Topic: Foreign Policy
Ron Paul vs. the Seven Dwarfs: American Foreign Policy That Makes Sense While he still only gets a small amount of time in the debates, his message is beginning to reach Republicans who aren't blinded by Bushian, neo-con machismo. Are they listening?by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Unlike every other Republican candidate on the stage in last night's CNN/YouTube debate, only Ron Paul demonstrated that he truly "gets it" when it comes to foreign policy. Witness his comment in reply to an attack on his position on Iraq. He said, "The best thing we can do for the Iraqi people is to give them their country back. That's the most important thing that we can do." He went on to make a great point about Vietnam. He said, "Just think of the cleaning up of the mess after we left Vietnam. Vietnam is now a friend of ours. We trade with them. Their president comes here. What we achieved in peace was unachievable in 20 years of the Americans and the French being in Vietnam. So it's time for us to take care of America first."
How true! What we and the French and the Chinese (don't forget them!) did in Vietnam was terrible, yet Vietnam survived. They rebuilt. And what Dr. Paul did not say, because there wasn't enough time to say it all in 30 seconds, is that Vietnam represented the nightmare scenario of cold-war hawks. It was the key domino in the Domino Theory. Remember the Domino Theory? That was the idea that if Vietnam fell to communism, then the rest of Southeast Asia would fall to communism, and this would be a catastrophe for American interests.President Eisenhower first voiced the idea in an April 1954 press conference in which he said, "Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences."
Well, America ended up withdrawing from Vietnam in the mid-1970s, and sure enough, Vietnam fell to communism, as did the rest of Southeast Asia. Now here's the key point. Despite this, despite the fact that the worst DID happen, Vietnam is our peaceful trading partner today! And I submit that if we hadn't interfered for 20 years, Vietnam would be much closer to becoming a free society today. It was our interference that has helped keep them in the communist embrace, but over time it is becoming increasingly clear that the communist embrace will dissipate and is dissipating.
So when I hear modern day neo-con hawks and their allies claiming that we can't leave Iraq because it will undermine American interests, I have to ask myself what kind of drugs are they smoking? It's clear to me that the hawks are never going to learn that continued American military presence in other countries based on fear of what might happen to American interests if they withdraw does not produce positive results (except if you're a company like Halliburton, of course).
The discouraging part is that every Republican candidate on that stage last night talked the neo-con line except for one. The encouraging part was that the one exception was Ron Paul. Call it the contrast of Ron Paul vs. the Seven Dwarfs.
Senator McCain shot back that, "We never lost the battle in Vietnam; it was American public opinion that cost us the war." Senator McCain obviously doesn't get it. Public opinion didn't cost us the war in Vietnam. Rather public opinion pulled us out of a bad foreign policy in Vietnam, which resulted in things getting better, not worse. McCain's limited vision that wars are all about "winning" the war (by which he means using military intervention to force other countries to bend to our national will) shows its tattered logic when compared to the reality of what happened after we left Vietnam as the "losers." The reality is that America's leaders over that 20 year period set us up to be the losers by putting us there in the first place. In that scenario, the only way to "win" was to withdraw.
McCain went on to claim that the difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that Vietnam didn't want to follow us home, that Al-Qaedda wants to have a base in Iraq in order to launch attacks against the U.S. He said, "Their ultimate destination isn't Iraq. Their ultimate destination is New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, and Arizona." Ron Paul isn't the most graceful speaker in the world. He stumbles and trips over his own words. But the message is what is driving his campaign and his supporters, not the man himself. He managed to shoot back at McCain the following, "[Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz even admitted that Al-Qaedda was organized and energized by our military base in Saudi Arabia. He understood why they came here. They come here because we're occupying their country, just as we would object if they occupied our country." This kind of clear understanding is why Ron Paul has more financial support from active duty servicemen than John McCain has. That financial support is also why McCain is so upset with Ron Paul.
The only thing wrong with his statement is that Paul should have said that we're occupying their countries, in the plural, and I'm sure that's what he intended. Al-Qaedda isn't just about Iraq. They're also about Saudi Arabia, and Palestine, and Egypt, and all of the other more than 100 countries around the world where American troops reside on a regular basis and are used to force American views and American pressure on the governments of those nations and other nations in those same regions. And before some neo-con objects that Palestine isn't a country, can we agree that they should be? Even President Bush, in his fevered mind, thinks so these days. He's holding talks at the Naval Academy toward that end. His approach can't work, because it's based on forcing America's will on other countries, but nevertheless even he now recognizes that there must be a country called Palestine.
Tom Tancredo shot back that America is under threat from Radical Islam and that we would be under threat even if there was not a single American serviceman outside of this country. But what's his evidence for this claim? What is the evidence of any advocate for this claim? The only evidence is their own fear. Tancredo gave no evidence, and neither did anyone else. All of the other six Republican dwarfs on that stage accepted Tancredo's claim as a given truth, not to be touched, not to be questioned.
It's nonsense, of course. But what's worse is that it flies in the face of what American public opinion says: that we shouldn't remain in Iraq, that it's time to find a way to leave. McCain claimed that American public opinion is what lost Vietnam. As I showed above, his claim is wrong, because his idea of what is a "loss" turned out to be not a loss at all, but McCain and the rest of the Seven Dwarfs are using that ill-named "loss" to convince themselves to ignore American opinion and blame it for our failures, atrocities, and horrible mistakes regarding Iraq. They're threatening that if America withdraws from Iraq, then American public opinion is at fault.
The reality, however, is quite different. It is the Bush administration, the neo-cons, the hawks, who are at fault where Iraq is concerned. They're the ones who got us in that mess in the first place, in pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) which we know didn't even exist. Bush knew they didn't exist all along, but neo-cons try to sweep that under the rug. Instead, they keep chanting their same old mantra about not leaving Iraq until we "finish the job." Except it's a job that America can't finish. It's time to hand Iraq back to the Iraqi people.
The Seven Dwarfs are out of step with American public opinion, and by insisting on rallying the Republican Party behind any other candidate besides Ron Paul, they are guaranteeing a showdown on Election Day where the majority of Americans are asked to voice their support for Bush administration foreign policy, which the Seven Dwarfs all support. That will mean almost certain defeat for the Republican candidate if it's not Ron Paul, regardless of whether Paul stays in the race as a third-party candidate or not.
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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007
Last modified: Thursday, November 29, 2007
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I am so mad at this country, I guess that's why I am so motivated and so engaged in Ron Paul's campaign. I served 5 years in the NAVY, was honorably discharged in 2005, and now go to school. I joined the NAVY for school benifits, but also becase I am proud to be an American, and I was proud to serve my country. But I don't recognize the America I enlisted into in 2000. We are going broke, and no one is really talking about it accept Ron Paul. He want to go into D.C. and cut entire departments, not just a few programs, becase he realizes that we need to amputate a few limps, if were going to save the body. Yes people, things are bad, inflation is out of control, oil is $100 per barrel, and we haven't even begun to feel the full effect of the housing market crash, but people still are most concerned about abortion and gay merrage (I am gay by the way, and still think Hillary is awful and Guilani is too even though they both are rather supportive of gay rights). I am doing my very best to educate my friends about Ron Paul without being annoying, but most of them like Hillary or Obama; it's sad. So I guess I have decided that if Ron Paul doesn't make it through the primary's, I am going to then vote the the worst, most ruthless, most war hungary, fiscially unconcertaive, person running. I live in Minnesota, and are parmary is later, so Ron Paul might be done with by the time we get to vote, so I think I will vote for McCain. He's looking forward to nukeing IRAN, and he hates gay people. Why would I do this? Well it easy. If American's are so out of touch, and unengaged in politics and major issues today, even after everything that is so obviously happening around them, well then I want to vote for another war monger who will only further erode the dollar and our living standard, because then, and maybe then, when more than half the working class of America must work two jobs just to but food on the damn table and heat their homes, they might wake up and pay attention to what really is going on rather than wathing Oprah and reading People. John McCain would be perfect. While nuking IRAN, and threatning Russia, he would be talking about how Reganie he is, or even better, FDR. He'll tell people how important is is to sacrifice, and how important inflation is to "fight the commies and the muslums." Everytime I would then hear someone complaining about the price of this, or how many hours they have to work, I'll will simply laugh and tell them they got what they wanted, they voted for another Neo-Con(Hillary and Obama are Neo-Con's too; I think they will also spread the war).
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2007-11-29 09:28:35
It was hard to watch this debate. You have to endure the blather of 7 people who I would not hire to run this nation to get to listen for a few seconds to one wise old statesman. It was hard. The questions were an attempted demeaning setup posing as questions that were as dark of spirit as anything I saw on the FOX debates.
The guy in the first video even had the evil sneer and squinty eyes while he gave his delivery. Pathetic.
The second question is the same question they ask Ron Paul in every damn debate, "are you going to run as an independant" same ol same ol. man this is getting old.
You know Rome left Mesopotamia eventually. Their occupation cost them their empire. Perhaps that it what it is going to take for the electorate of the United States to come to their senses. The bad part for us is that we the people get stuck with packing up the tab for all this human folly and rampant greed. The one guy out there that wants to take us off of that path is the one that is attacked at every turn.
America seems to have maybe 10% of her electorate awake, educated, and motivated enough to lead us off this course. That is still a very big minority. One that will likely get louder to the point of being shrill in order to be felt as well as heard I guess.
I agree with you, Mr. Thiessen, except that Mr. Tancredo would have answered that 9/11 is his evidence. While many of us realize that our aggressive and destructive foreign policy is not a response to the events of that day, the challenge to those of us who support Dr. Paul is to convince our conservative friends that while he advocates immediate withdrawal from the middle east, he does not dismiss the threat that Islam represents. However, I am not aware of Dr. Paul having addressed this contention; perhaps you can direct us to a source?
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2007-11-29 10:58:14
George: you are correct...that is the typical response. It is a response which denies the fact that 9/11 cannot be considered evidence that Al-Qaedda would attack if we had no military presences elsewhere, simply because we did have military presences all over the globe at the time of the attack.
Regarding your question: I didn't find anything by Dr. Paul that directly tackles the subject. However, you might take a look at this article at Lew Rockwell because it has some references to the threat. Also, this second article at Lew Rockwell discusses some of the reasons Muslims distrust the West.
Finally, you might send a note to the Paul Campaign to see if you can get them to have Dr. Paul make a comment explicitly on this issue.
I wish that Ron Paul would use Harry Browne's logic regarding Islamic terrorissm. If I remember correctly, Harry Browne recognized that people like Osama bin Laden wanted to conquer the world and establish an Islamic caliphate. However, he pointed out quite sensibly that no one would listen to Osama bin Laden or others like him if the USA had a non-interventionist foreign-policy. The proof is in the pudding: Islamic terrorists do not attack Switzerland.
If the evildoers couldn't recruit supporters, then they couldn't threaten the USA.
Michael - you should do like I do, wait til the next day and watch Ron Paul's highlights on YouTube. I can't stand watching that nonsense either.
I don't know about you guys, but I thought that was Dr. Pauls best debate performance thus far, in spite of his limited air time. That smackdown of McCain was priceless, as was the comment that "Washington DIDN'T change him" and the reference to the Revolution at the end was inspiring. I was pumped :)
Dear Ron Paul,
Congratulations, you've once again managed to come in dead last among candidates who actually campaigned in a primary - except this time, you can't blame it all on those Jesus freaks in Iowa. This was New Hampshire, which should have been your most fertile territory in all the early primary states. And unfortunately, it looks like "your most fertile territory" still pretty much equates to "Republicans don't like you or your message."
At this point, I'd favor action by the Congressional Republican Caucus to extricate you from their ranks. There are lots of reasons for this: the fact that you were, ahem, apparently totally unaware of the racist contents of numerous eponymous newsletters, the fact that you thought that the way that Pol Pot cleaned up the mess after we left Vietnam was great, the fact that you've publicly stated that we should not defend South Korea if the North Koreans attacked, the fact that you see Jack Kemp and Bob Dole as terrorists, but not the PLO, and well, we could go on and on. I think there are plenty of reasons listed above that the Republicans in Congress wouldn't want to be associated with you - and it appears that Republican primary voters are also not comfortable with you being associated with our party. And while nobody wants to kick members out of the Caucus when we're in the minority, in extreme cases, it's necessary for people to know that there's a certain level of scum we won't be associated with.
Now, maybe it doesn't have to come to that. Maybe you can just recognize the obvious and declare that the antipathy is mutual and run as the Libertarian Party member that you really are. I mean, it's not exactly like it would be a new experience for you. And then, when you're done losing as a Libertarian, this time you could not come back and pretend to be a Republican again. It can all be very simple and painless, see? Look, even the anti-war Republicans have loudly proclaimed that you're not their guy, so the sooner we can stop pretending that the liberals, conspiracy theorists and other Libertarians you've got voting for you have any interest in getting a Republican elected, the better.
We're saying it with our votes as loud as we can, Ron: get lost. If you need the message repeated in some different format, we're happy to oblige with that as well.
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2007 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.