2010 Ron Paul 12:2
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support
of this resolution. I thank the gentleman
from Ohio for bringing this
issue up. It is late. This war started 9
years ago. It’s about time we talked
about it. It was said earlier on it is
hard to quit a war, and we shouldn’t be
quitting. I will tell you what the real
problem is, it is too easy to start a war.
It is too easy to get involved. And that
is our problem.
2010 Ron Paul 12:3
The founders of this country tried
very hard to prevent this kind of a dilemma
that we are in now; getting involved
in no-win wars and nobody
knowing exactly who the enemy is. The
war was started and justified by
quoting and using the war powers resolution
written in 1973. That was written
after the fiasco of Vietnam to try
to prevent the problem of slipping into
war. Yet that resolution in itself was
unconstitutional because it literally
legalized war for 90 days without Congressional
approval. It did exactly the
opposite.
2010 Ron Paul 12:4
So here we are, the 90-day permission
for war at that time now is close to 9
years. I am afraid that this is too little,
hopefully not too late for us to do
something about this. Are we going to
do it for 10 more years? How long are
we going to stay? And the enemy is
said to be the Taliban. Well, the
Taliban, they certainly don’t like us,
and we don’t like them. And the more
we kill, the more Taliban we get.
2010 Ron Paul 12:5
But I want to quote the first line of
the resolution passed back in 2001, explaining
the purpose for giving the
President the power, which was an illegal
transfer of power to the President
to pursue war at will. It said,
“To authorize
the use of United States Armed
Forces against those responsible for
the recent attacks launched against
the United States.”
The Taliban didn’t
launch an attack against the United
States. The Government of Afghanistan
didn’t launch it.
2010 Ron Paul 12:6
The best evidence is that of those 20
individuals who participated in the 9/11
attacks, two of them might have
passed through Afghanistan. A lot of
the planning was done in Germany and
Spain, and the training was done here
in the United States. Oh, yes, the
image is that they all conspired, a
small group of people with bin Laden,
and made this decision. Right now the
evidence is not there to prove that. But
certainly bin Laden was very sympathetic,
loved it, and wanted to take
credit for it.
2010 Ron Paul 12:7
One of the reasons why he wanted to
take credit was that it would do three
things he wanted: First, it would enhance
his recruitment efforts for al
Qaeda and his attacks against western
powers who have become overly involved
in control of the Middle East
and have had a plan for 20 years to remake
the Middle East. He also said
that the consequence of 9/11 will be
that we will bog the American people
down in a no-win war and demoralize
the people. There is still a lot of moral
support, but there is a lot of people in
this country now that the country is
totally bankrupt and we are spending
trillions of dollars on these useless
wars that people will become demoralized,
because history shows that all
empires end because they expand too
far and they bankrupt the country, just
as the Soviet system came down. And
that is what bin Laden was hoping for.
He also said that the dollars spent will
bankrupt this country. And we are
bankrupt. And yet there is no hesitation
to quit spending one cent overseas
by this Congress.
2010 Ron Paul 12:8
We built a huge embassy in Baghdad,
we built an embassy in Kabul, billion-
dollar embassies, fortresses, and it’s all
unnecessary. Nobody is really concerned.
If people were concerned about
the disastrous effect of debt on this
country, we would change our foreign
policy and we would be safer for it. We
are not safer because of our foreign policy.
It is a policy of intervention that
has been going on for a long time, and
it will eventually end.
2010 Ron Paul 12:9
This war is an illegal war. This war is
an immoral war. This war is an unconstitutional
war. And the least you
could say is it is illegitimate. There is
no real purpose in this. The Taliban did
not attack us on 9/11. You know, after
we went into Afghanistan, immediately
the concerns were shifted to remaking
the Middle East. We went into Iraq,
using 9/11 as a justification. It was
nothing more than an excuse. Most
Americans, the majority of Americans
still believe that Saddam Hussein had
something to do with 9/11. And I imagine
most Americans believe the
Taliban had something to do with 9/11.
It is not true.
2010 Ron Paul 12:10
We need to change our foreign policy
and come back to our senses and defend
this country and not pretend to be the
policeman of the world.
