HON. RON PAUL
OF TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, May 13, 1999
1999 Ron Paul 46:1 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Speaker, I have come forward
in the past to suggest that the history of
this century has shown us that the foreign policy
of so-called “pragmatic interventionists”
has created a disastrous situation. Specifically,
I have pointed to the unintended consequences
of our government’s interventions.
Namely, I have identified how World War One
helped create the environment for the holocaust
and how it thus helped create World
War Two and thermonuclear war. And, I’ve
mentioned how the Second World War resulted
in the enslavement of much of Europe
behind an iron curtain setting off the cold war,
and spread the international communism and
then our own disastrous foray into Vietnam.
Yes, all of these wars and tragedies, wars hot
and cold, were in part caused by the so-called
“war to end all wars.”
1999 Ron Paul 46:2 Today I do not wish to investigate yet again
the details of this history but rather to examine,
at a deeper level, why this sort of policy
is doomed to fail.
1999 Ron Paul 46:3 The base reason is that pragmatism is illogical
and interventionism does not work. The
notion that we can have successes without regard
to the ends to be sought is absurd.
1999 Ron Paul 46:4 It should be obvious to practical people that
you cannot have “progress,” for example,
without progressing toward some end. Equally
as apparent ought to be the fact that human
effectiveness cannot occur without considering
the ends of human beings. Peace, freedom
and virtue are ends toward which we ought to
progress, but all reference to ends is rejected
by the so-called pragmatists.
1999 Ron Paul 46:5 Because of this lack of clarity of purpose we
come to accept an equally unclear contortion
of our language. Our military is “too thin,” it
has been “hollowed out” and it is “unprepared.”
But for what are we unprepared? And
what policy is our army “too hollow” to carry
out?
1999 Ron Paul 46:6 If we remain unprepared to conduct total
warfare across the globe, we should be thankful
of this fact. If we are unprepared to police
the world or to project power into every civil
war, or “to win two different regional conflicts,”
this is good.
1999 Ron Paul 46:7 We are distracted by these dilemmas which
result from unclear thought and unclear language.
We convince ourselves that we need
to be effective without having a goal in mind.
Certainly we have no just end in mind because
our pragmatic interventionists deny that
ends exist.
1999 Ron Paul 46:8 “Preparedness” is a word that has been
thrown around a lot recently, but it begs the
question “prepared for what?” No nation attacked
ours, no nation has threatened ours,
no sane leader would do so as it would be the
death warrant of his own nation, his own people,
and likely his own self. We are prepared
to repel an attack and meet force with force
but not necessarily to protect our nation and
the populace. We are still vulnerable to a missile
attack and have done little to protect
against such a possibility.
1999 Ron Paul 46:9 Thus or contortions and distortions that
have led to dilemmas in our thoughts and dilemmas
in our policy have led also to real
paradoxes. Because our policy of globaloney
is so bad, so unprincipled and so bound up
with the notions of interventionism, we now
face this strange truth: we ought to spend less
on our military but we should spend more on
defense. Our troops are underpaid,
untertrained and poorly outfitted for the tasks
we have given them. We are vulnerable to
missile attack, and how do we spend our constituents
money? What priorities have we set
in this body? We vote to purchase a few more
bombs to drop over Serbia or Iraq.
1999 Ron Paul 46:10 Our policy is flawed. Our nation is at risk.
Our defenses are weakened by those people
who say they are “hawks” and those who
claim they “support the troops.” Our policy is
the end to which we must make ourselves effective,
and currently our policy is all wrong.
Our constitution grants us the obligation to defend
this nation, and the right to defend only
this nation. I should hope that we will never be
prepared to police the world. We should not
be militarily prepared nor philosophically prepared
for such a policy. We need to refocus
our military force policy and the way to do that
is clear. It is to return it to the constitutionally
authorized role of defending our country.
Again, this is not simply a question of policy,
and not merely a political question. No Mr.
Speaker, the source of our quandary is the
minds and hearts of human beings. Bad philosophy
will always lead to bad policy precisely
because ideas do have consequences.
1999 Ron Paul 46:11 Here the bad idea to be found at the source
of our malady is absurd pragmatism, a desire
to be “effective” without having any idea what
the end is that we trying to affect. It becomes
evident in our policy and in our language.
1999 Ron Paul 46:12 “Now we are in it we must win it.” But we
know not what “win” means, other than “be
effective.” But we are “unprepared,” but unprepared
for what? Unprepared to be effective!
But what is it, we are ineffective at
achieving? “Well, winning,” is the reply. Without
ends our policies become tautological. And
with the wrong policy, our execution becomes
disastrous. We must reject this absurd pragmatism
and reestablish a military policy based
on the defense of our nation. Only then we will
be able to take the steps necessary for effectiveness,
and preparedness. No billions in appropriations
can make our present policy effective.
Notes:
1999 Ron Paul 46:1
the holocaust probably should be capitalized: the Holocaust.
1999 Ron Paul 46:1
cold war probably should be capitalized: Cold War.
1999 Ron Paul 46:9
untertrained probably should be undertrained.
1999 Ron Paul 46:9
our constituents money probably should be possessive: our constituents’ money.
1999 Ron Paul 46:10
No Mr. Speaker, probably should have another comma:
No, Mr. Speaker,.
