Ron Paul and foreign policy

Ron Paul and foreign policy.  This is one area where me and Mr. Paul part ways and it really came to head with his stance on the Iraq War.  Not that I ever believed in his ignore everything that goes on around us philosophy though.  First, lets get the crazy stuff out of the way because I do not want to dwell on it.  Ron Paul has been accused of being a 9/11 truther.  He has come out and publicly said that he does not believe that 9/11 was an inside job so we will take his word for it.  But there is good reason why this idea got out there.  It has to do with who Ron Paul associates with and gets support from. That would be truthers and the liberal anti-war camp.

Mr. Paul is a frequent guest of radio host Alex Jones.  Alex Jones is a 9/11 truther and has websites dedicated to it.  He also spearheaded an effort to build a memorial for David Koresh and his Branch Davidian followers.  He claims that Koresh and his followers were peaceful people who were murdered by Attorney General Janet Reno and the ATF in the infamous Waco incident.  This guy is really out there.  Here is one exchange with a caller and Ron Paul on this show. (and keep in mind that this is a conspiracist show with likeminded callers)

CALLER: I want a complete, impartial, and totally independent investigation of the events of September 11, 2001.   I’m tired of this bogus garbage about terrorism.  Ask Michael Meacher about how he feels about this bogus war on terrorism.  Can you comment on that please?

RON PAUL:  Well, that would be nice to have. Unfortunately, we don’t have that in place.  It will be a little bit better now with the Democrats now in charge of oversight.  But you know, for top level policy there’s not a whole lot of difference between the two policies so a real investigation isn’t going to happen. But I think we have to keep pushing for it.  And like you and others, we see the investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on.

There are many other quotes I could have taken, but I thought this one was interesting.  It is also interesting to see that Alex Jones appears to be an integral part of the Ron Paul attack machine.  Check out this link from one of Jones’ webpages where he coordinates an attack of the Sean Hannity Show because he “smeared (meaning disagreed with)” Ron Paul.   It is very similar to how they spam online voting polls, one of these incidents is documented here. It might be innocent, but money has also switched hands between these two organizations (Ron Paul and Alex Jones that is).

But this is not the only incident.  Michelle Malkin covers an exchange between Ron Paul and members of Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth (Another truther group).  Here is part of that exchange.

STUDENT: …we’ve heard that you have questioned the government’s official account

RON PAUL: Well, I never automatically trust anything the government does when they do an investigation because too often I think there’s an area that the government covered up, whether it’s the Kennedy assassination or whatever

You can see the whole exchange and Michelle Malkin’s comments here.

So maybe Ron Paul is not a truther himself, but he certainly does not shy away from courting their support.  Other conspiracy-esk comments he makes do not help him out much either.  Here is one rant taken from his speech to the Campaign for Liberty regional conference in Atlanta earlier this month.

“There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. … And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. … And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators … We need to take out the CIA.”

I am not really sure how to respond to statements like this so I will just let it stand on its own merit or lack thereof.

The other element that hurts Ron Paul is support from anti-war groups.  This includes Moveon.org and Code Pink.  Moveon.org actually funded and helped to produce a campaign ad for Ron Paul.   You can see it here on a townhall blog.  Probably even less known is how the Ron Paul organization was involved with the protests during the Republican National Convention.  How many remember the guy who interupted John McCain’s speech.  Adam Kokesh is originally from Santa Fe and is described as a “passionate Ron Paul supporter”.  He was interviewed right after he was escorted out by a liberal blogger and revealed that he got a guest pass from a Ron Paul delegate.  Remember the members of Code Pink who interrupted Sarah Palin’s speech.  They also received passes from disgruntled delegates.  Based upon what happened with McCain, I believe these passes came from Ron Paul delegates as well.  It falls in line with something his organization would do.  Here is the story so you can read it for yourself.

Now that I have covered the crazy stuff, I will cover the rational reasons that I oppose Ron Paul’s view on foreign policy.  (afterall, I do not want to get any death threats like Glenn Beck)  It is easiest to dicuss in terms of his position on the Iraq War so lets take a look at it.  When you talk to a Ron Paul supporter you will get a series of arguments for their anti-war stance.  They range from the war is unconstitutional, the war does not meet the criteria for just war, and the ever famous Iraq was no threat.  The best way I think I can explain how to counter these arguments is to paste into this post an email exchange I had with one of these supporters. So here it is.

The argument

i responded in your blog, but want to tell you my opinion of interventionism.  no where in the constitution does it provide for us to police the world.  if this is our policy go through the amendment process.  Jefferson said in his inaugural address, ” i belive in peace, commerce, honest friendship with all nations, & entangling alliances with none.”  this was tj’s opinion on a warfare state, & that is what we have become.  why attack iraq?  15 of the 19 terrorists were from saudi.  have you looked into the criteria for a just war?  established by st thomas aquinas.

1)  last resort, all non-violent options must be exhausted.  (we could have gone further diplomatically, you can always go a little farther diplomatically)

2)  only waged by legitimate authority.  (bush has no authority to request use of force.  Article 1  Sec 8-  power to declare war only to Congress.  Congress shrank back in voting to give bush authorization.  they were more concerned about their jobs than the country. authorization act of 2002 is unconstitutional.  can’t trump the constitution with an act.)

3)  only can be fought to redress a wrong. (iraq is a 3rd world nation 6000 miles from us, had no navy nor air force, gdp equal to a mid size us state, had no wmd’s, was not part of al queda.  chris, they were no threat & pre-emptive war is immoral anyway.)

4)  must posses the right intention.  (the bush crowd said it was all about wmd’s.  do you remember that?  well, there weren’t any, even bush does not contest this now.  the reason iraq was attacked is because bush thought the rest of the middle east would fall like dominos to democracy.  they had the wrong intention.

chris, this is not a just war.

i would like to hear your opinion on why we picked iraq to go to war with.  i think we will have to respectfully agree to disagree my brother.  i have been on your side of these issues and could no longer reconcile them with my conscience.  “bush used innuendo & implication to encourage the american people to believe as fact some things that were unclear & even outright false.  such as the idea that sadaam had an active nuclear weapons program.  and other things were overplayed & completely wrong.  such as inplying that sadaam had an operational relationship with al queda.  either the bush adm. distorted the truth, in which case they were less than honest; or they failed to recognize the truth, in which case they were less than competent.”

My Response

1) I think we had exhausted our diplomatic options.  Of course you can always do more diplomatically, but at some point you have to draw the line.  We had dealt with Saddam and his regime for 12 years with no results.  There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 UN resolutions passed on Iraq during this timeframe.  The oil for food program was corrupt and France and Russia were not going to enforce these resolutions because they were in violation of these resolutions themselves.  Their oil deals were exposed and I personally saw French munitions in Iraq with manufacturing dates as late as 2003.  Explains why they didn’t want us there.

2)  The war was waged on legitimate authority.  Article 1 section 8 discusses the powers given to the legislative branch and says nothing about the executive branch and their right to request force.  The executive branch can request anything they want.  It does not mean that the legislative branch has to honor a request.  The Authorization For Use Of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution was a piece of legislation that authorized the President to use force.  It was written by Congress and voted on by Congress.  Then carried out by the President.  They did not shrink back in voting for the resolution.  They chose to vote for the resolution based upon the information at the time.  Every one of them had a choice to make.  An argument of a declaration of war vs an authorization to use force is one of semantics.  It does not violate our forefathers intentions.  Their fear was that a single person in the form of the President could wage war without the approval of the people.  That is why they gave this power to Congress.  On this precept you could argue that the War Powers Act of 1973 is unconstitutional, but Bush did not use this.  He waited until Congress had given him the authorization.  In the same way, Congress at any time could withdrawal their authorization of force and bring our troops home.  They also chose not to do this.  Despite their rhetoric, I believe they understood the threat and understood the greater threat of leaving with a security and power void in Iraq.  Because of this, I do not feel this situation violates the constitution. The other argument I often hear (which I know you did not use)  is that congressmen did not think Bush would use force, but rather they voted for it because it would put pressure on the UN.  This is absurd.  It has the authorization of force in the name.  If this is what they wanted then they should have passed legislation similar to the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 signed by President Clinton.  This legislation said it should be the policy of the United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but did not authorize force.

3) I will preface my comments here by saying that I think the Bush administration did a horrible job of explaining the authorization of force act to the American people.  This document laid out the reasons for going into Iraq.  I think the Bush Administration relied too much on their intelligence that Saddam had WMDs, which turned out to be incorrect, and did not explain the other reasons listed in the Act.  You tend to link the Administration to the intelligence agencies which are two different entities.  I think they were definitely fooled by false intelligence put out by Saddam and his regime.  A couple of things we learned from Saddam’s interrogation is that he did in fact destroy much of his WMD stockpiles before the war and we also learned that his intention was to get the OK from the UN and then restart his chemical, biological, and nuclear programs.  In addition, he admitted that he was putting out false information about his programs.  That is why our intelligence agency (along with many others around the world) were fooled.  This was revealed by Geroge Piro (the FBI agent who did all the interrogation) during his 60 minutes interview.  I would argue though that there were some stockpiles that did exist, but were moved.  My reason is this.  I was in the 4ID and we were originally supposed to enter Iraq from the North (Turkey).  Our ships were sitting off the Turkey coast when they balked.  We then had to wait in Kuwait while our equipment was moved to meet us.  Because of this there was a period of about 2 weeks between the time the Iraqi Army Units deserted and our arrival in our area of responsibility north of Bagdad.  Once we did arrive, our chemical teams checked out possible sites and were picking up chemical indications on their equipment, but nothing was there.  Local people said that several days before someone came and moved the 50 gal drums that were there.  I am not saying that their definitely were WMDs there, but it was a possibility.

Here are some of the main points listed in the authorization act.

• Iraq’s noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 cease fire, including interference with weapons inspectors.
• Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, and programs to develop such weapons, posed a “threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region.”
• Iraq’s “capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people”.
• Iraq’s “brutal repression of its civilian population.”
• Iraq’s hostility towards the United States as demonstrated by the alleged 1993 assassination attempt of former President George H. W. Bush, and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones following the 1991 Gulf War.
• Members of al-Qaeda were “known to be in Iraq.”
• Iraq’s “continu[ing] to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations,” including anti-United States terrorist organizations.
• The efforts by the Congress and the President to fight terrorists, including the September 11th, 2001 terrorists and those who aided or harbored them.
• The authorization by the Constitution and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism.
• Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 signed into law by President Clinton, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement.

Below I have copied and pasted some evidence (not everything by any means) from some other posts I have written outlining Iraq’s terrorist connections, agression towards the US and their oppression of their own people.

Iraq‘s noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 cease fire.

No one can really argue that Iraq complied with the conditions of the 1991 cease fire. They didn’t even come close. Besides kicking the weapon inspectors out of the country and limiting what they could inspect, they fired almost daily at US aircraft flying the No-Fly Zone. In fact, since the first gulf war there were over 50 resolutions passed that tried to get Saddam and his Regime to conform to the 1991 cease fire. None of which worked.

Iraq‘s alleged weapons of mass destruction and their capability and willingness to use them against other nations and their own people.

We learned from Saddam’s interrogation that the weapon inspectors did in fact destroy most of his WMD stockpile, and he purposely misled the world to think he still had them. Ironically, he did this to keep anyone from invading. We also learned from the interrogation that as soon as the weapon inspectors cleared him, he planned to restart all weapon programs to include his chemical, biological and nuclear programs. It would have been easy. He still had all the facilities and personnel in place, just waiting. As far as his willingness to use them; it is well documented that he used these weapons against Iran as well as his own people. He killed 5,000 people when he used chemical weapons against the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq. Prior to this, he used them against Iran during the Iraq-Iran War. Saddam was a very dangerous man to other nations and his own people or as Senator Kerry eloquently put it, “He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation”.

Iraq‘s brutal repression of its civilian population

Saddam’s atrocities against his own people are almost too numerous to list, but I will do my best to summarize them. From 1992 until 2002, Saddam prevented the UN Special Rapporteur from visiting Iraq. The UN Special Rapporteur’s September 2001 report criticized the regime for “the sheer number of executions,” the number of “extrajudicial executions on political grounds,” and “the absence of a due process of the law.” According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, “victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings, and electric shocks … some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage.”

Saddam Hussein’s Arabization campaigns caused the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, mostly the Kurds in the North and Shiite Muslims in the South. In addition to displacement, it is estimated he killed between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds in the North and thousands of Shiites in the South.

Iraq’s 13 million Shi’a Muslims, the majority of Iraq’s population of approximately 22 million, faced severe restrictions on their religious practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions. I know most would not personally care about this issue, but this is something that is very important to Muslims.

The actions of Saddam’s two sons are also well documented as they often raped and killed girls of their choosing as well as torture and kill those opposed to their father’s rule. The most appalling of his regime’s atrocities is the fact that in the 5 years prior to the invasion 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease. While he was building himself golden palaces, children we dying of hunger. I saw these hungry children first hand as I entered Iraq. They would come running up to our HMWVs with their fingers to their mouth asking for food.

Iraq’s hostility towards the United States

The first direct aggression towards the US occurred on May 17, 1987 when an Iraqi Mirage F-1 jet fighter attacked the American guided missile frigate the U.S.S. Stark with two Exocet missiles- killing 37 American sailors. An investigation showed that the US Ship was in international waters.

In late-April 1993, the United States learned that terrorists had attempted to assassinate former President Bush during a visit to Kuwait. The Kuwaiti authorities arrested 17 persons suspected in the plot to kill Bush using explosives hidden in a Toyota Landcruiser. FBI experts were sent to Kuwait to examine the physical evidence and question all of the suspects. Two of the suspects, Wali ‘Abd Al-Hadi ‘Abd Al-Hasan Al-Ghazali and Ra’d ‘Abd Al-Amir ‘Abbud Al-Asadi, admitted during the FBI interviews that they had participated in the plot at the direction of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. One of them claimed to be a Lieutenant Colonel in the IIS. Based upon the evidence, on June 26, 1993, the Clinton Administration launched a cruise missile attack against a building housing the IIS in Baghdad in retaliation for the assassination attempt on former President Bush.

After the gulf war, the UN created No-Fly Zones in the north and south of Iraq to protect the Kurdish and Shiite populations. On March 28, 2001, General Tommy Franks reported to the House Armed Services Committee that during the prior year alone, coalition forces had flown nearly 10,000 sorties inside Iraqi airspace and those aircraft were engaged by surface-to-air missiles or anti-aircraft fire more than 500 times.

Iraq‘s support of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Saddam’s Regime has a long history of supporting multiple terrorist organizations including al Qaeda through funding, diplomatic support, giving safe haven, and training.Saddam Hussein’s Iraq government funded terrorism mainly through the bonuses paid to the families of Palestinian Homicide Bombers. These bonuses were raised from $10,000 per family to $25,000. Tariq Aziz announced this increase at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002. Between the time Saddam Hussein boosted his bonus payments to the families of Palestinian terrorists and the March 20, 2003 launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured 1,209 people and killed 223 more, including at least eight Americans.

The diplomatic support and safe haven given to terrorists really are one and the same. Lets begin with Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted for his role in the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center attack, which killed 6 Americans and wounded another 1,042. Abdul avoided US authorities and in 1994, it was reported by ABC News that Abdul was living in Baghdad. Coalition forces later discovered documents that showed he was receiving housing and a monthly salary from the Iraqi government. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a fellow planner of the 1993 World Trade Center attack arrived in the U.S with an Iraqi Passport. He was arrested at an Al-Qaeda safe house in Islamabad, Pakistan in 1995 and was extradited to the United States. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Yousef’s uncle is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a senior al-Qaeda member.

The ever famous Al Zarqawi was running a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan when the United States attacked the Taliban. Zarqawi was wounded while fighting American soldiers and is believed to have received medical treatment at Baghdad’s Olympic Hospital, an elite facility run by the late Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein. Once he recovered from this injury, Zarqawi then opened an Ansar al-Islam terrorist training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi is thought to be behind the October 28, 2002 assassination of Lawrence Foley, a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan who worked on international development projects. Later, he led the infamous al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Khala Khadr al-Salahat, accused of designing the bomb that destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 (270 killed) also lived in Iraq. He surrendered to U.S. Marines in Baghdad on April 18, 2003.

The terror mastermind Abu Nidal lived in Iraq between 1999 and August 2002. The Associated Press reported on August 21, 2002, Nidal’s Beirut office said he entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.” Prior to his relocation, he ran the Abu Nidal Organization – a Palestinian terror network behind attacks in 20 countries, at least 407 confirmed murders, and some 788 other terror-related injuries. Of those killed, 17 were known to be Americans.

Abu Abbas, former secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Front, masterminded the October 7-9, 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship. Before he surrendered to Egyptian authorities, his men shot and killed a handicapped 69 year old Jewish American. The hijackers were given free passage in exchange for turning over the remaining hostages, but there Plane was forced to land at a NATO base in Italy by US fighter Jets. There all were taken into custody except Abu Abbas, who was let go because he held an Iraqi Diplomatic Passport. Abu Abbas finally ended up in Baghdad in 1994, where he lived comfortably as one of Saddam Hussein’s guests. Abbas was captured in Iraq in April 2003 by American soldiers.

Hisham al Hussein, the former second secretary at Iraq’s embassy in Manila, was expelled by the Philippine government on February 13, 2003, just five weeks before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Cell phone records indicate he had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, al-Qaeda’s de facto franchise for the Philippines before and after an attack in Zamboanga City, which injured 23 and killed 3 including 1 American. Dan Murphy reported in the February 26, 2003 Christian Science Monitor that these phone records support the televised claim by Hamsiraji Sali, a top Abu Sayyaf terrorist, that the Iraqi diplomat had offered his group Baghdad’s help with joint missions.

The Associated Press reported that Coalition forces shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq. The most famous of these was called Salman Pak. This training site consisted of an urban assault training course, a three-car train for railway-attack instruction, and a commercial airliner.

On April 7, 2003, Agence France Presse reported that US Marines discovered a terrorist training camp operated by the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF). The complex featured bomb-making facilities and pictures of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and PLF faction leader Abu Abbas. Other pictures included the terrorist leader Abu Abbas posing with a Republican Guard brigadier general inside the camp.

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was passed 360-38 in the House and passed unanimously without amendments in the Senate. It was then signed into law by President Clinton. This means almost all Representatives and Senators who are still in office since 1998 voted for this legislation. It shows a couple of things. First, it shows that Iraq was seen as a threat long before Bush took office and the Iraq war was not something cooked up by the Bush administration. Secondly, it was used as a reason for the authorization for military action. This may seem odd as this act did not explicitly give the President authority to go to war, but it did reference Public Law 105-235, which stated Iraq was in breach of its international obligations and urged the President “to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations.” This breach of UN resolutions gave the United States authority to use military action (legally) because a breach re-enacted the orginal authority of force from 1991.

Because of information such as this I believe that Iraq was definitely a threat to not only us, but also the rest of the free world.  But more dangerous than Saddam were his two sons.  Saddam was ruthless, but he was very intelligent.  The same could not be said of his two sons.  I really feared what they would have done once they took power.  Once Saddam restarted his programs I would have feared that they would have used them or at the very least sold them to one of the many terrorist organizations that were operating within their borders.

Iraq was very much like the Taliban and Afghanistan in the fact that they were not controlled by the terrorist organizations, but they did allow them to operate freely within their borders.  This allowed them to plan and train for their terrorist activities around the world.  It would have been just as easy for the next attack against our country to have originated from Iraq.

4)  I think part of this goes back to my comment about how the Bush Administration did a poor job of explaining all the reasons in the authorization act and I also explained why I think they relied on this rationale.  Things are always more complex than the surface, which I think the wording of the authorization act illustrates.  It probably would have been hard to authorize force without the threat of WMDs that we thought existed (hindsight is 20/20)or without Saddam’s oppression of his own people, but I do not think anyone purposely lied to anyone.  It was simply a case of Saddam outwitting our intelligence agencies.

The Bush administration was actually very careful not to say that Saddam had an operational relationship with Al Qaeda.  The stuff the media used was taken out of context.  I do believe they did have some type of relationship with this terrorist group though.  I did not include some of the evidence that further shows this relationship because much of it is single source or at least I couldn’t find numerous sources to confirm it.  However, Iraq’s general support for numerous terrorist organizations is well documented by many who have studied the region.

I will end by saying that no one wants to go to war.  I certainly did not want the combat patch that I now have, but I am willing to take on a threat so that someday my kids wont have to.  And that I feared would be the case if we did not act now.  I know not everyone will agree that Iraq was a threat even with the evidence that exists, but I personally do.

As Frank Caliendo would joke about George W….The End.  So agree with me or not, that was my response to him and that would be my response to any other likeminded person.  Based upon his response to my argument, I gained that he was not knowledgeable of the threats that existed with Iraq or its history.  I could also tell that he had not read the authorization of force legislation (anyone who uses the no WMD rationale usually has not).  But I would say that is not unusual from either side of the argument.  One caveat that I might add is that I thought it was interesting that Ron Paul voted for authorization of the use of force in Afghanistan and then refused to vote for force against Iraq because it was unconstitutional (The Declaration of War issue).  They were virtually the same.  Then I came across an article in Salon.com (liberal blog) that revealed that his staff was baffled by his response to the 9/11 attacks.   Evidently Ron Paul was on the verge of voting against the use of force to defend our country against those who just attacked us.  His initial response was something to the effect of here comes big government.  Based upon this and other comments he has made, I really have to question whether or not he understands the threat that Islam and its fighters bring to our nation.  He repeatedly says that the motive for the Iraq war was to protect our oil interests and he also believes that Islamic terrorist attacks are the result of our intervention around the world.  That may be their latest excuse, but that is not the underlying reason.  Islamic terrorism is not something that just started in the 1970′s.  Terrorism has existed as long as Islam has existed.  Their ultimate goal is to spread Islam to the world, either by choice or by the sword and they would like nothing more than for us to sit by and allow them to do it.  I am afraid that if we follow Ron Paul’s foreign policy advice, we will find ourselves in the same position as other unfortunate cultures throughout history.  Yes, we cannot intervene and police everyone in this world, but we must address threats to our nation when they exist.  I doubt the founding fathers would have a problem with that.

Tagged as: al Qaeda, alex jones, branch davidians, cia, iraq, Ron Paul, truthers