Ron Paul, Foreign Policy and the Military

Probably the most common objection to Dr. Ron Paul heard from conservative voters is the well-worn line: “I like Ron Paul, except on foreign policy.” This isn’t because the typical Republican voter agrees with the current Bush-Clinton-Obama foreign policy: a November CBS News poll found nearly three-fourths of Republicans believe “the U.S. should not try to change dictatorships to democracies…” More likely, it is because they hear the same drivel incessantly repeated by people they have been accustomed to respect. A delusional Dick Morris, speaking on the O’Reilly Factor, recently claimed that Ron Paul is a “left-wing radical” who “wants to dismantle the military” and “blame[s] America for 9/11.” Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann called his foreign policy ideas “dangerous,” while Newt Gingrich pompously announced that “Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.”

Really?

Perhaps we should clarify that “Ron Paul’s views” aren’t just random gleanings from the Huffington Post. Unlike Santorum, whose chief foreign policy adviser might as well be Toby Keith, Ron Paul is one of the most well-informed people in the beltway when it comes to the Middle East, its history and America’s involvement there. Even if you don’t agree with his conclusions, you can’t help noticing the depth of his knowledge when he warms up to this subject. His thorough historical studies and his own observations over the last 35 years form a solid basis for understanding world events. His advisers have included Michael Scheuer, a 22 year CIA veteran who spent over 17 years focused exclusively on Bin Laden- and Al Qaeda-related intelligence analysis, and who for some time headed the “Bin Laden desk” at the CIA, and Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and contributing editor for The American Conservative. His foreign policy views are more or less those of George Washington, Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Sen. Robert Taft, Russell Kirk – even William F. Buckley’s views on foreign policy come closer to Ron Paul’s than those of any other current presidential candidate. With that said, let’s take a closer look at these “extreme” views.

Ron Paul’s budget calls for cutting defense spending back to 2006 levels. That’s right, the same spending levels we had four years into the so-called War on Terror and three years into the Iraq War. If that were done, our defense budget would only amount to 35-40% of the entire world’s military spending, approximately equal to the next ten countries combined (Russia, China, UK, France, etc.). It is beyond difficult to imagine that Dick Morris is unaware of this fact, so he must be either nuts or disingenuous.

On “blaming America for 9/11,” Paul has merely pointed out that our policies and actions in the Middle East have – predictably - caused an extreme backlash among Muslims, of which 9/11 was a result. To the neocon hawks who measure the strength of America’s defenses by the number of bombs we drop in a given week, this view may sound extreme and radical. It is shared, however, by the previously mentioned left-wing radicals – sorry, I meant intelligence experts - Scheuer and Giraldi. It is also the view expressed by the 9-11 Commission and by many of the counter-terrorism experts who testified during its investigation. Even more relevant to the absurd claims of Dick Morris is the prediction conservative icon Russell Kirk delivered back in 1991 in a speech to the Heritage Foundation. Speaking of the Gulf War and the policies pursued by the first President Bush, Kirk warned that “We must expect to suffer during a very long period of widespread hostility toward the United States — even, or perhaps especially, from the people of certain states that America bribed or bullied into combining against Iraq. In Egypt, in Syria, in Pakistan, in Algeria, in Morocco, in all of the world of Islam, the masses now regard the United States as their arrogant adversary …”

Those of us who have admired Ron Paul for years were entirely unsurprised to hear him say that 9/11 reflected a backlash to American policies. After all, he had called for President Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 after the Sudan and Iraq bombings, noting that “our national security is jeopardized by allowing this to happen… We’re liable to have more attacks … by terrorists. ” Many Republicans agreed with him at the time. Prior to September 2001, Dr. Paul had repeatedly predicted that the arrogant course we pursued since the 1950s in the Middle East would lead to increasingly deadly terrorist attacks. His warnings were largely ignored, but given the accuracy of his predictions, those who ignored them should not be astonished that he still maintains the same views.

Speaking to Sean Hannity back in October, Rick Santorum credited Ron Paul with extensive experience and a “deep” understanding of foreign policy issues; and, while noting that he and Paul had “different viewpoints,” added that “when the phone rings at three in the morning” Paul would likely know the history and the characters and have a plan to handle the situation. But last week he called Paul “dangerous,” falsely accusing him of saying that a nuclear Iran is not a threat to Israel. Actually, Paul has said that a nuclear Iran does not pose a credible threat to America, and that Israel has both the right and the capability to respond should they determine that Iran poses a risk to them.

A little known fact bears mentioning here: when Israel bombed two Iraqi nuclear reactors in 1981, the United States Congress passed an almost unanimous resolution condemning Israel’s actions as reckless and unjustified. I said almost unanimous – Ron Paul was the only vote against the resolution. He opposed it on the grounds that Israel had a right to defend itself and that America should stay out of their affairs unless our involvement was requested.

Santorum also recently attacked Paul’s assertion that military aid to Pakistan is not in America’s best interest, arguing that because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, America has no choice but to buy Pakistan’s allegiance, whatever it takes. There is a lesson here if one can get past the embarrassment of a presidential candidate making such a cowardly argument in public. Maybe Rick doesn’t realize this, but if he is smart enough to make the connection between Pakistan’s nukes and the billions of dollars their political and military leaders siphon away from American workers, you can bet the Iranians are too. As Dr. Paul has pointed out before, we talked Gaddafi out of his nuclear ambitions and then turned on him. Bomb = aid; no bomb = lots of bombs dumped on you; what possible motivation have we left Iran for abandoning a nuclear weapons program, if indeed they have one?

But Newt Gingrich stands out in the lineup of Paul bashers. His sweeping, all-inclusive, and arrogant attacks are earning him the disrespect of many, if not most, Americans. Imagine that you are a soldier in Afghanistan, or a sailor in the Persian Gulf, and a Ron Paul supporter. You’ve gone beyond merely supporting him; you’ve given a chunk of your shamefully low combat pay to his campaign. You’ve made this sacrifice, along with thousands of your fellow fighting men and women, precisely because of Paul’s views on foreign policy. You know why active duty military personnel are far and away the largest group (by employer) among his supporters. You know why he has received more in donations from military men and women than all the other GOP candidates combined. You are living the war on terror; your life is on the line every day; you’ve seen firsthand how the effort to win hearts and minds in the Middle East really works; and you believe Ron Paul is right when he says we are less safe because of our military adventurism. Now a narcissistic career politician and lobbyist who studiously avoided military service in Viet Nam declares those views - your views – to be “totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.” How exactly does that feel?

Which brings to mind one thing I really don’t like about Ron Paul: he is way too kind to Gingrich and his ilk. He tends to stick to his own argument even when seemingly irresistible opportunities present themselves for showing up windbags like Newt. He did finally call Newt out as a chickenhawk last Saturday night, which brought an angry reaction from the former Speaker: he denied using college deferments to avoid the draft, claiming that he was married with a child and thus wouldn’t have been eligible anyway. To which Paul responded icily, “When I was drafted, I was married and had two kids, and I went.”

And one more thing for the record, Newt: he’s still married.

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Here's a great article by John Nichols on why Ron Paul isn’t just a conservative, he’s the only conservative running for President this election cycle:

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/22/144122913/the-nation-why-do-gop-bosses-fear-ron-paul

Why I Am Not A "Truther"

Three years ago I started to delve into the so-called "9-11 truth movement" and the subject of conspiracy theories in general on this blog. I never followed through, partly due to a lack of time, but also because I decided there was little to gain and much to lose by the attempt. Several recent developments have reopened the topic, however, and a series of discussions over the Memorial Day weekend convinced me, with some trepidation, to run the risk of putting a few more observations in writing. With trepidation, because I will almost certainly offend some who I respect by denying the credibility of claims they find convincing, and others by noticing claims they find utterly ridiculous.

In that earlier post, I noted that it often seems as though there are only two camps when it comes to political conspiracy theories. One chooses to accept the "official" government explanation in every instance; the other sees masterful deception, sinister motives, and almost divine omnipotence behind every news-worthy event. Considered calmly and in the light of history, both these extremes are nonsensical. Governments are made up of men; generally speaking, unscrupulous and dishonest men, but men none the less.

To consider the first: the idea that official pronouncements on any topic should carry much weight is silly on its face. The dishonesty of politicians and the incompetence of career bureaucrats are both matters of common knowledge. Particularly in regard to foreign policy, official statements are usually meaningless and frequently intended to deceive. Diplomacy has been defined, with good reason, as the art of lying for one's government. The entire history of international relations, from ancient Israel to the present, is a history of deception on a grand scale. In my view, far from lending extra weight to any version of events, the fact that a story is the official line goes in the scales against it.

The other extreme, however, is equally silly. It is beyond reason to assume that every major event is part of a vast human plan. Human plans don't generally work out as they are supposed to, and the bigger and more complex they are, the less likely they are to succeed. Moreover, there is a vast difference between recognizing dishonesty in the official story line and uncovering the real truth of the matter. Decades or even centuries later, with the benefit of hindsight, it often remains impossible to know with certainty the truth about many major events. I am continually frustrated when "truthers" present the most mind-boggling explanations for the events of 9-11, and when asked to state the evidence, immediately begin to cite problems or inconsistencies in the 9-11 Commission report, evidence of official cover-ups, or examples of how the powers that be have benefited from those events as "evidence" for their wild hypothesis. Often they seem sincerely unable to comprehend why such "evidence" does nothing to prove their own explanation.

The fact is that while there are many holes in the official account of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, most of the various alternatives floating around under the umbrella of the "truth movement" have no credible evidence at all to support them. They seem generally to be developed without any substantive investigation of the actual facts while suspiciously well adapted to make exciting documentary material. Most treat the airplanes as a distraction and claim that the twin towers were brought down by internally placed explosives. Some claim that no airliners were involved at all. Either way, these "alternatives" assume intricate conspiracies of incredible magnitude, requiring the knowledge and complicity of hundreds or thousands of eye-witnesses, emergency responders, construction workers, police and military personnel, airline employees, news media, demolition and recovery workers, stock brokers, high-ranking government officials, petty bureaucrats, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Such conspiracies are the stuff of science fiction, not reality.

I would venture the opinion that the real 9-11 conspiracy is much less exciting. I suspect that it involves an obscenely long wish list of expanded powers sitting in a file cabinet at the Justice Department, under the absurdly patronizing title of The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. I suspect that it stayed in that file cabinet because, while both Republican and Democrat administrations would have dearly loved such an expansion of executive power, both also knew that, in ordinary times, bringing it forward would inspire jealousy in the evil hearts of opposition legislators. So there it languished, waiting for an appropriate time of crisis and the brief moment of bipartisanship that a good crisis always brings. As I noted in the earlier post, such a crisis was bound to occur sooner or later, given the volatile combination of military occupations, tyrannical regimes propped up with American foreign aid, and the constant, petty, manipulative meddling that former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer calls "imperial hubris" - again on the part of both Republican and Democrat administrations.

No doubt Sept. 11, 2001 will go down in history as a Reichstag moment, and rightly so. But to conclude from this that it must have been an "inside job" is unwarranted and unnecessary. The Thompson killings in 1846, the sinking of the Lusitania, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident were all similarly anticipated, provoked, and used to manipulate the American public into support for otherwise unpopular wars. The official story behind each of these events is full of holes. None of them, however, was an "inside job." In each case, the enemy was baited into an act of war that justified a military response, and the problems with the official account stems from the difficulty of leaving the bait out of the story.

(For those who take issue with the idea that the U.S. provoked the 9-11 attacks, I again quote the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer: "Bin Laden has been precise in telling Americans the reason he is waging war on us. None of the reasons have anything to do with our freedom, liberty and democracy, but have everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world.")

While the standard template for discussing the 9-11 attacks (a benevolent and peaceful America blindsided by a "sucker punch ... from somewhere in the back") is somewhere between a bad joke and a pack of lies, there is overwhelming evidence available regarding the actual events themselves. Even the collapse of WTC 7 is easily explained without resorting to alternative theories, if one takes the time to examine the structural issues and the eyewitness testimony relating to it.

What bothers me about all of this is not that conspiracy theorists don't trust their government, but that they don't invest the time and effort to scrutinize each others' claims. Most conspiracy theories have a grain of truth somewhere, buried in mountains of conjecture and fiction. Rumors of secret experiments with cloud seeding and weather manipulation magically grow into fantastic stories of "chemtrails" and population reduction efforts. Radio telescopes and ionospheric research become mind-control projects that can also cause massive earthquakes. Secret and exclusive clubs where powerful elites and their mistresses drink, party and discuss how to dig deeper into our pockets morphe into pagan temples where birds, rodents and worse are sacrificed to Satan himself. These claims serve only one purpose: to discredit those who buy into them. Unfortunately, many conspiracy afficionados seem to think it is everyone else's responsibility to disprove their ideas, and are content to dismiss any skeptic with the question, "Have you researched it yourself?"

In the mean time, policies and actions that truly threaten everything we hold dear are pushed forward right under our noses. While President Obama's birthplace was the subject of useless but frantic scrutiny, litigation, and alternative media attention, his political and economic policies have done incalculable damage to our nation and our freedoms. Just as the 9-11 "truth" movement was unfairly but effectively used to discredit Ron Paul in 2008, so the "birther" issue has more recently been used to discredit Tea Party activists, even those who paid no attention to it. The 2012 election will be either a tremendous opportunity or another blow to individual liberty. We would all do well to select carefully the issues to which we will devote our time and efforts.

Conspiracy Theory 101.1

I’ve intended to write a post about conspiracy theories for over a year. Writing time is scarce these days, between work, EMT class, homeschooling and political activism – but working on Ron Paul’s campaign has brought this issue into focus more times than I care to acknowledge. Two months ago I finally caved in to intense peer pressure and agreed to watch a pile of DVDs that would supposedly offer irrefutable proof that our government directly perpetrated the attacks on 9/11/01. Having heard second-hand many of the arguments put forward by Mssrs. Jones, Avery, etc., I fully expected to find these “powerful presentations” less than convincing. However, I was unprepared for … well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Before I offer my thoughts on 9/11, it might be useful to consider the concept of conspiracies in general. In general, I find that folks tend to fall into two categories: those who believe conspiracies are everywhere, and those who refuse to believe they exist at all. Both of these positions result in an unrealistic perspective on life.

In one form or another, conspiracies form a critical part of the political history of every powerful nation that has ever existed. From ancient Israel, Persia, Greece and Rome to Spain, the Netherlands, France and England, on to Russia, Germany, Japan and yes, the United States of America, every nation that has played a major role in world affairs has been subjected to the attention of those who stand to gain or lose through manipulation of those affairs. I could provide specific instances from the histories of each of these nations, where the events in question appear very different to the bird’s-eye view of historians than they would have appeared to contemporary observers. So to assume that the political landscape of the only superpower in the world today is free from the influence of secret outside forces is to believe a fairy tale.

Even within the memories of many who read this, our own country has seen numerous conspiracies come to light. Some are on a small scale; some on a large scale. Some, like the Watergate scandal, run afoul of government interests and are exposed by the justice system; others, like the murder of President Diem during the Vietnam War, involve the interests of the government and consequently are shielded from legal exposure. Some, like the 1953 overthrow of Iranian PM Mohammed Mossadegh, are resolved with time and more information; while others, like the 1995 bombing of the Murrah building in OKC, remain a mystery, with little known except that the “official” explanation is false. In short, conspiracies do play, indeed are playing, a significant role in the politics and events we experience from day to day.

The question one needs to ask, then, is this: how do we know when we are seeing the effects of such plots? Unfortunately, the abject ignorance of history that characterizes Americans today leaves many of us without the intellectual tools needed to answer that question with reasonable accuracy. Add to the mix Americans’ widespread distrust of the government and the media, and one result is that those who realize they are being lied to tend to assume that a direct, causative relationship exists between the liar and the events in question. So, for example, when the President claims that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 9/11, those who perceive the emptiness of that claim conclude that the President must be hiding something (which he is), so he must be the guilty party (oops - non sequitur). Actually, the President’s false claims could be related to a number of factors, most likely his pathological urge to overthrow Hussein with or without a reason.

The other combination that tends to fuel conspiracy theories is when a powerful organization or individual benefits from a major event. To continue with the 9/11 illustration, the reasoning runs like this: the terror attacks created a climate of fear perfectly suited to the implementation of police state measures and the repression of individual liberty (true); the government took full advantage of this climate to implement such policies (also true); therefore the government must have arranged the attacks (again, non sequitur). While the administration certainly took advantage of the situation, it would have required only minimal understanding of American foreign policy and the principle of blowback to realize that an Islamic terrorist attack on the U.S. was bound to occur in the near future.

Coming soon: how to test a "conspiracy theory" for probability.