An Antiwar Effort Only the Right Can Lead

And so the libertarians and paleocons can do what the Left cannot: convert the soldiers of empire into anti-imperialists. Why then has the genuine Right failed at this? A minor reason is that some opponents of empire are inconsistent. For example, Pat Buchanan’s columns on war and empire are often strikingly at variance with his pronouncements on The McLaughlin Group. But a major reason is that the anti-imperialist Right has not attempted a serious organizing effort aimed at the population used as cannon fodder. It has not attempted to go much farther than writing, and that largely for an audience that is likely to be more urban and "Left." So it is writing for the wrong audience, and it has entirely failed, largely because it has not even tried to organize and mobilize the population whence the warriors are recruited.

In this failure, both libertarians and paleocons have lost two great opportunities. First, if they were to engage in such an effort, they could deal a blow to empire, which would perhaps be devastating. In so doing they might save the peoples of the world, including Americans, from untold suffering. Second, if they were to slow the exploits of empire, they would be looked to as great successes, and thus the rest of their program on minimizing the power of the state would gain respect and strength. Nothing succeeds like success.

So a great opportunity presents itself to the Right – both paleos and libertarians – whose movement has been captured and distorted by the neocons. The Right has a world to win, if it might be put that way, or at least an empire to terminate. What could be more inspiring than a view, an ideology, which rescues mankind from the suffering of war that has plagued humanity over the millennia? The Right can do this because it has a following at a crucial point in the machinert of empire. All that is required is the will and then the action.

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