Ron Paul: Congress Could End Obama's Wars

[Clockwork]

Originally posted by Rep. Ron Paul:

Our foreign policy was in the spotlight last week, which is exactly where it should be. Almost two years ago, many voters elected someone they thought would lead us to a more peaceful, rational coexistence with other countries. However, while attention has been focused on the administration’s disastrous economic policies, its equally disastrous foreign policies have exacerbated our problems overseas.

Especially in times of economic crises we cannot afford to ignore costly foreign policy mistakes. That’s why it’s important that U.S. foreign policy receive some much-needed attention in the media, as it did last week with the leaked documents scandal. Many are saying that the Wikileaks documents tell us nothing new. In some ways that is true. Most Americans knew that we have been fighting losing battles; these documents show just how bad it really is. The revelation that Pakistani intelligence is assisting the people we are bombing in Afghanistan shows the quality of friends we are making with our foreign policy.

This kind of thing supports points that Rep. Dennis Kucinich and I tried to make on the House floor last week with a privileged resolution that would have directed the administration to remove troops from Pakistan pursuant to the War Powers Resolution. We are not at war with Pakistan. Congress has made no declaration of war. Actually, we made no declaration of war on Afghanistan or Iraq either, but that is another matter. Yet we have troops in Pakistan engaging in hostile activities, conducting drone attacks and killing people. We sometimes manage to kill someone who has been identified as an enemy, yet we also kill about ten civilians for every one of those. Pakistani civilians are angered by this, yet their leadership is mollified by our billions in bribe money. We just passed an appropriations bill that will send another $7.5 billion to Pakistan. One wonders how much of this money will end up helping the Taliban.

This whole operation is clearly counterproductive, inappropriate, immoral, and every American who values the rule of law should be outraged. Yet these activities are being done so quietly that most Americans as well as most members of the House don’t even know about them.
We should follow constitutional protocol when going to war. It’s there for a reason. If we are legitimately attacked it is the job of the Congress to declare war. We then fight the war, win it and come home. War should be efficient, decisive and rare. However, when Congress shirks its duty and just gives the administration whatever it wants with no real oversight or meaningful debate, wars are never-ending, wasteful and political.

Our so-called wars have been become a perpetual drain on our economy and liberty. The founders knew that heads of state are far too eager to engage in those very conflicts. That is why they entrusted the power to go to war with the deliberative body closest to the people: the Congress. Decisions to go to war need to be supported by the people. Wars should not be covert or casual. We absolutely should not be paying off leaders of a country while killing their civilians, without expecting to create a lot of new problems. This is not what America is supposed to be about.

 

[SiscoKid]

Good Grief!!!!

The trouble with issues and facts and wars is that many people will suddenly come down with "Selective Recall". It's a little like Nostalgia. We tend to remember the good times of our youth and forget the bad times. Sure, I remember the fine '55 Chevy I once had as a teenager, and that gasoline was just $.19 a gallon. But I forget that I was working for $.75 an hour stocking grocery shelves and often had less than $2 in my wallet.

So too we want to end these "unjustified" wars that are costing us brave young soldiers a couple at a time. We tend to forget the attacks on our country, here and abroad, even back in the 90's. To me it was very sad to read when the bombing of the USS Cole happened, several women were killed by the blast as they were standing in the morning chow line. Having stood in a few chow lines at Parris Island, Lejune, and Pendleton, you never think of danger at that moment.

Some of us can never forget what was going through our minds while watching 9/11 unfold on live TV. But some on the left want to forget it ever happened, want to move on, want to bury our heads in the sand. Like it or not, believe it or not, no one battle in US history was as devastating or carried the implications of that day. Once again, it was US citizens going about their normal day at work and being brutally murdered. The cost in dollars is hardly ever discussed, it was estimated that 9/11 cost the US economy one trillion dollars in one day. The felling of helplessness and despair was immeasurable.

Immediately after the initial hurt wore off, people were mad, mad as hell. Recently I saw a video of the Letterman Show on 9/12, he had Dan Rather on and the two were discussing how soon Bush would swing into action, and go into Iraq. Two LIBERALS discussing attacking another country? Hard to believe today, ain't it? But too every liberal democrat at that time, save for Kucinich, who wouldn't swat a fly, wanted us to retaliate at whomever the bad guys were, all of them. We started with Afghanistan, because we knew they were staged there, then we knew Saddam Husseine was a bad, bad guy and he was next.

Getting to the point. There is a good reason why Ron Paul is not going to win any nomination. He's an isolationist, a pacifist. He believes, like many liberals, that we can bring our military home, fortify our country, and let the rest of the world meander by. They will all LOVE us, won't ask for any more of our money, will join hands with us and sing Kumbayaaa, Kumbayaa, Kumbayaa.

It ain't nevah going to happen in this world, anytime soon.

 

[Texan2]

Sisco,
You make good points, but we are not getting any closer to "winning" in Afghanistan. We are still geared to a traditional war, where we go in, lower a flag, raise OUR flag and we win. We are good at that kind of war.
Performing the duties of an occupying force is something we are not good at and something that the public does not seem to have the intestinal fortitudde for. So the question becomes, how do we "win"?
Our enemy has pledged their lives and that of the next 1000 generations of offspring to beat us. That is called resolve. Our citizens are primarily focused on who is gonna win "Dancing With the Stars". See the difference?

 

[Clockwork]

Iraq and Afghanistan didn't attack us on 9/11, Al Qaeda attacked us. Don't you think that declaring a "War on Terror" is about as effective as the declaration of the "War on Drugs" has been going? Osama bin Laden isn't even in Afghanistan! He's in freaking Pakistan, our supposed "friends" who we send money to and in turn their intelligence services assist terrorists against us.

So we toppled a foreign government because the leader was simply "a bad guy"? That's illegal. Ron Paul isn't a pacifist, he just believes in not getting involved in foreign entanglements like the founding fathers believed.

Would you rather us secure our own damn borders or secure the Iraq/Syria border? Which is more important to you?

 

[Texan2]

Would you rather us secure our own damn borders or secure the Iraq/Syria border? Which is more important to you?

hmmmm....i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say lets work on our own borders....but thats just me.

 

[West Texas]

hmmmm....i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say lets work on our own borders....but thats just me.

I'm thinking you might be on to something...

 

[oldguy]

While I support our troops I certainly do not agree with nation building, I would much prefer to have a super strong military with the most modern equipment and if attack strike with such force that no one dares attack in the first place. I do not believe we can afford to be the world's police force building roads and schools trying to convince the local population we are there friends, simply won't work unless your willing to eliminate those over the age of 10 in those countries that have been fighting among themselves and outsiders for years.... The question also becomes how many countries can we occupy, perhaps Iran next, Korea after that, as we continue to lose our middle class, manufacturing base and import poor under educated workers how can we provide for everyone simply printing money like the current administration is doing won't work.

I would doubt calling Ron Paul an isolationist, pacifist, perhaps a constitutionalist, remember if you call for closed borders your an isolationist/ Xenophobia, the liberals use terms like this to control speech. We can do the world the most good by surviving and being the best most productive country in the world we cannot do this via the military and or allowing greedy people to sell us out.

 

[Clockwork]

The United States has troops on the ground in something like 144 countries right now... how absurd is that?

 

[BG1960]

almost as bad as the money we pour into other countries

 

[jfrey]

If the Russians couldn't stop the Taliban in 10 years, what the heck makes us think we can???? Ron Paul just wants us out of an unwinable war with no future. Lets put our tax dollars into something that will do US some good, like closing our borders and cleaning house on DC.

 

[Clockwork]

Hell yeah, jfrey. Well said.

 

[Texan2]

If the Russians couldn't stop the Taliban in 10 years, what the heck makes us think we can???? Ron Paul just wants us out of an unwinable war with no future. Lets put our tax dollars into something that will do US some good, like closing our borders and cleaning house on DC.

+1

 

[308nato]

If the Russians couldn't stop the Taliban in 10 years, what the heck makes us think we can???? Ron Paul just wants us out of an unwinable war with no future. Lets put our tax dollars into something that will do US some good, like closing our borders and cleaning house on DC.

Good idea and to help even more cut off foreign aid to a lot of those countries that dont like us anyway.

 

[wrtanker]

"If the Russians couldn't win in Afghanistan then we sure can't."

Okay, that's not an exact quote but it feels like the gist of it. We're not the Russians and this isn't the same war they fought and we aren't fighting it the way they did. All of which means little. As much as it feels like we're spending lives and money for nothing there, what we're doing is only partially for the Afghans. Strategy and world politics are very complex issues. You have to consider the second and third and fourth order effects of everything you do. We're not in Afghanistan just to give them democracy (which I'm not sure they really want or know what to do with), we have some very real self interests in being there and setting a favorable condition for our presence. This is where the big picture comes in.

 

[Major Woody]

If the Russians couldn't stop the Taliban in 10 years, what the heck makes us think we can???? Ron Paul just wants us out of an unwinable war with no future. Lets put our tax dollars into something that will do US some good, like closing our borders and cleaning house on DC.

I totally agree. We have to squash the communist revolution right here right now.

 

[Clockwork]

"If the Russians couldn't win in Afghanistan then we sure can't."

Okay, that's not an exact quote but it feels like the gist of it. We're not the Russians and this isn't the same war they fought and we aren't fighting it the way they did. All of which means little. As much as it feels like we're spending lives and money for nothing there, what we're doing is only partially for the Afghans. Strategy and world politics are very complex issues. You have to consider the second and third and fourth order effects of everything you do. We're not in Afghanistan just to give them democracy (which I'm not sure they really want or know what to do with), we have some very real self interests in being there and setting a favorable condition for our presence. This is where the big picture comes in.

Here's the problem with winning the war in Afghanistan:

The United States has rules of engagement in modern warfare that make winning this war an impossible scenario. The Russians couldn't even do it without all of the entangling RoEs that the U.S. imposes on warfighters. The war in Afghanistan needs to be fought with schools and exposure to the outside world. Not with bombs. We have to win the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan before any positive improvements can take place in the Taliban-occupied stone age Thunderdome.

 

[Wolfwood]

Here's the problem with winning the war in Afghanistan:

The United States has rules of engagement in modern warfare that make winning this war an impossible scenario. The Russians couldn't even do it without all of the entangling RoEs that the U.S. imposes on warfighters. The war in Afghanistan needs to be fought with schools and exposure to the outside world. Not with bombs. We have to win the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan before any positive improvements can take place in the Taliban-occupied stone age Thunderdome.

there are some issues we dont jibe on, but in this i think you are correct. we need to get out of the middle east. and jsut aobut everywhere else.
put you guys on the borders, AND issue ya'll ammo. pull back the drones, park our ships in US water and tear downt eh UN buildings in the USA.

is this going to happen?
nope.
but i'd sure feel alot better if it did.

and sisco, check the label ony uor kool-aid. it is Issued by the United Nations.
believe it.

 

[SiscoKid]

The war in Afghanistan needs to be fought with schools and exposure to the outside world. Not with bombs. We have to win the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan before any positive improvements can take place in the Taliban-occupied stone age Thunderdome.

Uh, isn't what we eventually did in Iraq, the Patraeus philosophy? But first we must have security, the people must feel they are being protected, then they must be educated. It's why today the scorched earth philosophy cannot be utilized.

Right now, with the "leader" we have today, no one can be sure of anything permanent. General Obammy might get a wild hair, cave in to the Granola Eaters, and pull us out too soon. It would do no good to load up our troops on transports, fly them out, and as the jets clear the runway, the Taliban march in and start the slaughter.

With leaders like Bush, we knew, and more importantly, they knew that was not going to happen.

Win hearts and minds. It's the war philosophy of the 21st century.

 

[West Texas]

If we go in to win, that means there will be "civilians" killed....women and children...and the American People have NO stomach for that. Every since the "war" started being brought into our living rooms on the nightly news, and people have seen that it is messy and bloody and not nice at all, then the politicians have tried to make killing people a nice job through RoE...how's that working for us? Not so good...

So maybe it IS time to go in to "protectionist" mode, pull all the troops out, bring them home, secure our borders, round up the people in our country that shouldn't be in our country and either let them apply to stay here and make them learn the language, get a job, pay taxes or get the hell out....

And if the Islamics, who by the very teachings of this "peacefull" relegion call us "unclean infidels who must die" decide to attack us again, we show our resolve by making the middle east a sheet of glass, one country at a time. Give them a warning, tell them what will happen...they can kill each other all they want and we will stay out of it, but attack our allies and we will not send one man over there, but we WILL send a lot of missles with WMD on them. Then we let them police themselves...might have to make an example out of one or two before they believe that we, as a country, have grown a pair...

In the mean time, we drill baby drill right here in this country...where there is enough olil sitting underground to power us for the next 1000 years.

Not even noon, and I have solved all of the worlds problems...think I'll play golf.

 

[Clockwork]

Win hearts and minds. It's the war philosophy of the 21st century.

It's the sad reality of the world we live in. The face of war has changed in the 21st century. We haven't been fighting battles against standing armies, we fight battles against armed insurgents blending into the civilian population because these unconventional methods of warfare are extremely effective against America. Americans back home in the land of apple pie can't handle the reality of warfare -- images on TV of dead civilians. Families blown up by suicide bombers in marketplaces. It turns our wars from being viewed as "just" following the attacks of 9/11 to being extremely flawed wastes of human lives. American lives.

The only way to win this war is to re-educate the Afghanis, but these people have been living this way for so long that they don't know anything else. Providing education without security won't work because the Taliban will simply roll through and execute anyone learning western values.

So where does that leave us?

I say it leaves us in a no win situation.