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2005 Ron Paul Chapter 128
Not linked on Ron Paul’s Congressional website.
Congressional Record [.PDF]
Foreign Policy
17 December 2005
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr.
DENT). Under the Speaker’s announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. PAUL) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of
the majority leader.
2005 Ron Paul 128:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, our country faces major problems. No longer can
they remain hidden from the American
people. Most Americans are aware the
Federal budget is in dismal shape.
Whether it is Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, or even the private pension
system, most Americans realize
we are in debt over our heads. The welfare
state is unmanageable and severely
overextended.
2005 Ron Paul 128:2
In spite of hopes that supposed reform would restore sound financing and
provide for all the needs of the people,
it is becoming more apparent every day
that the entire system of entitlements
is in a precarious state and may well
collapse. It does not take a genius to
realize that increasing the national
debt by over $600 billion per year is not
sustainable. Raising taxes to make up
the shortfall is unacceptable, while
continuing to print the money needed
will only accelerate the erosion of the
dollar’s value.
2005 Ron Paul 128:3
Our foreign policy is no less of a threat to us. Our worldwide military
presence and our obsession with remaking
the entire Middle East frighten
a lot of people both here and abroad.
Our role as world policeman and nation-
builder places undue burdens on
the American taxpayer. Our enormous
overseas military expenditures, literally
hundreds of billions of dollars,
are a huge drain on the American economy.
2005 Ron Paul 128:4
All wars invite abuses of civil liberties at home, and this vague declaration
of war against terrorism is worse
than most in this regard. As our liberties
here at home are diminished by
the PATRIOT Act and national ID card
legislation, we succumb to the temptation
of all empires to spy on American
citizens, neglect habeas corpus, employ
torture tactics, and use secret
imprisonments. These domestic and
foreign policy trends reflect a morally
bankrupt philosophy devoid of any concern
for liberty and the rule of law.
2005 Ron Paul 128:5
The American people are becoming more aware of the serious crisis this
country faces. Their deep concern is reflected
in the current mood in Congress.
The recent debate over Iraq
shows the parties are now looking for
someone to blame for the mess we are
in. It is a high-stakes political game.
The fact that a majority of both parties
and their leadership endorsed the
war and accept the same approach towards
Syria and Iran does nothing to
tone down the accusatory nature of the
current blame game.
2005 Ron Paul 128:6
The argument in Washington is over tactics, quality of intelligence, war
management, and diplomacy, except
for the few who admit that tragic mistakes
were made and now sincerely
want to establish a new course for Iraq.
Thank goodness for those who are willing
to reassess and admit to those mistakes.
Those of us who have opposed
the war all along welcome them to the
cause of peace.
2005 Ron Paul 128:7
If we hope to pursue a more sensible foreign policy, it is imperative that
Congress face up to its explicit constitutional
responsibility to declare
war. It is easy to condemn the management
of a war, one endorsed, while deferring
to the final decision about
whether to deploy the troops to the
President. When Congress accepts and
assumes its awesome responsibility to
declare or not declare war as directed
by the Constitution, fewer wars will be
fought.
2005 Ron Paul 128:8
Sadly, the acrimonious blame game is motivated by the leadership of both
parties for the purpose of gaining or retaining
political power. It does not approach
a true debate over the wisdom
or lack thereof of foreign military
interventionism and preemptive war.
2005 Ron Paul 128:9
Polls indicate ordinary Americans are becoming uneasy with our prolonged
war in Iraq which has no end in
sight. The fact that no one can define
victory precisely, and most Americans
see us staying in Iraq for years to
come, contributes to the erosion of
support for this war. Currently, 63 percent
of Americans disapprove of the
handling of the war, and 52 percent say
it is time to come home. Forty-two
percent say we need a foreign policy of
minding our own business. This is very
encouraging. The percentages are even
higher for the Iraqis. Eighty-two percent
want us to leave, and 67 percent
claim they are less secure with our
troops there.
2005 Ron Paul 128:10
Ironically, our involvement has produced an unusual agreement among the
Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis, the three
factions at odds with each other. At
the recent 22-member Arab League
meeting in Cairo, the three groups
agreed on one issue. They all want foreign
troops to leave. At the end of the
meeting, an explicit communique was
released: “We demand the withdrawal
of foreign forces in accordance with a
timetable and the establishment of a
national and immediate program for
rebuilding the armed forces that will
allow them to guard Iraq’s borders and
get control of the security situation.”
2005 Ron Paul 128:11
Since the administration is so enamored of democracy, why not have a national
referendum in Iraq to see if the
people want us to leave? After we left
Lebanon in the 1980s, the Arab League
was instrumental in brokering an end
to that country’s 15-year civil war. Its
chances of helping to stop the fighting
in Iraq are far better than depending
on the United Nations, NATO, or the
United States.
2005 Ron Paul 128:12
This is a regional dispute that we stirred up, but cannot settle. The Arab
League needs to assume a lot more responsibility
for the mess that our invasion
has caused. We need to get out of
the way and let them solve their own
problems. Remember, once we left Lebanon,
suicide terrorism stopped and
peace finally came. The same could
happen in Iraq.
2005 Ron Paul 128:13
Everyone is talking about the downside of us leaving and the civil war that
might erupt. Possibly so. But no one
knows with certainty what will happen.
There was no downside when we
left Vietnam. But one thing for sure,
after a painful decade of the 1960s, the
killing stopped and no more Americans
died once we left. We now trade with
Vietnam and enjoy friendly relations
with them. This was achieved through
peaceful means, not military force.
2005 Ron Paul 128:14
The real question is how many more Americans must be sacrificed for a policy
that is not working. Are we going
to fight until we go broke and the
American people are impoverished?
Common sense tells us it is time to reassess
the politics of military intervention
and not just look for someone to
blame for falling once again into the
trap of a military quagmire.
2005 Ron Paul 128:15
The blame game is a political event designed to avoid the serious philosophic
debate over our foreign policy of
interventionism. The mistakes made
by both parties in dragging us into an
unwise war are obvious, but the effort
to blame one group over the other confuses
the real issue. Obviously, Congress
failed to meet its constitutional
obligation regarding war. Debate over
prewar intelligence elicits charges of
errors, lies, and complicity.
2005 Ron Paul 128:16
It is argued that those who are now critical of the outcome are just as
much at fault since they too accepted
flawed intelligence when in deciding to
support the war. This charge is leveled
at previous administrations, foreign
governments, Members of Congress,
and the United Nations, all who made
the same mistake of blindly accepting
the pre-war intelligence.
2005 Ron Paul 128:17
But complicity, errors of judgment, and malice are hardly an excuse for
such a serious commitment as a preemptive
war against a nonexistent
enemy. Both sides accepted the evidence
supposedly justifying the war,
evidence that was not credible. No
weapons of mass destruction were
found. Iraq had no military capabilities.
Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein
were not allies. Remember, we were
once allies of both Saddam Hussein and
Osama bin Laden. And Saddam Hussein
posed no threat whatsoever to the
United States or his neighbors.
2005 Ron Paul 128:18
We hear constantly that we must continue the fight in Iraq and possibly
in Iran and Syria because it is better to
fight the terrorists over there than
here. Merely repeating this justification,
if it is based on a major analytical
error, cannot make it so. All evidence
shows that our presence in Iraq,
Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim countries
benefits al Qaeda in its recruiting
efforts, especially in its search for suicide
terrorists.
2005 Ron Paul 128:19
This one fact prompts a rare agreement among all religious and secular
Muslim factions, namely, that the U.S.
should leave all Arab lands. Denying
this will not keep terrorists from attacking
us. It will do the opposite. The
fighting and terrorist attacks are happening
overseas because of a publicly
stated al Qaeda policy that they will go
for soft targets: our allies, whose citizens
object to the war, like Spain and
Italy. They will attack Americans who
are more exposed in Iraq.
2005 Ron Paul 128:20
It is a serious error to conclude that fighting them over there keeps them
from fighting us over here or that we
are winning the war against terrorism.
As long as our occupation continues
and American forces continue killing
Muslims, the incentive to attack us
will grow. It should not be hard to understand
that the responsibility for violence
in Iraq, even violence between
Iraqis, is blamed on our occupation. It
is more accurate to say the longer we
fight them over there, the longer we
will be threatened over here.
2005 Ron Paul 128:21
The final rhetorical refuge for those who defend the war not yet refuted is
the dismissive statement that the
world is better off without Saddam
Hussein. It implies no one can question
anything we have done because of this
fact. Instead of an automatic concession,
it should be legitimate, even if
politically incorrect, to challenge this
disarming assumption. No one has to
like or defend Saddam Hussein to point
out, we will not know whether the
world is better off until we know exactly
what will take Saddam Hussein’s
place. This argument was never used to
justify removing murderous dictators
with much more notoriety than Saddam
Hussein such as our ally Stalin,
Pol Pot whom we helped to get into
power, or Mao Tse Tung. Certainly the
Soviets, with their bloody history and
thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at
us, were many times over greater a
threat to us than Saddam Hussein ever
was. If containment worked with the
Soviets and the Chinese, why is it assumed
without question that deposing
Saddam Hussein is obviously and without
question a better approach for us
than containment?
2005 Ron Paul 128:22
The “we are all better off without Saddam Hussein” cliche does not address
the question of whether the 2,100-
plus American troops killed or the
20,000 wounded and sick troops are better
off. We refuse to acknowledge the
hatred generated by the deaths of tens
of thousands of Iraqi citizens who are
written off as collateral damage. Are
the Middle East and Israel better off
with the turmoil our occupation has
generated? Hardly. Honesty would have
us conclude that conditions in the Middle
East are worse since the war started.
The killing never stops, and the
cost is more than we can bear both in
lives and limbs lost and dollars spent.
In spite of the potential problems that
may or may not come from our withdrawal,
the greater mistake was going
in in the first place.
2005 Ron Paul 128:23
We need to think more about how to avoid these military encounters rather
than dwelling on the complications
that result when we meddle in the affairs
of others with no moral or legal
authority to do so. We need less blame
game and more reflection about the
root cause of our aggressive foreign
policy. By limiting the debate to technical
points over intelligence, strategy,
the number of troops and how to get
out of the mess, we ignore our continued
policy of sanctions, threats and intimidation
of Iraqi neighbors, Iran and
Syria. Even as Congress pretends to
argue about how or when we might
come home, leaders from both parties
continue to support the policy of
spreading the war by precipitating a
crisis with these two countries. The
likelihood of agreeing about who deliberately
or innocently misled Congress,
the media and the American people is
virtually nil. Maybe historians at a
later date will sort out the whole mess.
The debate over tactics and diplomacy
will go on, but that only serves to distract
from the important issue of policy.
Few today in Congress are interested
in changing from our current accepted
policy of intervention to one of
strategic independence. No nation
building, no policing the world, no dangerous
alliances. But the result of this
latest military incursion into a foreign
country should not be ignored. Those
who dwell on pragmatic matters should
pay close attention to the result so far.
2005 Ron Paul 128:24
Since March 2003, we have seen death and destruction, 2,100-plus Americans
killed and nearly 20,000 sick and
wounded, plus tens of thousands of
Iraqis caught in the crossfire. A Shiite
theocracy has been planted. A civil war
has erupted. Iran’s arch nemesis, Saddam
Hussein, has been removed. Osama
bin Laden’s arch nemesis, Saddam Hussein,
has been removed. Al Qaeda now
operates freely in Iraq, enjoying a fertile
training field not previously available
to them. Suicide terrorism spurred
on by our occupation has significantly
increased. Our military-industrial complex
thrives in Iraq without competitive
bids. True national defense and the
voluntary Army have been undermined.
2005 Ron Paul 128:25
Personal liberty at home is under attack; assaults on free speech and privacy,
national ID cards, the PATRIOT
Act, National Security Letters, and
challenges to habeas corpus all have
been promoted.
2005 Ron Paul 128:26
Values have changed, with more Americans supporting torture and secret
prisons. Domestic strife, as recently
reflected in arguments over the
war on the House floor, is on the upswing.
Preemptive war has been codified
and accepted as legitimate and
necessary, a bleak policy for our future.
2005 Ron Paul 128:27
The Middle East is far more unstable, and oil supplies are less secure, not
more. Historic relics of civilization
protected for thousands of years were
lost in the flash while oil wells were secured.
U.S. credibility in the world has
been severely damaged, and the national
debt has increased enormously,
and our dependence on China has increased
significantly as our Federal
Government borrows more and more
money.
2005 Ron Paul 128:28
How many more years will it take for civilized people to realize that war has
no economic or political value for the
people who fight and pay for it? Wars
are always started by governments,
and individual soldiers on each side are
conditioned to take up arms and travel
great distances to shoot and kill individuals
that never meant them harm.
Both sides drive their people into a
hysterical frenzy to overcome the natural
instinct to live and let live. False
patriotism is used to embarrass the
good-hearted into succumbing to the
wishes of the financial and other special
interests who agitate for war. War
reflects the weakness of a civilization
that refuses to offer peace as an alternative.
2005 Ron Paul 128:29
This does not mean we should isolate ourselves from the world. On the contrary,
we need more rather than less
interaction with our world neighbors.
We should encourage travel, foreign
commerce, friendship and exchange of
ideas. This would far surpass our misplaced
effort to make the world like us
through armed force. This can be
achieved without increasing the power
of the state or accepting the notion
that some world government is needed
to enforce the rules of exchange. Governments
should get out of the way and
let the individuals make their own decisions
about how they want to relate
to the world.
2005 Ron Paul 128:30
Defending our country against aggression is a very limited and proper
function of government. Our military
involvement in the world over the past
60 years has not met this test, and we
are paying the price.
2005 Ron Paul 128:31
A policy that endorses peace over war, trade over sanctions, courtesy
over arrogance and liberty over coercion
is in the tradition of the American
Constitution and American idealism. It
deserves consideration.
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