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Which Candidate Was Right About Iraq?

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Published : November 15th, 2011
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Of all the candidates running for the Republican nomination, only one was right – if not prescient – about the big foreign policy issue of the day, namely, the war in Iraq. I speak of course of Congressman Ron Paul. The whole world now knows, as even the CIA has admitted, that the war was based on a lie; there never were any "weapons of mass destruction" that threatened the U.S.; Saddam Hussein, as evil as he was, posed no threat to America; and he had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Bin Laden in fact hated Hussein because Iraq was a secular society.


Nor does the neocon chant that the terrorists attacked on 9/11 because "they hate our freedoms" make any sense at all. America was much freer decades ago before it became the fascist police state that it is today, and there were no terrorist attacks back then. The truth is that it is the neocons, with their PATRIOT Act, threats to suspend Habeas Corpus (and even the internet), warrantless wiretaps, internet censorship and spying, and their chant that "9/11 changed everything!" (translation: the hell with the Constitution) who are the real enemies of American freedom.

All of the bought-and-paid-for neocon chickenhawks who are running for the Republican nomination, from Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, were and are cheerleaders for endless unconstitutional war in the Middle East. They never, ever, seem to get enough of it. Only Ron Paul has expressed learned intelligence grounded in history and constitutionalism on the issue. Anyone who is interested should read his 2007 book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship.


The book is a collection of Congressman Paul’s speeches in the U.S. House of Representatives on the topic of foreign policy. On September 14, 2001, Congressman Paul made perhaps his most important point about the then-threatened wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when he said, "it is crucial to understand why we were attacked, which then will tell us by whom we were attacked." The neocon establishment ignored him, the result of which was the senseless war in Iraq that led to needless death of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.


While Congressman Paul warned against "inadvertent or casual acceptance of civilian deaths as part of this war," the neocon establishment ignored him and proceeded to demonize all Muslims everywhere to "justify" the indiscriminate murder of civilians. By contrast, the bloodthirsty and quite insane-sounding New Gingrich, who is now said to be "rising in the polls," once wrote a Wall Street Journal article arguing for the military invasion and occupation of Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and North Korea all at once. Such an endeavor could never occur without the resurrection of military conscription.


In 2001 Congressman Paul warned against "finding ourselves needlessly entrenched in conflicts unrelated to our national security," which of course is exactly what has occurred over the past decade, repeating the American foreign policy record of the past several decades. The latest gambit is military invention in Central Africa of all places, where the Obama administration has sent "military advisors," Vietnam style.

On September 25, 2001 Congressman Paul warned his congressional colleagues that it is "no easy task to destroy an almost invisible, ubiquitous enemy spread throughout the world, without expanding the war or infringing on our liberties here at home . . . above all else . . . our mandate and our key constitutional responsibility [is] protecting liberty and providing for national security." The neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East have made Americans less secure by creating more enemies in the Muslim world while turning America into a fascist police state, the symbols of which are the jack-booted thugs (and quite a few perverts) known as TSA bureaucrats, with their naked x-ray porno-tron machines and their rubber-gloved groping of thousands of travelers every day, including small children and the elderly wearing adult diapers.


In the same speech Congressman Paul pointed out the absurdity of "rewarding" government failures with bigger budgets and more bureaucrats. (I call this DiLorenzo’s first law of politics: In government, failure is success). "Bureaucracies by nature are ineffiecient," he wrote. "The FBI and CIA records [about terrorists] come up short. The FBI loses computers and guns and is careless with records. The CIA rarely provides timely intelligence. The FAA’s idea of security against hijackers is asking all passengers who packed their bag."


Despite these obvious truths "the clamor now," the congressman wrote in 2011, was "to give more authority and money to these agencies," which of course was done. In government, failure is success. The alternative proposed by Congressman Paul at the time was to privatize the FAA and allow the airlines to handle their own security. He pointed out the obvious fact that, had the FAA allowed pilots to arm themselves, 9/11 would never have happened.


Congressman Paul also provided a precise definition of a war in Afghanistan in his September 25, 2001 speech: "a foolish invasion of a remote country with a forbidding terrain . . . a country that no foreign power has ever conquered throughout history." This, too, was ignored completely by the neocon establishment. Instead of an endless quagmire in a country like Afghanistan, Congressman Paul recommended the targeting of "Osama bin Laden and his key supporters" instead. The neocon establishment was not the least bit interested in this either, for their main objective was (and is) to militarily occupy the entire Middle Ease to protect "American interests," which essentially means the interests of a relatively small handful of corporations who rake in billions while financially supporting the careers of the Washington political establishment. It is not the "interest" of the average American taxpayer that is of any concern to them.


"Maintaining an overseas empire is incompatible with the American tradition of liberty and prosperity," Congressman Paul said on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on September 5, 2002, echoing the foreign policy views of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. He predicted that "the financial drain and the antagonism that it causes with our enemies, and even our friends, will finally force the American people to reject that policy outright." As the dollar continues to be devalued by the Fed’s legalized counterfeiting machine, creating new financial bubbles that are bound to burst eventually, Congressman Paul’s prediction is bound to become reality. His opponents in the race for the Republican nomination, by contrast, behave like so many finely-groomed, expensive suit-wearing ostriches with their heads firmly implanted in the sand.


Thomas DiLorenzo


Article originally published on www.LewRockwell.com.

 

 

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Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College, Maryland, and a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is the author or co-author of ten books, on subjects such as antitrust, group-interest politics, and interventionism generally
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This Canadians biggest fear is that Ron Paul will not be elected. It is no wonder the Establishment does not recognize him. Why would they recognize integrity, ethics and intelligence. They should bow down in its presence. I particularly am reassured by his foreign policy of friendship. Canadians feel bullied into trading freedoms for security by a paranoid Homeland Security whose reach is transborder.


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DiLorenzo pushes Congressman Ron Paul as an examplar of sanity and freedom. Yet it is Paul who said the USA was responsible for the 9/11 attack. In the debate of Sept 12th,

http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1109/12/se.06.html

Paul said: "They have more attacks against us and the American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11, but we're there occupying their land."

And:

"Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have been explicit -- they have been explicit, and they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing -- "

This is whom DiLorenzo wants as President? An appologist for terrorists? But, then, given DiLorenzo's other stances, what else to expect. In his numerous tirades against President Lincoln and General Sherman, I have never read an article where he condemned the South (who initiated violence with an attack on Fort Sumpter) or their slave system -- nor praised Lincoln or the North for ending it. If he has written such articles please direct me to them. Yet he calls America 'a fascist police state.'

In my opinion, DiLorenzo is an much an appologist as Paul.



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War in Iraq was won at time of 2008 election minus one detail. Like to metals, you only get paid at a price if you sell at that price. It was in fact Obama who used in 2006 the notion of an ROI regards Iraq before supporting withdrawal under any terms.

1) What ROI Obama? 2) What prevented Obama's support against the war as part of a larger Democrat counter movement to cut war funding in 2006? 3) Or, again in 2008, this time as foil to an overly ambitious Republican lobby when America completed its mission - and the price of its gold was still very high?

Fronted man, Obama arrives at places that serve no one well.

Jump to 2011-12. 4) What's the price of gold regards Iraq today? 5) What trough did Obama sell America out for and just so campaign could say he had the business of war down and in time for his re-election circuit? Disingenuous pretender! A cub scout, working for the bobcat patch has more integrity to offer here. And his is no wolf or bear chasing gold and silver arrows - kid just has to be able to put his navy on. In contrast, Ameican fighting men and women applied skilled labor, hard effort, expertise, and resource to Iraq. In Iraq, American blood was spilt. Grant that the Iraq War was no Vietnam. It was 21st Century American warfare. Fuck Obama team's political candy arse'd calibration of each drop. The pud pullers - Their assaying is lowrent and worse than masturbation, which at least feels good. As such, Obama team announces only the unsatisfying, because it serves in truth no one well. It certainly failed to bolster in restraint or thoughtful action supported indignance the good outcome of any well timed policy of the United States!

The words aren't harsh enough. What is the fucking ROI Obama had to have in 2006 (this is public record)? Why was America in Iraq as long as it was? If Bush Jr handed a baton with a lead (he did), then Obama booted the exchange, skipped his lane, and then declared (still without an ROI) that the race was some travesty, which must be addressed as part of a new Obama agenda. All they had to do in 2008-09 was demand an invite from an Iraq beholden to their will for its own existence. Nope, and not doing this is like not selling gold you own at the high price that will be available over the course of your ownership. Statements as to the success or failure of the Iraq War find their rubric here.

The five questions above are thus ones Americans must now consider even if (especially if) Ron Paul was right.

Then fair judgment can be applied to conditions as they now actually are. Here's a preview to fair judgment regards conditions as they actually are. Whatever Bush Jr was, Obama is a disgrace and clown, who is yet both current POTUS and seeking re-election.

America, throw his sorry lame ass out of the White House!
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This Canadians biggest fear is that Ron Paul will not be elected. It is no wonder the Establishment does not recognize him. Why would they recognize integrity, ethics and intelligence. They should bow down in its presence. I particularly am reassured by  Read more
Jotis - 11/15/2011 at 11:02 PM GMT
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