glory. McKinley and TR were imperialists, not globalists; unilateralists, not multilateralists.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.178 Oct 9, 1999

US should have re-armed in 1930s when Japan invaded China

From 1921 to 1933 there was no foreign menace to cause America to re-arm. Germany was defeated, disarmed... and democratic. Japanese militarists did not take the first step toward Asian empire until 1931-32 [when] they occupied Manchuria. By invading, Japan had slammed shut the “open door” there and destroyed the political foundations of [current] treaties. At this point, [the US and UK] should have come out for naval rearmament. Neither did.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.246-8 Oct 9, 1999

War guarantees to Poland kept Hitler from attacking USSR

The British-French declarations of war [after Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939] impelled Hitler to attack in the West to secure his rear before invading Russia. By redirecting Hitler’s first blow upon themselves, Britain & France bought Stalin two extra years to prepare for Hitler’s attack--and thus saved the Soviet Union for communism. Had Britain & France not given the guarantee to Poland, Hitler would almost surely have delivered the first great blow to Stalin’s Russia. Britain & France would have had additional years to build up their air forces and armies. Had Britain & France not given the war guarantees to Poland, there might have been no Dunkirk, no blitz, no Vichy, no destruction of the Jewish populations. Ultimately, it was not Poland that benefited from Britain’s war guarantee to Warsaw -- but Stalin.
Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.266 Oct 9, 1999

Fighting Hitler & WWII was a noble cause

[Regarding interpretation of Buchanan’s book]: “To suggest that I think the butchers who attacked and murdered our men in their beds at Pearl Harbor should not have been defeated and crushed and that that was not a noble cause,” Mr. Buchanan said, “is a vicious and damnable lie. Of course it was a noble cause” to defeat Hitler, he added. Mr. Buchanan said he only meant that Britain had effectively negated Hitler as a threat to the West before the US entered the war against Hitler.
Source: New York Times, p. A19, col. 6, on 2000 election Sep 24, 1999

Protecting Poland from Hitler protected USSR for Communism

Buchanan contends in his book that the British and French declarations of war after the German invasion of Poland served mainly to distract Hitler from his strategy of attacking Russia and “thus saved the Soviet Union for communism. Had Britain and France not given the war guarantees to Poland,” Buchanan writes, “there might have been no Dunkirk, no blitz, no Vichy, no destruction of the Jewish populations” of Europe.
Source: Francis X. Clines, New York Times, p. A20 on 2000 election Sep 21, 1999

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