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A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the...

Lady Elizabeth Butler's painting 'The Remnant of an Army' depicts Dr William Brydon, sole survivor of the British retreat from Kabul in 1842 As both Britain and America are plunged into an orgy of tortured introspection over what we are doing in Afghanistan, a further very important factor needs to be fed into the discussion, because it helps to explain not only why we have got into such a tragic mess but also why our armed intervention in that unhappy country is doomed. What we are hardly ever told about Afghanistan is that it has been for 300 years the...

So why consider Obama? For one reason only: because this liberal Democrat has promised to end the U.S. combat role in Iraq. . . . [Because we want history to render a negative verdict on Iraq to discredit the doctrine of preventive war.]

I would like to speak my mind. I am sick and tired of people telling me what to say. I understand the risk I take by saying this; and such I will continue. When I open my window, I don't see what the media wants me to see. I DON'T SEE death; war; dismemberment. I see a bright future. Not us, as conservatives, being fed to the temporal wolves. LET IT BE SAID that that no matter whom we vote for, the war in Iqaq will be downsized; whether you will be mad at McCain for it, or Romney, or...

Like most Toogood Reports readers, I observed this year's battles within the conservative ranks with profound discomfort. In my mind, there are far too many real enemies out there to waste time and print fighting one another. It seems that the world of conservatism has been split up between the "conservatives" and the "paleo-conservatives" or between the "conservatives" and the "neo-conservatives." Both sides present themselves as the bona fide article and the other side as the one in need of a prefix. Personally, I just want to spit up this strife the same way the bleachers of Wrigley Field do...

BE HERE, OR BE NOWHERE!

Utah Democrat Plans Pro-Bush Immigration Rally August 19th, 2006 @ 6:23pm SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Some Utah Democrats -- including Salt Lake City's high-profile Mayor Rocky Anderson -- may have plans to rally against President Bush and his policies when the country's leader comes to the Utah later this month, but not Tony Yapias. Instead the director of Proyecto Latino de Utah and chairman of the Utah Hispanic Democratic Caucus, plans a pro-Bush demonstration in support of the president's policies on immigration. "We're going to focus on what worries us most, and that's immigration," Yapias said. "The president supports...

One field in which the next conservatism will probably depart abruptly from current policy is homeland security. The departure will begin with foreign policy and national strategy. As previous columns have suggested, the next conservatism's foreign policy will seek to preserve a republic here at home, not build an American empire overseas. Logically, that will lead to a defensive rather than an offensive national strategy. In both cases, the next conservatism will not be innovating but returning to the policies our country followed through most of its history. It is no accident that when we eschewed empire and followed a...

"I respect and admire the French, who have been a far greater nation than we shall ever be, that is, if greatness means anything loftier than money and bombs." — THOMAS FLEMING, "HARD RIGHT," MARCH 13, 2003 From the very beginning of the War on Terror, there has been dissent, and as the war has proceeded to Iraq, the dissent has grown more radical and more vociferous. Perhaps that was to be expected. But here is what never could have been: Some of the leading figures in this antiwar movement call themselves "conservatives." These conservatives are relatively few in number,...

I am fed up!! I have been a defender of the faith.. A loyal subject of what I believe to be the truth.. the spirit.. the American Way... Finally though.. the liberals have beat me up so much that I just can't take it anymore!! I come here to Free Republic for some respite and find no comfort among my brethren. I have been a "neo-con" all my life. I was a "neo-con" long before it was popular. I was a "neo-con" when my commander in chief Ronaldus Magnumus' had his chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lehman sent me and...

Film star and director Mel Gibson has launched a scathing attack on US President George W Bush, comparing his leadership to the barbaric rulers of the Mayan civilisation in his new film Apocalypto. The epic, due for release later this year, captures the decline of the Maya kingdom and the slaughter of thousands of inhabitants as human sacrifices in a bid to save the nation from collapsing. Gibson reveals he used present day American politics as an inspiration, claiming the government callously plays on the nation's insecurities to maintain power. He tells British film magazine Hotdog, "The fear-mongering we depict...

Anyone who believes that opponents of Muslim extremism are necessarily defenders of tolerance should see my e-mails from last week. I strongly condemned the violent reaction of many in the Islamic world to the now-notorious cartoons of Mohammed printed in a Danish newspaper, but also stressed that the cartoons were wrong, that Muslims had a case and that as a Christian I have little in common with western secularism. There was much support, but to hundreds of others I was either an idiot or a liar. How ironic that alleged defenders of free speech should abuse a journalist for, well,...

In keeping with its established role as purveyor of disinformation, Fox "News" talking head Brit Hume misreported Fox's own poll. On the Jan. 26 "Special Report," Hume said that 51 percent of Americans "would now support" air strikes on Iran. What the poll found is that if diplomacy fails, 51 percent would support air strikes. Can we be optimistic and assume that the American public would not regard an orchestrated failure by the Bush administration as a true diplomatic failure? Alas, we cannot expect too much from a population in thrall to disinformation. The "evidence" that Iran is pursuing nuclear...

Since Bush's November victory, which brought GOP gains in the House, Senate and state capitals, confirming the Republican Party as "America's Party," Democrats have seemed adrift and despondent. Moderates and major contributors are reacting to the election of Howard Dean as party chair as conservative alumni might react to news that SDS had just taken over the campus of the alma mater. A word of counsel to the disconsolate: Suck it up. It is not all that bad. The Right spent years in deserts more barren than thee have ever known. When this writer went to work for Richard Nixon...

Undeniably, it was a good year for Time’s Man of the Year. For the second election in a row, George W. Bush increased his party’s strength in Congress as he secured the second term his father failed to win. Not since FDR has a new president done so well by his party. But here the comparisons end. Where FDR carried every state but Maine and Vermont in his re-election campaign in 1936, and Ike carried every state but Missouri and a few Dixiecrat bastions in 1956, and Nixon and Reagan carried 49 states, George W. Bush won only 31. His...

The day after George W. Bush is certifiably re-elected (which, please God, will come without a recount, as in 2000), I hope a revolution will occur. Neither Bush (by constitutional fiat) nor Dick Cheney (by reason of health) can run for president. Then there will be a chance to return the GOP to its old stance wisely born of reluctance to commit our military forces to every nook and cranny in the global village. New leadership following a limited foreign policy would prompt party philosophy hewn to the lines advocated by Sen. Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio). That would mean the...

Theodore Roosevelt, that most virile of presidents, insisted that, "To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people." With that in mind, I say: George W. Bush is no conservative, and his unprincipled abandonment of conservatism under the pressure of events is no statesmanship. The Republic would be well-served by his defeat this November. William F. Buckley's recent retirement from the National Review, nearly half a century after he founded it, led...

What do we offer the world? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 19, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern "So, how do we advance the cause of female emancipation in the Muslim world?" asks Richard Perle in "An End to Evil." He replies, "We need to remind the women of Islam ceaselessly: Our enemies are the same as theirs; our victory will be theirs as well." Well, the neoconservative cause "of female emancipation in the Muslim world" was probably set back a bit by the photo shoot of Pfc. Lynndie England and the "Girls Gone Wild" of Abu Ghraib prison. Indeed, the filmed orgies among...

I've been reading National Review for a while now, and thoroughly enjoying it--save for a few writers whom I cannot stand (*coughDavidFrumcough*). But I'm beginning to think that I really ought to get a good Paleoconservative magazine to balance it out and diversify my thought. What would you all recommend? I know Chronicles is kind of the "flagship" mag for Paleocons, but I've heard good things about The American Conservative, as well. What are some of the differences between the two, and which would you prefer? Or is there a third magazine that would be better still?

Y'all wanna zot? You vile, hideous miscreants are nothing more than lock-step army ants without a cause. With few exceptions (and most of them get banned/zotted like myself), you will willingly march our soldiers pointless missions and return with their benefits cut to fund illegals with free drivers licenses in Florida, and you will cut welfare for your neighbor to give it to Iraq. You same people 30 years later will twist in pretzels just to stick the next tabloid conspiracy on the Clintons too. What do you think you will accomplish with your hateful agenda? Personally, I hope you...

March 7, 2004 Kerry is everything George Bush is not By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor MINNEAPOLIS -- Struggling to find the worst thing he could say about Sen. John Kerry, a senior member of the Bush administration proclaimed last year, "He looks so ... so ... French!" By "French," the Bushite must have meant well educated, articulate, dignified, sophisticated, worldly - everything President George W. Bush, who likes to play tough Texas Ranger, is not. However, being educated and sophisticated is not a political asset in America's heartland - parts of the midwest, mountain states, and south, where...

Although the 2004 election is barely underway, Conservarives ought to be thinking about how we can redefine the Republican Party once it is over. Say what you will about Bush, McCain, Giuliani, etc., but the Republican Party is our best hope for keeping the nation alive. Thus, it is essential that Conservatives take active roles in helping to shape the Party, because it needs our help, badly. That said, if Conservatives are to do anything to help the nation, we must come to a consensus on historically dividing issues between Paleoconservatives and Neoconservatives. The purpose of this thread is to...

You wrote last year, "What bothers me is not what Israel is but the manner in which its well-wishers blatantly misrepresent it." ("Getting Israel Right," Chronicles, August 26, 2003) What is Israel; how is Israel misrepresented; and why does what Israel is not bother you? I find nothing wrong with Israel defining itself as an ethnic national state, which it obviously does through the Law of Return and by stressing its Jewish national character. Jews have the same right to make such identitarian choices as Japanese, Serbs, Frenchmen or Germans. If Euro-American people now engage in multicultural grandstanding and do...

"Nobody in my district is screaming for tax cuts, they are screaming for a prescription drug benefit." Maxine Waters? Nope, try Republican Congressman Steven LaTourette of Ohio. "I'm concerned. This budget is essentially $11 billion under the president's number." Barney Frank? Wrong again-it comes from New York Republican Sherwood Boehlert. "I don't like what I see so far." Nancy Pelosi? Sorry, it's House Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis -- Republican, Virginia. The target of their sniping is Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, chairman of the House Budget Committee. It turns out that in writing the FY2004 House Budget Resolution, Nussle...

<p>Federal regulators plan to overhaul fuel economy rules for popular trucks and SUVs, including more stringent regulations that would cover the popular Hummer H2 and other extra-large SUVs for the first time.</p> <p>Two proposals under consideration would revamp what constitutes a light truck starting with the 2008 model year.</p>

The capture of Saddam was one of those moments in US political history when only one emotion is permitted, and anyone who dares break from the official line is The Enemy. The theme is always the same: we are to celebrate whatever the state does, and condemn its enemies as nothing short of incarnate evil. Only the details change. Everyone knows that dissent is not allowed, not even in private conversation. Of course everyone also knows that silent dissent exists. It is lurking out there somewhere. The enforcers are on the lookout for anyone dumb enough to voice a hint...

Confessions of a Recovering Neocon by Matthew Truittby Matthew Truitt Since I have never written an article for LRC before, I figured I should start things off open and honest. Like an alcoholic at an A.A. meeting, I am going to stand before the group, admit my problem, and explain the attempts I am making at recovery. Again, like at an A.A. meeting, hopefully others will be able to benefit from my struggles. Without further delay...I am a recovering neo-conservative. I’ve been clear thinking and freedom loving for 6 months now. Four years ago, when I was 16, my...

Neocon 101 Some basic questions answered. What do neoconservatives believe? - "Neocons" believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world. Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action. - Today, both conservatives and neocons favor a robust US military. But most conservatives express greater reservations about military intervention and so-called nation building. Neocons share no...

<p>George F. Will, the respected dean of Washington conservative columnists, has written a singularly dyspeptic column on the California recall election. He advises truly conservative Californians to "vote against the recall to protest its plebiscitary cynicism (and as a precaution find a conservative candidate from the list)." He goes on to hope for Governor Davis to be muscled into resignation, which, Mr. Will theorizes, might "deflate" the recall and permit Lt. Gov. Bustamante to become both acting and then actual governor -- with all the problems that will entail. This, Mr. Will suggests, would be "condign punishment" for the Democratic Party.</p>

"These are the times that try men's souls." So wrote the noted American patriot Thomas Paine in urging his countrymen to fight King George the Third. Well now we have another George, who is not a king, but increasingly seems to act like one. And this George also threatens Americans' freedoms. I refer to President George Walker Bush. When the American revolutionaries made their case for independence from Britain, they believed that a decent respect for "the Opinions of Mankind" required that they give their reasons. Let me, like them, say why we would be better off with Mr. Bush...

November 22, 2002 LITTLE WHITE LIES by Thomas Fleming "From the mountains of Afghanistan to the valleys of Bosnia to the plains of Africa to the forests of Asia and around the world we are on the ground working with our Muslim partners to expand to the circle of peace, the circle of prosperity, the circle of freedom." Secretary of State Colin Powell, in pronouncing these glorious phrases (we hope he did not actually break precedent and write them himself) sounded like a Fourth of July orator invoking the rock-bound cliffs of Maine and the sunny shores of California. Secretary...

November 14, 2002 THE RETURN OF OSAMA BIN LADEN by Thomas Fleming Americans, since September 11, 2001, have been lying in their beds with the covers pulled up over their heads. They have allowed themselves to be persuaded that peace and order have been restored to Afghanistan; they have accepted the Bush administration's argument that we can attack Iraq without provoking more acts of terrorism against the United States; they have tried their hardest to believe the President's characterization of Islam as a "religion of peace" and stolidly sat through news reports without ever suspecting that there was some connection...

Weapons of Mass Deception – How the Government Scares Us into War by Bill Barnwell"We must go to war!" This is the official position of the neoconservative press and the unofficial position of the Bush administration. For months now, war plans to attack Iraq have been leaking to the press and fueling speculations of a Gulf War II. It is no secret that the administration and many in Congress are in favor of bringing down Baghdad. Bush himself says he eagerly wants a "regime change" in Iraq. Members of Congress in both parties have been working the talk circuits daily...

Neo-Conservatives are not Conservatives By Jeff Adams Published 08. 8. 02 at 21:29 Sierra Time Several years ago, I noticed the term "neo-conservative" come into frequent use. I have grown to hate this word because it gives people who bear the term false credentials as true conservatives. To me, true conservatives fit the description of what used to be called the "Old Right." These "new conservatives" present nothing that reflects the ideas of the "Old Right," or traditional conservatism. Neo-conservatives see nothing wrong with big, centralized government, as long as they, the neo-conservatives, are in charge instead of liberal...

Can the Right Unite? FrontPageMagazine.com | June 10, 2002INDUBITABLY AMERICA’S SOCIALISTS are well organized and well funded. Organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have accomplished much in terms of disseminating misinformation, communicating their message, and obtaining access to political, media, and academic centers of influence. They have been able to persuade the opinion makers and trendsetters (The "limo liberals" or, as Allan Levite wrote, "Penthouse Bolsheviks," a concept he details in his book, "Guilt, Blame, and Politics"). In fact, if the DSA were a corporation, they would win awards for their marketing department. Make Comments View...