Why Many Libertarians Are Voting Against America
by Barbara Branden
Three thousand innocent people ware murdered on 9/11 by a gang of fanatical, suicidal thugs who were trained and financed by wealthy, multinational terrorist organizations – and it is America that has been denounced ever since. America has been vilified not only by the Left, both here and throughout the world, but also by many of those who until 9/11 were the most vocal and important of the defenders of freedom: libertarians.
Like the Left, a great many libertarians - including members of the Libertarian Party and many who are not - are united in the vilification of America, a vilification which is now almost as prevalent as hatred for George W. Bush. If it were not for America’s disastrous foreign policy for many years (which clearly had nothing to do with Bush, who has been president for less than four years), there would be no problem of terrorism, say both the Left and these libertarians; Islamo-fascism is the result of America’s international folly, they tell us, the result of America’s support of dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia, its indifference to the suffering of Muslims such as the Palestinians, its brutal pursuit of its oil interests, its failure to enlist the support of such countries as France and Russia (who apparently were too busy taking bribes from Saddam to concern themselves with survival). Terrorism, both here and abroad, is the creation of America.
It is a sick irony that most of the countries of the world are damning, as imperialists, the one country that has invaded other countries only in order to free them. It is an even uglier irony that so many people calling themselves libertarians have joined America’s leftist European critics and are echoing their denunciations of the most decent and generous nation that has ever existed.
As Jean-Francois Revel points out in his valuable book, 'Anti-Americanism,' it is Europe, now damning everything American, that invented the great criminal ideologies of the Twentieth Century, thus forcing America to shed the blood of its youth in order to rescue the shattered countries of that continent. Europe did not denounce us when we did so. It is Europe that so savaged its Jews that what remained of a conscience in the rest of mankind demanded the establishment of the state of Israel. It was not America that made it necessary, but it is America that has stood by this democratic nation that has now been almost universally betrayed – a betrayal in which libertarians have enthusiastically joined. The guilt of Israel, we are told, like the guilt of America, is that it defends itself.
Both Leftists and libertarians are now disingenuously appalled that in war not only the guilty die, appalled to learn that the horror of collateral damage is inevitable. But we were not at war with anyone when terrorists murdered three thousand innocent Americans. Why has this been forgotten? Why is it those who retaliate – retaliate not out of a desire for revenge, but precisely to stop the murder of innocents by terrorists – who are blamed?
It is not the sins of which they accuse us, that motivate the Islamo-fascists. It is religious fanaticism, the demand that all non-Muslims be killed or converted to Islam - as they repeatedly and clearly have told us. But leftists and libertarians insist that it is America that has created terrorism.
If Europe is to survive, it is America’s response to terrorism that will save it. It is not its own policy of appeasement, just as that policy did not save it from Hitler; America did. If freedom is to survive anywhere on earth, it is America’s determination that will save it. It is not the loathing of so many libertarians for every effort the Bush administration has made to protect its citizens.
It is George W. Bush, not Jacques Chirac, who understands the threat of Islamo-fascism. It is George W. Bush, not Vladimir Putin, who stands against the massed hordes that demand our extinction. If we turn against him and against America, as so many libertarians are doing, we will surely deserve whatever happens to us.
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