Chapter 12. 2001

In my last significant foreign policy statement prior to 9/11, I suggested that our foreign policy was leading us toward a significant and potentially disastrous violent conflict.

February 8, 2001
POTENTIAL FOR WAR
HON. RON PAUL of TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Speaker, I have asked for this special order today to express my concerns for our foreign policy of interventionism that we have essentially followed throughout the 20th Century.

Mr. Speaker, foreign military interventionism, a policy the U.S. has followed for over 100 years, encourages war and undermines peace. Even with the good intentions of many who support this policy, it serves the interests of powerful commercial entities.

Perpetual conflicts stimulate military spending. Minimal and small wars too often get out of control and cause more tragedy than originally anticipated. Small wars, like the Persian Gulf War, are more easily tolerated, but the foolishness of an out-of-control war like Vietnam is met with resistance from a justifiably aroused nation.

But both types of conflicts result from the same flawed foreign policy of foreign interventionism. Both types of conflict can be prevented. National security is usually cited to justify our foreign involvement, but this excuse distracts from the real reason we venture so far from home. Influential commercial interests dictate policy of when and where we go. Persian Gulf oil obviously got more attention than genocide in Rwanda.

If one were truly concerned about our security and enhancing peace, one would always opt for a less militaristic policy. It is not a coincidence that U.S. territory and U.S. citizens are the most vulnerable in the world to terrorist attacks.

Escalation of the war on terrorism and not understanding its causes is a dangerous temptation. Not only does foreign interventionism undermine chances for peace and prosperity, it undermines personal liberty. War and preparing for war must always be undertaken at someone’s expense. Someone must pay the bills with higher taxes, and someone has to be available to pay with their lives.

It is never the political and industrial leaders who promote the policy who pay. They are the ones who reap the benefits, while at the same time arguing for the policy they claim is designed to protect freedom and prosperity for the very ones being victimized.

Many reasons given for our willingness to police the world sound reasonable: we need to protect our oil; we need to stop cocaine production in Colombia; we need to bring peace in the Middle East; we need to punish our adversaries; we must respond because we are the sole superpower, and it is our responsibility to maintain world order; it is our moral obligation to settle disputes; we must follow up on our dollar diplomacy after sending foreign aid throughout the world. In the old days it was, we need to stop the spread of communism.

The excuses are endless. But it is rarely mentioned that the lobbyists and the proponents of foreign intervention are the weapons manufacturers, the oil companies, and the recipients of huge contracts for building infrastructures in whatever far corners of the Earth we send our troops. Financial interests have a lot at stake, and it is important for them that the United States maintains its empire.

Not infrequently, ethnic groups will influence foreign policy for reasons other than preserving our security. This type of political pressure can, at times, be substantial and emotional. We often try to please too many, and by doing so support both sides of conflicts that have raged for centuries. In the end, our effort can end up unifying our adversaries while alienating our friends.

Over the past 50 years, Congress has allowed our presidents to usurp the prerogatives the Constitution explicitly gave only to the Congress. The term “foreign policy” is never mentioned in the Constitution, and it was never intended to be monopolized by the president. Going to war was to be strictly a legislative function, not an executive one. Operating foreign policy by executive orders and invoking unratified treaties is a slap in the face to the rule of law and our republican form of government. But that is the way it is currently being done. U.S. policy over the past 50 years has led to endless illegal military interventions, from Korea to our ongoing war with Iraq and military occupation in the Balkans. Many Americans have died. and many others have been wounded or injured, or have just simply been forgotten.

Numerous innocent victims living in foreign lands have died, as well, from the bombings and the blockades we have imposed. They have been people with whom we have had no fight but who were trapped between the bad policy of their own leaders and our eagerness to demonstrate our prowess in the world. Over 500, 000 Iraqi children have reportedly died as a consequence of our bombing and denying food and medicine by our embargo.

For over 50 years, there has been a precise move towards one-world government at the expense of our own sovereignty. Our presidents claim that our authority to wage wars comes from the United Nations or NATO resolution, in contradiction to our Constitution and everything our Founding Fathers believed.

U.S. troops are now required to serve under foreign commanders and wear UN insignias. Refusal to do so prompts court-martial.

The past president, before leaving office, signed the 1998 UN-Rome treaty indicating our willingness to establish an international criminal court. This gives the UN authority to enforce global laws against Americans if ratified by the Senate. But even without ratification, we have gotten to the point where treaties of this sort can be imposed on non-participating nations. Presidents have, by executive orders, been willing to follow unratified treaties in the past. This is a very dangerous precedent. We already accept the international trade court, the WTO. Trade wars are fought with the court’s supervision, and we are only too ready to rewrite our tax laws as the WTO dictates.

The only portion of the major tax bill at the end of the last Congress to be rushed through for the president’s signature was the foreign sales corporation changes dictated to us by the WTO.

For years the U.S. has accepted the international financial and currency management of the IMF, another arm of one-world government.

The World Bank serves as the distributor of international welfare, of which the U.S. taxpayer is the biggest donor. This organization helps carry out a policy of taking money from poor Americans and giving it to rich foreign leaders, with kickbacks to some of our international corporations.

Support for the World Bank, the IMF, the international criminal court, always comes from the elites and almost never from the common man. These programs, run by the international institutions, are supposed to help the poor, but they never do. It is all a charade. If left unchecked, they will bankrupt us and encourage more world government mischief.

It is the responsibility of Congress to curtail this trend by reestabilishing the principles of the U.S. Constitution and our national sovereignty. It is time for the United States to give up its membership in all these international organizations.

Our foreign policy has led to an incestuous relationship between our military and Hollywood. In December, our Secretary of Defense used $295,000 of taxpayers’ money to host a party in Los Angeles for Hollywood bigwigs. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said it was well worth it. The purpose was to thank the movie industry for putting the military in a good light.

A similar relationship has been reported with TV stations licensed by the U.S. government. They have been willing to accept suggestions from the government to place political messages in their programming. This is a dangerous trend, mixing government and the media. Here is where real separation is needed.

Our policy should change for several reasons. It is wrong for our foreign policy to serve any special interest, whether it is for financial benefits, ethnic pressures, or some contrived moral imperative. Too often the policy leads to an unintended consequence, and more people are killed and more property damaged than was intended.

Controlling world events is never easy. It is better to avoid the chance of one bad decision leading to another. The best way to do that is to follow the advice of the Founders and avoid all entangling alliances, and pursue a policy designed solely to protect U.S. national security interests.

The two areas in the world that currently present the greatest danger to the United States are Colombia and the Middle East. For decades we have been engulfed in the ancient wars of the Middle East by subsidizing and supporting both sides. This policy is destined to fail. We are in great danger of becoming involved in a vicious war for oil, as well as being drawn into a religious war that will not end in our lifetime.

The potential for war in this region is great, and the next one could make the Persian Gulf War look small. Only a reassessment of our entire policy will keep us from being involved in a needless and dangerous war in this region.

It will be difficult to separate any involvement in the Balkans from a major conflict that breaks out in the Middle East. It is impossible for us to maintain a policy that both supports Israel and provides security for Western-leaning secular Arab leaders, while at the same time taunting the Islamic fundamentalists. Push will come to shove, and when that happens in the midst of an economic crisis, our resources will be stretched beyond the limit. This must be prevented.

Our involvement in Colombia could easily escalate into a regional war. For over 100 years, we have been involved in the affairs of Central America, but the recent escalation of our presence in Colombia is inviting trouble for us. Although the justification for our enhanced presence is the war on drugs, protecting U.S. oil interests and selling helicopters are the real reasons for the last year’s $1.3 billion emergency funding.

Already neighboring countries have expressed concern about our presence in Colombia. The U.S. policymakers gave their usual response by promising more money and support to the neighboring countries that feel threatened.

Venezuela, rich in oil, is quite nervous about our enhanced presence in the region. Their foreign minister stated that if any of our ships enter the Gulf of Venezuela, they will be expelled. This statement was prompted by an overly aggressive U.S. Coast Guard vessel’s intrusion into Venezuela’s territorial waters on a drug expedition. I know of no one who believes this expanded and insane drug war will do anything to dampen drug usage in the United States, yet it will cost us plenty.

Too bad our political leaders cannot take a hint. The war effort in Colombia is small now, but under current conditions, it will surely escalate. This is a 30-year-old civil war being fought in the jungles of South America. We are unwelcome by many, and we ought to have enough sense to stay out of it.

Recently, new policy has led to the spraying of herbicides to destroy the coca fields. It has already been reported that the legal crops in the nearby fields have been destroyed, as well. This is no way to win friends around the world.

There are many other areas of the world where we ought to take a second look and then come home. Instead of bullying the European Union for wanting to have their own rapid deployment force, we should praise them and bring our troops home. World War II has been over for 55 years.

It is time we look at Korea and ask why we have to broker, with the use of American dollars and American soldiers, the final settlement between North and South Korea. Taiwan and China are now trading and investing in each other’s countries. Travel restrictions have been recently liberalized. It is time for us to let the two of them settle their own border dispute.

We continue to support Turkey with dollars and weapons. We once supported Iraq with the same. Now, we permit Turkey, armed with American weapons, to kill Kurds in Iraq, while we bomb the Iraqis if they do the same. It makes no sense.

Selling weapons to both factions of almost all the major conflicts of the past 50 years reveals that our involvement is more about selling weapons than spreading the message of freedom. That message can never be delivered through force to others over their objection. Only a policy of peace, friendship, trade, and our setting a good example can inspire others to look to what once was the American tradition of liberty and justice for all. Entangling alliances will not do it. It is time for Congress and the American people to wake up.

The political system of interventionism always leads to social discord. Interventionism is based on relative rights, majorityism, and disrespect for the Constitution. Degenerating moral standards of the people encourages and feeds on this system of special-interest favoritism, all of which contribute to the friction.

Thomas Jefferson was worried that future generations might one day squander the liberties the American Revolution secured. Writing about future generations, Jefferson wondered if, in the enjoyment of plenty, they would lose the memory of freedom. He believed material abundance without character is the path to destruction.

The challenge to America today is clearly evident. We lack character. And we also suffer from the loss of respect, understanding, and faith in the liberty that offers so much. The American Republic has been transformed and only a remnant remains. It appears that, in the midst of plenty, we have forgotten about freedom.

After our being attacked on 9/11, there was no alternative other than to respond. Yet I felt it important to make the point that even necessary conflict must be entered into with a sense of apprehension.

September 14, 2001
CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF
FORCE
HON. RON PAUL of TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Speaker, sadly we find ourselves today dealing with our responsibility to provide national security under the most difficult of circumstances.

To declare war against a group that is not a country makes the clear declaration of war more complex.

The best tool the Framers of the Constitution provided under these circumstances was the power of Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisal, in order to narrow the retaliation to only the guilty parties. The complexity of the issue, the vagueness of the enemy, and the political pressure to respond immediately limit our choices. The proposed resolution is the only option we’re offered and doing nothing is unthinkable.

There are a couple of serious points I’d like to make.

For the critics of our policy of foreign interventionism in the affairs of others, the attack on New York and Washington was not a surprise; many have warned of its inevitability.

It, so far, has been inappropriate to ask why the U.S. was the target and not some other Western country. But for us to pursue a war against our enemies, it’s crucial to understand why we were attacked, which then will tell us by whom we were attacked.

Without this knowledge, striking out at six or eight, or even ten different countries could well expand this war of which we wanted no part. Without defining the enemy, there is no way to know our precise goal or to know when the war is over. Inadvertent or casual acceptance of civilian deaths by us as part of this war, I’m certain, will prolong the agony and increase the chances of even more American casualties. We must guard against this if at all possible.

Too often over the last several decades we have supported both sides of many wars, only to find ourselves needlessly entrenched in conflicts unrelated to our national security. It is not unheard of that the weapons and support we send to foreign nations have ended up being used against us. The current crisis may well be another example of such a mishap.

Although we now must fight to preserve our national security, we should not forget that the Founders of this great nation advised that for, our own sake, we should stay out of entangling alliances and the affairs of other nations.

We are placing tremendous trust in our president to pursue our enemies as our commander-in-chief, but Congress must remain vigilant to not allow our civil liberties here at home to be eroded. The temptation will be great to sacrifice our freedoms for what may seem to be more security. We must resist this temptation.

Mr. Speaker, we must rally behind our president, pray for him to make wise decisions, and hope that this crisis is resolved a lot sooner than is now anticipated.

Once the conflict had begun, it was time to recall what sort of policies had set the stage for the current situation. This restatement of principle was my first extended comment on our foreign policy after the outbreak of hostilities.

September 25, 2001
FOREIGN INTERVENTIONISM IS DETRIMENTAL TO
OUR SECURITY
HON. RON PAUL of TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Speaker, last week was a bad week for all Americans. The best we can say is that the events have rallied the American spirit of shared love and generosity. Partisanship was put on hold, as it well should have been. We now, as a free people, must deal with this tragedy in the best way possible. Punishment and prevention is mandatory. We must not, however, sacrifice our liberties at the hand of an irrational urgency. Calm deliberation in our effort to restore normalcy is crucial. Cries for dropping nuclear bombs on an enemy not yet identified cannot possibly help in achieving this goal.

Mr. Speaker, I returned to Congress five years ago out of deep concern about our foreign policy of international interventionism, and a monetary and fiscal policy I believed would lead to a financial and dollar crisis. Over the past five years, I have frequently expressed my views on these issues and why I believed our policies should be changed.

This deep concern prompted me to seek and receive seats on the Financial Services and International Relations Committees. I sought to thwart some of the dangers I saw coming, but as the horrific attacks show, these efforts were to no avail. As concerned as I was, the enormity of the two-prong crisis that we now face came with a ferocity no one ever wanted to imagine. Now we must deal with what we have and do our best to restore our country to a more normal status.

I do not believe this can happen if we ignore the truth. We cannot close our eyes to the recent history that has brought us to this international crisis. We should guard against emotionally driven demands to kill many bystanders in an effort to liquidate our enemy. These efforts could well fail to punish the perpetrators, while only expanding the war and making things worse by killing innocent non-combatants and further radicalizing Muslim peoples.

It is obviously 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. But above all else, that is our mandate and our key constitutional responsibility—protecting liberty and providing for national security. My strong belief is that in the past, efforts in the US Congress to do much more than this, have diverted our attention and hence led to our neglect of these responsibilities.

Following the September 11th disasters, a militant Islamic group in Pakistan held up a sign for the entire world to see. It said: AMERICANS, THINK! WHY YOU ARE HATED ALL OVER THE WORLD. We abhor the messenger, but we should not ignore the message.

Here at home we are told that the only reason for the suicidal mass killing we experienced on September 11th is that we are hated because we are free and prosperous. If these two conflicting views are not reconciled, we cannot wisely fight nor win the war in which we now find ourselves. We must understand why the hatred is directed toward Americans and not other Western countries.

In studying history, I, as many others, have come to the conclusion that war is most often fought for economic reasons. But economic wars are driven by moral and emotional overtones.

Our own Revolution was fought to escape from excessive taxation, but was inspired and driven by our desire to protect our God-given right to liberty.

The War between the States, fought primarily over tariffs, was nonetheless inspired by the abhorrence of slavery. It is this moral inspiration that drives people to fight to the death, as so many Americans did between 1861 and 1865.

Both economic and moral causes of war must be understood. Ignoring the importance of each is dangerous. We should not casually ignore the root causes of our current fight, nor pursue this fight by merely accepting the explanation that they terrorize us out of jealously.

It has already been written that Islamic militants are fighting a “holy war”—a jihad. This drives them to commit acts that to us are beyond comprehension. It seems that they have no concern for economic issues, since they have no regard even for their own lives. But an economic issue does exist in this war: OIL!

When the conflict broke out between Iraq and Iran in the early 1980s, and we helped to finance and arm Iraq, Anwar Sadat of Egypt profoundly stated: “This is the beginning of the war for oil.” Our crisis today is part of this long-lasting war over oil.

Osama bin Laden, a wealthy man, left Saudi Arabia in 1979 to join American-sponsored so-called freedom fighters in Afghanistan. He received financial assistance, weapons and training from our CIA, just as his allies in Kosovo continue to receive the same from us today.

Unbelievably, to this day our foreign aid continues to flow into Afghanistan, even as we prepare to go to war against her. My suggestion is, not only should we stop this aid immediately, but we should never have started it in the first place.

It is during this time bin Laden learned to practice terror, tragically, with money from the U.S. taxpayers. But it wasn’t until 1991, during what we refer to as the Persian Gulf War, that he turned fully against the United States. It was this war, said to protect our oil, that brought out the worst in him.

Of course, it isn’t our oil. The oil, in fact, belongs to the Arabs and other Muslim nations of the Persian Gulf. Our military presence in Saudi Arabia is what most Muslims believe to be a sacred violation of holy land. The continuous bombing and embargo of Iraq has intensified the hatred and contributed to more than over 1,000,000 deaths in Iraq. It is clear that protecting certain oil interests and our presence in the Persian Gulf help drive the holy war.

Muslims see this as an invasion and domination by a foreign enemy which inspires radicalism. This is not new. This war, from their viewpoint, has been going on since the Crusades 1000 year ago. We ignore this history at our own peril.

The radicals react as some Americans might react if China dominated the Gulf of Mexico and had air bases in Texas and Florida. Dominating the Persian Gulf is not a benign activity. It has consequences. The attack on the USS Cole was a warning we ignored.

Furthermore, our support for secular governments in the moderate Arab countries is interpreted by the radicals as more American control over their region than they want. There is no doubt that our policies that are seen by the radicals as favoring one faction over another in the longlasting Middle East conflict add to the distrust and hatred of America.

The hatred has been suppressed, because we are a powerful economic and military force and wield a lot of influence. But this suppressed hatred is now becoming more visible, and we as Americans for the most part are not even aware of how this could be. Americans have no animosity toward a people they hardly even know. Instead, our policies have been driven by the commercial interests of a few. And now the innocent suffer.

I am hopeful that shedding light on the truth will be helpful in resolving this conflict in the very dangerous period that lies ahead. Without some understanding of the recent and past history of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, we cannot expect to punish the evildoers without expanding the nightmare of hatred that is now sweeping the world.

Punishing the evildoers is crucial. Restoring safety and security to our country is critical. Providing for a strong defense is essential. But extricating ourselves from a holy war that we don’t understand is also necessary if we expect to achieve the above-mentioned goals. Let us all hope and pray for guidance in our effort to restore the peace and tranquility we all desire.

We did a poor job in providing the security that all Americans should expect. This is our foremost responsibility. Some Members have been quick to point out the shortcomings of the FBI, the CIA and the FAA and claim more money will rectify the situation. I’m not so sure. Bureaucracies by nature are inefficient. The FBI and CIA records 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.

The clamor now is to give more authority and money to these agencies. But, remember, important industries, like as our chemical plants and refineries, do not depend on government agencies for security. They build fences and hire guards with guns. The airlines have not been allowed to do the same thing. There was a time when airline pilots were allowed and did carry weapons, yet this has been prohibited by government regulation set to go into effect in November.

If the responsibility had been left with the airlines to provide safety, they may have had armed pilots or guards on the planes just as our industrial sites have. Privatizing the FAA, as other countries have, would also give airlines more leeway in providing security. My bill, HR 2896, should be passed immediately to clarify that the federal government will never place a prohibition on pilots being armed.

We face an enormous task to restore the sense of security we have taken for granted for so long. But it can be done. Destroying the evildoers while extricating ourselves from this un-holiest of wars is no small challenge. The job is somewhat like getting out of a pit filled with venomous snakes. The sooner we shoot the snakes that immediately threaten us, the sooner we can get safely away. If we’re not careful, though, we’ll breed more snakes, and they’ll come out of every nook and cranny from around the world, and little will be resolved.

It’s no easy task, but before we fight, we’d better be precise about whom we are fighting and how many there are and where they are hiding, or we’ll never know when the war is over and our goals are achieved. Without this knowledge, the war can go on for a long, long time, and the war for oil has already been going on for more than 20 years. To this point, our president and his administration have displayed the necessary deliberation. This is a positive change from unauthorized and ineffective retaliatory bombings in past years that only worsened various conflicts.

If we can’t or won’t define the enemy, the cost to fight such a war will be endless. How many American troops are we prepared to lose? How much money are we prepared to spend? How many innocent civilians, in our nation and others, are we willing to see killed? How many American civilians will we jeopardize? How much of our civil liberties are we prepared to give up? How much prosperity will we sacrifice?

The Founders and authors of our Constitution provided an answer for the difficult tasks that we now face. When a precise declaration of war was impossible due to the vagueness of our enemy, the Congress was expected to take it upon themselves to direct the reprisal against an enemy not recognized as a government. In the early days, the concern was piracy on the high seas. Piracy was one of only three federal crimes named in the original Constitution.

Today, we have a new type of deadly piracy, in the high sky over our country. The solution the Founders came up with under these circumstances was for Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisal. This puts the responsibility in the hands of Congress to direct the president to perform a task with permission to use and reward private sources to carry out the task, such as the elimination of Osama bin Laden and his key supporters. This allows narrow targeting of the enemy. This effort would not preclude the president’s other efforts to resolve the crisis, but if successful would preclude a foolish invasion of a remote country with a forbidding terrain like Afghanistan—a country that no foreign power has ever conquered throughout all of history.

Lives could be saved, billions of dollars could be saved, and escalation due to needless and senseless killing could be prevented. Mr. Speaker, we must seriously consider this option. This answer is a world apart from the potential disaster of launching nuclear weapons or endless bombing of an unseen target. “Marque and reprisal” demands the enemy be seen and precisely targeted with minimal danger to others. It should be considered and, for various reasons, is far superior to any effort that could be carried out by the CIA.

We must not sacrifice the civil liberties that generations of Americans have enjoyed and fought for over the past 225 years. Unwise decisions in response to the terror inflicted on us may well fail to destroy our enemy, while undermining our liberties here at home. That will not be a victory worth celebrating. The wise use of marque and reprisal would negate the need to undermine the privacy and rights of our citizens.

As we work through this difficult task, let us resist the temptation to invoke the most authoritarian of all notions that, not too many years ago, tore this nation apart: the military draft. The country is now unified against the enemy. The military draft does nothing to contribute to unity nor, as the Pentagon again has confirmed, does it promote an efficient military.

Precise identification of all travelers on all our air flights is a desired goal. A national ID issued by the federal government would prove to be disastrous to our civil liberties and should not be considered. This type of surveillance power should never be given to an intrusive overbearing government, no matter how well intentioned the motives.

The same results can be better achieved by the marketplace. Passenger IDs voluntarily issued by the airlines could be counterfeit-proof; and loss or theft of an ID could be immediately reported to the proper authorities. An ID, fingerprints, birth certificates, or any other information can be required without any violations of anyone’s personal liberty. This delicate information would not be placed in the hands of the government agents but could be made available to law enforcement officers like any other information obtained with probable cause and a warrant.

The heat of the moment has prompted calls by some of our officials for great sacrifice of our liberties and privacy. This poses great danger to our way of life and will provide little help in dealing with our enemies. Efforts of this sort will only punish the innocent and have no effect on a would-be terrorist. We should be careful not to do something just to do something—even something harmful.

Mr. Speaker, I fear that some big mistakes could be made in the pursuit of our enemies if we do not proceed with great caution, wisdom, and deliberation. Action is necessary; inaction is unacceptable. No doubt others recognize the difficulty in targeting such an elusive enemy. This is why the principle behind “marque and reprisal” must be given serious consideration.

In retaliation, an unintended consequence of a policy of wanton destruction without benefit to our cause, could result in the overthrow of moderate Arab nations by the radicals that support bin Laden. This will not serve our interests and will surely exacerbate the threat to all Americans.

As we search for a solution to the mess we’re in, it behooves us to look at how John F. Kennedy handled the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Personally, that crisis led to a five-year tour in the US Air Force for me.

As horrible and dangerous as the present crisis is, those of us who held our breath during some very tense moments that October realized that we were on the brink of a worldwide nuclear holocaust. That crisis represented the greatest potential danger to the world in all of human history.

President Kennedy held firm and stood up to the Soviets, as he should have, and the confrontation was resolved. What was not known at the time was the reassessment of our policy that placed nuclear missiles in the Soviet’s back yard, in Turkey. These missiles were quietly removed a few months later, and the world became a safer place in which to live. Eventually, we won the cold war without starting World War III.

Our enemy today, as formidable as he is, cannot compare to the armed might of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1962.

Wisdom and caution on Kennedy’s part in dealing with the crisis was indeed “a profile in courage.” His courage was not only in his standing up to the Soviets, but his willingness to re-examine our nuclear missile presence in Turkey, which if it had been known at the time would have been condemned as an act of cowardice.

President Bush now has the challenge to do something equally courageous and wise. This is necessary if we expect to avert a catastrophic World War III. When the president asks for patience as he and his advisors deliberate, seeking a course of action, all Americans should surely heed his request.

Mr. Speaker, I support President Bush and voted for the authority and the money to carry out his responsibility to defend this country, but the degree of death and destruction and chances of escalation must be carefully taken into consideration.

It is only with sadness that I reflect on the support, the dollars, the troops, the weapons and training provided by U.S. taxpayers that are now being used against us. Logic should tell us that intervening in all the wars of the world has been detrimental to our self-interest and should be reconsidered.

The efforts of a small minority in Congress to avoid this confrontation by voting for the foreign policy of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and all the 19th Century presidents went unheeded. The unwise policy of supporting so many militants who later became our armed enemies makes little sense, whether it’s bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. A policy designed to protect America is wise and frugal and, hopefully, it will once again be considered. George Washington, as we all know, advised strongly, as he departed his presidency, that we should avoid all entangling alliances with foreign nations.

The call for a non-interventionist foreign policy over past years has fallen on deaf ears. My suggestions made here today may meet the same fate. Yet, if truth is spoken, ignoring it will not negate it. In that case something will be lost. But, if something is said to be true and it is not and is ignored, nothing is lost. My goal is to contribute to the truth and to the security of this nation.

What I have said today is different from what is said and accepted in Washington as conventional wisdom, but it is not in conflict with our history or our Constitution. It’s a policy that has, whenever tried, generated more peace and prosperity than any other policy for dealing with foreign affairs. The authors of the Constitution clearly understood this. Since the light of truth shines brightest in the darkness of evil and ignorance, we should all strive to shine that light.

War often brings about bad policy that could not be enacted without hostilities. This speech was designed to warn, in more detail, against going down the wrong path as we faced protracted conflict.

October 25, 2001
A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS
HON. RON PAUL of TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Speaker, it breaks my heart to see what is happening to our country today. All Americans have grieved over the losses suffered on 9/11. The grief for those who lost loved ones is beyond description. These losses have precipitated unprecedented giving to help the families left behind. Unless one has suffered directly, it is difficult to fully comprehend the tragic and sudden loss of close friends and family.

There are some who, in addition to feeling this huge sense of personal loss that all Americans share, grieve for other serious and profound reasons. For instance, many thoughtful Americans are convinced that the tragedy of 9/11 was preventable. Since that might be true, this provokes a tragic sadness, especially for those who understand how the events of 9/11 needlessly came about.

The reason why this is so sad and should be thoroughly understood is that so often the ones who suggest how our policies may have played a role in evoking the attacks are demonized as unpatriotic and are harshly dismissed as belonging to the “blame America crowd.”

Those who are so anxious to condemn do not realize that the policies of the American government, designed by politicians and bureaucrats, are not always synonymous with American ideals. The country is not the same as the government. The spirit of America is hardly something for which the government holds a monopoly on defining.

America’s heart and soul is more embedded in our love of liberty, self-reliance, and tolerance than by our foreign policy, driven by powerful special interests with little regard for the Constitution.

Throughout our early history, a policy of minding our own business and avoiding entangling alliances, as George Washington admonished, was more representative of American ideals than those we have pursued for the past 50 years. Some sincere Americans have suggested that our modern interventionist policy set the stage for the attacks of 9/11, and for this, they are condemned as being unpatriotic.

This compounds the sadness and heartbreak that some Americans are feeling. Threats, loss of jobs, censorship and public mockery have been heaped upon those who have made this suggestion. Freedom of expression and thought, the bedrock of the American Republic, is now too often condemned as something viciously evil. This should cause freedom-loving Americans to weep from broken hearts.

Another reason the hearts of many Americans are heavy with grief is because they dread what might come from the many new and broad powers the government is demanding in the name of providing security. Daniel Webster once warned, “Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular governments under pretense of public safety.”

A strong case can be made that the government regulations, along with a lack of private property responsibility, contributed to this tragedy, but what is proposed? More regulations, and even a takeover of all airport security by the government.

We are not even considering restoring the rights of pilots to carry weapons for self-defense as one of the solutions. Even though pilots once carried guns to protect the mail, and armored truck drivers can still carry guns to protect money, protecting passengers with guns is prohibited on commercial flights. The U.S. Air Force can shoot down a wayward aircraft, but a pilot cannot shoot down an armed terrorist.

It will be difficult to solve our problems with this attitude toward airport security.

Civil liberties are sure to suffer under today’s tensions, with the people demanding that the politicians do something, anything. Should those who object to the rapid move toward massively increasing the size and scope of the federal government in local law enforcement be considered un-American because they defend the principles they truly understand to be American?

Any talk of spending restraint is now a thing of the past. We had one anthrax death, and we are asked the next day for a billion-dollar appropriation to deal with the problem.

And a lot more will be appropriated before it is all over. What about the 40,000 deaths per year on government-run highways and the needless deaths associated with the foolish and misdirected war on drugs? Why should anyone be criticized for trying to put this in proper perspective? Countless groups are now descending on Washington with their hands out. As usual with any disaster, this disaster is being parlayed into an “opportunity,” as one former Member of the Congress phrased it. The economic crisis that started a long time before 9/11 has contributed to the number of those now demanding federal handouts.

But there is one business that we need not fear will go into a slump: the Washington lobbying industry. Last year it spent $1.6 billion lobbying Congress. This year it will spend much more. The bigger the disaster, the greater the number of vultures who descend on Washington. When I see this happening, it breaks my heart, because liberty and America suffer, and it is all done in the name of justice, equality and security.

Emotions are running high in our nation’s capital, and in politics emotions are more powerful tools than reason and the rule of law. The use of force to serve special interests and help anyone who claims to be in need, unfortunately, is an acceptable practice. Obeying the restraints placed in the Constitution is seen as archaic and insensitive to the people’s needs. But far too often the claims of those responding to human tragedies are nothing more than politics as usual. While one group supports bailing out the corporations, another wants to prop up wages and jobs. One group supports federalizing tens of thousands of airport jobs to increase union membership, while another says we should subsidize corporate interests and keep the jobs private.

Envy and power drive both sides—the special interests of big business and the demands of the welfare/redistribution crowd.

There are many other reasons to be sad about all that is going on today. In spite of the fact that our government has done such a poor job protecting us and has no intention of changing the policy of meddling overseas (which has contributed to our problems), the people are more dependent on and more satisfied with government than they have been in decades—while demanding even more government control and intrusion in their daily lives.

It is aggravating to listen to the daily rhetoric regarding liberty and the Constitution while the same people participate in their destruction. It is aggravating to see all the money spent and civil liberties abused while the pilot’s right to carry guns in self-defense is denied. It is even more aggravating to see our government rely on foreign AWACS aircraft to provide security to U.S. territory. A$325 billion military budget—and we cannot even patrol our own shores. This, of course, is just another sign of how little we are concerned about U.S. sovereignty and how willing we are to submit to international government.

It is certainly disappointing that our congressional leaders and administration have not considered using letters of marque and reprisal as an additional tool to root out those who participated in the 9/11 attacks. The difficulty in finding bin Laden and his supporters make marque and reprisal quite an appropriate option in this effort.

We already hear of plans to install and guarantee the next government of Afghanistan. Getting bin Laden and his gang is one thing; nation building is quite another. Some of our trouble in the Middle East started years ago when our CIA put the Shah in charge of Iran.

It was 25 years before he was overthrown, and the hatred toward America continues to this day. Those who suffer from our intervention have long memories.

Our support for the less-than-ethical government of Saudi Arabia, with our troops occupying what most Muslims consider sacred land, is hardly the way to bring peace to the Middle East. A policy driven by our fear of losing control over the oil fields in the Middle East has not contributed to American security. Too many powerful special interests drive our policy in this region, and this does little to help us preserve security for Americans here at home.

As we bomb Afghanistan, we continue to send foreign aid to feed the people suffering from the war. I strongly doubt if our food will get them to love us or even be our friends. There is no evidence that the starving receive the food. And too often it is revealed that it ends up in the hands of the military forces we are fighting. While we bomb Afghanistan and feed the victims, we lay plans to install the next government and pay for rebuilding the country. Quite possibly, the new faction we support will be no more trustworthy than the Taliban, to which we sent plenty of aid and weapons in the 1980s. That intervention in Afghanistan did not do much to win reliable friends in the region.

It just may be that Afghanistan would be best managed by several tribal factions, without any strong centralized government and without any outside influence, certainly not by the UN But then again, some claim that the proposed Western financed pipeline through northern Afghanistan can only happen after a strong centralized pro-Western government is put in place.

It is both annoying and sad that there is so little interest by anyone in Washington in free-market solutions to the world’s economic problems. True private ownership of property without regulation and abusive taxation is a thing of the past. Few understand how the Federal Reserve monetary policy causes the booms and the busts that, when severe, as they are now, only serve to enhance the prestige of the money managers—while most politicians and Wall Streeters demand that the Fed inflate the currency at an even more rapid rate. Today’s conditions give license to the politicians to spend our way out of recession, they hope.

One thing for sure, as a consequence of the recession and the 9/11 tragedy, is that big spending and deficits are alive and well. Even though we are currently adding to the national debt at the rate of $150 billion per year, most politicians still claim that Social Security is sound and has not been touched. At least the majority of American citizens are now wise enough to know better.

There is plenty of reason to feel heartbroken over current events. It is certainly not a surprise or illogical for people working in Washington to overreact to the anthrax scare. The feelings of despondency are understandable, whether due to the loss of lives, loss of property, fear of the next attack, or concern that our own frantic efforts to enhance security will achieve little. But broken or sad hearts need not break our spirits, nor impede our reasoning.

I happen to believe that winning this battle against the current crop of terrorists is quite achievable in a relatively short period of time. But winning the war over the long term is a much different situation. This cannot be achieved without a better understanding of the enemy and the geopolitics that drive this war. Even if relative peace is achieved with a battle victory over Osama bin Laden and his followers, other terrorists will appear from all corners of the world for an indefinite period of time if we do not understand the issues.

Changing our current foreign policy with wise diplomacy is crucial if we are to really win the war and restore the sense of tranquility to our land that now seems to be so far in our distant past. Our widespread efforts at peacekeeping and nation building will only contribute to the resentment that drives the fanatics. Devotion to internationalism and a one-world government only exacerbates regional rivalries. Denying that our economic interests drive so much of what the West does against the East impedes any efforts to diffuse the world crisis that already has a number of Americans demanding nuclear bombs to be used to achieve victory. A victory based on this type of aggressive policy would be a hollow victory indeed.

I would like to draw analogy between the drug war and the war against terrorism. In the last 30 years, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a failed war on drugs. This war has been used as an excuse to attack our liberties and privacy. It has been an excuse to undermine our financial privacy, while promoting illegal searches and seizures with many innocent people losing their lives and property. Seizure and forfeiture have harmed a great number of innocent American citizens.

Another result of this unwise war has been the corruption of many law-enforcement officials. It is well known that, with the profit incentives so high, we are not even able to keep drugs out of our armed prisons. Making our whole society a prison would not bring success to this floundering war on drugs. Sinister motives of the profiteers and gangsters, along with prevailing public ignorance, keeps this futile war going.

Illegal and artificially high-priced drugs drive the underworld to produce, sell and profit from this social depravity. Failure to recognize that drug addiction, like alcoholism, is a disease rather than a crime, encourage the drug warriors in efforts that have not and will not ever work. We learned the hard way about alcohol prohibition and crime, but we have not yet seriously considered it in the ongoing drug war.

Corruption associated with the drug dealers is endless. It has involved our police, the military, border guards and the judicial system. It has affected government policy and our own CIA. The artificially high profits from illegal drugs provide easy access to funds for rogue groups involved in fighting civil wars throughout the world.

Ironically, opium sales by the Taliban and artificially high prices helped to finance their war against us. In spite of the incongruity, we rewarded the Taliban this spring with a huge cash payment for promises to eradicate some poppy fields. Sure!

For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no federal war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related crimes as a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved.

This war has been behind most big-government police powers of the last 30 years, with continual undermining of our civil liberties and personal privacy. Those who support the IRS’s efforts to collect maximum revenues and root out the underground economy, have welcomed this intrusion, even if the drug underworld grows in size and influence.

The drug war encourages violence. Government violence against nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the unnecessary prison overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay for all this so-called justice. Our drug eradication project (using spraying) around the world, from Colombia to Afghanistan, breeds resentment because normal crops and good land can be severely damaged. Local populations perceive that the efforts and the profiteering remain somehow beneficial to our own agenda in these various countries.

Drug dealers and drug gangs are a consequence of our unwise approach to drug usage. Many innocent people are killed in the crossfire by the mob justice that this war generates. But just because the laws are unwise and have had unintended consequences, no excuses can ever be made for the monster who would kill and maim innocent people for illegal profits. As the violent killers are removed from society, reconsideration of our drug laws ought to occur.

A similar approach should be applied to our war on those who would terrorize and kill our people for political reasons. If the drug laws, and the policies that incite hatred against the United States, are not clearly understood and, therefore, never changed, the number of drug criminals and terrorists will only multiply.

Although this unwise war on drugs generates criminal violence, the violence can never be tolerated. Even if repeal of drug laws would decrease the motivation for drug-dealer violence, this can never be an excuse to condone the violence. In the short term, those who kill must be punished, imprisoned, or killed. Long term though, a better understanding of how drug laws have unintended consequences is required if we want to significantly improve the situation and actually reduce the great harms drugs are doing to our society.

The same is true in dealing with those who so passionately hate us that suicide becomes a just and noble cause in their effort to kill and terrorize us. Without some understanding of what has brought us to the brink of a worldwide conflict, and reconsideration of our policies around the globe, we will be no more successful in making our land secure and free than the drug war has been in removing drug violence from our cities and towns.

Without an understanding of why terrorism is directed towards the United States, we may well build a prison for ourselves with something called homeland security, while doing nothing to combat the root causes of terrorism. Let us hope we figure this out soon.

We have promoted a foolish and very expensive domestic war on drugs for more than 30 years. It has done no good whatsoever. I doubt our Republic can survive a 30-year period of trying to figure out how to win this guerilla war against terrorism. Hopefully, we will all seek the answers in these trying times with an open mind and understanding.

As the first session of Congress after 9/11 began to come to a close, we had seen a rash of law-making that was certain to reduce American liberty than to secure the nation from attacks. It was becoming increasingly important to attempt to refocus our efforts.

November 29, 2001
KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE TARGET
HON. RON PAUL of TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Speaker, we have been told on numerous occasions to expect a long and protracted war. This is not necessary if one can identify the target, the enemy, and then stay focused on that target. It’s impossible to keep one’s eye on a target and hit it if one does not precisely understand it and identify it. In pursuing any military undertaking, it’s the responsibility of Congress to know exactly why it appropriates the funding. Today, unlike any time in our history, the enemy and its location remain vague and pervasive. In the undeclared wars of Vietnam and Korea, the enemy was known and clearly defined, even though our policies were confused and contradictory. Today our policies relating to the growth of terrorism are also confused and contradictory; however, the precise enemy and its location are not known by anyone. Until the enemy is defined and understood, it cannot be accurately targeted or vanquished.

The terrorist enemy is no more an entity than the “mob” or some international criminal gang. It certainly is not a country, nor is it the Afghan people. The Taliban is obviously a strong sympathizer with bin Laden and his henchmen, but how much more so than the government of Saudi Arabia, or even Pakistan? Probably not much.

Ulterior motives have always played a part in the foreign policy of almost every nation throughout history. Economic gain and geographic expansion, or even just the desires for more political power, too often drive the militarism of all nations. Unfortunately, in recent years, we have not been exempt. If expansionism, economic interests, desire for hegemony, and influential allies affect our policies and they, in turn, incite mob attacks against us, they obviously cannot be ignored. The target will be illusive and ever-enlarging, rather than vanquished.

We do know a lot about the terrorists who spilled the blood of nearly 4,000 innocent civilians. There were 19 of them, 15 from Saudi Arabia, and they have paid a high price. They’re all dead. So those most responsible for the attack have been permanently taken care of. If one encounters a single suicide bomber who takes his own life along with others without the help of anyone else, no further punishment is possible. The only question that can be raised under that circumstance is why did it happen and how can we change the conditions that drove an individual to perform such a heinous act.

The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington are not quite so simple, but they are similar. These attacks required funding, planning and inspiration from others. But the total number of people directly involved had to be relatively small in order to have kept the plans thoroughly concealed. Twenty accomplices, or even a hundred could have done it. But there’s no way thousands of people knew and participated in the planning and carrying out of this attack. Moral support expressed by those who find our policies offensive is a different matter and difficult to discover. Those who enjoyed seeing the U.S. hit are too numerous to count and impossible to identify. To target and wage war against all of them is like declaring war against an idea or sin.

The predominant nationality of the terrorists was Saudi Arabian. Yet for political and economic reasons, even with the lack of cooperation from the Saudi government, we have ignored that country in placing blame. The Afghan people did nothing to deserve another war. The Taliban, of course, is closely tied to bin Laden and al Qaeda, but so are the Pakistanis and the Saudis. Even the United States was a supporter of the Taliban’s rise to power, and as recently as August of 2001, we talked oil pipeline politics with them.

The recent French publication of bin Laden, The Forbidden Truth revealed our most recent effort to secure control over Caspian Sea oil in collaboration with the Taliban. According to the two authors, the economic conditions demanded by the U.S. were turned down and led to U.S. military threats against the Taliban.

It has been known for years that Unocal, a U.S. company, has been anxious to build a pipeline through northern Afghanistan, but it has not been possible due to the weak Afghan central government. We should not be surprised now that many contend that the plan for the UN to “nation build” in Afghanistan is a logical and important consequence of this desire. The crisis has merely given those interested in this project an excuse to replace the government of Afghanistan. Since we don’t even know if bin Laden is in Afghanistan, and since other countries are equally supportive of him, our concentration on this Taliban “target” remains suspect by many.

Former FBI Deputy Director John O’Neill resigned in July over duplicitous dealings with the Taliban and our oil interests. O’Neill then took a job as head of the World Trade Center security and ironically was killed in the 9/11 attack. The charges made by these authors in their recent publication deserve close scrutiny and congressional oversight investigation—and not just for the historical record.

To understand world sentiment on this subject, one might note a comment in The Hindu, India’s national newspaper—not necessarily to agree with the paper’s sentiment, but to help us better understand what is being thought about us around the world in contrast to the spin put on the war by our five major TV news networks.

This quote comes from an article written by Sitaram Yechury on October 13, 2001:

The world today is being asked to side with the U.S. in a fight against global terrorism. This is only a cover. The world is being asked today, in reality, to side with the U.S. as it seeks to strengthen its economic hegemony. This is neither acceptable nor will it be allowed. We must forge together to state that we are neither with the terrorists nor with the United States.

The need to define our target is ever so necessary if we’re going to avoid letting this war get out of control.

It’s important to note that in the same article, the author quoted Michael Klare, an expert on Caspian Sea oil reserves, from an interview on Radio Free Europe: “We (the U.S.) view oil as a security consideration and we have to protect it by any means necessary, regardless of other considerations, other values.” This, of course, was a clearly stated position of our administration in 1990 as our country was being prepared to fight the Persian Gulf War. Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction only became the issue later on.

For various reasons, the enemy with whom we’re now at war remains vague and illusive. Those who commit violent terrorist acts should be targeted with a rifle or hemlock—not with vague declarations, with some claiming we must root out terrorism in as many as 60 countries. If we’re not precise in identifying our enemy, it’s sure going to be hard to keep our eye on the target. Without this identification, the war will spread and be needlessly prolonged.

Why is this definition so crucial? Because without it, the special interests and the ill-advised will clamor for all kinds of expansive militarism. Planning to expand and fight a never-ending war in 60 countries against worldwide terrorist conflicts with the notion that, at most, only a few hundred ever knew of the plans to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The pervasive and indefinable enemy—terrorism—cannot be conquered with weapons and UN nation building, only a more sensible pro-American foreign policy will accomplish this. This must occur if we are to avoid a cataclysmic expansion of the current hostilities.

It was said that our efforts were to be directed toward the terrorists responsible for the attacks, and overthrowing and instituting new governments were not to be part of the agenda. Already we have clearly taken our eyes off that target and diverted it toward building a pro-Western, UN-sanctioned government in Afghanistan. But if bin Laden can hit us in New York and DC, what should one expect to happen once the U.S./UN establishes a new government in Afghanistan with occupying troops. It seems that would be an easy target for the likes of al Qaeda.

Since we don’t know in which cave or even in which country bin Laden is hiding, we hear the clamor of many for us to overthrow our next villain—Saddam Hussein—guilty or not. On the short list of countries to be attacked are North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, and the Sudan, just for starters. But this jingoistic talk is foolhardy and dangerous. The war against terrorism cannot be won in this manner.

The drumbeat for attacking Baghdad grows louder every day, with Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, and Bill Bennett leading the charge. In a recent interview, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, made it clear: “We are going to continue pursuing the entire al Qaeda network which is in 60 countries, not just Afghanistan.” Fortunately, President Bush and Colin Powell so far have resisted the pressure to expand the war into other countries. Let us hope and pray that they do not yield to the clamor of the special interests that want us to take on Iraq.

The argument that we need to do so because Hussein is producing weapons of mass destruction is the reddest of all herrings. I sincerely doubt that he has developed significant weapons of mass destruction. However, if that is the argument, we should plan to attack all those countries that have similar weapons or plans to build them—countries like China, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, and India. Iraq has been uncooperative with the UN World Order and remains independent of Western control of its oil reserves, unlike Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. This is why she has been bombed steadily for 11 years by the U.S. and Britain. My guess is that in the not-too-distant future, so-called proof will be provided that Saddam Hussein was somehow partially responsible for the attack in the United States, and it will be irresistible then for the U.S. to retaliate against him. This will greatly and dangerously expand the war and provoke even greater hatred toward the United States, and it’s all so unnecessary.

It’s just so hard for many Americans to understand how we inadvertently provoke the Arab/Muslim people, and I’m not talking about the likes of bin Laden and his al Qaeda gang. I’m talking about the Arab/Muslim masses.

In 1996, after five years of sanctions against Iraq and persistent bombings, CBS reporter Lesley Stahl asked our Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeline Albright, a simple question: “We have heard that a half million children have died (as a consequence of our policy against Iraq). Is the price worth it?” Albright’s response was “We think the price is worth it.” Although this interview won an Emmy award, it was rarely shown in the U.S. but widely circulated in the Middle East. Some still wonder why America is despised in this region of the world!

Former President George W. Bush has been criticized for not marching on to Baghdad at the end of the Persian Gulf War. He gave then, and stands by his explanation today, a superb answer of why it was ill-advised to attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power there were strategic and tactical, as well as humanitarian, arguments against it. But the important and clinching argument against annihilating Baghdad was political. The coalition, in no uncertain terms, let it be known they wanted no part of it. Besides, the UN only authorized the removal of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. The UN has never sanctioned the continued U.S. and British bombing of Iraq, a source of much hatred directed toward the United States.

But placing U.S. troops on what is seen as Muslim holy land in Saudi Arabia seems to have done exactly what the former president was trying to avoid, the breakup of the coalition. The coalition has hung together by a thread, but internal dissention among the secular and religious Arab/Muslim nations within individual countries has intensified. Even today, the current crisis threatens the overthrow of every puppet pro-Western Arab leader from Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Many of the same advisors from the first Bush presidency are now urging the current president to finish off Hussein. However, every reason given 11 years ago for not leveling Baghdad still holds true today, if not more so.

It has been argued that we needed to maintain a presence in Saudi Arabia after the Persian Gulf War to protect the Saudi government from Iraqi attack. Others argued that it was only a cynical excuse to justify keeping troops there to protect what our officials declared were “our” oil supplies. Some have even suggested that our expanded presence in Saudi Arabia was prompted by a need to keep King Fahd in power and to thwart any effort by Saudi fundamentalists to overthrow his regime.

Expanding the war by taking on Iraq at this time may well please some allies, but it will lead to unbelievable chaos in the region and throughout the world. It will incite even more anti-American sentiment and expose us to even greater dangers. It could prove to be an unmitigated disaster. Iran and Russia will not be pleased with this move.

It is not our job to remove Saddam Hussein; that is the job of the Iraqi people. It is not our job to remove the Taliban; that is the business of the Afghan people. It is not our job to insist that the next government in Afghanistan include women, no matter how good an idea it is. If this really is an issue, why don’t we insist that our friends in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait do the same thing, as well as impose our will on them? Talk about hypocrisy! The mere thought that we fight wars for affirmative action in a country 6,000 miles from home, with no cultural similarities, should insult us all. Of course it does distract us from the issue of an oil pipeline through northern Afghanistan. We need to keep our eye on the target and not be so easily distracted.

Assume for a minute that bin Laden is not in Afghanistan. Would any of our military efforts in that region be justified? Since none of it would be related to American security, it would be difficult to justify.

Assume for a minute that bin Laden is as ill, as I believe he is, with serious renal disease. Would he not do everything conceivable for his cause by provoking us into expanding the war and alienating as many Muslims as possible?

Remember that, to bin Laden, martyrdom is a noble calling, and he just may be more powerful in death than he is in life. An American invasion of Iraq would please bin Laden, because it would rally his troops against any moderate Arab leader who appears to be supporting the United States. It would prove his point that America is up to no good; that oil and Arab infidels are the source of all the Muslims’ problems.

We have recently been reminded of Admiral Yamamoto’s quote after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in expressing his fear that the event “awakened a sleeping giant.” Almost everyone agrees with the prophetic wisdom of that comment. But I question the accuracy of drawing an analogy between the Pearl Harbor event and the World Trade Center attack. We are hardly the same nation we were in 1941. Today we’re anything but a sleeping giant. There’s no contest for our status as the world’s only economic, political and military super power. A “sleeping giant” would not have troops in 141 countries throughout the world and be engaged in every conceivable conflict, with 250,000 troops stationed abroad.

The fear I have is that our policies, along with those of Britain, the UN, and NATO since World War II, have inspired and now awakened a long-forgotten sleeping giant—Islamic fundamentalism.

Let’s hope for all our sakes that Iraq is not made the target in this complex war.

The president, in the 2000 presidential campaign, argued against nation building, and he was right to do so. He also said, “If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us.” He wisely argued for humility and a policy that promotes peace. Attacking Baghdad or declaring war against Saddam Hussein, or even continuing the illegal bombing of Iraq, is hardly a policy of humility designed to promote peace.

As we continue our bombing of Afghanistan, plans are made to install a new government sympathetic to the West and under UN control. The persuasive argument, as always, is money. We were able to gain Pakistan’s support, although it continually wavers, in this manner. Appropriations are already being prepared in the Congress to rebuild all that we destroy in Afghanistan, and then some, even before the bombing has stopped.

Rumsfeld’s plan, as reported in Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, outlines the plan for the next Iraqi government. Turkey’s support is crucial, so the plan is to give Turkey oil from the northern Iraq Karkuk field. The United States has also promised a pipeline running from Iraq through Turkey. How can the Turks resist such a generous offer? Since we subsidize Turkey and they bomb the Kurds, while we punish the Iraqis for the same, this plan to divvy up wealth in the land of the Kurds is hardly a surprise.

It seems that Washington never learns. Our foolish foreign interventions continually get us into more trouble than we have bargained for—and the spending is endless. I am not optimistic that this Congress will anytime soon come to its senses. I am afraid that we will never treat the taxpayers with respect. National bankruptcy is a more likely scenario than Congress adopting a frugal and wise spending policy.

Mr. Speaker, we must make every effort to precisely define our target in this war and keep our eye on it.

It is safe to assume that the number of people directly involved in the 9/11 attacks is closer to several hundred than the millions we are now talking about targeting with our planned shotgun approach to terrorism.

One commentator pointed out that when the mafia commits violence, no one suggests we bomb Sicily. Today it seems we are, in a symbolic way, not only bombing “Sicily,” but are thinking about bombing “Athens” (Iraq).

If a corrupt city or state government does business with a drug cartel or organized crime and violence results, we don’t bomb city hall or the state capital—we limit the targets to those directly guilty and punish them. Could we not learn a lesson from these examples?

It is difficult for everyone to put the 9/11 attacks in a proper perspective, because any attempt to do so is construed as diminishing the utter horror of the events of that day. We must remember, though, that the 3,900 deaths incurred in the World Trade Center attacks are just slightly more than the deaths that occur on our nation’s highways each month. Could it be that the sense of personal vulnerability we survivors feel motivates us in meting out justice, rather than the concern for the victims of the attacks? Otherwise, the numbers don’t add up to the proper response. If we lose sight of the target and unwisely broaden the war, the tragedy of 9/11 may pale in the death and destruction that could lie ahead.

As Members of Congress, we have a profound responsibility to mete out justice, provide security for our nation, and protect the liberties of all the people, without senselessly expanding the war at the urging of narrow political and economic special interests. The price is too high, and the danger too great. We must not lose our focus on the real target and inadvertently create new enemies for ourselves.

We have not done any better keeping our eye on the terrorist target on the home front than we have overseas. Not only has Congress come up short in picking the right target, it has directed all its energies in the wrong direction. The target of our efforts has sadly been the liberties all Americans enjoy. With all the new power we have given to the administration, none has truly improved the chances of catching the terrorists who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. All Americans will soon feel the consequences of this new legislation.

Just as the crisis provided an opportunity for some to promote a special-interest agenda in our foreign policy efforts, many have seen the crisis as a chance to achieve changes in our domestic laws, changes which, up until now, were seen as dangerous and unfair to American citizens.

Granting bailouts is not new for Congress, but current conditions have prompted many takers to line up for handouts. There has always been a large constituency for expanding federal power for whatever reason, and these groups have been energized. The military-industrial complex is out in full force and is optimistic. Union power is pleased with recent events and has not missed the opportunity to increase membership rolls. Federal policing powers, already in a bull market, received a super shot in the arm. The IRS, which detests financial privacy, gloats—while all the big spenders in Washington applaud the tools made available to crack down on tax dodgers. The drug warriors and anti-gun zealots love the new powers that now can be used to watch every move of our citizens. “Extremists” who talk of the Constitution, promote right-to-life, form citizen militias, or participate in non-mainstream religious practices now can be monitored much more effectively by those who find their views offensive. Laws recently passed by the Congress apply to all Americans, not just terrorists. We should remember that if the terrorists are known and identified, existing laws would have been quite adequate to deal with them.

Even before the passage of the recent draconian legislation, hundreds had already been arrested under suspicion, and millions of dollars of al Qaeda funds had been frozen. None of these new laws will deal with uncooperative foreign entities like the Saudi government, which chose not to relinquish evidence pertaining to exactly who financed the terrorists’ operations. Unfortunately, the laws will affect all innocent Americans, yet will do nothing to thwart terrorism.

The laws recently passed in Congress in response to the terrorist attacks can be compared to the effort by anti-gun fanatics, who jump at every chance to undermine the Second Amendment. When crimes are committed with the use of guns, it’s argued that we must remove guns from society, or at least register them and make it difficult to buy them. The counter argument made by Second Amendment supporters correctly explains that this would only undermine the freedom of law-abiding citizens and do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals or to reduce crime.

Now we hear a similar argument that a certain amount of privacy and personal liberty of law-abiding citizens must be sacrificed in order to root out possible terrorists. This will result only in liberties being lost and will not serve to preempt any terrorist act. The criminals, just as they know how to get guns even when they are illegal, will still be able to circumvent anti-terrorist laws. To believe otherwise is to endorse a Faustian bargain, but that is what I believe the Congress has done.

We know from the ongoing drug war that federal drug police frequently make mistakes, break down the wrong doors and destroy property. Abuses of seizure and forfeiture laws are numerous. Yet the new laws will encourage even more mistakes by federal law-enforcement agencies. It has long been forgotten that law enforcement in the United States was supposed to be a state and local government responsibility, not that of the federal government. The federal government’s policing powers have just gotten a giant boost in scope and authority through both new legislation and executive orders.

Before the 9/11 attack, Attorney General Ashcroft let his position be known regarding privacy and government secrecy. Executive Order 13223 made it much more difficult for researchers to gain access to presidential documents from previous administrations—now a “need to know” has to be demonstrated. This was a direct hit at efforts to demand openness in government, even if only for analysis and writing of history. Ashcroft’s position is that presidential records ought to remain secret, even after an administration has left office. He argues that government deserves privacy while ignoring the 4th Amendment protections of the people’s privacy. He argues his case by absurdly claiming he must “protect” the privacy of the individuals who might be involved, a non-problem that could easily be resolved without closing public records to the public.

It is estimated that approximately 1,200 men have been arrested as a consequence of 9/11, yet their names and the charges are not available, and according to Ashcroft, will not be made available. Once again, he uses the argument that he’s protecting the privacy of those charged. Unbelievable! Due process for the detainees has been denied. Secret government is winning out over open government. This is the largest number of people to be locked up under these conditions since FDR’s internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Information regarding these arrests is a must, in a constitutional republic. If they’re terrorists or accomplices, just let the public know and pursue their prosecution. But secret arrests and silence are not acceptable in a society that professes to be free. Curtailing freedom is not the answer to protecting freedom under adverse circumstances.

The administration has severely curtailed briefings regarding the military operation in Afghanistan for congressional leaders, ignoring a long-time tradition in this country. One person or one branch of government should never control military operations. Our system of government has always required a shared-power arrangement.

The Anti-Terrorism Bill did little to restrain the growth of Big Government. In the name of patriotism, the Congress did some very unpatriotic things. Instead of concentrating on the persons or groups that committed the attacks on 9/11, our efforts have unfortunately undermined the liberties of all Americans.

“Know Your Customer” type banking regulations, resisted by most Americans for years, have now been put in place in an expanded fashion. Not only will the regulations affect banks, thrifts and credit unions, but all businesses will also be required to file suspicious transaction reports if cash is used with the total transaction reaching $10,000. Retail stores will be required to spy on all their customers and send reports to the U.S. government. Financial services consultants are convinced that this new regulation will affect literally millions of law-abiding American citizens. The odds that this additional paperwork will catch a terrorist are remote. The sad part is that the regulations have been sought after by federal law-enforcement agencies for years. The 9/11 attacks have served as an opportunity to get them by the Congress and the American people.

Only now are the American people hearing about the onerous portions of the anti-terrorism legislation, and they are not pleased.

It’s easy for elected officials in Washington to tell the American people that the government will do whatever it takes to defeat terrorism. Such assurances inevitably are followed by proposals either to restrict the constitutional liberties of the American people or to spend vast sums of money from the federal treasury. The history of the 20th Century shows that the Congress violates our Constitution most often during times of crisis. Accordingly, most of our worst unconstitutional agencies and programs began during the two World Wars and the Depression. Ironically, the Constitution itself was conceived in a time of great crisis. The Founders intended its provision to place severe restrictions on the federal government, even in times of great distress. America must guard against current calls for government to sacrifice the Constitution in the name of law enforcement.

The “anti-terrorism” legislation recently passed by Congress demonstrates how well-meaning politicians make shortsighted mistakes in a rush to respond to a crisis. Most of its provisions were never carefully studied by Congress, nor was sufficient time taken to debate the bill despite its importance. No testimony was heard from privacy experts or from other fields outside of law enforcement. Normal congressional committee and hearing processes were suspended. In fact, the final version of the bill was not even made available to Members before the vote! The American public should not tolerate these political games, especially when our precious freedoms are at stake.

Almost all of the new laws focus on American citizens rather than potential foreign terrorists. For example, the definition of “terrorism,” for federal criminal purposes, has been greatly expanded. A person could now be considered a terrorist by belonging to a pro-Constitution group, a citizen militia, or a pro-life organization. Legitimate protests against the government could place tens of thousands of other Americans under federal surveillance. Similarly, internet use can be monitored without a user’s knowledge, and internet providers can be forced to hand over user information to law-enforcement officials without a warrant or subpoena.

The bill also greatly expands the use of traditional surveillance tools, including wiretaps, search warrants, and subpoenas. Probable-cause standards for these tools are relaxed, or even eliminated in some circumstances. Warrants become easier to obtain and can be executed without notification. Wiretaps can be placed without a court order. In fact, the FBI and CIA now can tap phones or computers nationwide, without demonstrating that a criminal suspect is using a particular phone or computer.

The biggest problem with these new law-enforcement powers is that they bear little relationship to fighting terrorism. Surveillance powers are greatly expanded, while checks and balances on government are greatly reduced. Most of the provisions have been sought by domestic law-enforcement agencies for years, not to fight terrorism, but rather to increase their police power over the American people. There is no evidence that our previously held civil liberties posed a barrier to the effective tracking or prosecution of terrorists. The federal government has made no showing that it failed to detect or prevent the recent terrorist strikes because of the civil liberties that will be compromised by this new legislation.

In his speech to the joint session of Congress following the September 11th attacks, President Bush reminded all of us that the United States outlasted and defeated Soviet totalitarianism in the last century. The numerous internal problems in the former Soviet Union—its centralized economic planning and lack of free markets, its repression of human liberty and its excessive militarization—all led to its inevitable collapse. We must be vigilant to resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society, so that our own government does not become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.

The executive order that has gotten the most attention by those who are concerned that our response to 9/11 is overreaching and dangerous to our liberties is the one authorizing military justice, in secret. Nazi war criminals were tried in public, but plans now are laid to carry out the trials and punishment, including possibly the death penalty, outside the eyes and ears of the legislative and judicial branches of government and the American public. Since such a process threatens national security and the Constitution, it cannot be used as a justification for their protection.

Some have claimed this military tribunal has been in the planning stages for five years. If so, what would have been its justification?

The argument that FDR did it and, therefore, it must be OK is a rather weak justification. Roosevelt was hardly one that went by the rule book, the Constitution. But the situation then was quite different from today. There was a declared war by Congress against a precise enemy, the Germans, who sent eight saboteurs into our country. Convictions were unanimous, not 2/3 of the panel, and appeals were permitted. That’s not what’s being offered today. Furthermore, the previous military tribunals expired when the war ended. Since this war will go on indefinitely, so too will the courts.

The real outrage is that such a usurpation of power can be accomplished with the stroke of a pen. It may be that we have come to that stage in our history when an executive order is “the law of the land,” but it’s not “kinda cool,” as one member of the previous administration bragged. It’s a process that is unacceptable, even in this professed time of crisis.

There are well-documented histories of secret military tribunals. Up until now, the United States has consistently condemned them. The fact that a two-thirds majority can sentence a person to death in secrecy in the United States is scary. With no appeals available, and no defense attorneys of choice being permitted, fairness should compel us to reject such a system outright.

Those who favor these trials claim they are necessary to halt terrorism in its tracks. We are told that only terrorists will be brought before these tribunals. This means that the so-called suspects must be tried and convicted before they are assigned to this type of “trial” without due process. They will be deemed guilty by hearsay, in contrast to the traditional American system of justice where all are innocent until proven guilty. This turns the justice system on its head.

One cannot be reassured by believing these courts will only apply to foreigners who are terrorists. Sloppiness in convicting criminals is a slippery slope. We should not forget that the Davidians at Waco were “convicted” and demonized and slaughtered outside our judicial system, and they were, for the most part, American citizens. Randy Weaver’s family fared no better.

It has been said that the best way for us to spread our message of freedom, justice and prosperity throughout the world is through example and persuasion, not through force of arms. We have drifted a long way from that concept. Military courts will be another bad example for the world. We were outraged in 1996 when Lori Berenson, an American citizen, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life by a Peruvian military court. Instead of setting an example, now we are following the lead of a Peruvian dictator.

The ongoing debate regarding the use of torture in rounding up the criminals involved in the 9/11 attacks is too casual. This can hardly represent progress in the cause of liberty and justice. Once government becomes more secretive, it is more likely this tool will be abused. Hopefully the Congress will not endorse or turn a blind eye to this barbaric proposal. For every proposal made to circumvent the justice system, it’s intended that we visualize that these infractions of the law and the Constitution will apply only to terrorists and never involve innocent U.S. citizens. This is impossible, because someone has to determine exactly who to bring before the tribunal, and that involves all of us. That is too much arbitrary power for anyone to be given in a representative government and is more characteristic of a totalitarian government.

Many throughout the world, especially those in Muslim countries, will be convinced by the secretive process that the real reason for military courts is that the U.S. lacks sufficient evidence to convict in an open court. Should we be fighting so strenuously the war against terrorism and carelessly sacrifice our traditions of American justice? If we do, the war will be for naught and we will lose, even if we win.

Congress has a profound responsibility in all of this and should never concede this power to a president or an attorney general. Congressional oversight powers must be used to their fullest to curtail this unconstitutional assumption of power.

The planned use of military personnel to patrol our streets and airports is another challenge of great importance that should not go uncontested. For years, many in Washington have advocated a national approach to all policing activity. This current crisis has given them a tremendous boost. Believe me, this is no panacea and is a dangerous move. The Constitution never intended that the federal government assume this power. This concept was codified in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This act prohibits the military from carrying out law-enforcement duties such as searching or arresting people in the United States, the argument being that the military is only used for this type of purpose in a police state. Interestingly, it was the violation of these principles that prompted the Texas Revolution against Mexico. The military under the Mexican Constitution at that time was prohibited from enforcing civil laws, and when Santa Anna ignored this prohibition, the revolution broke out. We should not so readily concede the principle that has been fought for on more than one occasion in this country.

The threats to liberty seem endless. It seems we have forgotten to target the enemy. Instead we have inadvertently targeted the rights of American citizens. The crisis has offered a good opportunity for those who have argued all along for bigger government.

For instance, the military draft is the ultimate insult to those who love personal liberty. The Pentagon, even with the ongoing crisis, has argued against the reinstatement of the draft. Yet the clamor for its reinstatement grows louder daily by those who wanted a return to the draft all along. I see the draft as the ultimate abuse of liberty. Morally it cannot be distinguished from slavery. All the arguments for drafting 18-year old men and women and sending them off to foreign wars are couched in terms of noble service to the country and benefits to the draftees. The need-for-discipline argument is the most common reason given, after the call for service in an effort to make the world safe for democracy. There can be no worse substitute for the lack of parental guidance of teenagers than the federal government’s domineering control by forcing them to fight an enemy they don’t even know in a country they can’t even identity.

Now it’s argued that since the federal government has taken over the entire job of homeland security, all kinds of jobs can be found for the draftees to serve the state, even for those who are conscientious objectors.

The proponents of the draft call it “mandatory service.” Slavery, too, was mandatory, but few believed it was a service. They claim that every 18-year old owes at least two years of his life to his country. Let’s hope the American people don’t fall for this “need to serve” argument. The Congress should refuse to even consider such a proposal. Better yet, what we need to do is abolish the Selective Service altogether.

However, if we get to the point of returning to the draft, I have a proposal. Every news commentator, every Hollywood star, every newspaper editorialist, and every Member of Congress under the age of 65 who has never served in the military and who demands that the draft be reinstated, should be drafted first—the 18-year olds last. Since the Pentagon says they don’t need draftees, these new recruits can be the first to march to the orders of the general in charge of homeland security. For those less robust individuals, they can do the hospital and cooking chores for the rest of the newly formed domestic army. After all, someone middle-aged owes a lot more to his country than an 18-year old.

I’m certain that this provision would mute the loud demands for the return of the military draft.

I see good reason for American citizens to be concerned, not only about another terrorist attack, but for their own personal freedoms as the Congress deals with the crisis. Personal freedom is the element of the human condition that has made America great and unique and something we all cherish. Even those who are more willing to sacrifice a little freedom for security do it with the firm conviction that they are acting in the best interest of freedom and justice. However, good intentions can never suffice for sound judgment in the defense of liberty.

I do not challenge the dedication and sincerity of those who disagree with the freedom philosophy and confidently promote government solutions for all our ills. I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas.

Henry Grady Weaver, author of a classic book on freedom, The Mainspring of Human Progress, years ago warned us that good intentions in politics are not good enough and actually are dangerous to the cause. Weaver stated:

Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others—with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means. This message is one we should all ponder.

If intervention in the Middle East is the problem, then the solution is neutrality. I have often believed that we would do more good for the peace and security of Middle Eastern nations, and our own, if we renewed our commitment to this traditional American policy.

December 5, 2001
ONGOING VIOLENCE IN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
—THE CASE FOR NEUTRALITY
HON. RON PAUL of TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the resolution and not, obviously, because it condemns violence. We all condemn the violence. There is more to this resolution than just condemning the violence. I have a problem with most resolutions like this, because they endorse a foreign policy that I do not endorse and by putting on unnecessary demands. So the demands part of this resolution is the part that I object to, not the condemnation of violence.

By doing this, we serve to antagonize. We hear today talk about having solidarity with Israel. Others get up and try in their best way to defend the Palestinians and the Arabs. So it is sort of a contest: should we be pro-Israel or pro-Arab, or anti-Israel or anti-Arab, and how are we perceived in doing this? It is pretty important.

But I think there is a third option to this that we so often forget about. Why can we not be pro-American? What is in the best interests of the United States? We have not even heard that yet.

I believe that it is in the best interests of the United States not to get into a fight, a fight that we do not have the wisdom to figure out.

Now, I would like to have neutrality. That has been the tradition for America, at least a century ago, to be friends with everybody, trade with everybody, and to be neutral, unless somebody declares war against us—but not to demand that we pick sides in every fight in the world. Yet this is what we are doing. I think our perceptions are in error, because it is not intended that we make the problem worse. Obviously, the authors of the resolution do not want to make the problem worse. But we have to realize, perceptions are pretty important. So the perceptions are, yes, we have solidarity with Israel. What is the opposite of solidarity? It is hostility. So if we have solidarity with Israel, then we have hostility to the Palestinians.

I have a proposal and a suggestion which I think fits the American tradition. We should treat both sides equally, but in a different way. Today we treat both sides equally by giving both sides money and telling them what to do. Not $ 1 million here or there, not $ 100 million here or there, but tens of billions of dollars over decades to both sides, always trying to buy peace.

My argument is that it generally does not work, that there are unintended consequences. These things backfire. They come back to haunt us. We should start off by defunding—defunding both sides. I am just not for giving all of this money, because every time there are civilians killed on the Israeli side or civilians killed on the Palestinian side, we can be assured that either our money was used directly or indirectly to do that killing.

So we are, in a way, an accomplice on all of this killing because we fund both sides. So I would argue we should consider neutrality, to consider friendship with both sides, and not to pretend that we are all so wise that we know exactly with whom to have solidarity. I think that is basically our problem. We have a policy that is doomed to fail in the Middle East; and it fails slowly and persistently, always drawing us in, always demanding more money.

With the Arabs, we cannot tell the Arabs to get lost. The Arabs are important. They have a lot of oil under their control. We cannot flaunt the Arabs and say, get lost. We must protect our oil. It is called “our oil.” At the same time, there is a strong constituency for never offending Israel.

I think that we cannot buy peace under these circumstances. I think we can contribute by being more neutral. I think we can contribute a whole lot by being friends with both sides. But I believe the money is wasted, it is spent unwisely, and it actually does not serve the interests of the American people.

First, it costs us money. That means that we have to take this money from the American taxpayer.

Second, it does not achieve the peace that we all hope to have.

Therefore, the policy of foreign nonintervention—where the United States is not the bully and does not come in and tell everybody exactly what to do by putting demands on them—I think if we did not do that, yes, we could still have some moral authority to condemn violence.

But should we not condemn violence equally? Could it be true that only innocent civilians have died on one side and not the other? I do not believe that to be the case. I believe that it happens on both sides, and on both sides they use our money to do it.

I urge a No vote on this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, like most Americans, I was appalled by the suicide bombings in Israel over the weekend. I am appalled by all acts of violence targeting noncombatants. The ongoing cycle of violence in the Middle East is robbing generations of their hopes and dreams and freedom. The cycle of violence ensures economic ruin and encourages political extremism; it punishes, most of all, the innocent.

The people of the Middle East must find a way to break this cycle of violence. As Secretary of State Colin Powell told the House International Relations Committee in October, “You have got to find a way not to find justifications for what we are doing, but to get out of what we are doing to break the cycle.”

Mr. Speaker, I agree with our Secretary of State. The Secretary also said that we need to move beyond seeing the two sides there as “just enemies.” I agree with that too. I don’t think this piece of legislation moves us any closer to that important goal. While it rightly condemns the senseless acts of violence against the innocent, it unfortunately goes much further than that—and that is where I regrettably must part company with this bill. Rather than stopping at condemning terrorism, this bill makes specific demands on Israel and the Palestinian areas regarding internal policy, and specifically the apprehension and treatment of suspected terrorists. I don’t think that is our job here in Congress.

Further, it recommends that the president suspend all relations with Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority if they do not abide by the demands of this piece of legislation. I don’t think this is a very helpful approach to the problem. Ceasing relations with one side in the conflict is, in effect, picking sides in the conflict. I don’t think that has been our policy, nor is it in our best interest, be it in the Middle East, Central Asia, or anywhere else. The people of the United States contribute a substantial amount of money to both Israel and to the Palestinian people. We have made it clear in our policy and with our financial assistance that we are not taking sides in the conflict, but rather seeking a lasting peace in the region. Even with the recent, terrible attack. I don’t think this is the time for Congress to attempt to subvert our government’s policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Finally, the bill makes an attempt to join together our own fight against those who have attacked the Untied States on September 11 and Israel’s ongoing dispute with the Palestinians. I don’t think that is necessary. We are currently engaged in a very difficult and costly effort to seek out and bring to justice those who have attacked us and those who supported them, “wherever they may be,” as the president has said. Today’s reports of the possible loss of at least two of our servicemen in Afghanistan drives that point home very poignantly. As far as I know, none of those who attacked us had ties to Palestine or were harbored there. Mr. Speaker, I think we can all condemn terrorism, wherever it may be, without committing the United States to joining endless ongoing conflicts across the globe.

The next to last floor vote of the year in 2001 was on a resolution offered by Lindsay Graham. This legislation moved us closer to war in the name of promoting the UN agenda. Little attention has been paid to the fact that much of the long march to war in Iraq was done in promotion of UN resolutions.

December 19, 2001
STATEMENT IN OPPOSITION TO
THE HOUSE RESOLUTION ON IRAQ
HON. RON PAUL of TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose House Joint Resolution 75, because it solves none of our problems and only creates new ones. Though the legislation before us today does wisely excise the most objectionable part of the original text of H.J. Res. 75—the resolution’s clause stating that by not obeying a UN resolution Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been committing an “act of aggression” against the United States—what remains in the legislation only serves to divert our attention from what should be our number one priority at this time: finding and bringing to justice those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator. The Iraqi people would no doubt be better off without him and his despotic rule. But the call in some quarters for the United States to intervene to change Iraq’s government is a voice that offers little in the way of a real solution to our problems in the Middle East, many of which were caused by our interventionism in the first place. Secretary of State Colin Powell underscored recently this lack of planning on Iraq, saying, “I never saw a plan that was going to take [Saddam] out. It was just some ideas coming from various quarters about ‘let’s go bomb.’”

Mr. Speaker, House Joint Resolution 64, passed on September 14 just after the terrorist attack, states:

The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.

From all that we know at present, Iraq appears to have had no such role. Indeed, we have seen “evidence” of Iraqi involvement in the attacks on the United States proven false over the past couple of weeks. Just this week, for example, the “smoking gun” of Iraqi involvement in the attack seems to have been debunked. The New York Times reported: “the Prague meeting (allegedly between al Qaeda terrorist Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent) has emerged as an object lesson in the limits of intelligence reports rather than the cornerstone of the case against Iraq.” The Times goes on to suggest that the “Mohammed Atta,” who was in the Czech Republic this summer, seems to have been a Pakistani national who happened to have the same name. It appears that this meeting never took place, or at least not in the way it has been reported. This conclusion has also been drawn by the Czech media and is reviewed in a report on Radio Free Europe’s “Newsline.” Even those asserting Iraqi involvement in the anthrax scare in the United States, a theory forwarded most aggressively by Iraqi defector Khidir Hamza and former CIA director James Woolsey, have, with the revelation that the anthrax is domestic, had their arguments silenced by the facts.

Absent Iraqi involvement in the attack on the United States, I can only wonder why so many in Congress seek to divert resources away from our efforts to bring those who did attack us to justice. That hardly seems a prudent move. Many will argue that it doesn’t matter whether Iraq had a role in the attack on us; Iraq is a threat to the United States and therefore must be dealt with. Some on this committee have made this very argument. Mr. Speaker, most of us here have never been to Iraq; however, those who have, like former UN Chief Arms Inspector Scott Ritter—who led some thirty inspection missions to Iraq—come to different conclusions on the country. Asked in November on Fox News Channel by John Kasich, sitting in for Bill O’Reilly, about how much of a threat Saddam Hussein poses to the United States, former Chief Inspector Ritter said, “In terms of military threat, absolutely nothing. Diplomatically, politically, Saddam’s a little bit of a threat. In terms of real national security threat to the United States, no, none.” Mr. Speaker, shouldn’t we even stop for a moment to consider what some of these experts are saying before we move further down the road toward military confrontation?

The rationale for this legislation is suspect, not the least because it employs a revisionist view of recent Middle East history. This legislation brings up, as part of its indictment against Iraq, that Iraq attacked Iran some 20 years ago. What the legislation fails to mention is that at that time Iraq was an ally of the United States, and counted on technical and military support from the United States in its war on Iran. Similarly, the legislation mentions Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait more than 10 years ago. But at that time, U.S. foreign policy was sending Saddam Hussein mixed messages, as Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait simmered. At the time, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie was reported in the New York Times giving very ambiguous signals to Saddam Hussein regarding Kuwait, allegedly telling Hussein that the United States had no interest in Arab-Arab disputes.

We must also consider the damage a military invasion of Iraq will do to our alliance in this fight against terrorism. An attack on Iraq could destroy that international coalition against terrorism. Most of our European allies, critical in maintaining this coalition, have explicitly stated their opposition to any attack on Iraq. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned recently that Europe was “completely united” in opposition to any attack on Iraq. Russian president Vladimir Putin cautioned recently against American military action in Iraq. Mr. Putin urged the next step to be centered around cutting off the financial resources of terrorists worldwide. As for Iraq, the Russian president said, “So far I have no confirmation, no evidence that Iraq is financing the terrorists that we are fighting against.” Relations with our European allies would suffer should we continue down this path toward military conflict with Iraq.

Likewise, U.S. relations with the Gulf States like Saudi Arabia could collapse should the United States initiate an attack on Iraq. Not only would our Saudi allies deny us the use of their territory to launch the attack, but a certain backlash from all Gulf and Arab states could well produce even an oil embargo against the United States. Egypt, a key ally in our fight against terrorism, has also warned against any attack on Iraq. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said recently of the coalition, “If we want to keep consensus, we should not resort, after Afghanistan, to military means.”

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand this push to seek out another country to bomb next. Media and various politicians and pundits seem to delight in predicting from week to week which country should be next on our bombing list. Is military action now the foreign policy of first resort for the United States? When it comes to other countries and warring disputes, the United States counsels dialogue without exception. We urge the Catholics and Protestants to talk to each other; we urge the Israelis and Palestinians to talk to each other. Even at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union had missiles pointed at us from 90 miles away in Cuba, we solved the dispute through dialogue and diplomacy. Why is it, in this post-Cold War era, that the United States seems to turn first to the military to solve its foreign policy problems? Is diplomacy dead?

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this legislation, even in its watered-down form, moves us closer to conflict with Iraq. This is not in our interest at this time. It also, ironically enough, could serve to further Osama bin Laden’s twisted plans for a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. Invading Iraq, with the massive loss of lives on both sides, would only forward bin Laden’s hateful plan. I think we need to look at our priorities here. We are still seeking those most responsible for the attacks on the United States. Now hardly seems the time to go out in search of new battles.