I am a hawk, no doubt about it. If I am going to be taxed by the state, I would much rather my hard earned money be spent dropping bombs on the lackeys of Slobodan Milosevic (Bill Clinton’s finest hour, without a doubt) and Saddam Hussain, than on corrosive domestic ‘entitlements’ and ever more kleptocratic regulatory statism.
So then along comes Ron Paul, the first US presidential candidate since Ronald Regan with any notion whatsoever that the state is way way way too big. Moreover here comes a person who thinks the only way liberty can be preserved is to take a radical axe to Leviathan’s tentacles and re-establish constitutional limited government. Cool. Very cool, in fact. So do I really really like Ron Paul? Well I like him but less than you might think as some of his remarks are borderline delusional ‘troofer‘ stuff and that does him no credit at all. Is he actually going to win? Probably not but that is not what this article is about (commenters please note). Do I even want him to win? Well that is what this article is about.
He wants a return to constitutional limited government. What’s not to like about that? But then my eye falls on that picture of Murray Rothbard in Ron Paul’s office. I am not a fan of Rothbard even though there is indeed much good stuff in The Ethics of Liberty. Although I think he was correct about a great many things, I also think he was often as intellectually dishonest as Karl Marx and Noam Chomsky and perfectly fits Adriana Lukas’ definition of a barking moonbat: “someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency”. For Rothbard to have argued that the cold war was a delusion and that the Soviet Union was not really a clear and present danger is so preposterous on so many levels that I am not even going to elaborate why. If you can not figure out that one yourself then this article is not addressed to you. In fact, please stop reading and get lost.
Otherwise, read on… If this was 1980 and I was going to vote in a US election with a choice not between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter (whom I regard as one of the worst Presidents in US history), but rather between Jimmy Carter and anyone with a picture of Murray Rothbard on his wall, then with heavy heart I would have voted for Jimmy Carter. To have allowed someone who was a transposed version of Ron Paul into the White House circa 1980 would probably have resulted in me writing this article in 2007 from some bunker amidst the post-apocalyptic radioactive ruins of our civilisation.
But it is not 1980 and we did indeed win the Cold War without blowing the planet up in the process. Despite the Mussolini-esque antics of Vladimir Putin, Russia is and will remain a busted flush. Its corrupt and self-destructive political culture and the regrettable views of most Russians make that fact as close to historical inevitability as you will ever find in this uncertain world of ours. We won and there is not going to be a re-match.
So what would happen if Ron Paul really did win the White House in 2008? Well in my opinion, domestically speaking the United States would experience the greatest growth of liberty and (consequently) prosperity since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Monstrous tumours on the American body politic like the abuse of eminent domain, the RICO statutes and the absurdly named Patriot Act would go into the garbage heap of history where the corpses of slavery and the Jim Crow laws rot away. Absurdities like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, something that has done more to export US jobs and capital than almost anything else in the last few years, would vanish like the morning mist. That magnificent pinnacle of the European Enlightenment called the US Bill of Rights would once again be worth the paper it is written on. If these things came to pass it would, in my not so humble opinion, be a very very good thing indeed.
But then how would Ron Paul deal with the two and a half major global security threats that face the world? By this I mean China, Islamic Fundamentalism and Russia (the later being the ‘half-a-threat’).
He has made no bones about the fact he is a non-interventionist overseas as well as at home. Decode the verbiage and the answer to how he would deal with those security issues is “he would pretty much just ignore them” unless they were trying to march down Pennsylvania Avenue. The United States military would be mostly withdrawn to the continental US and reduced in size. The complex tangle of international security relations in which the USA plays such a leading role would be unravelled. Is this what I personally want to see? No, it is not.
But like I said before, this is not 1980.
Russia is a threat. To whom? To all the states that once made up the former Soviet Union and who are now independent. Yet just how much of a long term threat is a nation with catastrophic demographics and the longest indefensible borders in the world to worry about themselves? “Oh but what about their oil revenues?” Yeah, and even with all of that, their GDP is not quite the size of…Italy. Moreover most of the former Warsaw Pact are now batting for the other side so even the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of the EU ($13.1 trillion GDP) can contain Russia ($1.7 trillion GDP) whilst spending chump change on their military. The USA is simply not needed any more.
China is a threat. To whom? To the USA? No. To Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea (and in the long run, Russia)? Oh yes. But then look at those countries. Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are highly sophisticated and very wealthy technological societies. India, with its huge population, large military and rapidly growing economy is a formidable nation in its own right. Russia? Well in the short run they see China as a military ally, more fool them.
But my point is I think those nations are perfectly capable of containing China militarily without the USA being involved in any way whatsoever. All they need is the political will to do so.
And that leaves us with Islamic Fundamentalism. A threat? Yes. To whom? Damn near everyone on the planet who is not a Muslim. Yet it is a materially different sort of threat than vast China or sclerotic Russia. There are no huge Islamic armies and in the modern era the ones that do exist have generally proven to be embarrassingly inept. They are dependent on technology their own societies are incapable of producing themselves and they are economically unsophisticated. Culturally the Fundamentalists are primitive and unappealing to people from non-Muslim societies.
So the threat does not primarily come from Islamic states, but rather from supra-national groups of Muslims dispersed around the world. However just because no Muslim horde is ever going to roll through the Balkans and arrive at the Gates of Vienna with tanks and artillery, that does not mean there is no threat. 9/11 was just the most spectacular of a long line of attacks on targets in the USA (not to mention others in Europe, Africa and Asia).
But is the global military involvement of the USA an indispensable element in the fight against Islamic fundamentalism? And by ‘indispensable’ I mean “is the global victory of Islamic Fundamentalism assured if the USA is not heavily engaged in this fight?” Well personally I am very happy (as in delighted) to see the USA involved in the fight but that was not the question I am asking. No I do not think the USA is indispensable. Would the world be a better place if the Taliban were still in control of Kabul and running Afghanistan? No, there is no upside to that but but it would not be the end of the world, either. Would Iraq and the world generally be better off if Saddam Hussain and his psychopathic sons were still running the show in Baghdad as some absurdly misfiled ‘libertarians’ claim? No, I do not think so, but again, it would not bring the edifice of global security crashing down either.
As Brian Micklethwait once said regarding non-interventionist foreign policies, just as many risks come from doing nothing as doing something, it will just be different set of risks. If the USA does nothing but line up its army along its borders and pulls up the drawbridge, it will not run many of the same risks it does today. It will run a whole series of different risks.
Will that make for a safer world? Probably not. Will it make for a safer USA? Probably not. Am I sure about that? No, but I think I am right which is why I am a hawk. But as I keep saying, it is not 1980. The downside of me being right and Ron Paul being wrong is nowhere near what it was given the same choices during the Cold War. China is a regional threat, Russia is a dead man walking and Islamic Fundamentalism is more akin to a very dangerous disease. The downside of Ron Paul being wrong could be serious but it is not going to result in a global thermonuclear war.
And that, quite simply, is why I hope he wins.
Would that it were so, Perry! Unfortunately, there is the little issue of the House & Senate.
Look at the infamous Kyoto Protocol, which VP Al Gore “signed” on behalf of the US but was never ratified by the US Senate. The only way for the US to get rid of the stinking mess of past legislation is to replace the majority of the members of the House & Senate. But with the incumbency protections that politicians have given themselves, that is (unfortunately) not going to happen short of some kind of major upheaval.
As to your ruminations that the US downgrading its role internationally would be OK, you are correct. Which is just as well, because it is going to happen anyway, regardless of who wins the US Presidential election.
The US never was terribly interested in the rest of the world, and now so many Americans have simply become sick of limp-wristed whining Europeans and effete self-important international elites. The rest of the word is going to have to learn to look after itself — and soon!
Thanks, much to think about.
I am a Libertarian supporter of Ron Paul, but I have to admit that he is not likely to win the Republican nomination or the presidency. So the question of whether or not he is well-suited to be Commander in Chief, while relevant, is not the only one. Another question is, how far can he move the debate on domestic/tax/economic issues. And its for this reason that I hope he goes as far as possible and gains as much support as possible, even though I’m sympathetic to libertarian hawk arguments. My understanding is that even the Republican faithful who dismiss him as a minor candidate with no real chance are quietly organizing to prevent any upsets in convention.
I do think his support is both somewhat overstated by online polls that get swarmed by his supporters, and understated by the mainstream media. I’ve seen a significant number of Ron Paul bumper stickers and yard signs here in rural Oregon.
Alice
That’s not all.
I read other sites where the majority think that Ron Paul is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Maybe so but, contrary to what others have written –
Ron Paul is NOT going to, with a wave of his magic hand,
go back to the gold standard ( not possible )
eliminate the IRS
eliminate the BATFE
eliminate a LOT of other ‘department of this or that’.
Our government simply doesn’t work that way ( it’s a presidency for cryin’ out loud not a dictatorship !! )
One of the things about him that bothers me, if its true, is that he is in favor of eliminating national boarders !!!!
That’s right folks – ANYONE can come on in –
Now, you DON’T get any social services or goodies but you can sure live here.
Right. How long do you think that would last before someone starts screaming – ‘They’re starving, they need medical help, they need clothing, shelter, you name it and then we have millions more to support !!
Hell, this country feeds almost half the world now in one form or another ( usually labeled ‘brought to you by the U.N. – funny, never saw a ‘U.N. farm’ !! )
Besides, if you don’t have a boarder, you don’t have a country.
This guy has some ideas about going back to the founding fathers principles but some of the others are just scary.
By 1980, the USSR was already in a terminal stage. To believe otherwise is to give socialist planning more credit than it deserves.
Not true, Tancredo believes exactly that. Tancredo is also a fundamentally good and decent man who would have nothing to do with 9/11 conspiracy theorists and the fag ends of the New Left. Ron Paul, apparently, isn’t. The fact that Ron Paul is leading a “revolution” whilst Tancredo lumbers in obscurity is perhaps the most shocking inditment of contemporary politics one can imagine.
It’s heartbreaking to me that I cannot support the candidate with all the good points you mentioned. But I cannot.
To watch him on the campaign trail, he devotes some time to Constitutional limits and smaller government — but he spends most of his time knocking the war and pushing a return to the Gold Standard. I can’t jon him on either of those.
Sad to say that free trade relies on a certain level of order (Deepak Lal of UCLA talks about Liberal International Economic Orders, the largest of which were created by 19th Century Britain and post WWII United States). The liberal ideals I hold are worth defending. Those who seek to destroy modernity will not leave us alone if we look inward.
Cynic:
……….and I’m sure you said so at the time ;-))
“When the Me109 you are shooting at hits the ground you may be able to make a ‘kill’ claim.”
Well my personal bumper sticker and roadside signs count here in Florida is approximately:
Mitt Romney – 1
Rudy Giuliani – 1
Kucinich – 1
Hillary – 1
Ron Paul – 20+
Perry’s line of thought matches mine very closely. I would just add that Ron Paul did vote for military action against Afghanistan, so he is not totally unrealistic about the threat out there.
If I could vote for him, I would.
Paul is a theoretical libertarian. I am a consequentialist libertarian. The difference is when your theoretical answer yields a nonsensical result, do you press on or not?
In the Anglosphere, we tend to regard slavish devotion to theory as something better suited to the Continent. Those are the people who sponsored the 20th century.
Sorry Perry but that is simply not true. Paul has said many times that he wants a stronger US army. He wants a much stronger border patrol and supported the invasion of Afganistan so that Bin Laden could be captured.
He is very much in favor of reacting very strongly to foreign enemies.
And why is it that the financial consequences of the Neo-cons foreign policy are left undiscussed?
What about the costs of the war in Iraq? What about the fact that the US is deep in debt for trillions of dollars? That the federal reserve is creating money out of thin air to pay for this war? That the US government is lending money from China, of all countries, to finance this nation building war?
I am looking forward to your answers.
Completely untrue but…
… if it WAS true, it would actually make me MORE likely to vote for him.
I said ‘military’ not army. And border patrols are essentially police.
Then you clearly need to re-read my article and figure out what is it and is not about.
Even if I didn’t agree with nearly all his views (and I do agree with them), I’d support Paul just for voting against giving Tony Blair a Congressional Gold Medal.
Well said. I would have considered myself a libertarian hawk as well, but after listening to dozens of Ron Paul speeches, I think he is quite convincing when he describes the current status quo of U.S foreign policy as being very exotic, and expansionist, and unsustainable anyway.
America certainly doesn’t need bases in Germany or Korea. The more thought I devote to the subject, the more I agree that America would be increasing its security by bringing troops home en masse.
The point of departure for me, is that bringing the troops home right now is ANYTHING BUT pacifism. I think its a more powerful long term strategy against its enemies.
America still has a fine and powerful standing army. If attacked, it should respond swiftly and with devastating force. America should defend its borders and control immigration and certainly try to use intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks.
I’m starting to seriously doubt that having US soldiers in Iraq “draws the terrorists out” instead of having them carry out attacks against U.S civilians.
Basically, instead of modern era style interventionism and a massive and full-scale deployment of the U.S military across the globe, I think America should act more like a sovereign state interested in protecting its own citizens.
Ron Paul will also help end this nonsensical ideology of internationalism, where we use the U.N and other groups to do nothing about major conflicts and genocide.
I agree almost 100% with you. Nicely written
Dealing firstly with the one and a half “major global security threats” to which you conclude the US needn’t intervene, China and Russia, I think you should revise your definition to match your deduction – that both are regional threats, not global ones, and since they are not located in the same region as the US, pose no active threat to it.
I would also press that the issue of Islamic fundamentalism is not a global issue, but rather, as you identify, a conflict between a handful of nation states and a disparate grouping of Islamists, motivated partially by religious fanaticism and partially by an understandable retaliatory hatred of the United States and the nations acquiescing in its middle eastern policy. We must distinguish between a hatred of one particular country (which happens to maintain many civil freedoms) deriving from its foreign policy and an abstract hatred of those freedoms per se. Were it the case that Islamic terrorists deplored the ideals of female emancipation, the acceptance of homosexuality or religious tolerance, their targets might as well be Switzerland, Canada, the Netherlands or South Africa as the US. I struggle to understand why these countries, which have a comparable, if not greater, degree of civil liberty to the US, are not the targets of terrorism (so far as I am aware) if Islamic terrorists hate freedom.
It seems, therefore, that there is necessity to demarcate problems which concern ‘the West’ – such as the potential threat of nuclear annihilation – from those which affect the United States and those nations which broadly support their interventionist foreign policy.
Andrew, I do not agree with very all of that.
The whole “they hate us for our freedom” is a complete canard and thus the counter argument is meaningless to me. They hate us for not being muslims, end of story.
‘Blowback’ is a very poor explanation for Islamic terrorism. Please explain which muslim nations Thailand or Kenya invaded?
I realise that many Americans of all political flavours cannot conceive of anything happening anywhere that does not either revolve around the USA or happen as a consequence of something the USA has done. Ain’t necessarily so. Muslim vs. non-Muslim violence considerably pre-dates 1776.
Sorry, hit post accidentally
(Before continuing, you made this point, which I intended to pick up on:- “If this was 1980 and I was going to vote in a US election with a choice not between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter (whom I regard as one of the worst Presidents in US history), but rather between Jimmy Carter and anyone with a picture of Murray Rothbard on his wall, then with heavy heart I would have voted for Jimmy Carter.”
Ron Paul, I understand, also has this photograph(Link) in his office, showing him as one of only four Congressmen to support Reagan against Ford in 76. Perhaps you can infer a little more from that, and from his support for Reagan’s Strategic Defence Intiative, for his views on the Cold War.)
If the US and its allies continue to pursue policies that exacerbate the grievances felt towards them due to their foreign policy, to expect anything other than the growth of support for the ideals of one’s opponents seems nonsensical. Suppose we take a conservative estimate of casualties from Iraq, from the Iraq Body Count. Suppose that somewhere in the region of 80,000 civilians have been killed by the direct action of the coalition’s military forces or by the resultant suicide terrorism directed against them. It is not a hatred of freedom which motivates their families and friends to support religious fanaticism, but the same desire for revenge that motivates 9/11 widows. There exists, for sure, a small core of Islamic terrorists who are committed to the ideals of Islamism. The incidental slaughter, dismissed as collateral damage, of co-religionists understandably leads the families of civilian victims to identify with those ideologues and their terrorist organisations as a means of retribution. Our foreign policy clearly has externalities, which the hawk seems to ignore just as dogmatically as the socialist ignores the consequences of high taxes.
Brian Micklethwait is correct, but not especially insightful, in his observation that risks derive from action as well as from inaction. Less trite, perhaps, would be the observation that blame is partitioned according to degree of participation, and not to degree of culpability. It might well be the case that US interventionism is well-intentioned and benevolent, but the risks borne by identifying oneself as the responsible party – the nation builder – is disproportionate, especially in the Arab world, to any short term security benefit gained.
Sure, I understand your position and that of Ron Paul. And as already stated I think you are both wrong because your axioms are fundamentally flawed (i.e. I think the world actually works in a significantly different way than you think it does).
Fortunately I think the stakes are not quite so high now (for reasons also already stated) and I also suspect a Ron Paul administration might find some things harder to undo than he might like (which might be good re. sane foreign policy, not so good re. sane domestic policy).
The whole “they hate us for our freedom” is a complete canard and thus the counter argument is meaningless to me. They hate us for not being muslims, end of story.
What is it about our not being Muslims that means they hate us? That we choose not to observe Sharia customs? That we endorse the political equality of women? That we decline to kowtow to threats against freedom of speech?
You’ve merely restated the argument, unless I’ve misunderstood you, that they hate us because we don’t observe their customs and live differently – that is, that we’re free not to observe their customs – that is, that we’re free.
Perhaps we might look at the targets, since you raise the issue, of terrorist attacks in Kenya. It seems to me (though I confess to being no expert) that these are primarily American/Israeli businesses, which suggests (though, it needn’t be said, doesn’t justify) that they are typical of the anti-US/anti-Israeli actions of Islamic terrorist groups.
The Thailand issue illustrates a concession I made – that there are some people seriously committed to this religious ideology (mostly those that we subsidised to stop the Soviets in Afghanistan). However, it seems almost deliberately arrogant to propound that the resultant collateral damage is insignificant compared to our security benefit, which, as somebody who endorses interventionism, it seems to me that you must. Thus, the consequence of our foreign policy is to supply propaganda for the real ideologues who oppose freedom and to unite people under the banner of Islamism where previous attempts (in particular Arab nationalism) by the enemies of the US and her allies have failed. Then, we can deal in the necessarily limited operations of destroying terrorist groups as criminals.
‘Blowback’ is a very poor explanation for Islamic terrorism.
Understood properly, blowback is the unintended consequences of our actions. Just as the unintended consequence of subsidising the Shah was the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the unintended consequences of post-WWI intervention in Germany evoked rabid nationalism (not anti-Semitism), so is there a correspondence between our present day actions in Iraq and our future likelihood of security from Islamism and terrorism.
You hit the nail right on the head Perry. The fact of the matter is that even if Ron Paul (I am a pseudo-supporter) is a potential answer to the growing Statist encroachment in the U.S. does not mean falling into the same, self-hating guilt of American policy that Paul holds to. Thank you for reiterating the fact that he is not the Messiah that his supporters make him out to be.
“Monstrous tumours on the American body politic like the abuse of eminent domain, the RICO statutes and the absurdly named Patriot Act would go into the garbage heap of history where the corpses of slavery and the Jim Crow laws rot away. Absurdities like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, something that has done more to export US jobs and capital than almost anything else in the last few years, would vanish like the morning mist. That magnificent pinnacle of the European Enlightenment called the US Bill of Rights would once again be worth the paper it is written on.”
These would all be excellent, but would President Paul be able to acheive them with a Congress such as ours? Likely not, we would still have the same vote pandering Senators for life until they become lobbyists that we had before.
The lone thing a President can really impact is international affairs. I fully support Ron Paul in nearly everything except the military, and that is what a President does.
However, if Paul’s non-interventionist policies cross over to the United Nations, international compacts that sign away our oceanic sovreignty, restrict our carbon buring goodness, force Israel to concede to murdering thugs and the like, then I agree with you.
The screwball thing is, if the President weren’t CINC of the armed forces or responsible for foreign policy I actually would be a supporter.
He’s just, well, either woefully ignorant or a damn liar when he’s playing to an audience. I mean, WhereTF did he pull “We gave them the gas[1]” from?[1]
Screw it. This year, the worst of the Republicans will probably be better than Clinton/Obama/Edwards.
[1] The gas used on the Kurds. It was made in Iraq on equipment purchased from Germany. Other than a few satellite images, none of Saddam Hussein’s military hardware came from the US. That’s been public knowledge since Gulf War I, but certain people have decided that the actual truth is less advantageous to their side and Paul seems to have drank their Kool-Aid. Or he knows better but also thought that lying was to his political advantage.
FYI y’all: Paul gets a full hour on NBC’s Meet the Press this Sunday, if you want to see his first real moment in the spotlight.
I am slightly dismayed by the many libertarian types and small-government conservatives who have been denouncing Paul in recent times – I too find some of his entourage utterly repugnant, but I can’t dismiss most of what he says (and thus him) on the strength of that alone. Moreover, he largely – though not always – practices what he preaches in terms of his voting record, and certainly to a far greater degree than most other members of Congress. I support him in ’08 – with some caveats, sure – but I support him. I accept that even if he becomes President, his ability to carry out his government-shrinking promises is limited, but surely Dr No with a veto would be a fine, fine outcome indeed for federal politics. Congress would be hamstrung for at least four years. Paul would be a lot cheaper on the taxpayer than anyone else. Marvellous.
Incidentally, I’d be interested to hear Paul Marks’s response to this post.
As troubled as I am by Paul’s foreign policy I have to agree. (The blowback thing is real enough its just not the whole story, the rest as Perry put it is that they hate us because we’re not Muslims.
For me whenever a so-called conservative attacks Paul for something other than his foreign policy I want to throw a fit.
Yes you do misunderstand me because you are trying (not unreasonably) to see the nuances in the argument I am making on that point. There are none.
Islam is not about their (abominable) views about women or their bizarre views about interest or even about Sharia per se. It is above all about submission to God. It is not about free will or predestination or gnostic revelation or any of that stuff.
Just being religious is not enough, you must be religious in their all encompassing way of surrender to the literal word of God, as written down by some kiddie fiddling warlord. I think the mistake you are making is rather like saying “the Nazis hated the Jews because they were rich/poor/wore different clothes/had strange customs” or whatever. No, they hated them because they were Jews and the Nazi creed was in no small part defined by being a Jew hater. Being a Nazi required you to hate Jews so people who became Nazis for whatever reason hated Jews. It was part of the package. They were the designated enemy. The despised Other.
The actual stated reasons were so absurd that clearly there was no objective basis in reality, but since when has that ever stopped people believing anything? Kill the Jew because he controls the banks and media. So then why kill lots of poor Jews who are not called Rothschild and who live in ghettos and clearly control nothing? Because it says “hate the Jews” in Mine Kampf. That was all the reason most people needed.
Likewise Muslim Fundamentalists (or ‘Literalists’, which is actually the term I prefer) hate non-Muslims because that is what the Koran says you have to do if you are a Muslim. Not because of this or that (sure, the reasons are varied), but because when you boil it down, we are to be hated because we are the Other. Because we are non-Muslims. Not much nuance there, really. Fundamentalist Islam is irrational just as National Socialism was irrational.
Perry,
I actually think there’s more to it than that. The Nazis had some genuine (by their ideology) reasons to hate the Jews. They saw Jews behind both capitalism and communism and both of these transnational movements were anathema to the Volkish ways of Hitler and his mob. I am not defending them and yes I’m aware they also believed some insane blood-libel type nonsense but it wasn’t quite as arbitary as you say.
Similarly, I don’t think muslim hatred is as arbitary. For reasons which I think are obvious it’s very hard to have a proper economy under Sharia so the Islamic world is backward. How can that be if the system is divinely perfect? So clearly it’s the fault of someone else. Who’s the obvious candidate? The most powerful country in the world, obviously. A lot of the anti-US rhetoric of recent years sounds almost exactly like anti-UK stuff from 100 years ago. It’s the same grab-bag of causes and they are real causes. You or me might think they’re totally wrong-headed but the causes are real. I will come up with a rather different explanation to bin Laden as to the reasons for the plight of the Palestinians but the fact remains that Gaza is an epic shit-hole.
Then you need to inform yourself what Ron Paul really wants. He wants the military to patrol the borders. He has stated that repeatably. Do you even know who you are talking about?
You are now engaging in a non sequitur . It does not logically follow that because I got one word wrong that
I have not understood your article.
Paul has stated many times that he indeed wanted a stronger military and a better defense of the US.
You clearly need to re-read my answer. You completely ignored Ron Paul’s economic arguments. Of course you are free to do so, but that will leave the impression that you have no answer. This economic argument is part of the reason why he wants a non-interventionist foreign policy.
He has said time and time again that he believes that the US is over stretching itself economically and that therefore the US should withdraw from foreign countries.
You have chosen not to address these matters and thereby are dropping a huge context from the discussion.
Do you have an answer to that?
A lot of good insight, Perry, but you say “But is the global military involvement of the USA an indispensable element in the fight against Islamic fundamentalism?”
My opinion: No, no U.S. and UK brigades are needed, but CIA, MI6, etc. involvement is. In order to be able to roll back the marines, we need to engage the enemy with different means, and thus change a few paradigms. Touchy-feely as it may be, I am a believer in the 80-20 rule, and also in the power of proper incentives on people. If one, two, three…. 20, 21… bin Ladens, Saddam Husseins, and the likes of them go up in a spectacular fireball, or end up with a 50 caliber bullet in the occipital, or as a blood-drooling corpse with some blood in his cyanide circulation system, that will create proper incentives for their followers to think along the lines of “I see no Crusaders under my bed, but X did, and I would not want to be him now…” In other words, we’d need to keep nuclear weapons AND the desire to use them away from the supra-national Muslim groups you talk about in other ways, which are both way more efficient, and way less palatable for both domestic voters and the international community. Don’t get me wrong, I like it if it can be done with proper oversight – basically telling the rest of the world: “We have switched gears. We do not mean to intervene in your internal affairs unnecessarily, but there is a point at which they become threats to us, at which point we’ll help you take the threat out, or take it out ourselves. Like it, and enjoy our good graces, free trade with us, and all the bonuses… Get in our way, and you are an enemy, because you unnecessarily defend an enemy of both yours and ours for the sake of an empty principle of sovereignty.”
To recap, there are enemies of freedom out there that cannot be reasoned with, or contained at any reasonable economic cost. WMD’s change a lot of calculations when a rogue group with a few million dollars can take out not a building but a city. Until Ron Paul tells us how he intends to counter them, he gets too big of a cross-mark in my book. Simply “We should not intervene.” does not cut it; the ostrich strategy, when combined with a concrete floor, tends to yield grievous results.
Right, and you need to differentiate between what Ron Paul says and what his policies actually imply. A bunch of army people patrolling the border will be police by any other name. The colour of the uniform does not really make any difference. They will not be formed into combat units, they will be acting as police. That will not make the USA militarily stronger.
Ron Paul may have better political views on a great many things than, say, Ted Kennedy, but he IS a politician. That means he lies and speaks half-truths. All politicians do that, no exceptions. None.
The notion that after withdrawing from its global commitments the US military will not shrink dramatically is frankly bizarre (i.e. Ron Paul is lying by giving the impression that is not true). Just how many carrier groups do you think will be needed to secure Miami from invasion by Cuba? How many armoured divisions and air groups to secure California from invasion by Mexico? How many mechanised divisions and boomers needed to secure Buffalo from invasion by Canada?
You asked:
My article is NOT about the financial cost of this or that approach to foreign policy, not even tangentially. Ergo you did not understand what I was and was not discussing and thus will wait in vain for an answer to your questions in this particular comment thread. I can certainly write about that, but that will be a very different article.
A little tangential, but did Bill Clinton ever have a finest hour ?
Oh yes, Hovis. Speaking as someone who watched the USAF in action in real time rather than via CNN, I have never been so happy to see my tax money at work.
It seems to me that Paul is a flawed candidate, not least for his willingness to cultivate the ‘fringe’ element among his supporters (for fringe read bonkers).
It would be nice if his campaign could at least engender debate about the nature of bloated government; if he could show that this is an issue that enough people care deeply about, it may encourage other Republican candidates to appeal to this constituency in the future.
I agree. Now please name for me the one who is not.
I agree that does him no credit but all the candidates curry favour with bigots and/or thieves of one form or another, so I am not sure I see much difference. The fact some wacko views are more mainstream than others does not make them any less odious or wacko.
I do not think you can read my article and conclude I have any illusions about Ron Paul.
And thus you are dropping a huge context. QED
Of course I accept that showing support for a candidate does not imply support for all of his other supporters, that would be absurd.
But since I believe that Paul is not electable, I am merely trying to salvage from his (imo) doomed candidacy some positives for a future ‘small government’ Republican candidate.
Nobody finds a candidate, in any election anywhere, whose opinions and aims completely match their own. People are presented with the totality of their preferred candidate’s manifesto, and vote for him (often through gritted teeth) because they agree with a certain percentage of the proposals, sometimes only one significant proposal, and often because he is the least worst option.
(Incidentally this is why I have an instinctive distrust for post-election coalitions. If I vote for a Conservative candidate in a local election solely because he is opposed to, say, the pedestrianisation of the High Street, I do not expect that pledge to not be a ‘red line issue’ in a post-election coalition haggle with the Liberal Democrats.)
So the reason that I would vote for Paul would be to embolden a future (more electable) Republican candidate to embrace the ideals of small government and individual liberty, by showing him/her that a large constituency for those ideas exists.
I am not convinced you know what QED mean then. I am writing a blog article, not a doctoral thesis, and it is about why I am willing to be supportive of Ron Paul in spite of his wilfully delusional approach to the rest of the world. It is not about anything else.
Moreover I could talk of the the cost (financial/human/political) of a tried, tested and failed approach to foreign affairs based on doing nothing much (i.e. the lead up to world war 2 for example), turning your contentions on their head. But again, that would be another article, not this one.
The point has already been made that a good showing for Ron Paul in New Hampshire might make the Republicans take a good look at their activties – but it is worth examining this point again.
It would be a valid point if Ron Paul was concentrating on oppostion to domestic programs – but he is not.
And whatever one thinks of the judgement to go into Iraq in 2003, and I was opposed, the Ron Paul plan of just pulling out (snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?) makes no sense. It would hand the Islamic radicals a vast victory – the whole Middle East might well fall to them, and Muslims around the world (all billion plus of them) would be shown that the radical antiWestern interpretation of both Sunni and Shia Islam was the correct interpretation. That world conquest was the will of God.
Nor is it the case that the 9/11 attacks were just because the United States has bases in the Middle East or had done some bad thing or other. The attacks were part of a war against infidels that O.B.L. and co regard as a basic religious duty. As the most important infidel nation of course the United States was and is target.
“Then why did they not attack Sweden or Switzerland?” because they are not the most important infidel powers. If Sweden and Switzerland did not exist the United States would continue – if the United States did not exist (or retreated in on its self) Sweden and Switzeraland would not stand for long.
And they DO have these nations in mind – for example there are many Islamic activists in Malmo who are determined that Sweden one day become an Islamic state (you may laugh – but they are not joking) and they will, as there numbers grow, use any and all means to achieve what they believe to be God’s will.
Still back to domestic programs.
Take the example of the last few days.
There was big debate among Senate Republicans (reported by Robert Novack and others) over whether to renounce “ear marks” – i.e. the special projects that politicians get the taxpayers to pay for in the (often false) hope of impressing the voters back home.
O.K. it would not be the same thing as denouncing the entitlement programs – but it would have been important.
If the Republicans had said (as, for example, a Senator from Oklahoma and a Senator from South Caralina wanted) “we renounce all our ear marks” they would have been in a better position to attack the vast number of Democrat ear marks.
But the Senate Republican leadership decided not to go down this road.
Now think what the situation would have been if Ron Paul was doing well in the polls and had been concentrating his fire on the domestic programs.
Then the Senate Republican leadership would have been very likely to have decided the other way – for fear of the Republican base and independents turning away from the party in disgust (although one would have thought they got the message about ear marks last November – but it seems they did not).
If only, even at this late stage, Ron Paul would turn his main fire on the domestic programs (the Welfare State than costs vastly more than the military) and THEN did well in New Hampshire – well his campaign would do some real good.
He would remind Republicans of what the modern Republican party (as opposed to the late 19th century one) is supposed to be for.
This is not impossible. For example, Warren Harding is not really hated by the establishment historians because of corruption (his Administration was no more corrupt – and it was a lot LESS corrupt than that of F.D.R. or President Truman), President Harding is hated by the academics because he cut government spending by about 25% (from the peacetime 1920 level).
So it is possible to cut government spending. Just as it is possible to avoid a massive credit bubble bust turning into a long lasting “depression”.
The First World War credit bubble burst about the time Warren Harding became President – he did nothing about it (apart from cut government spending) and the economy was in recovery within six months (which is why establishment economists hate the true memory of the Harding Administration).
Ron Paul understands fiscal and monetary policy – he knows that the “asset bubble” that the Fed Chairman (and the ex Fed Chairman) say that more credit money must be produced to deal with was CAUSED by the credit money expansion of Alan Greenspan (just as the credit money bubble that led to the crash of 1929 was caused by the credit money expansion of New York Fed Chairman Ben Strong in the late 1920s).
Ron Paul could play a vital educational role in both explaining to the country what is the nature of the threat, and what must NOT be done in reaction to this threat.
More government spending and regulations (plus a trade conflict) is exactly how the bust of 1929 was reacted to – and it was the reaction (by Herbert “The Forgotten Progressive” Hoover and Congress) not the bust itself, that was the cause of the true horror that was the Great Depression.
When the bust comes, and it must eventually, government spending must be cut (not increased) the economy must be deregulated (not more regulations imposed) and taxes, especially taxes on investment, must be reduced or abolished (again not increased).
And, of course, the labour market must be a as free as possible – no minimum wage regulations, or pro union statutes.
“Polticially impossible”.
Then it will not be a nasty few months, as in 1921, – it will be a second Great Depression, or worse.
Perry:
Actually, I think that focusing on the lead up to WWII would provide a pretty convincing argument for non-interventionism. Especially since WWII was a product entirely of WWI, which was itself a product of a foreign policy committing Britain and France to the defence of other nations.
After WWI, the Anglo-French treatment of Germany initially was a prime example of collective punishment, out of which a renewed sense of German nationalism was to grow in reaction to a) the military occupation of Germany until 1931, juxtaposed to Germany’s military impotence; b) the collapse of the German currency, due to the collection of exorbitant reparations by France in 1923; c) the reliance on, as a result of the Dawes and Young Plans, the United States, which made Germany wholly dependent on the US for stability (countering the myth of US isolationism in the 20s); and d) massive unemployment, blamed on the Western powers for their recalling of loan. I think, if anything, that there is amongst this a perfect example of the requirement for the US not to involve itself in international affairs – Hitler’s prominence in national politics arose not from his anti-Semitism but his opposition to the Young Plan, the attempt to benevolently decrease the amount of reparations owed by Germany and orchestrated by the United States. Had the US government not subsidised Germany throughout the 1920s with cheap loans, the effect of the Depression on Germany would have been far less substantial and destroyed the constituency for Hitler’s nationalism.
I agree that this is the Koranic reading of Islamist ideologues. But in extirpating these few ideologues, we must ensure that our actions do not encourage people to flock to their side who are similarly victims of US foreign policy, such as the relations of civilians killed in Iraq. An interventionist foreign policy, as I have endeavoured to explain without refutation, rationally associates the US and Britain, in the minds of the many wounded and mourning, as the primary actor in their personal loss.
The heavy-handed mechanism of military interventionism is disproportionate to the threat we face. Where terrorist crimes are planned against the US from outside of its borders, it should justly seek to bring the perpetrators to justice – which Ron Paul’s authorisation for funds to capture Osama bin Laden did – but the means must be such as to minimise the externalities of our action. The strategy of using intelligence forces, directed against specific threats, as outlined by Plamus above, is the correct one, and, I infer from his voting record, the one that Ron Paul endorses. The policing of Iraq, Afghanistan and the remainder of the Middle East with US troops is ineffectual in tackling terrorism, as it creates a new class of anti-Americans, motivated by rational loss and, whilst nominally propounding Islamism, are directed to its door by the heavy-handed excesses of US foreign policy.
I disagree on every level…
The article was about “can someone who wants a small state but thinks non-interventionism is an excellent way to end up with the likes of Hitler and Stalin, reconcile himself to Ron Paul?” As a consequence it should be a given I would regard your entire view of foreign affairs as foolishness balanced on top of fallacy.
But this is not the place for that discussion and to be honest as I regard your world view as so utterly wrong headed and based on so many faulty premises that I am not sure it is worth the effort. I do not mean that as an insult but I find it hard to imagine that we will convince each other of anything and I very much doubt you can tell me anything I have not heard before in much greater detail and seen the holes in before.
Just one ‘meta-contextual’ example: the notion of treating foreign terrorists as ‘criminals’ to to be ‘brought to justice’ is so preposterous I find it hard to keep a straight face typing the words. It is a military issue, not a criminal one. Para-military even, but ‘justice’ is not the issue. It is just a different kind of war.
I believe in draining the swamp, not just swatting (or even SWATing) the mosquitoes. You don’t think that works. I think you are completely wrong but, as already stated, the upside of cutting back the state is probably greater than the downside of making idiotic decisions overseas that just store up problems for later. Unlike what was likely in 1980, we are pretty much certain to have a ‘later’ to clean up the absurdities that come from a Rothbard tainted world-view.
I have seen plenty of stuff on youtube and read interviews where Ron Paul has talked about monetary policy and social programmes, and even what he thinks about environmental policy. His focus on the Iraq War though is simple. If he was in favour of it, there would be no point for him standing. If you favour it, you’ve got plenty of others to pick from- Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Thompson, Tancredo, Hunter, Keyes, and so on.
The way the GOP race is going, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is Huckabee vs Hillary next year. Huckabee is a joke candidate, but he seems to be becoming very popular amongst the yokels that make up much of the GOP base.
Giuliani is your man for that. He’ll probably make America a police state, but since he has Norman ‘World War Four’ Podhoretz as a major adviser, I’m sure he’s in favour of an even grander and gaudy wars than Bush II has been.
15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. What “blowback” were they upset about? Operation Dessert Shield? The fact that Americans bled in the dessert to save their sorry asses? The fact the US regards Saudi as an ally (Gawd knows why) and supplies their military with (fairly) top kit? Or was it Palestine or Kashmir or Chechnya? And what precisely did any of that have to do with the USA? or Saudi? There are US troops in my country too. Do I have any conceivable justification for flying a 767 into a skyscraper because the US 8th airforce located to Britain and fought on our side? There are genuine reasons for Islamic terrorism. The fact they’re genuine doesn’t stop them being bonkers.
Case one – OBL – The USA supported his lot in the ‘stan against the Sovs. He throws his toys out of the pram because of infidel boots in holy Arabia in ’91. Bonkers.
Case two – Atta. European education in architecture and he just couldn’t take the fact that Cairo is a dive with a skyline dominated by Western architecture towering over the minarets. Bonkers.
What both cases have in common is an overwhelming, appalling cultural inferiority complex.
This is common-place. This is the root cause and if Ron Paul can’t see it he’d best get an eye test.
It is WW IV. More people died on 9/11 than on Dec 7th 1941, a day that will live in infamy and all that. If killing 3000 people in attacks on both a nation’s largest city and it’s capital isn’t an act of war I’m buggered if I know what is.
And what the hell the point of the US deploying it’s entire Army to guard the borders is about is beyond me. It’s quite a while since the Mexicans got uppity and I somehow doubt Canada is planning a reprise of the War of 1812.
Please. Compared to Imperial Japan, Al Qaeda are not that dangerous. The Japanese probably killed at least 3000 people a day during WW2. 9/11 was a tragedy, but get some perspective.
I don’t really see how Bin Laden turning on the west as a surprise. Well I do, because westerners are pretty dumb when it comes to this. People were shocked when Stalin and Mao turned on the west after WW2 despite the fact that we had been kissing their asses throughout that war. They were so dumb they actually believed in all that Uncle Joe nonsense. It’s not much of a shock that some of our former allies from the cold war are now enemies. Some of the allies we have fighting terrorism now will probably be enemies in the future. So when this so-called WW4 ends (if it ever does), they’ll be world wars 5,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and so on to look forward to.
“By 1980, the USSR was already in a terminal stage.”
Don’t look now, kiddo, but the Soviets were in “terminal stages” in 1921 and 1941, too. They specialized in destruction, and they were very good at it.
I, too, consider myself a hawk. It might be the only reason that there is much connection at all to Samizdata since I am many times outside the mainstream thought here (which I find to much more traditional conservative than I am).
The main question is what is the precise time to be a hawk. Dropping bombs on Slobodan is not my definition of being a hawk. That, to me, is trying to be the policeman of the world. I can only assume that there are centuries old animosities at play around the world, picking one side over the other only gets you involved in affairs that are none of your business. I can only assume that the founding fathers of the US were “hawkish” pretty much, but they cautioned against getting involved in foreign entanglements. Picking nut culture A over nut culture B is precisely entangling yourself. What happens once nut culture A gets the upper hand with your help? Are then responsible for the genocides 25 years on against culture B?
Also, while hawkish, I don’t want to see a bureaucratization of defense. I want to preserve myself first and foremost, broadly similar cultures second, and not turn the State into a conduit for specific intrusions on foreign shores on an ongoing basis. Not only does it go against the notion of foreign entanglements above, it solidifies bureaucrats in seats of power, to tax and to intimidate when clear and present dangers are not at hand. I am a hawk, not a militarist.
Basicly while I might wear with pride Paul’s complete attitudes, or at least the parlance he chooses, I agree that notions of war such as a War on Terror is nonsensical and not to supported. He supported attacking Afghanistan for not ponying up Bin Laden. I did as well. If it was so guys could get shaves and listen to boom boxes, count me out. They can fight for their own liberties with their own funds and their own lives. My hawkishness is reserved for attacking cancerous areas that show clear and present dangers, and conversely the attack is on specific country it is in. War is against people and regions not against nouns.
Cynic,
I do have a perspective. 9/11 was the most appalling thing I have ever witnessed (on TV). It was not a tragedy. The Indian Ocean tsunami was a tragedy, 9/11 was a deliberate, premeditated act of war. Whether Imperial Japan was objectively more dangerous is irrelevant. OBL actually declared war on the USA. Oh, and I seem to note that Imperial Japan went from an unprovocated attack to unconditional surrender in less than four years. Do you see radical Islam quitting the fight anytime soon?
Well, that’s what you get for wasting your time launching wars to crack down on two bit dictators like Saddam Hussein.
And 9/11 the worst thing you’ve ever seen? What about the genocide in Rwanda in the 90s? Or the millions dead in the Congo in the civil war there? Or the tens of thousands butchered in Chechnya? And so on.
Didn’t see Rwanda. I’m not saying it wasn’t worse but I didn’t see the whole thing live on TV.
Very much parallels my own thoughts, Perry, with the possible exception that I think Ron will find it much harder to undo the damage on the domestic front than you seem to think.
The institutional inertia of the Total State in the US is immense, and little can be done about it from the White House without the active participation of Congress. Ron could certainly slow, and perhaps even stop, the metastasizing of the Total State. Reverse it? Highly unlikely.
I tend to agree that withdrawing from our military from the European theater would be a good thing. From the Pacific theater, I’m not so sure, if for no other reason than US military engagement in the dysfunctional parts of the world will require forward bases. Still, drawing down our forces will create a vacuum that I think the concerned parties on our side will fill, to everyone’s benefit.
What are the long-term, generational prospects for radical Islam? I honestly don’t know. I think a case can be made that it suffers from fatal internal weaknesses that will cause it to collapse on its own, and a case can be made that it will continue to expand its scope and virulence unless actively opposed. I think the way to bet is the latter, though.
Cynic it is not 2003. Saddam may indeed not have been the threat to the region in 2003 that he was in 1991 – but it is not 2003 now, and he is not the foe.
The war in Iraq is no longer against Saddam.
Defeat in Iraq would not be the victory of Saddam, it would be the victory of those parts of both the Sunni and the Shia tradition that interpret Islam to mean that all non Muslims and moderate Muslims must be exterminated or enslaved.
In short Iraq is not a war in-its-self – it is a battle in a much wider war.
I agree that going into Iraq in 2003 was an error (although Saddam had changed his secular position and was trying to ally with radicals who had previously despised him) – but I do not have a time machine. Now the fight in Iraq must be won – or the overall war with radical Islam becomes much harder to win.
And Ron Paul is mistaken – the overall war with radical Islam is not optional. Nor was it caused by some wicked deeds of the United States.
As for the Welfare State.
I have watched many debates – Ron Paul is almost silent upon the matter (which he certainly did NOT used to be).
The only candidates to make a big attack on the unsustainable nature of the entitlement programs were Tom Tancredo (leaving the race today) when he got off the subject of immigration for a few seconds, and Fred Thompson.
Not Ron Paul.
World War One.
France went to war because Germany invaded France (not because Austro-Hungary invaded Serbia). German claims that French forces violated German territory were expossed as lies decades ago.
And Britain went to war because Germany invaded Belguim – even it the days of Philip II Britain could not allow the north European coast to be entirely dominated by a hostile power.
So Andrew Roocroft it was NOT about sentimental support for small countries – the agreement of 1830 was part of wider strategic need, the need that the north European coast not all be dominated by a hostile power.
As Ludwig Von Mises himself noted (and he served on the Central Powers side during the war, as an artillery officer in the army of the Hapsburgs) German thought was dominated by dreams of becomming a world power – even in the Western half of the world (for example Brazil was to be part of new German Empire and the United States was to be pulled into a Germanic orbit).
I am no fan of President Wilson but his central position, that Germany was a hostile power, was a correct one – for all his one sidedness concerning the German U. boats on the one side and the British blockade on the other.
Of course if the great Constitutional crises of 1861 onwards had gone the other way Prussia and Germany might have trod another path.
Indeed even Bismark was not a convinced world power man – but he was removed in 1890 partly because of this.
Again it was the ideas that dominated Imperial Germany – not the sillyness of France and Britain that led to war.
This Ludwig Von Mises understood – even if the institute that bares his name does not.
Of course many Germans feared revenge from France for 1870, and also many Germans feared the rising power of Russia.
So there was a feeling of “now or never” in 1914 that led moderate Germans to ally themselves with the world power dreamers.
They accepted war because they feared that not having war would mean war later – when Germany was less strong relative to its main enemies.
However, it was the world power dreamers who had produced this situation for example Imperial Russia had been quite happy to be a friend to Germany, but anti Slav German Nationalism was a more important factor in German ruling circles than Pan Slavism was in Russian ruling circles. After 1890 the alliance with Russia was just tossed away (bad man though he was Bismark was horrified by this).
Even in 1914 Nicholas II hated the idea of war – and it was not because he knew that Russia would not be ready to defeat Germany for several more years (although, yes, this was a factor in some people’s minds).
Should the United States have entered the war in 1917?
If it had not, it might well have had to later fight an Imperial Germany that controlled the whole of Europe. It is hard to say – a difficult choice to make. But, in the end, “the Americans speak English” as certain intelligent Germans replied when asked which side they thought the United States would end up on in the world struggle between Imperial Germany and Britain – and world struggles are hard to opt out of.
A better question might be “should Germany have been broken up after World War One” – so that it could not be a threat again.
As for saying “we should not have sent help to Britain in 1940 because Nazi Germany only existed because of the fall of Imperial Germany”.
That is a confusion.
Yes Imperial Germany was not Nazi Germany (although, sadly, some of the same ideas were present – but not all of them), but there was no TIME MACHINE in 1939 onwards.
One had to deal with Nazi Germany not play “what if we had not gone into World War One” games.
“Nonintervention” in the face of Nazi Germany, or Commumism after World War II was not an option.
Not an option – unless one wished to see the world enslaved.
This is where people who have some experience of the real world, such as Ludwig Von Mises, are so different from people with no experience of it and who claim to write in their name – such as the late Murry Rothbard.
Had Britain really had to intervene in WW1, I think going on the side of the Central Powers may have been a lot more fruitful. German control of Russia would have crushed Bolshevism, and Britain could have carved up the French Empire while allowing the Germans to suffer most of the casualties in Europe. The Middle East would have stayed under the Turks. Perhaps it would have led to a later war between Britain and Germany, but it seems highly unlikely that the German government would have been Nazi, and would have been a lot less vile. And communism would have been crushed in infancy.
No, but as the Iraq war shows, US foreign policy as practiced by neoconservative administrations only makes things far worse than what they were.
Anotyher thing I’ve noticed about the problem of the ‘World war 4’ narrative: if this is like against the Huns in 1914, and Hitler in 1939, why aren’t all the young enthusiastic ‘patriots’ rushing to join the services? In both world wars, there was a draft of course, but many volunteered enthusiastically. Britain had so many volunteers it avoided the draft until 1916. Today, both the American and British armed services are short of men, and are falling behind recruitment targets. The former is resorting to recruiting the underqualified and criminals. The hordes of armchair generals prefer to stay at home, preaching how we must win, but the contribution they make to this victory (if any such victory happens) will be no more than such crooning.
“No, but as the Iraq war shows, US foreign policy as practiced by neoconservative administrations only makes things far worse than what they were.”
No, makes it much better. Adding to Saddam dismissal there have been thousands of Jihadists dead and the “aura” that Bin Laden had on Muslim World faded.
Cynic,
You go truly out on a limb with an extremely dubious counterfactual and then accuse others of being fully paid up members of Jane’s Fighting Armchairs.
The most “monstrous tumor” in America and everywhere else is Social Security and related welfare programs. Strange how Perry, like Ron Paul, fail to give it due mention.
Ron Paul has abandoned basic libertarianism and is too deep in bed with crazy, lefty, America haters. He has recast himself as THE anti-war candidate. Maybe, as Perry says, his isolationism doesn’t matter so much, but it casts doubts on his judgment in general.
His claims “we gave them gas” and “the war is illegal” seem particularly unbalanced.
Hey, let’s take it all into account. If America pulls back from being an interventionist in other nations’ affairs, does anyone think that there will be no more Rwandas or Bosnias? Or should we just leave it all to the U.N.?
Sorry, I had to go away and giggle for a moment.
More to the point: if we were to pull back, one of the unintended consequences would be that the next tsunami in SW Asia would not have the casualty toll reduced by having Marine helicopters fly in supplies and rescue survivors.
Perry, I’m sorry but you can’t have it both ways. You applauded the use of U.S. air power in Yugoslavia, but other interventions are… bad? By what criteria? What about Gulf War I? With Ron Paul’s military, America would not intervene in a similar situation, because we would no longer have the capability of doing so. That’s what reshaping the military in the Paulite model would cause.
The invasion of Iraq did two things: it eliminated a terrorist-friendly state, and it eliminated the chance of Kuwait II (or similar) happening anytime soon.
The plain fact of the matter, and it’s the fact which makes most Europeans crazy, is that the world is a MUCH safer place when there are U.S. carrier groups stationed offshore. With President Paul, those carrier groups would disappear. Enjoy the consequences, folks.
As for Paul’s nostrums to restore the original Constitutional republic: others have noted above that the President by himself actually can do little about the situation except veto legislation. We are a representative republic, not a dictatorship, and the President can no more order a return to the gold standard in the U.S., for example, than can the Queen in the U.K.
The real power and influence of the President lies in foreign policy, which is where Ron Paul is a complete fucking yokel (among so many other areas).
It saddens me that so many libertarians are quick to point out moonbattery among the Left, and then, when it comes to an ideological fruitcake like Ron Paul, they behave exactly according to Adriana’s excellent definition themselves.
We have to make a lot of changes to restore the U.S. to a real Constitutional republic. Electing Ron Paul is not one of them.
The changes have to come gradually, step by step, taking a long period of time. There are no quick fixes, no easy solutions — it will take time, just as it took time for us to arrive at our present predicament.
That’s absolutely incorrect. The entire raison d’etre of an army is to maintain territorial integrity and protect the borders from foreign invasion. The job of the police is to take care of crime.
Of course, if you consider illegal border-crossings by individuals a crime and not an invasion, then, yes, the containment thereof is definitely a job for the police — and it’s therefore an action specifically denied the army by our Posse Comitatus Act.
If the U.S. were invaded by a standing army (eg. Mexico’s or Canada’s — quit laughing), only then would it be legal for the army to be stationed on the borders, and repel invasion.
For a guy who’s supposed to be all Constitutional, Ron Paul seems to have screwed this one up. Among so many others…
I’m going to agree with Kim on this one.
When you sic your army on civilians of a nation that is not at war with us, they are either (a) acting as police, or (b) committing war crimes. I presume Paul does not want our army to “patrol” the border using artillery strikes, minefields, and free fire zones.
Policing the border is not a warfighting operation. Our military for the most part does not have the skillset or the mindset for it. Bending the military to that purpose will, over time, destroy the most valuable thing about the US military – that it is one of the very few warfighting organizations in the world, and has not been bowdlerized for other, essentially civilian purposes.
A generation of American soldiers and officers trained and used to check IDs and arrest civilians will result in a military that is far less effective at its essential function.
I think you need to re-read my article, Kim. I am all for the interventionist approach. I supported the attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq and still do. I’d be delighted to see the 82nd airborne arrive in Darfur. I am a hawk. What I am saying is the interventionist approach works and Ron Paul is wrong… but as the stakes are not quite so high now, I support Ron Paul anyway for other reasons.
BTW, your choice of Rwanda and Bosnia as examples is curious as neither were stopped by US direct military action (there was none in the former and it was not a significant factor in the later… both were ended by local armies fighting on the ground).
You seem to have missed the context of that remark. My point is that the claim that deploying the US army along the Mexican border makes the US militarily stronger is preposterous. Moreover it takes combat troops and put them in a non-military role (civil border patrol to keep out wetbacks is NOT a military role), so if anything it makes the US military weaker.
Have a look at this photo: Ron Paul with Don Black.
Kim du Toit observes:
Well, His Presidentness also gets to appoint judges and other officials. No idea what Paul would do with that one.
It used to be that I liked him on domestic matters. However, he’s not running on those. He’s trying to steal Dennis Kucinich’ voters and even the Evil Party only has so many of them.
I’ll concede that, when faced with the question of what three programs he’d drop, I liked his approach of naming three whole cabinet departments (although I’d have said HUD, HHS, and Agriculture instead for my top three). But that hasn’t been his theme.
RC Dean notes:
You can be a cop or a soldier, not both. If the military were to place minefields and razor wire and snipers along the borders that would at least be a military mission. Not one I’d support, but it would be a military mission and legal. But, while the military is presently trying to adapt to the civil affairs and COIN mission, trying to turn them into cops won’t do anyone any good.
Cynic shows his ass:
Medical reasons. Even though I meet the Civilian-Acquired Skills standards for two (army, but probably also Navy and USCG equivalents) MOS’, am within the allowable age range (Again, Army and USCG and possibly Navy and USAF), can pass the APFT, and won’t need any educational or morals waivers, they turned me down for medical reasons. (Fifteen years of smoking left me with exercise-induced asthma that’s just enough to get rejected).
And that’s why I’m not in.
Actually, I was watching CPAN today, and Ron Paul was making a breakfast speech, and (yet again) talking about starting to let young people opt out of the social security program, and rolling back the regulatory mess which has made our (almost socialized) healthcare system almost as bad as the British or Canadian ones … though I’ve never heard of an American who pulled out his own teeth.
You might want to examine Ron Paul’s platform, before you comment on it. I know the official “how to attack Ron Paul” guide forbids it, but it would make things so much more interesting.
As for “hating America”, I’m curious. Imagine, for a moment, that you were opposed to the war in Iraq, and believed in Social Security. Would you, operating from that perspective, assume that anybody who opposed Social Security “hated America” because he disagreed with a policy that you agreed with, and anybody who opposed the war “loved America” because he was in agreement with you on that score? I’m not sure how a democratic republic can have any policy changes, if it’s citizens are to be considered to “hate their country” (and therefore deserve disenfranchisement, at least), whenever they disagree with policy.
Do you really think that 75% of Americans “hate America” because they think the Iraq war is a bad idea?
The number of people in your military and where those people are located at any given time are what math people call “orthogonal variables”. They are like the x and y axes on a Cartesian plane … the value of one does not effect the others. You could have a military of 200 people, station one in every country in the world, and have a tiny, but widely dispersed military. If you brink them home, the military will be no smaller, it will just be more concentrated. By the same token, we could expand our military from 1.5 million members (active and reserve) to, say, 30 million members, if we were willing to spend the money. This does not imply that we would have to find more countries to station them in … if there is room for them in America when they’re civilians, there is room for them in America when they’re in the military.
Of course, there are degenerate cases, for example a military of less than 137 people cannot occupy 137 countries, as we do now, and a nation the size of my back yard would be unable to contain 1.5 million military personnel (or civilians, for that matter) within it’s borders.
Just striking a blow for clear thinking.
We should leave it to whoever cares to deal with it … including the U.N. (if they continue to exist after we withdraw), other governments, non-governmental agencies, private philanthropists, profit making companies, and whoever I’ve forgotten.
The United States Government exists for exactly one purpose: to protect the Liberties of the people within the borders of the United States. They do not exist to police foreign territory, not even to protect the interests of American companies who choose to do business in foreign territory, or to protect American citizens who are outside the United States. As soon as you cross the border, you’re none of our business. If you don’t like it, come back.
That may be true, short term. But don’t forget that if we waste our money protecting you sorry bastards in Europe, you decide that they don’t have to spend your own money protecting yourselves. If we stop, you’ll have to start. If you fail to start protecting yourselves, you deserve the collapse of your government, and hopefully you’ll do better when you set up a new one. Your problem, not mine. If you guys are incapable if building up a strong military, you’re welcome to make BlackWater an offer, and if the price is right, I’m sure they’ll be happy to come and nursemaid you … but at your expense, not mine.
The United States of America has 9,826,630 sq. km. and 300,000,000 citizens to defend, (not including protectorates and other occupied territory, which we should either make states or dump), and that is more than enough.
I don’t recall ever hearing Ron Paul say that the military should be used as border guards. Does anybody have a reference to this? In general, I think it is a bad idea … the military, when engaged, should always increase the entropy of a system (blow stuff up). If they are decreasing the entropy (building schools, policing civilians, rebuilding the bridges they blew up) they are being misused. It wouldn’t be enough to lose him my vote, but I would disagree with him no this point.
If a foreign government kills three thousand people in two cities, it is an act of war.
If a earthquake kills three thousand people in two cities, it is an act of nature.
If Divine Retribution kills three thousand people in two cities, it is an act of God.
If a criminal organization kills three thousand people in two cities, it is a very large act of criminality.
Rich Paul 9/11 was not an “act of criminality” it was an act of war.
If you do not believe me, think about what would have happened to the N.Y.P.D. if it had been sent into Afghanistan with bits of paper to “arrest” various people.
Trying to draw a distinction between A.Q. and the Taliban was a nonstarter.
Cynic.
If by the “Central Powers” you include Imperial Germany you are leaving out an important factor IDEAS.
The rulers of Imperial Germany did not want an alliance with Britain – they saw Germany as a rival for Britain.
Everything from the colonies to the Imperial Navy was designed to provoke Britain – this was because of the ideas taught by the main scholars in Germany at the time (with their dreams of world power).
It was not just the Emperor – it was the whole intellectual atmosphere.
Had the atmosphere been different I would AGREE with you – as, on paper, an alliance with Germany makes sense (in one sees a possible future threat from Imperial Russia).
However the ideas in the heads of the leading people in Germany made this impossible – Ludwig Von Mises (a man who spent the was as artillery officer in the army of the Hapsburgs) is very good on this.
Also, of course, it was Germany that attacked and was the threat to the north European coast (not France).
It is a pity Murry Rothbard ignored the words of Ludwig Von Mises – but then he did this often.
On your comparison between al Qaeda and the Empire of Japan.
Murry Rothbard was consistant – he favoured non resistance to the expanison of the Empire of Japan as well. You see to Rothbard the United States was the most evil power in the world (he did not really bother to think about any other power – bar Britain which he always hated as well) – destroying America is the thing that really matters.
Southern slave empire in 1861? The Kaiser in the First World War? Nazi Germany in World War II? The Communists during the Cold War?
Uncle Sam is in the wrong every time – because “death to America” is the only thing that matters (as we are informed, America was really in the wrong even in 1979 with the hostages in Iran and with all the Americans who have been killed by the revolutionary regime since then – because the C.I.A. helped overthrow a proSoviet Prime Minister of Iran in 1953).
To Rothbard America is always in the wrong and destroying Uncle Sam is the only thing that really matters – that is why it is a problem that Ron Paul has a photograph of Rothbard on his wall.
It is a bit more that thinking that going into Iraq in 2003 was a mistake – I agree with Ron Paul on that.
Or thinking that all forces should be pulled out right away – I might agree to disagree on that.
It is not really “Iraq” at all – it is a much wider attitude.
To be fair I am not sure how far Ron Paul, in his heart, agrees with the full Rothbard line.
After all Ron Paul voted for the war in Afghanistan.
True Rothbardians (such as David Gordon) were, of course, on the side of the Taliban.
Claiming that America went into Afghanistan out of a wicked lust to “kill innocents” and comparing the operation to the atomic bombing of Japanese cities.
Actually Osama bin Laden did not, as far as I know, make such extreme charges about the Afgahanistan operation.
The Rothbardians managed to outdo O.B.L. in antiAmericanism.
Jacob
I doubt that Ron Paul knows what “Storm Front” is.
Most likely he thinks Mr Black and his son are meteorolgists.
Congressman Ron Paul is a not a racist, he is an innocent – but it is not an innocent world.
That may be true, short term. But don’t forget that if we waste our money protecting you sorry bastards in Europe, you decide that they don’t have to spend your own money protecting yourselves. If we stop, you’ll have to start. If you fail to start protecting yourselves, you deserve the collapse of your government, and hopefully you’ll do better when you set up a new one. Your problem, not mine.
In the abstract, that approach has appeal.
As a practical matter, it seems that when a nation on the european continent has real military power, every two or three decades it is overcome with a desire to wage war on the neighbors.
IMO, it is better for both us and them if the europeans have token military forces and minimal logistical capacity. The trick is to keep the situation from also being better for anyone who wants to conquer the europeans. The current arrangement is far from ideal, but I have yet to see an alternative that is practical, effective, and likely to preserve the peace.
In reality European military forces are best described as token forces with massive logistical capacity. I think you underestimate the military potential of Europe. They don’t need large armies now because there are no serious military threats to Europe which require large armies to counter. If that changes then so with their force levels.
If it were not for RP’s stance on foreign policy, I’d vote for him in an instant. But the fact is that his plan for retreat and “Fortress America” is a non-starter unless you intend to completely seal the borders against nuclear weapons, radioactive dust, and biological agents. And you should understand that includes a complete blockage of international trade (a very non-libertarian program).
For those who haven’t read the Koran, may I suggest a short history course on the spread of Islam by the sword. Perhaps you could then tell me what part of the “Holy Moslem Lands” was being repatriated by the Battle of Tours (732 A.D.). And, of course, what the poor citizens of Tours had done to OFFEND the morally pure Moslems.
There has never been any time in history when the Moslems agreed to a permanent PEACE with EQUALITY and RECIPROCITY. Any pauses were only to regroup. You should notice that the current crop of Moslems still don’t have any interest in negotiations, just blood-curdling threats regarding their intent to do us in.
What will happen when a threshhold number (probably 4-7 countries) of Moslem countries obtains WMD’s? It is quite obvious that at some point, a Moslem dictator will feel that he must provide WMD’s to the jihadists, either for reasons of pride or to consolidate the leadership of the Moslem world. If you think they are smarter than that, just read the “Ladenese Epistle”, written prior to 9-11.
If you would like to see the phrases that drive not just AQ, but the Moslem “scholars”, to attack every non-Moslem, I recommend Koran, Sura 8, Verses 38-39. They are more than happy to kill, enslave, conquer, or forcibly convert everyone of every faith and race. Because their holy book orders them to do so.
One interesting point that I don’t think anyone has brought up yet–when Ron Paul brings all the troops home and presumably keeps them as large and well-trained and high-tech-equipped as they are now, there will be a concentraion of military forces INSIDE America that has never been equalled. Idle hands and minds may find undesirable things to do. Like inserting themselves into the electoral-economic-legislative process in a coercive way.
The other side of that coin is the fact that RP could turn them into policemen and they would be almost totally ineffective as soldiers. Can’t have it both ways.
by History 70
“I would also press that the issue of Islamic fundamentalism is not a global issue, but … a conflict between a handful of nation states and a disparate grouping of Islamists, motivated partially by religious fanaticism.”
Well, as much as I’d like to believe that Islam indeed has a global peaceful religious approach, but actually I don’t, its the Jihadists who have the political approach and are the terrorists. And they need to be stopped by military means.