The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. MILLER
of Florida). The gentleman from Texas.
1998 Ron Paul 109:1
Mr. PAUL.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from
California makes a very good point,
that sometimes we get involved in
these battles and we never fight to
complete victory. And he argues the case
for pursuing it and always winning and
take out the dictator that we are opposing.
1998 Ron Paul 109:2
And there is some merit to that argument,
but there’s also a very good reason
why that doesn’t happen and won’t happen. It’s because when you fight
a war for non-national security reasons,
when it’s limited to protecting
oil or some other interest, then there’s
a limitation, there’s no wanting to expand
it.
1998 Ron Paul 109:3
When you fight a war for national security
reasons, you declare the war, the
people join, they are willing to support
it financially, they volunteer to go into
the military, and they fight to win. But we haven’t done that since World
War II, precisely because we have this
namby-pamby foreign policy of being
everything to everybody and we don’t
even defend our national security adequately
enough.
1998 Ron Paul 109:4
The gentleman from California
makes a good point also. He’s concerned
that somebody like Saddam
Hussein may attack us with weapons of
mass destruction. He is precisely right. I’m concerned about that too. But I
would say that our exposure is about
100 times greater because of our policy. Why is it that the terrorists want to go
after Americans? Because we’re always
dropping bombs on people and
telling people what to do. Because we
are the policemen, we pretend to be
the arbitrator of every argument in the
world, even those that have existed for
1,000 years. It’s a failed, flawed policy.
1998 Ron Paul 109:5
So I would say I have exactly the
same concerns, but I think the policy
that we follow has generated this problem,
and it will continue.
1998 Ron Paul 109:6
Let me just close by
talking a little bit about this authorization. It says, there are to be authorized
appropriations, such sums as may
be necessary to reimburse the applicable
appropriation funds. And this is what
the money is to go for: Defense articles,
defense services, military education,
and training. Sounds like getting
ready for the Bay of Pigs. That’s
exactly what we did. And then we
backed off, we weren’t doing it for the
right reason, and of course we have solidified
for 40 years the dictatorship in
Cuba.
1998 Ron Paul 109:7
So do you think our policy
over the last 10 years has actually
helped to weaken Saddam Hussein? Every time he comes out of it stronger. And then those who say, “Well, we
should march in,” we should all question. Those of us here in the Congress
who are so anxious to take out this dictator,
they should be willing to march
themselves, or send their children and
send their grandchildren. Is it worth
that? No, no, we wouldn’t want to do
that, we got to keep our troops safe,
safe from harm, but we’ll just pay
somebody to do it. We’ll pay somebody
to do it and we’ll make wild
promises. Promise the Kurds something. They’ll take care of Saddam
Hussein. And sure enough, the promises
never come through.
1998 Ron Paul 109:10
Mr. ROHRABACHER. You don’t think it’s
proper for us to offer those people who
are struggling for freedoms in Iraq
against their dictatorship a helping
hand?
1998 Ron Paul 109:11
Mr. PAUL.
I think it would be absolutely
proper to do that, as long as it came
out of your wallet and you
didn’t extract it from somebody in
this country, a taxpayer at the point of
a gun and say, look, bin Laden is a
great guy, and I want more of your money.
1998 Ron Paul 109:12
That’s what you did in the 1980s. That’s what the Congress did. They went to
the taxpayers, they put a gun to their
head, and said, you pay up, because we
think bin Laden is a freedom fighter.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, then it was
just not handled correctly.
1998 Ron Paul 109:14
Mr. PAUL.
Well, the policy is flawed. The policy is flawed, and
I think the conclusions that we have
today are logical. I don’t think they
lack logic. I think that if you decide
that we are fighting for our national
security reasons, you never stop short of
victory. So this would go along with
your argument that we
stopped too soon in Iraq. But we weren’t there for national security reasons. They weren’t about to invade us, and
they’re not about to invade us. The
only way we should fear an invasion by
these hoodlums is if we incite them to
terrorism.
1998 Ron Paul 109:15
We should consider this a very serious
piece of legislation. This is a vote
for virtual war and giving more power
to the President. It has an open-ended
appropriation, and if you spend one
nickel on it, you’re going to take it out
of Social Security, the way the budget
works around here.
