ANTI-WAR CONSERVATIVES, REP. RON PAUL SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE IRAQ ADVENTURE
What I like about Llewelyn Rockwell is his staunch anti-war beliefs.
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Ron Paul (R.TX) gave an outstanding speech in the House yesterday. Here's the transcript:
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Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
In the House of Representatives, September 5, 2002
Introduction
Mr. Speaker:
Thomas Jefferson spoke for the founders and all our early presidents when he stated: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none..." which is, "one of the essential principles of our government." The question is: Whatever happened to this principle and should it be restored?
We find the 20th Century was wracked with war, peace was turned asunder, and our liberties were steadily eroded. Foreign alliances and meddling in the internal affairs of other nations became commonplace. On many occasions, involvement in military action occurred through UN resolutions or a presidential executive order, despite the fact that the war power was explicitly placed in the hands of Congress.
Since World War II, nearly 100,000 deaths and over a quarter million wounded (not counting the many thousands that have been affected by Agent Orange and the Persian Gulf War Syndrome) have all occurred without a declaration of war and without a clear-cut victory. The entire 20th century was indeed costly, with over 600,000 killed in battle and an additional million wounded.
If liberty had been truly enhanced during that time, less could be said about the imperfections of the policy. The evidence, however, is clear that we as a people are less free, and the prosperity we still enjoy may be more illusionary than many realize. The innocent victims who have suffered at the hands of our militarism abroad are rarely considered by our government. Yet they may well be a major factor in the hatred now being directed toward America. It is not currently popular to question corporate and banking influence over a foreign policy that replaced the wisdom of Washington and Jefferson. Questioning foreign government influence on our policies, although known about for years, is not acceptable in the politically correct environment in which we live.
There's little doubt that our role in the world dramatically changed in the 20th century, inexorably evolving from that of strict non-interventionism to that of sole superpower, with the assumption that we were destined to be the world policeman. By the end of the 20th century, in fact, this occurred. We have totally forgotten that for well over a hundred years we followed the advice of the founders by meticulously avoiding overseas conflicts. Instead we now find ourselves in charge of an American hegemony spread to the four corners of the earth.
Now we have entered the 21st century, and there is not a country in the world that does not either depend on the U.S. for protection, or fear her wrath if they refuse to do her bidding. As the 20th century progressed, American taxpayers were required to finance, with great sacrifices to their pocketbooks and their liberty, the buying of loyalty through foreign aid and intimidation of those countries that did not cooperate.
The question remains, however: Has this change been beneficial to freedom and prosperity here at home, and has it promoted peace and trade throughout the world? Those who justify our interventionist policies abroad argue that the violation of the rule of law is not a problem, considering the benefits we receive for maintaining the American empire. But has this really taken into consideration the cost in lives lost, the damage to long-term prosperity, as well as the dollar cost and freedoms we have lost? And what about the future? Has this policy of foreign intervention set the stage for radically changing America – and the world – in ways not yet seen? Were the founders completely off track because they lived in different times, or was the foreign policy they advised based on an essential principle of lasting value? Choosing the wrong answer to this question could very well be deadly to the grand experiment in liberty begun in 1776.
The Slippery Road to World Policeman
The transition from non-interventionism to our current role as world arbiter in all conflicts was insidious and fortuitous. In the early part of the 20th century, the collapse of the British Empire left a vacuum, which was steadily filled by a US presence. In the latter part of the century, the results of World War II and the collapse of the Soviet system propelled us into our current role. Throughout most of the 20th century, it was our competition with the Soviets that prompted our ever-expanded presence around the world. We are where we are today almost by default. But does that justify interventionism or prove it is in our best interest?
Disregarding for the moment the moral and constitutional arguments against foreign intervention, a strong case can be made against it for other reasons. It is clear that one intervention begets another. The first problem is rarely solved, and new ones are created. Indeed, in foreign affairs a slippery slope exists. In recent years, we too often slipped into war through the back door, with the purpose rarely defined or understood and the need for victory ignored.
A restrained effort of intervention frequently explodes into something that we did not foresee. Policies end up doing the opposite of their intended purpose – with unintended consequences. The result is that the action taken turns out to actually be detrimental to our national security interests. Yet no effort is made to challenge the fundamental principle behind our foreign policy. It is this failure to adhere to a set of principles that has allowed us to slip into this role, and if unchallenged, could well undo the liberties we all cherish.
Throughout history, there has always been a great temptation for rulers to spread their influence and pursue empire over liberty. Few resist this temptation to power. There always seems to be a natural inclination to yield to this historic human passion. Could it be that progress and civilization and promoting freedom require ignoring this impulse to control others, as the founders of this great nation advised?
Historically, the driving force behind world domination is usually an effort to control wealth. The Europeans were searching for gold when they came to the Americas. Now it's our turn to seek control over the black gold which drives much of what we do today in foreign affairs. Competing with the Soviet Union prompted our involvement in areas of the world where the struggle for the balance of power was the sole motivating force.
The foreign policy of the 20th century replaced the policy endorsed by all the early presidents. This permitted our steadily growing involvement overseas in an effort to control the world's commercial interests, with a special emphasis on oil.
Our influence in the Middle East evolved out of concern for the newly created state of Israel in 1947, and our desire to secure control over the flow of oil in that region. Israel's needs and Arab oil have influenced our foreign policy for more than a half a century.
In the 1950s, the CIA installed the Shah in Iran. It was not until the hostage crisis of the late 1970s that the unintended consequences of this became apparent. This generated Iranian hatred of America and led to the takeover by the reactionary Khoumini and the Islamic fundamentalists. It caused greater regional instability than we anticipated. Our meddling in the internal affairs of Iran was of no benefit to us and set the stage for our failed policy in dealing with Iraq.
We allied ourselves in the 1980s with Iraq in its war with Iran, and assisted Saddam Hussein in his rise to power. As recent reports reconfirm, we did nothing to stop Hussein's development of chemical and biological weapons and at least indirectly assisted in their development. Now, as a consequence of that needless intervention, we're planning a risky war to remove him from power. And as usual, the probable result of such an effort will be something our government does not anticipate – like a takeover by someone much worse. As bad as Hussein is, he's an enemy of the Al Qaeda, and someone new may well be a close ally of the Islamic radicals.
Although our puppet dictatorship in Saudi Arabia has lasted for many decades, it's becoming shakier every day. The Saudi people are not exactly friendly toward us, and our military presence on their holy soil is greatly resented. This contributes to the radical fundamentalist hatred directed toward us. Another unfavorable consequence to America, such as a regime change not to our liking, could soon occur in Saudi Arabia. It is not merely a coincidence that 15 of the 9/11 terrorists are Saudis.
The Persian Gulf War, fought without a declaration of war, is in reality still going on. It looks now like 9/11 may well have been a battle in that war, perpetrated by fanatical guerillas. It indicates how seriously flawed our foreign policy is. In the 1980s, we got involved in the Soviet/Afghan war and actually sided with the forces of Osama bin Laden, helping him gain power. This obviously was an alliance of no benefit to the United States, and it has now come back to haunt us. Our policy for years was to encourage Saudi Arabia to oppose communism by financing and promoting Islamic fundamentalism. Surely the shortcomings of that policy are now evident to everyone.
Clinton's bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan on the eve of his indictment over Monica Lewinsky shattered a Taliban plan to expel Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan. Clinton's bombing of Baghdad on the eve of his impeachment hardly won any converts to our cause or reassured Muslim people in the Middle East of a balanced American policy.
The continued bombing of Iraq over these past 12 years, along with the deadly sanctions resulting in hundreds of thousands of needless Iraqi civilian deaths, has not been beneficial to our security. And it has been used as one of the excuses for recruiting fanatics ready to sacrifice their lives in demonstrating their hatred toward us.
Essentially all Muslims see our policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being openly favorable toward Israel and in opposition to the Palestinians. It is for this reason they hold us responsible for Palestinian deaths, since all the Israeli weapons are from the United States. Since the Palestinians don't even have an army and must live in refugee camps, one should understand why the animosity builds, even if our pro-Israeli position can be explained.
There is no end in sight. Since 9/11, our involvement in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia has grown significantly. Though we can badger those countries – whose leaders depend upon us to keep them in power – to stay loyal to the United States, the common people of the region become more alienated. Our cozy relationship with the Russians may not be as long-lasting as our current administration hopes, considering the $40 billion trade deal recently made between Russia and Saddam Hussein. It's more than a bit ironic that we find the Russians now promoting free trade as a solution to a difficult situation while we're promoting war.
This continuous escalation of our involvement overseas has been widespread. We've been in Korea for more than 50 years. We have promised to never back away from the China-Taiwan conflict over territorial disputes. Fifty-seven years after World War II, we still find our military spread throughout Europe and Asia.
And now, the debate rages over whether our national security requires that we, for the first time, escalate this policy of intervention to include "anticipatory self-defense and preemptive war." If our interventions of the 20th century led to needless deaths, unwinnable wars, and continuous unintended consequences, imagine what this new doctrine is about to unleash on the world.
Our policy has prompted us to announce that our CIA will assassinate Saddam Hussein whenever it gets the chance and that the government of Iraq is to be replaced. Evidence now has surfaced that the United Nations inspection teams in the 1990s definitely included American CIA agents who were collecting information on how to undermine the Iraqi government and continue with the routine bombing missions. Why should there be a question of why Saddam Hussein might not readily accept UN inspectors without some type of assurances? Does anybody doubt that control of Iraqi oil supplies, second only to Saudi Arabia, is the reason U.S. policy is belligerent toward Saddam Hussein? If our goal is honestly to remove dictators around the world, then this is the beginning of an endless task.
In the transition from the original American foreign policy of peace, trade, and neutrality to that of world policeman, we have sacrificed our sovereignty to world government organizations, such as the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. To further confuse and undermine our position, we currently have embarked on a policy of unilateralism within these world organizations. This means we accept the principle of globalized government when it pleases us, but when it doesn't, we ignore it for the sake of our own interests
<To be continued....> |
