Author: Patrick J. Buchanan

In denouncing Republicans as “scared of widows and orphans,” and castigating those who prefer Christian refugees to Muslims coming to America, Barack Obama has come off as petulant and unpresidential. Clearly, he is upset. And with good reason. He grossly, transparently underestimated the ability of ISIS, the “JV” team, to strike outside the caliphate into the heart of the West, and has egg all over his face. More critically, the liberal world order he has been preaching and predicting is receding before our eyes. Suddenly, his rhetoric is discordantly out of touch with reality. And, for his time on the … Continue reading →

The post Not a Moment Too Soon appeared first on LewRockwell.

Among the presidential candidates of the Republican Party and their foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill the cry is almost universal: Barack Obama has no strategy for winning the war on ISIS. This criticism, however, sounds strange coming from a party that controls Congress but has yet to devise its own strategy, or even to authorize the use of U.S. military force in Syria. Congress has punted. And compared to the cacophony from Republican ranks, Barack Obama sounds like Prince Bismarck. The President’s strategy is to contain, degrade and defeat ISIS. While no one has provided the troops to defeat … Continue reading →

The post Is Putin a US Ally? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Rand Paul had his best debate moment Tuesday when he challenged Marco Rubio on his plans to increase defense spending by $1 trillion. “You cannot be a conservative if you’re going to keep promoting new programs you’re not going to pay for,” said Paul. Marco’s retort triggered the loudest cheers of the night: “There are radical jihadists in the Middle East beheading people and crucifying Christians. The Chinese are taking over the South China Sea. … the world is a safer and better place when America is the strongest military power in the world.” Having called for the U.S. Navy … Continue reading →

The post There’s a GOP War appeared first on LewRockwell.

“A modern day mass migration is taking place … that could change the face of Europe’s civilization,” warned Hungarian President Viktor Orban. “If that happens, that is irreversible. … There is no way back from a multicultural Europe,” said Orban. “If we make a mistake now, it will be forever.” Orban acted on his beliefs. He erected a 110-mile fence on the Serb border, redirecting hundreds of thousands of migrants away from Hungary to Croatia, thence to Austria and Germany. Sunday, after a third of a million had passed through, Croatia replaced a center-left with a rightist party. A fortnight … Continue reading →

The post Invasion of the Welfare Tribe appeared first on LewRockwell.

“The United States is being sucked into a new Middle East war,” says The New York Times. And the Times has it exactly right. Despite repeated pledges not to put “boots on the ground” in Syria, President Obama is inserting 50 U.S. special ops troops into that country, with more to follow. U.S. A-10 “warthog” attack planes have been moved into Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, close to Syria. Hillary Clinton, who has called for arming Syrian rebels to bring down Bashar Assad, is urging Obama to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria. Citing Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus, John … Continue reading →

The post More US Mass Murder in Syria? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trailed by two Chinese warships, the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen sailed inside the 12-nautical-mile limit of Subi Reef, a man-made island China claims as her national territory. Beijing protested. Says China: Subi Reef and the Spratly Island chain, in a South China Sea that carries half of the world’s seaborne trade, are as much ours as the Aleutians are yours. Beijing’s claim to the Spratlys is being contested by Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan. While Hanoi and Manila have occupied islets and built structures to back their claims, the Chinese have been more aggressive. They have occupied rocks … Continue reading →

The post Good on Interventionism, Bad on Protectionism appeared first on LewRockwell.

Three months ago, this writer sent out a column entitled, “Could Trump Win?” meaning the Republican nomination. Today even the Trump deniers concede the possibility. And the emerging question has become: “Can Trump be stopped? And if so, where, and by whom?” Consider the catbird seat in which The Donald sits. An average of national polls puts him around 30 percent, trailed by Dr. Ben Carson with about 20 percent. No other GOP candidate gets double digits. Trump is leading Carson in Iowa, running first in New Hampshire, crushing the field in Nevada and South Carolina. These are the first … Continue reading →

Barack Obama sought as his legacy to bring an end to the two longest wars in U.S. history. On Oct. 15, he, again, admitted failure. The 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan will remain another year. And, on Inauguration Day 2017, 5,500 U.S. troops will still be there. Why cannot we leave? Because, if we do, we risk the re-seizure of power by the Taliban we drove out 14 years ago, and a wipeout of all we have accomplished in America’s longest war. When can we come home? Never, if we hope to secure that for which we have already paid … Continue reading →

The honor of it all aside, Rep. Paul Ryan would do well to decline the speakership of the House. For it is a poisoned chalice that is being offered to him. The Republican Party is not, as some commentators wail, in “chaos” today. It is in rebellion, in revolt, as it was in the early 1960s when Barry Goldwater’s true believers rejected Eisenhower Republicanism and Nelson Rockefeller to nominate the Arizona Senator for president. A similar and bristling hostility to today’s establishment has arisen, in the GOP Congress, the country, and the presidential race. The acrimony attendant to this militants … Continue reading →

Having established a base on the Syrian coast, Vladimir Putin last week began air strikes on ISIS and other rebel forces seeking to overthrow Bashar Assad. A longtime ally of Syria, Russia wants to preserve its toehold on the Mediterranean, help Assad repel the threat, and keep the Islamic terrorists out of Damascus. Russia is also fearful that the fall of Assad would free up the Chechen terrorists in Syria to return to Russia. In intervening to save Assad, Putin is doing exactly what we are doing to save our imperiled allies in Baghdad and Kabul. Yet Putin’s intervention has … Continue reading →

So Vladimir Putin in his U.N. address summarized his indictment of a U.S. foreign policy that has produced a series of disasters in the Middle East that we did not need the Russian leader to describe for us. Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Afghan troops are once again fighting Taliban forces for control of Kunduz. Only 10,000 U.S. troops still in that ravaged country prevent the Taliban’s triumphal return to power. A dozen years after George W. Bush invaded Iraq, ISIS occupies its second city, Mosul, controls its largest province, Anbar, and holds Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, as Baghdad turns … Continue reading →

Pope Francis’s four-day visit to the United States was by any measure a personal and political triumph. The crowds were immense, and coverage of the Holy Father on television and in the print press swamped the state visit of Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s second-greatest power. But how enduring, and how relevant, was the pope’s celebration of diversity, multiculturalism, inclusiveness, open borders, and a world of forgiveness, peace, harmony and love is another question. The day the pope departed Philadelphia, 48 percent of Catalonia, in a record turnout of 78 percent, voted to deliver a parliamentary majority to … Continue reading →

What Vladimir Putin is up to in Syria makes far more sense than what Barack Obama and John Kerry appear to be up to in Syria. The Russians are flying transports bringing tanks and troops to an air base near the coastal city of Latakia to create a supply chain to provide a steady flow of weapons and munitions to the Syrian army. Syrian President Bashar Assad, an ally of Russia, has lost half his country to ISIS and the Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaida. Putin fears that if Assad falls, Russia’s toehold in Syria and the Mediterranean will … Continue reading →

“If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot.” Charles Dickens gave that line to Mr. Bumble in “Oliver Twist.” And it sums up the judgment of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis about the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, which said the 14th Amendment guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. Davis refused to provide marriage licenses to gay couples lined up at her clerk’s office and was sent to jail for five days by a federal judge for contempt of court. Good for her. We need more like her. For behind her defiance are more authoritative … Continue reading →

“Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide,” wrote James Burnham in his 1964 “Suicide of the West.” Burnham predicted that the mindless magnanimity of liberals, who subordinate the interests of their own people and nations to utopian and altruistic impulses, would bring about an end to Western civilization. Was he wrong? Consider what is happening in Europe. Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia, small nations sensing they will be swamped by asylum seekers from the Muslim world, are trying to seal their borders and secure their homelands. Their instinct for survival, their awareness of lifeboat ethics, is acute. Yet they are being … Continue reading →