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Ron Paul: "Iraq Collapse Shows The Bankruptcy Of Interventionism"
Submitted by Congressman Ron Paul via The Free Foundation blog,
May was Iraq’s deadliest month in nearly five years, with more than 1,000 dead – both civilians and security personnel -- in a rash of bombings, shootings and other violence. As we read each day of new horrors in Iraq, it becomes more obvious that the US invasion delivered none of the promised peace or stability that proponents of the attack promised.
Millions live in constant fear, refugees do not return home, and the economy is destroyed. The Christian community, some 1.2 million persons before 2003, has been nearly wiped off the Iraqi map. Other minorities have likewise disappeared. Making matters worse, US support for the Syrian rebels next door has drawn the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government into the spreading regional unrest and breathed new life into extremist elements.
The invasion of Iraq opened the door to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which did not exist beforehand, while simultaneously strengthening the hand of Iran in the region. Were the “experts” who planned for and advocated the US attack really this incompetent?
Ryan Crocker, who was US Ambassador to Iraq from 2007-2009, still speaks of the Iraqi “surge” as a great reconciliation between Sunni and Shi’ite in Iraq. He wrote recently that “[t]hough the United States has withdrawn its troops from Iraq, it retains significant leverage there. Iraqi forces were equipped and trained by Americans, and the country’s leaders need and expect our help.” He seems alarmingly out of touch with reality.
It is clear now that the “surge” and the “Iraqi Awakening” were just myths promoted by those desperate to put a positive spin on the US invasion, which the late General William Odom once called, “the greatest strategic disaster in American history." Aircraft were loaded with $100 dollar bills to pay each side to temporarily stop killing US troops and each other, but the payoff provided a mere temporary break. Shouldn’t the measure of success of a particular policy be whether it actually produces sustained positive results?
Now we see radical fighters who once shot at US troops in Iraq have spilled into Syria, where they ironically find their cause supported by the US government! Some of these fighters are even greeted by visiting US senators.
The US intervention in Iraq has created ever more problems. That is clear. The foreign policy “experts” who urged the US attack on Iraq now claim that the disaster they created can only be solved with more interventionism! Imagine a medical doctor noting that a particular medication is killing his patient, but to combat the side effect he orders an increase in dosage of the same medicine. Like this doctor, the US foreign policy establishment is guilty of malpractice. And, I might add, this is just what the Fed does with monetary policy.
From Iraq to Libya to Mali to Syria to Afghanistan, US interventions have an unbroken record of making matters far worse. Yet regardless of the disasters produced, for the interventionists a more aggressive US foreign policy is the only policy they offer.
We must learn the appropriate lessons from the disaster of Iraq. We cannot continue to invade countries, install puppet governments, build new nations, create centrally-planned economies, engage in social engineering, and force democracy at the barrel of a gun. The rest of the world is tired of US interventionism and the US taxpayer is tired of footing the bill for US interventionism. It is up to all of us to make it very clear to the foreign policy establishment and the powers that be that we have had enough and will no longer tolerate empire-building. We should be more confident in ourselves and stop acting like an insecure bully.
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He doesn't have to names the names. We know the names and the people that don't know wouldn't recognize them.
It's better in the long run to say what he is saying, to the people he could reach with the common sense/logic approach.
Better for his and his family's health also.
True. We the people do not want to see another good American assasinated by international financiers who care nothing for any land, any people, any Republic.
Dearest Dr Paul,
I do admire your valor, and humanity.
However, you are trapped by Nazionists, their war machine.
Zionism is a new fangled thing, created by international financiers in the late 1800s, long after jews came to America and thanked rabbis in New England for assisting the War of Independence.
As you no doubt know as you have had the courage to speak peacefully and strongly, the old foe newly rebranding itself as the Trilateral Commission hate you, me, every American, and anyone who defies their money grubbing ways; their feudalist agenda.
They make money from war. Money, power, control: that is their agenda.
God bless you and your son, and our Republic. No surrender.
The Best President America Never Had.
A rare individual these days. A Statesman in the best sense of the word.
Our intervention will decrease when the dollar dies and we can't fill the tank for free (ie we won't have a reserve currency we can print for free). At that point folks will realize that from LBJ on we have been led to believe we can have guns and butter. When it comes to choosing the folks will choose butter and accept war only when actuallty threatened.
Every day I read about another couple of dozen people blown up there.....but at least it's a Demon-Ocracy now and we've won all their hearts and minds.
Wilson already admitted he killed America. We just waiting for it to be called.
You. Not me and mine. No surrender.
The Boston fire chief was forced to resign over his complacent handling of the Marathon bombing response. Forced to resign by his own deputies.
This is how it works in the Commonwealth.
Get off your knees. Make a community or go somewhere else in the world, somewhere that likes nihilism, blureaucracy.
Nazionists who own Wall St and Washington claim that the Iraq war is over, and the West won.
Wrong.
The media caravan moves on, leaving more than 1000 dead in Iraq in May, most of them in Baghdad...while McCain consorts with Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria, and seeks to incite this USA Republic into another war for HIS nazionists.
NO.
The blood and treasure of my family for generations will not agree with this endless war pursued by a CONgress that has the least number of military men in our history, yet wages endless war without their blood and treasure waged, all for their international finance, their new fangled European Rothschild Zionism, not for this Republic.
The white-shoes boys from Harvard, Yale and Princeton must have their interventionism or else what else would they do in between golf games?
The Neocon /Neolib purpose was to effectively destroy Iraq as a threat to Israel-in that regard the policy has been a success. Ralph Schoenman in "The Hidden History of Zionism" lays out the plan by the early founders of Israel-Herzl, Ben Gurion, Begin , etc -to carry out the strategy of divide and conquer -you don't have to invade and conquer the Arab nations, you just have to exploit the numerous ethnic and religious groups within these artificial, European created boundaries, so that they are in perpetual war against each other. It's very effective -they have done it before in Lebonon, Iraq, now Libya and Syria. It will be tougher to do this in Iran -so they may attempt to level the entire country -using us, of course, as their proxy. It's the Balkinization of the Middle East -it's a process being carried out in the United States for decades through massive legal immigration from non-european countries-and lillegal immigration from Mexico.
Our turn will come. It's in the plan. We are being used as the engine that drives Globalization -when that role is finished, then it's our turn.
Paulians say America shouldn't be the world's cop. Remember two things about cops: They're necessary, and they're paid well.
What you see is that we spent a trillion dollars pacifying Iraq and didn't even get a thank-you note. What you don't see is that the U.S. dollar would have collapsed years ago if we didn't have the world's strongest military and a demonstrated willingness to use it. When the cops offer a storekeeper freshly printed paper "money", he smiles and accepts it. When an unarmed person tries this, he's told to get lost.
So I ask the Paulians two questions: Who should be the world's cop? And what should we be? What else are we good at?
The US is not the world's cop. It is nothing more than an out of control MIC as warned by Eisenhower. IS the US a cop when it supports Al Qaeda in Syria? Does a good cop terrorize the entire US population with silly Al Qaeda threats after supporting Osama Bin Laden in A-stan for years? What are we good at? In the past we represented free market capitalism to the world. Today we are demonstrating to the world that we are a corporate nanny state. Break up the corporate control. Let America rebuild on the principle of free market innovation. Resources don't necessarily make a country rich. Ideas and attitudes of the people do.
"IS the US a cop when it supports Al Qaeda in Syria? "
The message being sent, the one that has always been sent, is that if you aren't on the side of the US, you are an enemy and any means will be used to eliminate you from power in your own country even if it means helping our own enemies to do that. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Read:
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
http://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Change/dp/080508...
Basically, it's the corporate ownership of the US government that has controlled this process, as detailed in that book.
Pacifying Iraq?. Iraq was passive before the US invaded... and if you actually read Ron Paul's words and any other trustworthy news reports..you would see that Iraq is more violent and dangerous now, after the world's policeman finished spending trillions of dollars to "pacify" it.
It is also interesting to note that more than half of Iraq's oil production goes to China.. a big thanks to the world's most corrupt cop for seizing Iraq's natural resources and shipping the booty to China.
I get it, we totally suck at this global cop thing. We're still the cop, and I'm still waiting to hear who would do it better. England did the job for two centuries until it was exhausted by Hitler and defeated by Labor. How about India or China? Brazil? Russia impressed me with the way they gently persuaded the Somali pirates to take up fishing again.
God bless you Dr. Paul. And may God damn the collectivist, neocons, and Plutocrats to hell.
The US did not only destroy Iraq but are also stopping Afghanistan to start extracting their riches. Simply for the fact that the US would loose control over the most important raw materials. Afghanistan has to be a failed state so that nobody can take the stuff out. Thats why it is still very unclear if the Us is really leaving Afghanistan.
I never believed it because this would mean the end of US control of the raw materials markets. China would make a deal with the Afghans. The Afghans would get rich and can buy everything what is "made in China"" - roads, railways, consumer goods, cars, you name it. The Chinese pay in their currency and would be independent from the US/UK as far as raw materials are concerned.
Everything what Afghanistan does not have can already be purchased in Russia. And then you have it completed. That would put pressure on the prices on a worldwide scale. Canada and Australia which are important pillars of the US empire would get problems in case they make problems for China. On the long run these two countries have to go along with their most important costumer. A costumer who can pay for the materials with money (currency) accepted as good money all over the world. This money is going to be the Yuan and not the US Dollar. The Yuan can be used to purchase goods in China and all over the world. Its backed by the Chinese production base of real goods and services. While the US Dollar is only backed by the US military. There is very little the world needs which is still produced in the US. Except agricultural products.
So, how can the US leave Afghanistan - its impossible because it would mean the end of the US superpower position. Not more and not less.
In my opinion the things are heading towards a collapse of the US comparable to what happened to the Sowjet Union. The US can learn a lot from Russias experience. Suddenly an old slogan of the communist propaganda is becoming actual but in a way nobody thought at the that time: "To learn from the Sowjet Union means to learn how to win". Exchange "Sowjet Union" with Russia and then you have it. Not evrything is gold in Russia nowadays but things are clearly improving on a very broad scale. Russia has a plan for their long term future. The US not yet.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/21/191854/delay-in-mine-project-shado...
Hey, we can turn this into a win! Just send McCain over there to stand around with his dick in his hand.
But if you're not on board with interventionism, you're automatically labeled an isolationist by status quo establishment types.
Then you should turn around and label their foreheads with a fucking shovel...
We have Bankruptcy Of Interventionism, Bankruptcy of Ethics, Bankruptcy of Morals, Bankruptcy of Municipalities, Bankruptcy of Everything but the G D Banks.
D and R both in the senate and congress supported the Iraq war from Hitlery to McCain..two parties my ass. Now tell me you leftists how they were hood winked by the VP or obuma supporter C Powell, or our old potus who stated "No nation building ever"!!
When a country's main industry is war weaponry, that country's business plan includes efforts to stir up conflict everywhere in order to create demand.
There is no ideology greater than this in the US.
Petrodollar.
RP is wrong about one thing... the US taxpayer (and those of all co-conspirators) have NOT footed the bill....yet.
Ron Paul, as Chair of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy should have been grilling TBTF bankers, Bernanke and Geithner daily, especially after he decided he wasn't going to run again. Instead, hardly anything. Why?
'America's (Diabolical) Foreign Policy vis-a-vis Nat'l. Security?' Question: If National Security is No.1 on the U.S. Priority (as the framers wanted?) List... why(?), isn't it under the Government's sole priority and jurisdiction to take the 'Capitalist (MIC/Energy) Market's out of the 'Free-Enterprise' equation?'
Note: This isn't a slant towards socialism nor communism... or for that matter Fascism. American's can chew gum and walk at the same time without giving up civil liberty's!? jmo
"1994" Cheney's Quagmire via (Kissinger of death's?, 'Constructive Ambiguity') comment and Saddam Hussein Becomes Prime Minister'" (scroll down) http://usiraq.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000670#kuwait
Ref: 1990-1999 "The First Gulf War and Weapons Inspection" http://usiraq.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000670 (Note*: [Timeline 1990-2011])
October 22,2010 -- "Wikileaks Publishes Classified U.S. Military Logs on the War in Iraq" http://usiraq.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000670#war2011
thankyou Tyler, and my utmost graditude goes out to U.S. Rep. Mr. Ron Paul
we're America - we're here to help