13/05/08 "ICH" - Buchanan cites such British notables as F.J.P. Veale, B.H.
Liddell Hart, and C.P. Snow to document that it was Winston Churchill
who committed, in Veale’s words, “the first deliberate breach of the
fundamental rule of civilized warfare that hostilities must only be
waged against the enemy combatant forces.” It was Churchill, not
Hitler, who first targeted civilian populations in World War II and
caused the structure of civilized warfare to collapse in ruins.
The
Americans quickly adopted Churchill’s criminal policy of attacking
civilians, culminating in the outrageous use of nuclear weapons against
two Japanese cities, the slaughter of Vietnamese civilians, and the
ongoing slaughter of Afghan and Iraqi civilians.
A popular
American myth is that “the greatest generation” saved the world from
Nazi tyranny. As Buchanan points out, the fact of the matter is that
the Normandy invasion in June 1944 played little, if any, role in
Germany’s defeat. By the end of 1942 Hitler had lost World War II at
Stalingrad, long before any American troops appeared on the scene. What
the Normandy invasion achieved 18 months later was to keep the Red Army
from over-running all of Europe.
Although Buchanan’s book is
about how the British destroyed themselves, Buchanan is clearly
thinking about America. In the closing pages Buchanan shows how the
Bush Regime has broken from the sound policy of President Reagan and is
replicating the British folly of self-destruction. “There is hardly a
blunder of the British Empire we have not replicated,” laments Buchanan.
The
distinct American hubris that we are “the indispensable nation” and the
braggadocio that we are an “omnipower” has us overcommitted in
alliances that we cannot fulfill. Despite 25 percent of the Iraqi
population killed, injured or displaced, the “world’s only superpower”
cannot even control Baghdad. To deal with the pointless war we started
in Afghanistan, we have had to sucker our NATO allies into a conflict
that is no concern of theirs. Militarily overextended and with a
faltering economy and collapsing currency, the cabal of morons that
rules America still hopes to attack Iran, Syria, and to drive Hezbollah
from Lebanon. American idiots in think tanks are busy at work drawing
up plans about how the US is going to check China and prevent her
emergence as a power beyond US control. The Republican presidential
candidate has boasted that he will challenge Russia and bring Putin to
heel.
Amazing. The world’s greatest debtor is going to take on
the two powerful countries with the largest trade surpluses. According
to the World Factbook, an annual publication of the CIA, Russia’s 2007
current account surplus is $465 billion and China’s is $363 billion. In
contrast, the US current account deficit is $987 billion--an amount
larger that the total deficits of all other countries in the world
combined. The out-of-pocket and already incurred future cost of Bush’s
wars of aggression is between $3 and $5 trillion, every dollar of which
must be borrowed. That comes on top of the unfunded liabilities of the
US government totaling $53 trillion. By any account the US is the
world’s worst credit risk. The “mighty” US relies on foreigners to
finance its consumption, its wars, and the daily operations of its
government.
When Buchanan looks at the collection of idiots that comprise America’s ruling class, he despairs. In truth, American power is already broken, and the country is already lost.
The
country is lost, because the brownshirt Bush Regime has destroyed the
US Constitution with the complicity of the opposition party and the
federal courts. There is no organized power that can restore the
Constitution or even much concern that it has been overthrown.
The
country is broken, because American capitalists have moved offshore so
many US manufacturing, engineering, and research jobs that US imports
now exceed US industrial production. American dependency on imported
manufactured goods, advanced technology goods, and energy is
astounding.
Moreover, the dependency is escalating
dramatically. In March 2002, prior to Bush’s decision to impose
Israel’s will on the Middle East, oil was $25 a barrel. Today oil is
$125 a barrel, a five-fold increase that has seen our oil import bill
rise from $145 billion in 2006 to $456 billion presently, a $300
billion addition to a trade deficit that was already running $700-$800
billion annually.
There is no possibility of the US closing
its trade deficit. The US is able to survive such enormous deficits
only because the US dollar is the world reserve currency. This role for
the dollar is nearing an end as the world looks for more stable stores
of value. Although oil is still nominally priced in dollars, in reality
it is being priced in euros as oil producers raise the dollar price
with a view to keeping their oil revenues at a constant purchasing
power in euros.
When the dollar loses its reserve currency role,
foreign financing for US trade and budget deficits will evaporate. US
living standards will collapse, and the indispensable omnipower will be
just another washed up country.
For a world weary of “American exceptionalism,” this can’t happen too soon.
Writings 
In a new book that will infuriate the fake conservatives who inhabit the Republican Party, Patrick J. Buchanan documents how British self-righteousness, delusion, and hubris destroyed both the British Empire and Western ascendancy in two unnecessary wars launched by a small cabal of morons that ruled Britain
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