-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "Linda Muller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dear Brigade, "But at the heart of Mr. Buchanan's policy - and at the heart of the scholarly debate - is whether our foreign policy should be guided by our sovereign self- interest or whether we owe a duty to the world before a duty to ourselves... Mr. Buchanan's book and his campaign is a call for a national debate on those questions...." GO PAT GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Linda --------------------------------------------- THE EMPIRE STRIKES OUT: PAT BUCHANAN WANTS FOCUS ON U.S. INTERESTS FIRST By Tony Blankley - THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com September 8, 1999 There is a gripping foreign policy debate going on in America right now. Unfortunately, to find it, one must read obscure scholarly journals. One presidential candidate, Patrick Buchanan, is participating seriously in that great debate. But the response of both the media and the Republican Party to his contribution ranges from a blind eye to a sneer. No wonder he is thinking of quitting the party to run on the Reform ticket. The GOP, both its elders and its rank and file, ought to be concerned enough to listen to his argument - not to placate Mr. Buchanan, but because the nation would benefit from the debate that he has so ably framed. I write that last sentence as an avowed internationalist. My father was Winston Churchill's accountant before the war. I was brought up with, and remain in the thrall of, the Churchillian view of a great nation's world responsibilities. But even Britain, at the height of its imperium, consciously designed its foreign policy in the self-interest of Britain. Mr. Buchanan's carefully reasoned critique of current U.S. foreign policy is precisely that since the end of the Cold War we have maintained commitments that once were, but may no longer be, in our national interest. While I don't agree with all his prescriptions, I commend his analysis. He comes to foreign policy as a national self-interest realist, not what some people unthinkingly call an isolationist. Analytically, he is in the good company of Eisenhower, Kissinger and other such realists. Mr. Buchanan wisely chose to write two campaign-cycle books: one on trade, and the other on foreign policy. Thus, one can be a free-trader and still find much to agree with in his just published foreign policy book, "A Republic, Not an Empire." It is 400 pages of meticulously analyzed American diplomatic history, in continuity with which he makes his prescriptions. At the heart of his analysis are three points, all disputatious of current policy: 1) our commitments should be matched by our capacity to meet them, 2) national sovereign interest should guide our policy, and 3) most of our Cold War treaty commitments don't meet the first two criteria. He opens with an eye-popping tour d'horizon of those parts of the world for which we have commitments to fight and die. From Warsaw to Thailand, from Kuwait to the Philippines, from South Korea to Columbia, with the exception of Africa, virtually wherever one may gaze on the globe - there one will find a solemn American commitment to defend foreign soil with the blood of young Americans. Mr. Buchanan's point is not to reject all such places as outside our security interest. Rather, he argues that since these commitments were logically made during the worldwide fight against communism, isn't it now logical to review the relevance and specifics of those commitments today, a decade after the Cold War ended. Measuring our still expanding commitments against our ever shrinking military budget and manpower levels, Mr. Buchanan reminds us of Walter Lippman's warning that a statesman should bring "into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation's commitments and the nation's power." Remember, in our recent little contretemps in Kosovo, so hollowed out is our military already, that within weeks of the start of the bombing, President Clinton found it necessary to call up Air Force reserves. At the minimum then, those politicians and commentators who gallantly call for us to continue or expand our hegemonic role in the world, are duty bound to call for dramatic increases in defense spending. But at the heart of Mr. Buchanan's policy - and at the heart of the scholarly debate - is whether our foreign policy should be guided by our sovereign self- interest or whether we owe a duty to the world before a duty to ourselves. Obviously Mr. Buchanan stands by our sovereign self-interest. But make no mistake, this is not the imagined concern of some heartland conservative. Vaclav Havel, the president of the Czech Republic, spoke to the Canadian parliament during the Kosovo war on the theme "Kosovo and the End of the Nation-state." He spoke approvingly of the Kosovo precedent of ignoring Serbia's sovereignty in the interest of humanity. Mr. Havel expects the next century to see sovereign nations "change from cult like entities charged with emotion . . . to rational administrative units . . . The idea of a nation's sovereignty should vanish down the trapdoor of history." Such views are prominent in the scholarly debate; they constitute the intellectual underpinnings of Mr. Clinton's foreign policy. Left unrebutted, they may possibly be the wave of the future. Mr. Buchanan's book and his campaign is a call for a national debate on those questions. Whether you are for Messrs. Buchanan, Bush, Forbes or whomever, you should be for that debate. If we don't have it, we may one day be singing: "God Bless our rational administrative unit, land that I no longer have a cult- like emotional charge for . . ." --------------- end ------------------ Help Pat and the Brigade in our Battle for the White House... Go to: http://www.gopatgo2000.org/000-v-helppat.html Spread the word -- forward this email across the USA! *********************************************** TITLE: Reclaiming America's Destiny : A Republic, Not an Empire ISBN: 089526272X Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc., An Eagle Publishing Co. Publish Date: 1 September 1999 Author: Buchanan, Patrick J. Binding: Hardcover 300 pages List Price: US 29.95 Can be priced at: http://www2.addall.com/New/compare.cgi?dispCurr=US&id=55726&isbn=089526272X&loca tion=10000&thetime=19990907153248&state=AK A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 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