VIEWSrnA Republic^ Not an EmpirernA Peace Party Is Bornrnby Patrick J. BuchananrnForeign policy, the elites of both Beltway parties tell us, isrnnot an issue in this election year. By that, they mean it isrnoff the table, a matter already decided upon and settled by thosernwho know what is best for America. So they, and their mediarnauxiliaries, redirect our attention away from foreign policy tornsuch burning national issues as the dating policy at Bob JonesrnUniversity.rnWhat is best for America and the world, they tell us, is thatrnthe United States should remain a superpower sheriff, the WyattrnEarp of the West, possessed of the sole right to deputize possesrn(or go it alone if necessary) to discipline evildoers whereverrnour “values” are threatened. This foreign policy poses a greatrnand growing danger to the peace and security of the UnitedrnStates.rnLast year, for 78 days, U.S. pilots flew thousands of missionsrnagainst Serbia, destroying bridges, factories, electrical grids, andrneven hospitals, schools, and the occasional embassy. Yet, beforernlaunching his war, Mr. Clinton never received the authorizationrnof Congress. But as a consecjuence of our triumph overrnSerbia, young men and women from California, Kentucky,rnFlorida, and Maine are in Kosovo policing territory that hasrnbeen violently contested for hundreds of years.rnAs of now, we do not know if U.S. troops will end up fightingrnSerbs, or Kosovar Albanians, or first one, then the other. But itrnis a near certainty that the United States will one day be forcedrnto pull out of Kosovo, after having earned the lasting hatred ofrnPatrick J. Buchanan is a candidate for the Reform Partyrnpresidential nomination. This is an edited version of hisrnspeech to the Second Annual Antiwar.com conference.rnSerbs—a people who never harmed the United States—and ofrnthe Albanians, whose aspirations will not be satisfied until thernUnited States helps to carve out an ethnically pure Greater Albania.rnI^ook at the balance sheet of Bill Clinton’s unconstitutionalrnwar. NATO, a defensive alliance, launched an offensive warrnagainst a nation that threatened no member of that alliance, dissipatingrnthe moral authority with which NATO had emergedrnfrom the Cold War. Serbia is smashed. Montenegro andrnMacedonia are destabilized. Kosovo was purged first of Albanians,rnthen of Serbs, and now lies in ruins. U.S. relations withrnChina and Russia have been damaged. For what? So we andrnNATO could police in perpetuit)- a Balkan proince that hasrnnot the remotest connection to U.S. vital interests? Such arernthe fruits of rreo-imperialism.rnMeanwhile, a decade after the Culf War, American soldiersrnand airmen stand ready to die to defend Saudi Arabia andrnKuwait from Iran and Iracj—as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait conspirernwith Iran and Iraq to keep oil prices over $30 a barrel, lootingrnAirrerica and gouging U.S. consumers.rnF’or ten years, the United States has played the dominant rolernin maintaining rigid sanctions on Iraq. By one U.N. estimate,rnthese sanctions have resulted in the death of 500,000 children.rnWill the parents of those children ever forgive us? Even our Europeanrnallies recoil. By keeping these sanctions on Iraq, wernflout every tenet of Christianity’s Just War doctrine and buildrnup deposits of hatred across the Arab world that will takerndecades to draw down. One day, our children shall pay thernprice of our callous indifference to what is happening to thernchildren of Iraq.rnlULY 2000/13rnrnrn