The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under
the Speaker’s announced policy of January
7, 1997, the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. PAUL) is recognized for 50 minutes
as the designee of the majority leader.
1998 Ron Paul 15:1
Mr. PAUL.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I had a
chance to pick a topic for my special
order today, I would call it the folly of
foreign intervention.
1998 Ron Paul 15:2
We have heard very much in the last
few weeks about the possibility of a
war being started in the Persian Gulf. It looks like this has at least been delayed
a bit. There is a temporary victory
brought about by Secretary General
Kofi Annan of the United Nations
in agreement with the government of
Iraq.
1998 Ron Paul 15:3
This, I think, is beneficial. At least it
gives both sides more time to stop and
think and talk before more bombs are
dropped.
1998 Ron Paul 15:4
Before we left about 10 days ago from
the Congress, I think many Members
and much of the Nation thought that
within a short period of time, within a
week or so, there would be additional
bombing by the Americans over Baghdad.
1998 Ron Paul 15:5
There were polls out at that time
that said 70 percent of the American
people endorsed this move, something
that I questioned and of course I question
the legitimacy of dealing with policy
by measuring polls, anyway. I
think we should do what is right, not
try to decide what is right by the polls. But in this circumstance, I think the
polls must have been very, very misleading.
1998 Ron Paul 15:6
We heard a gentleman earlier this
evening from North Dakota mention
when he was at home essentially nobody
was telling him that they were in
favor of the war. I think most Members
of Congress on this past week on visiting
home had the same message. Certainly
there was a very loud message in
Columbus at a town hall meeting. It
was written off by those who wanted to
go to war and wanted to drop the
bombs by saying, well, no, this was just
a very noisy bunch of hippies who are
opposed to the war. Well, let me tell you, there are a lot of
people in this country who are opposed
to the war and they are not hippies. I
think to discredit people who oppose
going and participating in an act of
war and try to discredit them by saying
that they belong to a hippie generation,
I think they are going to lose
out in the credibility argument in this
regards.
1998 Ron Paul 15:7
But this debate has been going on for
quite a few months, and it looks like it’s
not resolved. Although there has been
an agreement, it’s far from a victory
for either side. It is somewhat ironic
about how this has come about, because
it seems that those of us who
have been urging great caution have
been satisfied with at least a temporary
solution, yet we are not entirely
satisfied at all with the
dependency
on the effort by the United States
enforcing U.N. resolutions. In this case
I think what we must do is reassess the
entire policy because it is policy that
gets us into trouble.
1998 Ron Paul 15:8
It is in this one instance. We did not
just invent foreign interventionism in
foreign policy. This has been going on
for a long time. The worst and the first
egregious example, of course, was in
Korea where we went to war under the
U.N. banner and was the first war we
did not win. Yet we continue with this
same policy throughout the world. Hardly can we be proud of what happened
in Vietnam. It seems like we are
having a lot more success getting along
with the Vietnamese people as we trade
with them rather than fight with them.
1998 Ron Paul 15:9
There is a lot of argument against
this whole principle of foreign interventionism,
involvement in the internal
affairs of other nations, picking
leaders of other countries. We were
warned rather clearly by our first
President, George Washington, that it
would be best that we not get involved
in entangling alliances and that we instead
should talk with people and be
friendly with people and trade with
people. Of course the first reaction
would be, yes, but the person that we
are dealing with as leader of Iraq is a
monster and therefore we cannot trust
him and we should not talk to him. There have been a lot of monsters in
the world and we have not treated
them all the same way. Just think of
the tremendous number of deaths to
the tune of millions under Pol Pot. At
that time we were even an ally of his. Even the inconsistency of our policy
where in the 1980s we actually encouraged
Saddam Hussein. We sold him
weapons. We actually had participated
in the delivery of biological weapons to
Hussein. At that time we encouraged
him to cross the border into Iran. We
closed our eyes when poison gases were
used.
1998 Ron Paul 15:10
So all of a sudden it is hard to understand
why our policy changes. But once
we embark on a policy of intervention
and it is arbitrary, we intervene when
we please or when it seems to help, it
seems then that we can be on either
side of any issue anytime, and so often
we are on both sides of many wars. This does not serve us well. A policy
design that is said to be pro-American
and in defense of this country where we
follow the rules and follow the laws
and we do not get involved in war without
a declaration by the Congress, I
think it would be very healthy not
only for us as Americans but it would
be very healthy for the world as a
whole.
1998 Ron Paul 15:11
I am very pleased that there has been
at least a pause here, although our
troops will be maintained there and
they are waiting to see if there is some
other excuse that we can go in there
and resume the bombing. But the
whole notion that we are going to
bring Hussein to his knees without the
cost of many American lives I think is
naïve, because nobody has proposed
that we go in and invade the country.
1998 Ron Paul 15:12
There have been proposals that we just
assassinate Hussein, which is illegal. At least that is acknowledged that this
is an illegal act, to go in and kill another
leader, although we have been involved
in that too. But many people
have argued that this should be our
policy now, and that is to topple Hussein.
1998 Ron Paul 15:13
But we used the CIA in Cuba a few
decades ago. Now it has just been revealed
that our CIA botched the job.
1998 Ron Paul 15:14
Also, those individuals who were trying
to restore freedom to Cuba, we let
them down by them assuming we would
do more and then we did less. We were
very much involved in overthrowing a
leader in South Vietnam right before
the rampant escalation of the war
there. That did not serve us well. And
then there is another example of our
CIA putting a government in charge
over in Iran. That is when we put the
Shah in. But this did not bring peace
and stability to the region. It brought
us hostage takings and hostility and
hatred and threats of terrorism in this
country. So although many will make
the moral cause for doing good around
the world, there is no moral justification
if we are going to follow the laws
of this land and try to stick to the
rules of providing a national defense
for us and a strong foreign policy.
1998 Ron Paul 15:15
I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee
(Mr. DUNCAN).
Notes:
