Patrick J. Buchanan

This is “George Bush’s Vietnam,” railed Sen. Kennedy last week in a charge that angered Sen. John McCain. And by any traditional measure of war, McCain is right. While Vietnam lasted a decade and took 58,000 U.S. lives, Iraq has lasted a year and cost 650 US dead. Even the Filipino insurrection of 1899-1902 was … Continue reading “Soldier On, Escalate, or Get Out?”

“No one knows how America’s occupation of Iraq will play out. Optimists say this will be like Germany and Japan after World War II. … Pessimists point to Lebanon and Israel’s invasion of 1982. “Put me down among the pessimists. I think Brer Rabbit just hit the tar baby.” So I wrote, a year ago, … Continue reading “Is Failure Now an Option?”

Would that mob in Fallujah have dared treat the security men of Saddam the way they treated those Americans? Would they have danced and shouted, “Death to Saddam,” as they did “Death to Bush”? No way. For every one in those TV pictures and photos would now be in an Iraqi prison or dead. But … Continue reading “Does the US Have the Will to Win?”

Both the ferocity of the White House attacks and his lionization by the liberal press testify: Richard Clarke has drawn blood. The former counter-terrorism chief seeks to dynamite the central pillar of the Bush presidency: that the president has bravely and brilliantly led us in the War on Terror and that the war on Iraq … Continue reading “The Defector”

“Israel has a right to defend itself,” said President Bush. And against whom was Israel defending itself at dawn on Monday? A half blind and deaf paraplegic being wheeled out of a mosque after prayers, Sheik Ahmed Yassin was struck by missiles that blew him to pieces. In carrying out the assassination of the founder … Continue reading “Israel’s Isolation – and America’s”

A year has elapsed since President Bush ordered U.S. forces to invade Iraq. Since that March day, 2003, it has become clear as crystal: Operation Iraqi Freedom was an unnecessary war. Saddam had had no role in 9-11 or the anthrax attack, no plans to attack us or to invade his neighbors. He was contained … Continue reading “The Consequences of Bush’s War”

Between 1971 and 1973, he was commander of the Derry Brigade of the Provisional IRA, which fought gun battles with British soldiers in a war that would cost 320 lives. Arrested in Donegal near a car loaded with 5,000 rounds of ammunition and 250 pounds of explosives, he was sentenced to six months by a … Continue reading “Terrorists – and Freedom Fighters?”

George W. Bush “betrayed us,” howled Al Gore. “He played on our fear. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure, dangerous to our troops, an adventure that was preordained and planned before 9-11 ever happened.” Hearing it, Gore’s rant seemed slanderous and demagogic. For though U.S. policy since Clinton had called for regime change … Continue reading “Have the Neocons Killed a Presidency?”

Most Americans yet believe President Bush did the right thing in ridding Iraq and the world of Saddam Hussein. Yet, how we were persuaded to go to war raises grave questions about the character and competence of those who led us into it. As we now know, Iraq had no tie to Osama, no role … Continue reading “A Matter of Trust”

Napoleon III, Emperor of France, saw his opportunity. With the United States sundered and convulsed in civil war, he would seize Mexico, impose a Catholic monarchy and block further expansion of the American republic. In 1863, a French army marched into Mexico City. In 1864, Maximilian, the brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, was crowned … Continue reading “What Are We Doing in Russia’s Neighborhood?”