Radical Avenue

Here is what Vice President Cheney told the Veterans of Foreign War on August 26, 2002.

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.

As we now know, Cheney was either dishonest or spectacularly wrong on that day. When we’re about to invade a foreign country, America can’t afford to make mistakes like that. Recently Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul shared a much more honest assessment of Iraq.

JUDY WOODRUFF: On Iraq, as you know, the president, all your fellow Republicans say the U.S. has got to stay there in one form or another to fight Islamic extremism. Why are they wrong about that?
REP. RON PAUL: Because our presence there makes extremism worse. We’re more vulnerable to terrorism because we’re over there occupying their country, and they resent it. We would resent it if China occupied our country. What if China came? They look different, they have a different religion, they’re going to impose their religious values and their political values on us. We’d be furious, and yet we’re over there, so we incite the radicals against us. After 9/11, we went into Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, we’ve occupied two countries now. They were already complaining that our support for countries like Saudi Arabia and our military presence in Saudi Arabia was one of the inciting reasons for them to come here. So we did exactly the opposite of what we were supposed to do. Now we’re in worse shape.
Our military is run down. We’ve spent a half a trillion dollars. We’ve lost all these men and women. We’ve had 40,000 serious casualties. And all we can do is dig in our heels and say, “Well, we can’t leave because there will be chaos.” We’ve created chaos. The longer we stay the more chaos and the more expenses we’re going to have.

Here are Mr. Paul’s thoughts on Iran and the CIA.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You’d do away with the CIA, I saw. Is that correct or not?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, not all of the functions, but essentially so. The CIA is what gets us into trouble. I mean, the CIA is what really started things in the Middle East, because the CIA went in and overthrew Mosaddeq in 1953. We put in the shah. The CIA murdered Diem, or participated in the overthrow of the government in Vietnam, which leads to trouble.
It’s a secret government. Congress has no idea what the CIA is doing, because nobody knows, other than what the CIA is. It is one of the things that is not characteristic of a free society.

It’s too bad we can’t elect three of the presidential candidates to share presidential duties for the next four year term. Mr. Paul has the right take on foreign policy. Our Constitution does not describe an empire. We declared our independence from the British Empire back in 1776. Is that too long ago for anyone to remember?

Here are some reasons why the United States should get out of the empire building business.
- We insinuate ourselves into the internal politics of foreign countries and it blows up in our face.
- Innocent people get killed.
- We end up taking sides in civil conflicts and compromising our principles as a result.
- Policing the world is expensive.
- It puts our military in untenable positions. Quagmires don’t end well.
- We have plenty of internal problems to deal with.

A freedom loving country doesn’t meddle in the internal affairs of other countries. A peaceful country doesn’t launch unilateral attacks based on questionable intelligence. A country that cares about human rights doesn’t torture prisoners of war. A country that stands for the rule of law doesn’t incarcerate detainees in secret foreign prisons.

Liberty’s losing ground in America.

Iran, Iraq, CIA, Cheney, Bush, Ron Paul, foreign affairs, foreign policy, world affairs, quagmire