Author: Patrick J. Buchanan

America, we have a problem. In the blood-soaked chaotic Middle East, with few exceptions like the Kurds, our friends either can’t or won’t fight. The Free Syrian Army folded. The U.S.-armed Hazm force in Syria has just collapsed after being routed by the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army we trained and equipped fled Mosul and ran all the way to Baghdad. The Turks could annihilate ISIS in Syria, but they won’t fight. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs have sent zero troops to fight ISIS. A handful of air strikes is it. Now consider what our old enemies have done … Continue reading →

Eric Holder’s Justice Department has completed its investigation into whether Ferguson cop Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown in cold blood for racist reasons when he shot the black teenager last August. What did the massive six-month FBI investigation discover? According to the Washington Post, “after canvassing more than 300 homes and reviewing physical, ballistic, forensic, medical and crime-scene evidence” and examining “Wilson’s personnel records, audio and video recordings,” Justice concluded Wilson told the truth about what happened that Saturday in Ferguson. Officer Wilson is innocent of the endless libels and slanders in the press and on television, and by street … Continue reading →

Last week, John Kerry seemed to be auditioning for the role of Dr. Pangloss. Despite jihadi violence across the Middle East and ISIS terror in Iraq and Syria, Kerry told Congress, we live in “a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally — less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century.” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared to undercut Kerry the next day when he testified, “When the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years [since] … Continue reading →

If the sadists of ISIS are seeking — with their mass executions, child rapes, immolations, and beheadings of Christians — to stampede us into a new war in the Middle East, they are succeeding. Repeatedly snapping the blood-red cape of terrorist atrocities in our faces has the Yankee bull snorting, pawing the ground, ready to charge again. “Nearly three-quarters of Republicans now favor sending ground troops into combat against the Islamic State,” says a CBS News poll. The poll was cited in a New York Times story about how the voice of the hawk is ascendant again in the GOP. … Continue reading →

Hopefully, the shaky truce between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko, brokered in Minsk by Angela Merkel, will hold. For nothing good, but much evil, could come of broadening and lengthening this war that has cost the lives of 5,400 Ukrainians. The longer it goes on, the greater the casualties, the more land Ukraine will lose, and the greater the likelihood Kiev will end up an amputated and bankrupt republic, a dependency the size of France on the doorstep of Europe. Had no truce been achieved, 8,000 Ukrainian troops trapped in the Debaltseve pocket could have been forced to surrender … Continue reading →

The president’s request for the authorization to use military force against the Islamic State has landed in a Congress as divided as the country. That division was mirrored in the disparate receptions Obama’s resolution received from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. To the Times, Obama’s AUMF is “alarmingly broad. It does not limit the battlefield to Syria and Iraq.” Moreover, Obama “seeks permission to attack ‘associated persons or forces.’” This would give the White House “virtually unrestricted power to engage in attacks around the globe as long as it can justify a connection, however tenuous, to … Continue reading →

Seeing clips of that 22-minute video of the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, one wonders: Who would be drawn to the cause of these barbarians who perpetrated such an atrocity? While the video might firm up the faith of fanatics, would it not evoke rage and revulsion across the Islamic world? After all, this was a Sunni Muslim, in a cage, being burned alive. As of now, this cruel killing seems to have backfired. Jordan is uniting behind King Abdullah’s determination to exact “earth-shattering” retribution. Which raises again the questions: Why did ISIS do it? What did they hope to … Continue reading →

Following the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that France “is at war with terrorism, jihadism and radical Islamism.” This tells us what France is fighting against. But what is France fighting for in this war on terror? For terrorism is simply a tactic, and arguably the most effective tactic of the national liberation movements of the 20th century. Terrorism was used by the Irgun to drive the British out of Palestine and by the Mau Mau to run them out of Kenya. Terrorism, blowing up movie theaters and cafes, was the tactic the FLN used to drive … Continue reading →

On Martin Luther King Day, 2015, how stand race relations in America? “Selma,” a film focused on the police clubbing of civil rights marchers led by Dr. King at Selma bridge in March of 1965, is being denounced by Democrats as a cinematic slander against the president who passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the movie, King is portrayed as decisive and heroic, LBJ as devious and dilatory. And no member of the “Selma” cast has been nominated for an Academy Award. All 20 of the actors and actresses nominated are white. Hollywood is like the Rocky Mountains, … Continue reading →

“I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.” That maxim of Voltaire was among those most invoked by the marching millions in Sunday’s mammoth “Je Suis Charlie” rally in Paris. This week, in the spirit of Voltaire, French authorities arrested and charged Cameroonian comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, and 54 others, with “hate speech.” Yes, Monsieur Voltaire, there are limits to free speech in France. Dieudonne’s crime? He tweeted, “I am Charlie Coulibaly,” the last name of the killer of four innocent Jews in that kosher market. A … Continue reading →

Western media are declaring the million-man march in Paris, where world leaders paraded down Boulevard Voltaire in solidarity with France, a victory over terrorism. Isn’t it pretty to think so. Unfortunately, the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, its military-style execution, the escape of the assassins, and their blazing end in a shootout Friday was a triumph of terrorism not seen since 9/11. Unlike the Boston Marathon bombing where the Tsarnaevs did not know or care whom they maimed or killed, the attack on Charlie Hebdo by the Kouachi brothers was purposeful and targeted terrorism. And like a flash of lightning in … Continue reading →