The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr.
GILCHREST). Under the Speaker’s announced
policy of January 7, 1997, the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. PAUL) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee
of the majority leader. The gentleman is recognized.
1998 Ron Paul 7:1
Mr. PAUL.
Thank you, Mr. SPEAKER. I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.
1998 Ron Paul 7:2
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, so ordered.
1998 Ron Paul 7:3
Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Speaker, I would like
to discuss a few problems I think this
country still faces. I want to mention
three, but I will talk more about one in
particular.
1998 Ron Paul 7:4
Overall, I believe this country faces a
serious problem in that our government
is too big. When government is
big, it means that liberty is threatened. Today, our governments throughout
the land consume more than half of
what the American people produce. In
order to do that, there has to be curtailment
on individual liberty.
1998 Ron Paul 7:5
In the attempt to help people in a
welfare-warfare state, unfortunately
the poor never seem to be helped. A lot
of money is spent, but due to the monetary
system that we have, inevitably,
the middle class tends to get wiped out
and the poor get poorer, and very often
in the early stages the wealthy get
wealthier. And in the meantime, the corporations
seem to do quite well. So we
live in an age where we have a fair
amount of corporatism associated with
the welfare-warfare state in which we
live.
1998 Ron Paul 7:6
But the three specific problems that I
want to mention, and I mention these
because I think this is what the American
people are concerned about, and
sometimes we here inside the Beltway
don’t listen carefully to the people
around the country. But the three issues
are these: The first are the scandals
that we hear so much about, the second
is the IMF bailout, and the third has to
do with Iraq.
1998 Ron Paul 7:7
Now, the scandals have been around a
bit. We have heard about Travelgate
and Filegate, and we also heard about foreign
interference in foreign policy dealing
with foreign donations. Now, those I
consider very serious and for this reason
I join Congressman BARR in his resolution to initiate
an inquiry into the seriousness of these
charges. But some of these charges have
been laid aside mainly because there is
another scandal in the news, something
that has been much more attractive to
the media, and that essentially is all
that we have been hearing of in the
last several weeks. I think this is a distraction
from some of the issues that
we should deal with. But that is not
the one issue that I want to dwell on
this evening.
1998 Ron Paul 7:8
The IMF is another issue that I think
is very important. This funding will be
coming up soon. The Congress will be
asked to appropriate $18 billion to bail
out the Southeast Asian currencies and
countries, and this is a cost; although
we’re told it doesn’t cost anything,
it doesn’t add to the deficit, there is
obviously a cost, and you can’t convince
the American people that there is
no cost just because of our method of
budgeting and we don’t add it into the
deficit.
1998 Ron Paul 7:9
And once again, these funds, whether
they go to Southeast Asia or whether
they go to Mexico, they never seem to
help the little people; they never help
the poor people. The poor are poorer
than ever in Mexico, and yet the politicians
and the corporations and the
bankers even in this country get the
bailout. And this $18 billion is nothing
more than another bailout.
1998 Ron Paul 7:10
Now, the third issue is Iraq, and I
want to talk more about that, because
I am fearful we’re about ready to do
something very foolish, very foolish for
our country, and very dangerous.
1998 Ron Paul 7:11
But of these three issues, there is a common
thread. When you think about the
scandals, we talk about international
finance, a large amount of dollars flowing
into this country to influence our
elections and possibly play a role in
our foreign policy.
1998 Ron Paul 7:12
And also, in the IMF, this has to do with
international finance, the IMF is under
the United Nations and therefore it
gets a lot of attention and we are asked
to appropriate $18 billion.
1998 Ron Paul 7:13
Then, once again, we have this potential
for going to war in Iraq, again, not
because we follow the Constitution, not
because we follow the rule of law, but
because the United Nations has passed
a resolution. Some have even argued
that the U.N. resolution passed for the
Persian Gulf War is enough for our
President to initiate the bombings. Others claim that just the legislation,
the resolution-type legislation passed
in 1990s that endorsed this process is
enough for us to go and pursue this war
adventure. But the truth is, if we followed
the rules and if we followed the
law, we would never commit an act of
war, which bombing is, unless we have
a declaration of war here in the Congress. Somebody told me just yesterday
that yes, but that’s so old fashioned.
1998 Ron Paul 7:14
Just look at what we have been able
to do since World War II without a declaration
of war. Precisely. Why are we
doing this? And precisely because when
we do it, what generally happens is
that we’re not fighting these wars,
and they’re not police actions, these
are wars, and we’re not fighting them
because of national interests. We’re
not fighting them for national security,
and therefore, we do not fight to
win, and subsequently, what war can
we really be proud of since World War
II? We have not won them. We set the
stage for more problems later on. The
Persian Gulf War has led to the stalemate
that we have here today, and it
goes on and on. And I think this is a very
important subject.
1998 Ron Paul 7:15
War should only be declared for
moral reasons. The only moral war is a
defensive war and when our country is
threatened. Then it’s legitimate to
come to the people and the people then,
through their Members in the House
and Senate, and the President then declare
war, then they fight that war
to win. But today that is considered
very old fashioned, and the consensus
here in this Congress is that it will not
take much for Congress to pass a resolution.
1998 Ron Paul 7:16
What worries me, though, somewhat
is that this resolution will not be circulated
among the Members for days
and weeks and have real serious debate. There’s always the possibility
that a resolution like this will come up
suddenly. There will be little debate,
and then a vote, and an endorsement
for this policy. The first resolution
that has been discussed over in the
Senate had language very, very similar
to the same language used in the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution, which endorsed
the expansion of the war in Vietnam,
where 50,000 men were lost, and it was
done not with a declaration of war, but
by casual agreement by the Congress
to go along.
1998 Ron Paul 7:17
Congress should have and take more
responsibility for these actions. It is
only the Congress that should pursue
an act of war. Bombing is an act of
war, especially if it’s a country
halfway
around the world and a country
that has not directly threatened our
national security.
1998 Ron Paul 7:18
All of the stories about the monstrosities
that occur and how terrible the
leader might be may have some truth
to it, but that does not justify throwing
out the rule of law and ignoring our
Constitution.
1998 Ron Paul 7:19
This effort that is about to be
launched, it has not been endorsed by
our allies. It is getting very difficult to
even get the slightest token endorsement
by our allies to start this bombing. And you would think if Saddam Hussein
was a true threat to that region,
his neighbors would be the first ones to
be willing to march and to be willing to
go to battle to defend themselves. But
they are saying, don’t even put your
troops here, do not launch your effort
from our soil, because it is not in our
best interests to do so. Kuwait, the
country that we went to war over not
too long ago has given some token endorsement,
but even their newspapers
are carrying news stories that really
challenge what the people might be
saying about this effort.
1998 Ron Paul 7:20
There was a Kuwaiti professor who
was quoted in a pro-government Kuwaiti
newspaper as saying,
the U.S. frightens us with Saddam to make us buy
weapons and sign contracts with American
companies, thus ensuring a market
for American arms manufacturers
and United States continued military
presence in the Middle East.
That’s not my opinion; that is a Kuwaiti professor
writing in a government newspaper
in Kuwait.
1998 Ron Paul 7:21
A Kuwaiti legislator who was not
willing to reveal his name said the use
of force has ended up strengthening the
Iraqi regime rather than weakening it. Most people realize that. In the Middle
East, Saddam Hussein has more credibility
among his Arab neighbors than
he did before the war.
1998 Ron Paul 7:22
Other Kuwaitis have suggested that
the U.S. really wants Hussein in power
to make sure his weak neighbors fear
him and are forced to depend on the
United States for survival.
1998 Ron Paul 7:23
Now, these are very important comments
to be considered, especially
when we are getting ready to do something
so serious as to condone the
bombing of another country. Just recently
in The Washington Post, not exactly
a conservative newspaper, talked
about what Egypt’s opinion was about
this. Now this is interesting, because the
interview was done in Switzerland at
the World Economic Forum, and the
interview was made by Lally Weymouth,
and she talked to Egypt’s Foreign
Minister, Amre Moussa, the Foreign
Minister of Egypt, our ally, a
country that gets billions of dollars
from us every year.
1998 Ron Paul 7:24
And so one would expect with all this
money flowing into that country that
they should quickly do exactly what
we want. But this Foreign Minister was
rather blunt: Egypt, a key member of
the Gulf War coalition, is opposed to
U.S. military action in Iraq. He said,
We believe that military action should
be avoided and there is room for political
efforts.
He said,
If such action is
taken, there will be considerable fallout
in the Arab world,
he warned. He said,
We are not afraid of Saddam.
He added that his country believes the crisis
is a result of allegations that have
not been proven. And yet, we are willing to
go and do such a thing as to initiate
this massive bombing attack on this
country, and there has been nothing
proven.
1998 Ron Paul 7:25
But Moussa also said that Iraq’s possession
of chemical and biological weapons
must be pursued, of course. But
this requires cooperation with Iraq, not
confrontation. Even our President admits
that more weapons have been removed
from Iraq since the war ended
than which occurred with the hundreds
of thousands of troops in Iraq, as well
as 88,000 bombs that were dropped in
the whole of World War II, and it did
not accomplish the mission.
1998 Ron Paul 7:26
So he is suggesting that it’s just not
worth the effort and it is not going to
work. And he, of course, speaks for one
of our allies.
1998 Ron Paul 7:27
He says,
“The whole Middle East is
not comfortable with this, and I don’t
think there is support for such an option. All of us will face the consequence
of such a military attack.”
“All of us” means all of them, not the
people here in the United States.
1998 Ron Paul 7:28
He said 7 years ago there was an occupation
and an apparent aggression. Today it is a question over inspections,
so therefore he is arguing strenuously
that we not do this. The people in the
Middle East, he says, see a double
standard. He’s talking for the Arabs.
1998 Ron Paul 7:29
The people in the Middle East see a
double standard because the Israeli
Government does not comply with U.N. Resolution 242, but we see no action. The U.S. is too strong on one and too
soft on the other. The peace process is
falling apart. And we do know that the
peace process in Israel with the Palestinians
is not going smoothly, and yet
this is behind some of what is happening
because they do not understand our
policy.
1998 Ron Paul 7:30
He goes on to say,
“There is room for
a political solution. Bear in mind the
repercussions in the area. If the United
States bombs, there will be Iraqi victims.”
And then he asks,
“What happens if
the public sees a decisive move on the
part of the U.S. toward Iraq but not toward Israel? We
have to take into consideration how
the people who live near Iraq respond
to something like this.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:31
Now, Steven Rosenfeld, in the Washington
Post, on February 6, also made
comments about the Middle East and
the failure of the Mideast policy. And I
thought he had a very interesting comment,
because he certainly wouldn’t
be coming at this from the same viewpoint
that I have.
1998 Ron Paul 7:32
In his statement, this again is
Rosenfeld in the Washington Post, he
says,
“There is a fatal flaw at the heart
of Netanyahu’s policy. He is not prepared
to address the Palestinians’ basic
grievance. To think that Israel can humiliate
the Palestinians politically and
then reap the benefits of their security
cooperation is foolish. It can’t happen.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:33
So here we are being further involved in
the Middle East process with Iraq in
the hope that we are going to bring
about peace.
1998 Ron Paul 7:34
What about another close ally, an
ally that we have had since World War
II: Turkey. Turkey’s not anxious for
doing this. They don’t want us to take
the troops and the bombers out of Turkey. Matter of fact, they’re very, very hesitant about all this. This is an article from
the Washington Times by Philip
Smucker. He said,
“Turkey’s growing
fears of a clash in Iraq are based largely
on what it sees as the ruinous aftermath
of the Gulf War.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:35
So Turkey is claiming that they’re
still suffering from the Gulf War.
1998 Ron Paul 7:36
“The people,”
and this is quoting
from the Foreign Ministry Sermet Atacanli,
“the people have started
thinking that Turkey is somehow
being punished,”
a senior foreign official said.
“We supported the war, but
we are losing now.”
So they’re getting no benefits.
1998 Ron Paul 7:37
He said that since the war, Turkey
has suffered economic losses of some
$35 billion stemming from the invigorated
Kurdish uprising on the Iraqi
border and the shutting down of the
border trade, including the Iraqi oil exports
through Turkey. They used to
have trade; now they don’t have trade.
1998 Ron Paul 7:38
We encouraged the Kurds to revolt
and then stepped aside, so the Kurds
are unhappy with the Americans because
they were disillusioned as to
what they thought they were supposed
to be doing.
“Turkey’s clear preference
is for Iraq to regain control of its own
Kurdish regions on the Turkish border
and resume normal relations with Ankara.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:39
Further quoting the foreign ministry
of Turkey,
“Iraq cannot exercise sovereignty
over these regions, so there
has become a power vacuum that has
created an atmosphere in which terrorists
operate freely.”
It has taken quite some effort for Turkish forces to deal
with this problem.
1998 Ron Paul 7:40
What will happen if the bombs are
relatively successful? More vacuum. More confusion. And more turmoil in
that region.
1998 Ron Paul 7:41
The military goals are questioned by
even the best of our military people in
this country, and sometimes it is very
difficult to understand what our military
goals are. We do not have the
troops there to invade and to take over
Baghdad or to get rid of Hussein, but
we have a lot of bombs and we have a
lot of firepower. And yet, we are supposed
to be intimidated and fearful of this
military strength of Saddam Hussein. Yet even by our own intelligence reports,
his strength is about one-half
what it was before the Persian Gulf
War started. So there is a little bit
more fear-mongering there than I
think is justified.
1998 Ron Paul 7:42
But if we do not plan to send troops,
we just agree to send bombs, then it
will not get rid of Hussein. Why are we
doing this? Because some people question
this and some people respond and
say, that may be correct, maybe we do
not have the ability to inflict enough
damage or to kill Hussein. And some
here have even suggested that we assassinate
him.
1998 Ron Paul 7:43
Well, I’m not going to defend Iraq. I’m not going to defend Hussein. But I
do have a responsibility here for us in
the Congress to obey the law, and
under our law, under the Constitution,
and with a sense of morality, we don’t
go around assassinating dictators. I
think history shows that we were involved
in that in South Vietnam and it
didn’t help us one bit.
1998 Ron Paul 7:44
Syria is another close neighbor of
Iraq. Syria was an ally in the Persian
Gulf War. Syria would like us not to do
anything. Iraqi foreign minister Mohammed
Saeed Sahhaf went to Damascus
to see Syrian President Hafez
Assad, marking the first time in 18
years that the Syrian leader met with
an Iraqi official. This is one of the consequences,
this is one of the things
that is happening. The further we push
the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Government,
the further we push them into
close alliances with the more radical
elements in that region.
1998 Ron Paul 7:45
It’s conceivable to me that it would
be to Hussein’s benefit, and he probably
isn’t worried that much, but I do
not believe it’s in our interest. I do
not believe it’s in the interest of the
American people, the American taxpayers,
the American fighter pilots,
and certainly long-term interest in the
Middle East. We will spend a lot of
money doing it. That’s one issue.
1998 Ron Paul 7:46
We could very well end up having lives lost. We
still have not solved all the problems
and taken care of all the victims of the
Persian Gulf War syndrome which
numbers in the tens of thousands. Maybe we should be talking about that
more than looking for more problems
and a greater chance for a serious confrontation
where lives were lost.
1998 Ron Paul 7:47
The Iraqi and the Syrian views, according
to this article, are very close
and almost identical in rejecting a resort
to force and American military
threats. We do not get support there,
and we should not ignore that.
1998 Ron Paul 7:48
Just recently Schwarzkopf was interviewed
on NBC TV “Meet the Press,”
and he had some interesting comments
to make, very objective, very military-oriented
comments. He would not agree
with me on my policy or the policy
that I would advocate of neutrality and
nonintervention and the pro-American
policy. But he did have some warnings
about the military operation.
1998 Ron Paul 7:49
He says,
“I don’t think the bombing,
I don’t think it will change his behavior
at all. Saddam’s goal is to go down
in history as the second coming of
Nebuchadnezzar by uniting the Arab
world against the West. He may not
mind a big strike if, after it, the United
Nations lifts economic sanctions
against Iraq.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:50
I’m afraid that this policy is going
in the wrong direction, that we are
going to have ramifications of it from
years to come, and that we will and
could have the same type of result as
we had in Vietnam that took a decade
for us to overcome.
1998 Ron Paul 7:51
There is no indication
that this bombing will accomplish
what we should do. Charles Duelfer,
deputy chief of the U.N. Special Commission
in charge of Iraqi inspection
said,
“Put bluntly, we don’t really
know what Iraq has.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:52
And that’s at the heart of the problem. Here’s our U.N. inspector admitting
that they have no idea. So how can we
prove that somebody doesn’t have
something if you don’t know what he is
supposed to have? So the odds of this
military operation accomplishing very
much are essentially slim to none.
1998 Ron Paul 7:53
Charles Krauthammer, who would be
probably in favor of doing a lot more
than I would do, had some advice. He
says,
“Another short bombing campaign
would simply send yet another
message of American irresolution. It
would arouse Arab complaints about
American arrogance and aggression
while doing nothing to decrease
Saddam’s grip on power. Better to do
nothing,”
Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. These aren’t my
views. But they’re warnings that we should not ignore.
1998 Ron Paul 7:54
Richard Cohen from the Washington
Post had some advice. He said,
“Still military action is a perilous course. It
will produce what is called ‘collateral damage,’ a fancy term for the accidental killing of civilians and possibly the unintentional destruction of a school or mosque.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:55
We have heard of that before.
“That, in turn,”
he goes on to say,
“will provoke protests in parts of the Arab
world, Jordan probably and Egypt as
well. In both countries the United
States is already considered the protector
of a recalcitrant Israeli Government. As for Israel itself, it can expect
that Iraq will send some missiles its way, maybe
armed with chemical or biological
weapons.”
1998 Ron Paul 7:56
This is Richard Cohen warning us
about some of the ramifications of
what might happen.
1998 Ron Paul 7:57
But during these past 8 years since
the war has ended, there has been no
signs that that is likely to happen. It is
more likely to happen that some missile
or some accident will occur that
will spread this war from a neat little
war to something much bigger than we’re interested in dealing with.
1998 Ron Paul 7:58
There are several other points that I
would like to mention here. The one
thing that we cannot measure and we cannot
anticipate are the accidents that
happen. So often wars are caused by
people being in the wrong place at
wrong time, and then accidents happen
and somebody gets killed, a ship is
sunk, and then we have to go to war.
1998 Ron Paul 7:59
Other times some of these events
may be staged. One individual suggested
the possibility of a person like
Saddam Hussein actually acting irrationally
and doing something radical
to his own people and then turning
around and blaming the United States
or Israel or something like that. So we’re dealing with an individual that
may well do this and for his specific
purposes.
1998 Ron Paul 7:60
But we would all be better off, not so
much that we can anticipate exactly
who we should help and who we should
support; we’ve done too much of
that. We help too often both sides of
every war that has existed in the last
50 years, and we have pretended that
we have known what is best for everybody, and I think that’s impossible.
1998 Ron Paul 7:61
I think the responsibility of the
Members of Congress here is to protect
the national interest, to provide national
security, to take care of national
defense, to follow the rules that
say, we should not go to war unless the
war is declared. If we go to war, we go
to war to fight and win the war. But we
don’t go to war because we like one
country over another country and we
want to support them.
1998 Ron Paul 7:62
We literally support both sides in the
Middle East, and it is a balancing act
and, quite frankly, both sides right
now seem to be a little bit unhappy
with us. So the policy has not been
working; we have not been able to
achieve what we think we are able to
do. But we must be very cautious on
what we’re doing here in the next few
weeks.
1998 Ron Paul 7:63
People say, well, we have to do it because
Hussein has so much of this firepower,
he has all of these weapons of
mass destruction. It was just recently
reported by U.S. intelligence that there
are 20 nations now who are working on
and producing weapons of mass destruction,
including Iran and Syria. So
why don’t we go in there and check
them out too?
1998 Ron Paul 7:64
Why is it that we have no more concern
about our national security concern
about China? I think China can
pose a national threat. I don’t think
we should be doing it to China. I don’t
think we should be looking to find out
what kind of weapons they have, but we
know they sell weapons to Iraq. And we
know they’re a very capable nation
when it comes to military. But what do
we do with China? We give them foreign
aid. They’re one of the largest recipients
of foreign aid in the whole
world.
1998 Ron Paul 7:65
So we don’t apply the rules to all
the countries the same, and we get narrowed
in on one item and we get distracted
from many of the facts that I
think are so important. But some people
believe that it is conceivable that the
oil is even very important in this issue
as well.
1998 Ron Paul 7:66
We obviously knew the oil was important
in the Persian Gulf War because
it was said that we were going
over there to protect our oil. Of course,
it was Iraqi oil but some people believe
sincerely that keeping this Iraqi oil off
the market helps keep the prices higher
and they do not need that to happen.
1998 Ron Paul 7:67
Matter of fact, it was in the
Wall Street Journal today that that
was further suggested. It said:
Equally important the U.S. must terminate illegal
oil exports from the Iraqi port of Basra.
1998 Ron Paul 7:68
There, submerged barges depart daily
for Iran, which sells the oil and, after a
hefty rake-off, returns the proceeds to
fund Saddam. So there are those sales and
there might be people that are looking
at this mainly as a financial thing
dealing with oil.
1998 Ron Paul 7:69
But the odds now of us being able to stop
this bombing I think are pretty slim and I
think that is rather sad because it
looks like there will be a resolution
that will come to the floor. There probably
will not be a chance for a lot of
debate. It will come up under suspension
possibly and yet in the words may
be toned down a little bit.
1998 Ron Paul 7:70
It might not be identical to the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution. But all I’d
like to do is point out to my colleagues
that this is more important than it appears,
and we should not be so glib as
to give this authority, to give the
cover for the President to say, well, the
Congress said it was okay. I don’t
think the Congress should say it is
okay, because I think it is the wrong
thing to do. And I think it could lead
to so many more problems.
1998 Ron Paul 7:71
So we have a responsibility, and if the responsibility
is that Saddam Hussein is
a threat to our national security, we
should be more honest with the American
people. We should tell them what
the problem is. We should have a resolution,
a declaration of war.
1998 Ron Paul 7:72
Obviously, that wouldn’t pass but it
looks like it will not be difficult to
pass a resolution that will condone and
give sanction to whatever the President
does regardless of all the military
arguments against it.
1998 Ron Paul 7:73
So I see this as really a sad time for
us and not one that we should be proud
of. I do know that the two weakest arguments
I can present here would be
that of a moral argument, that wars
ought to be fought only for defense and
for national security. I’ve been told
that is too old-fashioned and we must
police the world, and we have the obligation. We’re the only superpower.
1998 Ron Paul 7:74
Well, I don’t think that is a legitimate
argument. And I do have a lot of reservation
that we are so anxious to go
along with getting authority elsewhere,
and that is through the United
Nations. When the Persian Gulf War
was started, and getting ready to start, it
was said that we did not need the Congress
to approve this because the authority
came from the United Nations
resolution.
1998 Ron Paul 7:75
Well, that to me is the wrong way to
go. I mean, if we’re involved in internationalism,
where international financing
now is influencing our presidential
election, if international finances
demand
that we take more money from
the American taxpayers and bail out
southeast Asian countries through the
IMF and that we’re willing to allow
our young men and women be exposed
to war conditions and to allow them to
go to war mainly under a U.N. resolution
and a token endorsement by the
Congress, I think this is the wrong way
to go.
1998 Ron Paul 7:76
I do realize that we’ve been doing
it this way for 40 or 50 years. But quite
frankly, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe
the American people are all that happy
about it. I have not yet had anybody in
my district come up to me and start
saying, RON, I want you to get up there
and start voting. I want to see those
bombs flying.
1998 Ron Paul 7:77
Matter of fact, I have had a lot
of them come and say, why are you
guys up there thinking about going to
war? I’ve had a lot of people talk
about that. So we should not do this
carelessly and casually.
1998 Ron Paul 7:78
There’s no reason in the world why
we can’t be willing to look at the rule
of law, and the rule of law is very clear. We
do not have the moral authority to do
this. This is, we must recognize, that this is
an act of war.
1998 Ron Paul 7:79
And when the resolution comes up to the
floor, no matter how watered down it
is, I think everybody should think very
seriously about it and not be careless
about it, not wait until a decade goes
by and 50,000 men are killed. I think
that’s the wrong way to do it.
1998 Ron Paul 7:80
There is nothing wrong with a pro-American foreign policy, one of nonintervention,
one where we are neutral. That was our tradition for more than
100 years. It stood out in George Washington’s
farewell address, talk about
nonentangling alliances. These entangling
alliances and our willingness to
get involved has not been kind to us in
the 20th century. So we should really
consider the option of a foreign policy
that means that we should be friends
with all.
1998 Ron Paul 7:81
People will immediately say, oh, that’s
isolationism. Even if you are not for
the IMF bailout, this argument really
bewilders me. If you are not for the $18
billion bailout of the IMF, you are an
isolationist. You can be for free trade
and get rid of all the tariffs and do everything
else, but if you’re not willing
to give your competitors more money
and bail them out and bail out the
banks, you’re an isolationist. I mean, you’re
not for free trade. It’s complete nonsense, complete nonsense. And there’s nothing wrong with isolating
our military forces.
1998 Ron Paul 7:82
We do not have to be the policemen
of the world. We haven’t done a good
job and the world is not safer today because
of our willingness to do this. One
act leads to the next one. And we are still
fighting the Persian Gulf War, and it
sounds to me like we’re losing our allies. We must take this under serious
advisement. We must not be too anxious
to go and do something that we
could be very sorry for.
1998 Ron Paul 7:83
I know that people do not like this
statement I am going to be making to
be made, but I think there should be a
consideration for it. So often Members
here are quite willing to vote to put
ourselves and our men in harm’s way
that could lead to a serious confrontation
with many deaths. But if those individuals
who claim that it would be
best to assassinate Saddam Hussein or
put land troops on there, I wonder if
they’d be willing to be the first
ones on the beachhead. That really is
the question. That is a fair statement.
1998 Ron Paul 7:84
If you’re willing to go yourself, if
you’re willing to send your child, then
it’s more legitimate to vote casually
and carelessly to go marching off with
acts of war. But if that individual who’s getting ready to vote, if he himself
or she herself is not willing to land on
that beach and risk their lives, they
should think a second time.
1998 Ron Paul 7:85
In a war for national defense, if this
country is threatened, every one of us
should participate in it. We should and
we can. We could do it our way, to participate
in the defense of this country. But once it’s being involved in a casual
and a careless manner with not
knowing what the goals are, not knowing
what victory means, not fighting to
win, this can only lead to bigger problems.
1998 Ron Paul 7:86
And this is the time to reassess it. I know
time is running short. Everybody is
afraid of losing face. Some people say,
well, how do we back off and we can’t
let Saddam Hussein lose face, and what
about our own politicians who have
been saying that we must do something. They will lose face. So wouldn’t that be the worst reason in the world to
do this, because they are afraid of losing
face because we threatened them? If it’s the wrong thing to do, we shouldn’t do it. And there seems to me to be
no direct benefit to the American people,
certainly no benefit to the American
taxpayer, certainly no benefit to
peace in the Middle East. It’s more
likely to cause more turmoil. It’s
more likely to unify the Islamic fundamentalists
like they’ve never been
unified before.
1998 Ron Paul 7:87
So what we’re doing here is very serious
business. Unfortunately, it looks
like it’s going to happen and it looks
like there’ll be one or two or three or
four of us that will say, go slow, don’t
do this, let’s question this. But unfortunately,
the only significant criticism
we’ve had of the policy has been, do
more faster.
1998 Ron Paul 7:88
We don’t need to do more faster. We
need to do less quicker, much less
quicker. Nothing has been happening in
the last few years, the last few weeks. Does President Clinton need to bomb
over the weekend or next week or two
weeks from now? I say absolutely not. There is no need for this.
1998 Ron Paul 7:89
Saddam is weaker than he used to be. And he could be stronger after this is finished. So we must be cautious. We
must take our time and think about
this before we go off and make this declaration. It sounds like a lot of fun. We
have a lot of bombers. We have a lot of
equipment that we have to test, and we
can go over there and see if the B-1 and
the stealth bombers will work a little
bit better than they have in the past. But this is not a game. This is not a
game. This is serious business.
1998 Ron Paul 7:90
And one item like this, one event like
this can lead to something else, and
that’s what we have to be cautious
about. We cannot assume that, yes, we
can bomb for a day or two or three or
four and the stronger the rhetoric the
more damage we are going to do. We
need less rhetoric. We as a Nation have
on occasion been the initiators of peace
talks. We encourage the two groups in
the Middle East, the Israelis and the
Palestinians. We bring them to our
country. We ask them to sit down and
talk. Please talk before you kill each
other. We go to the Protestants and we
go to the Catholics and we say, please
talk, don’t kill each other. Why don’t we talk more to Hussein? He’s willing
to.
1998 Ron Paul 7:91
And I know, I mean you have to take his
word with a grain of salt, but would it
not be better to sit down across the
table and at least talk, rather than pursue
a course that, a military course
that may be more harmful?
1998 Ron Paul 7:92
You know, if this would be a guarantee that it
would get a lot better and that we
would solve a lot of problems, maybe
we could consider it. But even those
who advocate this do not claim they
know when the end stage is, what the
ultimate goal is, and that they would
expect success. They’re not expecting
this. They just want to bomb, bomb
people. And innocent people will die, and those
pictures will be on television.
1998 Ron Paul 7:93
And I, quite frankly, do not believe
the polls that most Americans want us
to do this. I go home; I talk to a lot of
my constituents. I do not find them
coming and saying, do this. They don’t even understand, the people who
come and talk to me, they ask me what
is going on up there. Why are they getting
ready to do this?
1998 Ron Paul 7:94
I mean, most people in this country
can’t even find where Iraq is on the
map. I mean, they’re not that concerned
about it. And yet all we would
have to do is have one ship go down
and have loss of life and then all of a
sudden, then do we turn tail? Then is it
that we don’t lose face after we lose
1,000 men by some accident or some
freakish thing happening?
1998 Ron Paul 7:95
Sure, we’ll lose more face then. But we can save face if we do what is
right, explain what we’re doing and be
open to negotiations. There’s nothing
wrong with that. I mean, there has not
been a border crossing.
1998 Ron Paul 7:96
And the other thing is it would be nice if
we had a policy in this country, a foreign
policy that had a little bit of consistency. I have been made fun of at
one time on the House floor for being
consistent and wanting to be consistent.
1998 Ron Paul 7:97
I don’t particularly think there’s
anything wrong with being consistent. I think there should be challenge on
my ideas or our ideas. We should challenge
ideas. But if you want to be
consistent,
if they’re the right ideas, you
should be consistent. But you know, we talk
about this horrible country, I am not
defending the country and I am not defending
Hussein, but we criticize him
as an individual who invaded another
country. I wonder what they are talking
about.
1998 Ron Paul 7:98
I wonder if they are talking about
when he invaded Iran with our encouragement
and our money and our support. Is that what they’re talking
about? Or are they talking about the
other invasion that we didn’t like because
it was a threat to western oil? I
think that might be the case.
1998 Ron Paul 7:99
So they talk about poison gas. Yes,
there’s no doubt about it. I think the
evidence is out that he has used poison
gas against his own people. Horrible,
killed a lot of people. But never
against another country, which means
the line could be drawn by if he had
ever used these weapons. We can’t investigate
20 countries. We can’t investigate
North Korea. We cannot investigate
China. Why do we have this
obsession with investigating this country? But poison gases, under international
agreements, we are not supposed
to use poison gases, and we used them, not
against a foreign power but we used
them against our own people. No, we
did not have a mass killing but those
families understood it. Over 100, more
than 100, 150 people were gassed with
gas that was illegal, according to our
own agreements, and we used them at
Waco.
1998 Ron Paul 7:100
So at one time we’re an ally of a
country, at the same time he is using
poison gas and invading another country
and then, when he invades the
wrong country, then we give him trouble.
1998 Ron Paul 7:101
For many, many years, Noriega was
our ally, and he was no angel when he
was our ally. He received money from
the CIA, but all of a sudden he wanted
to be his own drug lord. He didn’t
want to be beholding to our CIA, so we
had to do something about him.
1998 Ron Paul 7:102
There is nothing wrong with a foreign
policy that is consistent based on
a moral principle and on our Constitution. That means that the responsibility
of the U.S. Congress is to provide
for a strong national defense. There’s
nothing wrong with being friends with
everybody who is willing to be friends
with us. There is nothing wrong with
trading with as many people that will
trade with us, and there is nothing
wrong with working for as low tariffs
as possible.
1998 Ron Paul 7:103
There is no reason why we should not
consider at least selling some food and
medicine to Castro. We have had a confrontation
with Castro now for 40
years, and it has served him well because
his socialism and his communism
was an absolute failure. But he
always had a scapegoat. It was the
Americans. It was the Americans because
they boycotted and they wouldn’t trade and, therefore, that was the
reason they suffered. So it served him
well.
1998 Ron Paul 7:104
I would think that being willing to
talk with people, if we believe in our
system, if we believe that liberty is
something to be proud of and that that
works, I am convinced that it is better
to have set an example to talk with
people, trade with people, and go back
and forth as freely as possible and we
will spread our message much better
than we ever will with bombs.
1998 Ron Paul 7:105
How many bombs did we drop in
South Vietnam? How many men were
lost on our side? How many people
were lost on the other side? How many
innocent people were lost? So the war
ends, after a decade. After a decade of
misery in this country where we literally
had to turn on our own people to
suppress the demonstrations. But
today I have friends who are doing
business in South Vietnam, making
money over there, which means that
trade and talk works. They are becoming
more Westernized.
1998 Ron Paul 7:106
This whole approach of militancy, believing
that we can force our way on
other people, will not and cannot work. Matter of fact, the few quotes that I
used here earlier are indicating that we
are doing precisely the wrong thing;
that we are further antagonizing not
only our so-called enemies, but we’re
further antagonizing our allies. So if
there is no uniformity of opinion of the
neighbors, of Iraq, that we should be doing this, it is a very good practical: If you won’t listen to the
moral, if you won’t listen to the constitutional
issue, listen to
the practical issue. His neighbors don’t want us to do it.
1998 Ron Paul 7:107
And what are we going to prove? We
should not do it. We should reassess
this. We should decide quietly and
calmly and deliberately in this body
that quite possibly the move toward
internationalism, abiding by the U.N. resolutions, paying through the nose to
the IMF to bail out the special interests,
never helping the poor but always
helping the rich, encouraging a system
that encourages foreign countries to
come in and buy influence. We should challenge that. We should change it.
1998 Ron Paul 7:108
And we don’t have to be isolationists. We can be more open and more
willing to trade and talk with people
and we will have a greater chance of
peace and prosperity. That is our purpose. Our purpose is to protect liberty. And we do not protect American liberty
by jeopardizing their liberty and
the wealth of this country by getting
involved when we shouldn’t be involved.
1998 Ron Paul 7:109
The world is a rough enough place already,
and there will continue to be the
hot spots in the world, but I am totally
convinced that a policy of American
intervention overseas, subjecting other
nations to our will, trying to be friends
to both sides at all times, subsidizing
both sides and then trying this balancing
act that never works, this is not
going to work either. It didn’t work in
the 1980s when we were closely allied
and subsidized Hussein and it will not
work now when we are trying to bomb
him.
1998 Ron Paul 7:110
Neither will it work for us to not
have somewhat of a consistent policy
to ignore the other countries that are
doing the very same thing at the same
time the real threat possibly could be a
country like China. And what do we
do? We give them billions and billions
of dollars of subsidies.
1998 Ron Paul 7:111
There is nothing wrong with a consistent
defense of a pro-America foreign
policy. People will say, well, the
world is different and we have to be involved. That is exactly the reason that
we ought to be less aggressive. That is
exactly the reason why we ought to
take our own counsel and not do these
things. Because we live in an age where
communications are much more rapid. The weapons are much more worse. So there is
every reason in the world to do less of
this, not more of it.
1998 Ron Paul 7:112
But none of this could happen. We
could never move in this direction unless
we asked a simple question: What
really is the role of our government? Is
the role of our government to perpetuate
a welfare-warfare state to take
care of the large special interests who
benefit from this by building weapons
and buying and selling oil? No, the purpose
cannot be that.
1998 Ron Paul 7:113
The welfare-warfare state doesn’t
work. The welfare for poor is well-motivated;
it’s intended to help people,
but it never helps them. They become
an impoverished, dependent class. And
we are on the verge of bankruptcy, no
matter what we hear about the balanced
budget. The national debt is
going up by nearly $200 billion a year
and it cannot be sustained. So this
whole nonsense of a balanced budget
and trying to figure out where to spend
the excess is nonsense. It just encourages
people to take over more of the responsibilities
that should be with the
American people.
1998 Ron Paul 7:114
We here in the Congress should be
talking about defending this country,
providing national security, providing
for a strong currency, not deliberately
destroying the currency,
protecting private property rights and
making sure that there is no incentive
for the special interests of this country
to come and buy their influence up
here.
1998 Ron Paul 7:115
We don’t need any fancy campaign
reform laws. There’s no need for those. We need to eliminate the ability of the
Congress to pass out favors. I don’t
get any PAC money because there is no
attempt to come and ask me to do special
favors for anybody. I get a lot of
donations from people who want liberty. They want to be left alone, and
they know, they know that they can
take care of themselves.
1998 Ron Paul 7:116
Now, this point will not be proven
until the welfare state crumbles, and it
may well crumble in the next decade. The Soviet system crumbled rather
suddenly. We cannot afford to continue
to do this, but we must be cautious not
to allow the corporate state and the
militant attitude that we have with
our policy to rule. We have to decide
here in this country, as well as in this
body, what we want from our government
and what kind of a government
we want.
1998 Ron Paul 7:117
We got off on the right track with
the founders of this country. They
wrote a good document and that document
was designed for this purpose, for
the protection of liberty. We have gone
a long way from that, until now we
have the nanny state that we can’t
even plow our gardens without umpteen
number of permits from the Federal
Government. So our government is
too big, it’s too massive, and we have
undermined the very concept of liberty.
1998 Ron Paul 7:118
Foreign policy is very important because
it is under the conditions of war;
it is under the condition of foreign confrontation
that people are so willing to
give up their liberties at home because
of the fear. We should avoid unnecessary
confrontations overseas and we
should concentrate on bettering the
people here in this country, and it can
best be done by guaranteeing property
rights, free markets, sound money, and
a sensible approach to our foreign policy.
1998 Ron Paul 7:23
This part is grammatically incorrect. Just recently in The Washington Post, not
exactly a conservative newspaper, talked about what Egypt’s opinion was about this.
Perhaps in does not belong, or perhaps talked should be, there was talk.
1998 Ron Paul 7:24 He said, If such action is taken, there will be considerable fallout
in the Arab world, he warned. is redundant. Perhaps this should be, He warned, If such
action is taken, there will be considerable fallout in the Arab world.
1998 Ron Paul 7:99
Here, the C-Span video omits a few seconds, from 21:58:04 to 21:58:07 local time.
1998 Ron Paul 7:115 CongressionalRecord says distorting but the C-Span audio sounds more like destroying. Check the C-Span audio at 22:05:29 local time.
