A Convergence of Chomskyites

The shrinking ideological distance between extreme Left and Right is not a new topic, but few examples illustrate the phenomenon as well as the following quotes from Pat Buchanan's new book How the Right Went Wrong:

[The Bush Doctrine is] a prescription for permanent war for permanent peace, though wars are the death of republics. (6)

The Bush National Security Strategy is the imperial edict of a superpower out to exploit its present supremacy to make itself permanent Lord Protector of the universe. (26)

This is democratic imperialism. This will bleed, bankrupt and isolate this republic. This overthrows the wisdom of the Founding Fathers about what America should be all about. (35)

Terrorism is the price of empire. If we do not wish to pay it, we must give up the empire. (237)

America's enemy in the Islamic world is not a state we can crush with sanctions or an enemy we can defeat with force of arms. The enemy is a cause, a movement, an idea. (87)

[T]errorism is not a nation, a regime, or an army. Terrorism is a tactic, a technique, a weapon fanatics, dictators and warriors have resorted to through history. If...war is the continuation of politics by other means, terrorism is the continuation of war by other means. (89)

We are not hated for who we are. We are hated for what we do. It is not our principles that have spawned pandemic hatred of America in the Islamic world. It is our policies. (80)

U.S. dominance of the Middle East is not the corrective to terror. It is a cause of terror. Were we not over there, the 9/11 terrorists would not have been over here. (236)

Often, terrorism succeeded in the 20th century, and, when it did, the ex-terrorists achieved power, glory and immortality, with streets, towns and cities named for them....America today recognizes every regime to come out of these wars where terrorism was a common tactic. (123)

The Sharon Plan is not a peace plan. It is a unilateral solution to be imposed by Israel....A Palestinian leader who signs on to this surrender of land and rights would be signing his death warrant. (242)

Any one of these quotes could have been culled from Hegemony or Survival. It is nothing less than extraordinary--although the same convergence has occurred between the radical Left and radical Islam--to see two ideological movements supposedly bitterly opposed to each other on every level not merely parroting each others propaganda, but in all essential aspects assimilating each other's worldview. Its always important to remember that rhetorical hysteria, anti-Americanism, and proto-totalitarian conspiracism are not confined to the political Left, but are finding a home in numerous ideologies who are united both in their rejection and fear of American society and, indeed, the very idea of the free society itself.