Quo Vadis? Where are you going, America?
Because of our sanctions on scores of nations, cruise missile strikes upon others, and intervention in the internal affairs of still others in the wake of the Cold War, a seething resentment of America is brewing all over the world. And the haughty attitude of our foreign policy elite only nurses the hatred. Hearken, if you will, to the voice of our own Xenia, Madeline Albright, announcing new air strikes on Iraq: "If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see farther into the future."
Now I count myself an American patriot. But if this Beltway braggadocio about being the world's "indispensable nation" has begun to grate on me, how must it grate upon the Europeans, Russians, and peoples subject to our sanctions because they have failed, by our lights, to live up to our standards?
And how can all our meddling not fail to spark some horrible retribution? Recall: it was in retaliation for the bombing of Libya that Khadafi's agents blew up Pan Am 103. And it is said to have been in retaliation for the Vincennes' accidental shoot-down of that Iranian airliner that Teheran collaborated with terrorists to blow up the Khobar towers. From Pan Am 103, to the World Trade Center, to the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar - have we not suffered enough not to know that interventionism is the incubator of terrorism? Or will it take some cataclysmic atrocity on U.S. soil to awaken our global gamesmen to the asking price of empire?
America today faces a choice of destinies. We can be the peacemaker of the world - or its policeman who goes about night-sticking troublemakers until we, too, find ourselves in some ****** brawl we cannot handle. Let us use this transitory moment of American power and preeminence to encourage and assist old friends and allies to stand on their own feet and provide and pay for their own defense.
Let me state my present intent: If elected, I will have all U.S. troops out of the Balkan quagmire by year's end, and all American troops home from Europe by the end of my first term. Forty years ago, President Eisenhower pleaded with JFK to bring all U.S. troops home from Europe. Certainly, sixty years after the end of World War II, and fifteen years after the Berlin Wall fell, is not too soon to get all U.S. troops out of Europe and let Europeans provide and pay the cost of their own defense. If not now, when?
And let us quickly adopt a measure of humility about how much we know about what is best for other peoples and cultures. In the words of the great scholar Russell Kirk: "There exists no single best form of government for the happiness of all mankind. The most suitable form of government depends on the historic experience, the customs, the beliefs, the state of culture...and all these things vary from land to land and age to age."
We are entering a fertile and exciting time in our politics. Our ossified two-party system, that has managed to stifle serious foreign policy debate for a decade, is cracking up. Pressure is growing from dissidents within, and this year, there will be a mighty challenge from without. As Joe Namath said, I guarantee it.
Our Reform Party will be on the ballot in 50 states, and, if I have anything to say about it -- and I expect to -- it will become a non-interventionist party, a peace party, that will reach out to Americans of Right and Left who reject the Third Way imperialism being forced upon us by the elites of both Beltway parties.
In this new era, many of us are rediscovering the old distrust of crusading that was at the center of the world view of the old American Right. We are conscious of our love for this country. We do not wish to isolate America from the world, only to isolate America from wars -- the religious, ethnic, and territorial wars of less fortunate lands. We know there is a powerful body of American thought -- from Washington to John Quincy Adams to William Jennings Bryan and Robert Taft -- as well as all the near forgotten figures written about by Justin Raimondo and others -- to help guide us. And their message is one I intend to stamp upon our banners in the campaign of 2000: A Republic, Not an Empire! America First!