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The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 5

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 I deplore the hysterical sort of anti-Communism which, it seems to me, is gaining currency in this country. — George Kennan 1946, George Kennan, a Study in Character, by John Lukas Eventually, the Truman Doctrine, with its interventions around the globe, blew up. Yet the ideas of the doctrine — America as the self-appointed policeman of the world, relentless anti-communism, and a nation always on war footing — would dominate American foreign policy for decades after the Truman administration. They still do. But even before Truman left office, many Americans were disgusted with his imperial foreign policy. What went wrong? This policy idea led to stalemate in the Korean War of 1950-53. That was a war blundered ...

Exiting Iraq

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In his official remarks about the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, President Obama told an assembly of troops, The war in Iraq will soon belong to history. Your service belongs to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries — from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced down fascism and communism, to you — men and women who fought for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to those who attacked us on 9/11. You’d never know that a signature of Obama’s 2008 campaign was his assertion that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a terrible mistake. (Actually, it was a crime, but let that go.) This was the main way he sought to distinguish himself as a candidate from his rival, Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force against the Iraqi people ...

A Moral Distinction

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A new acquaintance recently asked whether she and I could get along, considering that she’s a liberal while I’m libertarian. Her second question focused on Ron Paul, likely the only person she ever heard of associated with libertarian philosophy: “Are all libertarians as conservative as Ron Paul on topics like abortion and gays?” This is where things can get complicated even when we try to keep them simple. Libertarians are not conservative. We’re not liberal, either. We’re libertarian. Even saying we are fiscally conservative and socially liberal — though there’s some accuracy to that — can be problematic, because the concepts of conservative and liberal morph into other ideas and connotations that are far from libertarian. Indeed, the morphing is so common that there’s really very little difference between the policies of the other two. Consider the word “conservative.” It refers to someone who wants to conserve, to save, to keep things as they are. But what does a conservative want to ...