Not linked on Ron Paul’s Congressional Website.
I yield to my friend, my colleague, a
physician and Congressman, RON PAUL
of Texas.
2009 Ron Paul 96:1
Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman for
yielding, and I want to express my appreciation
for your getting this Special
Order on this very important subject.
2009 Ron Paul 96:2
Of course, a lot of people in this
country are asking, What should we do
about Afghanistan? It’s a pretty important
question. It might be one of the
most important questions that we are
asking right now. And yet nobody
seems to have an answer. I think the
difficulty in finding an answer comes
sometimes from not having fully understood
why we got there. I just can’t
imagine this debate that’s going on
within our government today, the executive
branch, the legislative branch,
and with the people – can you imagine
this going on during World War II? How
many troops should we have? What is
our exit strategy? Who is our enemy?
How are we going to impose democracy?
It’s so far removed from what a
traditional responsibility is of our government,
which is to provide national
security.
2009 Ron Paul 96:3
Now they have practically run out of
excuses for why we are over in Afghanistan.
The only one that is left that
they seem to cling to is that we are
there for national security; we want to
fight the bad guys over there because
we don’t want to fight them over here.
I will talk a little about that later;
but, quite frankly, I think that’s a fallacious
argument and actually makes
things a lot worse.
2009 Ron Paul 96:4
It just bewilders me about how we
get trapped into these situations. I
happen to believe that it’s because we
get ourselves involved too carelessly,
too easily and we don’t follow the Constitution,
because under the Constitution,
you’re supposed to declare the
war, know who your enemy is, and
know when you can declare victory and
bring the troops home. And we did that
up until and through World War II. But
since then, that hasn’t been the case.
2009 Ron Paul 96:5
I recall a book I read in the 1980s
written by Barbara Tuchman. She
wrote a book called the “March of
Folly,” and she went back as far as
Troy, all the way up through Vietnam
and took very special interest in countries
where they were almost obsessed
or possessed with a policy, even though
it was not in their interest, and the
foolishness and the inability to change
course. She died in 1989, but I keep
thinking that if she had lived, she
would probably write a history of our
recent years, another “march of folly.”
2009 Ron Paul 96:6
Just think of what has happened
since the Berlin Wall came down and
the Soviet system collapsed. It didn’t
take us long. Did we have any peace
dividends? No. There were arguments
for more military spending, we had
more responsibility, we had to go and
police the world. So it wasn’t long
after that, what were we doing? We
were involved in the Persian Gulf war.
2009 Ron Paul 96:7
And then, following that, we had decades
of bombing in Iraq which didn’t
please the Arabs and the Muslims of
the world and certainly the Iraqis, but
it had nothing to do with national security.
2009 Ron Paul 96:8
And then, of course, we continued
and accelerated our support of the various
puppet governments in the Middle
East. In doing so, we actually went to
the part of not only supporting the
governments, but we started putting
troops on their land. And when we had
an air base in Saudi Arabia, that was
rather offensive. If you understand the
people over there, this is a violation of
a deeply held religious view. It is considered
their holy land; and foreigners,
especially military foreigners, are seen
as infidels. So if you’re looking for a
fight or a problem, just put troops on
their land.
2009 Ron Paul 96:9
But also, as a result of the policy
that we have had in the Middle East,
we have been perceived as being anti-
Palestinian. This has not set well either.
Since that time, of course, we
haven’t backed off one bit. We had the
Persian Gulf war, and then we had 9/11.
2009 Ron Paul 96:10
We know that 9/11 changed everything.
We had 15 individuals from
Saudi Arabia, a few from Yemen and a
few from Egypt, but, aha, this is an excuse
that we have got to get the bad
guys. So where are the bad guys? Well,
Iraq, of course. Of course, they figured,
well, we can’t quite do that, let’s go
into Afghanistan. Of course, not one
single Afghani did anything to us.
They said, oh, no, the al Qaeda visited
there.
2009 Ron Paul 96:11
But I just can’t quite accept the fact
that the individuals that were flying
those airplanes got their training by
going to these training camps in Afghanistan
doing push-ups and being
tough and strong. What did they do?
Where was the planning? The planning
was done in Spain and they were accepted
there in legal bases. They were
done in Germany; they were accepted
there. As a matter of fact, they even
came to this country with legal visas.
And they were accepted by the countries.
2009 Ron Paul 96:12
And, no, no, we said, it’s the Taliban;
it’s the people of Afghanistan, never
questioning the fact that a few years
back, back in 1989 when the Soviets
were wrecking the place, we were allied
with the people who were friends of
Osama bin Laden, and we were over
there trying to support him. So he then
was a freedom fighter.
2009 Ron Paul 96:13
And the hypocrisy of all this and the
schizophrenia of it all, they were on
again and off again. No wonder we get
ourselves into these difficulties. And it
doesn’t seem to ever lead up.
2009 Ron Paul 96:14
The one assessment that was made
after Vietnam, and I think you can
apply it here, is how do we get in and
why do we get bogged down? And two
individuals that were talking about
this, East and West, Vietnam and the
United States, they sort of came to the
conclusion that we, the Americans,
overestimated the ominous power of
our military, we could conquer anybody
and everybody. And we underestimated
the tenacity of people who are
defending their homeland, sort of like
we were defending our homeland in the
Revolutionary War, and the invaders
and the occupiers were the Red Coats.
There’s a big difference, and you can
overcome all kinds of obstacles; but we
have never seemed to have learned
that. And unless we do, I don’t think
we can solve our problems.
2009 Ron Paul 96:15
Indeed, we have to realize that we are
not the policemen of the world. We
cannot nation-build. And Presidential
candidates on both sides generally tell
the people that’s what they want, and
the people say, keep our fingers
crossed, hope it’s true. But then, once
again, our policies continue down the
road, and we never seem to have the
energy to back off of this.
2009 Ron Paul 96:16
I emphasize, once again, that I think
we could keep our eye on the target,
emphasize what we should be doing if
we went to war a lot more cautiously,
if we have an enemy that we have to
fight in our national defense and then
there is a declaration of war.
Mr. KAGEN. Would the gentleman
yield for a moment?
