Liquidating the Empire

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]An absolutely great opinion column by Pat Buchanan. :thumbs:[/FONT]



Liquidating the Empire
by Patrick J. Buchanan

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]A decade ago, Oldsmobile went. Last year, Pontiac. Saturn, Saab and Hummer were discontinued. A thousand GM dealerships shut down. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]To those who grew up in a "GM family," where buying a Chrysler was like converting to Islam, what happened to GM was deeply saddening. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Yet the amputations had to be done – or GM would die. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]And the same may be about to happen to the American Imperium. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Its birth can be traced to World War II, when America put 16 million men in uniform and sent millions across the seas to crush Nazi Germany and Japan. After V-E and V-J Day, the boys came home. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]But with the Stalinization of half of Europe, the fall of China, and war in Korea came NATO and alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Australia that lasted through the Cold War. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In 1989, however, the Cold War ended dramatically with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the retirement of the Red Army from Europe, the break-up of the Soviet Union and Beijing's abandonment of world communist revolution. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Overnight, our world changed. But America did not change.[/FONT]

...

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Liquidation of this empire should have begun with the end of the Cold War. Now it is being forced upon us by the deficit-debt crisis. Like GM, we can't kick this can up the road any more, because we have come to the end of the road.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Republicans will fight new taxes. Democrats will fight to save social programs. Which leaves the American empire as the logical lead cow for the butcher's knife. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Indeed, how do conservatives justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states – to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states? Is it not absurd to borrow hundreds of billion annually from China – to defend Asia from China? Is it not a symptom of senility to borrow from all over the world in order to defend that world? [/FONT]

...

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ron Paul's victory at CPAC may be a sign the prodigal sons of the right are casting off the heresy of neoconservatism and coming home to first principles.[/FONT]

- rest at www.lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan131.html