The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized.
1998 Ron Paul 107:3
Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Speaker, I understand this legislation
came before the committee on Friday,
one legislative day prior to today. There has been no committee report
filed, and it was brought up under suspension. And I believe this legislation
is very serious legislation. It is not a
casual piece of legislation condemning
a leader in another country that is
doing less than honorable things.
1998 Ron Paul 107:4
I see this piece of legislation as essentially
being a declaration of virtual
war. It is giving the President tremendous
powers to pursue war efforts
against a sovereign Nation. It should
not be done casually. I think it’s another
example of a flawed foreign policy
that we have followed for a good
many decades.
1998 Ron Paul 107:5
For instance, at the beginning of this
legislation it is cited as one of the reasons
why we must do something. It
says on September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded
Iran starting an 8-year war in
which Iraq employed chemical weapons
against Iranian troops, very serious
problems. We should condemn that. But the whole problem is we were
Iraq’s ally at that time, giving him
military assistance, giving him funds
and giving him technology for chemical
weapons.
1998 Ron Paul 107:6
So here we are now deciding that we
have to virtually declare war against
this individual. It’s not like he is the
only hoodlum out there. I could give
you a list of 15 or 20. I don’t
like the leadership of China. Why don’t we do something about China? I don’t
like the leadership of Sudan. But all of
a sudden we have to decide that we’re
going to give this President to pursue
getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
1998 Ron Paul 107:7
Just a few months ago, or last November,
we passed a resolution, and the
resolution was H.R. 137. It sounded
very general and very benign, and it
talked about the atrocities caused by
Saddam Hussein, and we asked to condemn
and also to set up a U.N. commission
to study this and give the U.N. authority
to pursue, arrest, and convict
and try Saddam Hussein. So this is not
something we are doing for the interests
of the United States. We are doing
this under the interests of the United
Nations, but we are the spokesperson
for them.
1998 Ron Paul 107:8
Not too long ago, a few years back, in
1980s, in our efforts to bring peace and
democracy to the world we assisted the
freedom fighters of Afghanistan, and in
our infinite wisdom we gave money,
technology and training to Bin Laden,
and now, this very year, we have declared
that Bin Laden was responsible
for the bombing in Africa. So what is
our response, because we allow our
President to pursue war too easily?
What was the President’s response?
Some even say that it might have been
for other reasons than for national security
reasons. So he goes off and
bombs Afghanistan, and he goes off and
bombs Sudan, and now the record
shows that very likely the pharmaceutical
plant in Sudan was precisely
that, a pharmaceutical plant.
1998 Ron Paul 107:9
So I say we should stop and think for
a minute before we pursue and give the
President more authority to follow a
policy that to me is quite dangerous.
This to me is equivalent to declaring
war and allowing the President to pursue
this.
1998 Ron Paul 107:10
Another complaint listed on this legislation:
in February 1988 Iraq forcibly
relocated Kurdish civilians from their
homes. Terrible thing to do, and they
probably did; there is no doubt about
it. But what did we do after the Persian
Gulf war? We encouraged the
Kurdish people to stand up and fight
against Saddam Hussein, and they did,
and we forgot about them, and they
were killed by the tens of thousands. There is no reason for them to trust us. There is no reason for the Sudanese
people to believe and trust in us, in
what we do when we rain bombs on
their country and they have done nothing
to the United States. The people of
Iraq certainly have not done anything
to the United States, and we certainly
can find leaders around the world that
have not done equally bad things. I
think we should stop and think about
this.
1998 Ron Paul 107:11
Just today it was announced that the
Turks are lined up on the Syrian border. What for? To go in there and kill
the Kurds because they doN’t like the
Kurds. I think that is terrible. But
what are we doing about it? Who are
the Turks? They are our allies, they
are our friends. They get military assistance. The American people are paying
the Turks to keep their military
up. So we are responsible for that.
1998 Ron Paul 107:12
This policy makes no sense. Some
day we have to think about the security
of United States. We spend this
money. We spent nearly $100 million
bombing nobody and everybody for who
knows what reason last week. At the
same time our military forces are
under-trained and lack of equipment, and
we’re wasting money all around the
world trying to get more people, see
how many people we can get to hate us. Some day we have to stop and say why
are we pursuing this. Why don’t we
have a policy that says that we should,
as a Congress, defend the United
States, protect us, have a strong military,
but not to police the world in this
endless adventure of trying to be everything
to everybody. We’ve been
on both sides of every conflict since
World War II. Even not too long ago
they were talking about bombing in
Kosovo. As a matter of fact, that is
still a serious discussion. But a few
months ago they said, well, we are not
quite sure who the good guys are,
maybe we ought to bomb both sides. It
makes no sense. Why do we not become
friends to both sides?
1998 Ron Paul 107:13
There are people around the world
that we deal with that are equally repulsive
to Saddam Hussein, and I believe
very sincerely that the founders
of this country were on the right track
when they said stay out of entangling
alliances; that we should trade with
people; we would get along with them
better. We have pursued this type of
policy in Cuba for 40 years, and it has
served Castro well. Why don’t go
down and get rid of Castro? Where do
we get this authority to kill a dictator? We don’t have that authority,
and to do it under one day of hearings,
mark it up, bring it up the next day
under suspension; I don’t understand
why anybody could vote for this just on
the nature of it.
1998 Ron Paul 107:14
We should not be doing this. We
should stop and think about it and try
to figure out a much better way.
1998 Ron Paul 107:15
I, for instance, am on a bill to trade
with Cuba. Oh, how horrible, you shouldn’t trade with Cuba, they are a bunch
of Commies down there. But we should
be selling them rice and we should be
selling them our crops. We shouldn’t
be bombing these people.
1998 Ron Paul 107:16
And you know, at the end of
this bill I think we get a hint as to why
we do not go to Rwanda for humanitarian
reasons. Now there is some
atrocities. Why don’t we clean that
mess up? Because I believe very sincerely
that there is another element
tied into this, and I think it has something
to do with money, and I think it
has something to do with oil. The oil
interests need the oil in Iraq, and he
does not, and Saddam Hussein does not,
comply with the people of the West. So
he has to go.
1998 Ron Paul 107:17
But also at the end of this legislation
it tells us something about what might
be going on. It is th’are asking to set
up and check into the funds that Saddam
Hussein owes to the West. Who’s
owed? They don’t owe me any money. But I will bet you there’s a
lot of banks in New York who are owed
a lot of money, and this is one of the
goals, to set up and make sure Saddam
Hussein pays his bills.
1998 Ron Paul 107:18
All I do is ask you to think
about it, urge you to go slowly. Nothing
is so pressing that we should give
the President this much authority to
go to war.
1998 Ron Paul 107:19
Under the appropriations it’s endless,
it’s open, endless, and here we are
concerned about saving Social Security. Any amount of money spent on
this bill comes out of Social Security. Yes, there was yelling and screaming
about a tax cut. Oh, it is coming out of
Social Security. Well, this money is
not appropriated, and it’s such sums
as necessary for military and economic
benefits. After we get rid of one thug,
we’re going to have it in. I hope we
make a better choice than we did with
Bin Laden. I mean he was our close
ally.
1998 Ron Paul 107:20
Please think twice, slow up, vote
against this bill. We don’t need this.
1998 Ron Paul Chapter 107
In this chapter, Ron Paul blasts the casual manner in which the bill, virtually a declaration of war, was
about to be passed. In 1998 Ron Paul Chapter 106 Ron Paul
claimed the opposition debate time, as both Rep. Gilman and Rep. Hamilton supported the bill.
1998 Ron Paul 107:8
Where Ron Paul says authority to pursue, arrest, and convict and try he puts the actions in the wrong order. authority to pursue, arrest, and try, and convict would have made more sense.
1998 Ron Paul 107:10 The people of Iraq certainly have not done anything to the United States, and we certainly can find leaders around the world that have not done equally bad things.
probably should be in the affirmative:
The people of Iraq certainly have not done anything to the United States, and we certainly can find leaders around the world that have done equally bad things.
1998 Ron Paul 107:12 the security of United States probable should be
the security of the United States.
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