Foreign Policy & War

Bill Clinton: World Cop

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1999

In a major foreign-policy address delivered a few months back in San Francisco, President Bill Clinton solemnly affirmed that everything everywhere in the world is the business of the United States. If you ever entertained the thought that we Americans should be free just to live our lives, raise our families, and participate voluntarily in our communities — forget ...

Politics by Incantation

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1999

Americans pride themselves on being modern and sophisticated, but in some important matters, we are no more advanced than primitive animists in southern Sudan. To see this, just witness so much of what passes for public affairs. Leaders and led alike behave as if words shape reality. Legislation is incantation. ...

FDR – The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 7

by Ralph Raico June 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Table of Contents Two major grounds are put forward nowadays for the ...

It’s Not Ours to Negotiate

by Sheldon Richman May 2, 1999

Jesse Jackson's mission to Belgrade, which led to the freeing of the three American prisoners of the Yugoslav war, has many people wondering whether a negotiated settlement is in the works. After Jackson brought the servicemen out of Serbia, President Clinton implied that he was lowering his standard for a bombing halt. For example, he ...

A Libertarian Visits Cuba, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Last March, I spent a week in Cuba, which turned out to be one of my most fascinating experiences. I had applied for a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury to travel to Cuba to conduct an informal study of the ...

In Whose Interest Is This War?

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1999

It has been fascinating to watch the Clinton administration defend its war against Yugoslavia. Those folks really can't make up their minds, can they? The confusion and ambivalence reveals much about their own ethical philosophy. The need to go to war against Yugoslavia was at first presented as a selfless matter. President Clinton told the American ...

Don’t Support the Troops: Bring Them Home

by Sheldon Richman April 2, 1999

Let me be blunt: I don't support the troops. I don't support them so much that I think they should be brought home to safety at once. I say this because everyone who vociferously supports the troops also wants to send them into war against Serbia, where a good number of them will be killed. So I ...

War-Welfare in Yugoslavia

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 1999

More than eighty years ago, the United States entered World War I with the express purposes of making the world safe for democracy and making that war the one that would end all future European wars. The intervention was a radical departure from the foreign policy that George Washington had enunciated ...

The Costs of War

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 1999

I guess the president was right. He said he couldn't return the budget surplus to the American people because he was not confident we would "spend it right." If "right" means throwing the money down a Balkan rat hole, I am confident we Americans would not have spent it that way if we had been ...

FDR – The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 6

by Ralph Raico April 1, 1999

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Table of Contents In the course of the 1920s, Roosevelt had grown ...

The American Empire Strikes Back

by Sheldon Richman March 25, 1999

Has President's Clinton's renowned luck run out? It may well have. The president, who as a student protested the Vietnam quagmire, now appears to have found a quagmire of his own. His decision to lead NATO into combat against Serbia did two things that formerly looked nearly impossible: it lowered his ...

Preventing Holocausts

by Sheldon Richman March 2, 1999

Life is Beautiful, winner of Academy Awards for best foreign film and best actor (Roberto Benigni), is a remarkable movie. This story about a Jewish Italian father's attempt to shield his son from the Nazis is perhaps the most powerful movie ever made about the Holocaust. The movie makes its impression precisely because it focuses ...