Ron Paul, the United Nations, and Iraq

“The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure” ~George Washington

Here is what Ron Paul said about why he is on the "get out" side of the Iraq war. It is not because it is politically expedient, it is because it was not a defensive war, and Congress ignored the Constitution in favor of the United Nations to give their responsibility for war to the President. Why did they do it? So they could get out from under the blame if it went wrong.

Ron Paul, "Brushfires of Freedom" September 2007:

"In October 2002 we passed legislation that transferred congressional authority to the President to go to war. This piece of legislation I was strongly opposed to. There are two issues involved. We are in war, we can’t deny it. The two issues are the way we go to war, and whether the war is wise or not. I believe that the war was not a wise, Constitutional, defensive war and thus have been opposed to it. The other side of the coin is how do you do it? This is one thing that the founders were very, very clear on. We as a people would only go to war when the people’s opinions were expressed through their members of congress. That is a Declaration of War by the members of congress, that is should be the ONLY way we go to war….

"When that resolution came to International relations, the committee that I am on, I amended and substituted it with a declaration of war. It was very simple, it was three lines long. I copied it from World War two. And I told them at the time "You are going to have to defeat this because I am going to vote against my amendment. But this is what you should do if you want to go to war.” They didn’t like to vote on it, they didn’t like what I was going to do, and of course no one voted for it. Instead they passed this resolution which transfers the power to go to war at will to the President.

"I want to read to you what the chairman of the committee [Henry Hyde] said immediately after I introduced my resolution; his statement was this (he was putting me down):

“There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time; declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. Why declare war if you don’t have to? We are saying to the President, use your judgment. To demand that we declare war is to strengthen something to death. You have got a hammerlock on this situation that is not called for, inappropriate, anachronistic, it isn’t done anymore.”

"That was the chairman of the committee telling me that our Constitution is anachronistic, it is a waste of time. And then the Democrat minority leader in the committee [Tom Lantos] gave a similar talk, and his strongest word was:

“What you are doing, Paul, is frivolous.”

"This is what we are up against. Again, my strength does not come from them; it comes from you, the people who care about our Constitution.

"In that resolution, they never mention Article One Section Eight and declaration of war, that was totally ignored, but they mentioned the United Nations twenty-one times.

"At the same time, and in those months that followed, we did hear in the public a fair amount of criticism about the U.N. The criticism was that the U.N. was not joining on, and they did not respond as our administration wanted them to. It could have been interpreted that this was a strong attack on the United Nations. It wasn’t so much that as a challenge to the United Nations to be stronger and more forceful and let us control the United Nations, but still we were using the United Nations. Even at the State of the Union message, if you listened carefully, it was mentioned four times. He talked about the war and upholding these United Nations resolutions. So we do know that the opposition to the United Nations is not that strong, even though you might hear strong comments coming from our leadership….

"We are still paying far beyond our fair share at the United Nations. We get stuck with responsibility, and the financing, and the burden, and the men lost, all too often. I think the thing we should be concerned about from the United Nations, (the damage that is done to us, and the potential damage that is likely to come), the greatest threat is that we have over these years been willing to turn over to the United Nations much of the control of our foreign policy and when we go to war. And that has to be changed."

We need to get behind this man if we are really serious about keeping our Constitutional Sovereignty. It is no small thing.

Who agrees with Ron Paul?

Well Ron Paul is hated by the Republicans for believing what this man said:




AND
What this man said:



What a FOOL! He should have believed them AFTER they became President and Vice President. How could he believe Bush? Cheney? Hell, they didn't even believe themselves!

Ron Paul is right about the Middle East

In 1953 the CIA overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in Iran. Why? He was very popular for standing up to the oil companies, and their treatment and pay to Iranian workers. In 1952 he used his power to nationalize the oil fields. The CIA bombed cleric’s and blamed him, and paid mobs and police to overthrow him. The Shah then became dictator of Iran. From 1953 to 1978 Iran bought $18 billion worth of military arms from U.S. arms manufacturers. Half of the oil was owned by U.S. oil companies. In 1978, David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger persuaded Jimmy Carter to allow the Shah to come to the U.S. for medical treatment. Because of this, the Iranians overthrew the Shah and took hostages from the American embassy where the 1953 “Operation Ajax” was run. This was the “Islamic Revolution” that changed Iran from a dictatorship to an Islamic Republic. The U.S. traded arms for those hostages. Israel was the middle man. The Iran-Contra scandal in 1984-85 showed that the CIA was selling arms to Iran even up to that time, while diplomatically supporting and selling arms to Iraq.

Iraq became a nation after WWII and had ties with the Soviet Union until 1978. It nationalized its oil in 1972. Sadaam Hussein became President in 1979 although he had been prominent since 1964. He was a reformist secular leader who abolished most Sharia law courts. In 1978 he ousted the last of the Communist Party from the political structure. His internal police was brutal to opposition and although he was westernized, he was hated by his own people. In 1980, the U.S. supported and sold arms (including chemical) to Iraq in Sadaam's attempt to conquer Iran. Sadaam declared himself "winner" in 1988. He used biological weapons supplied by the U.S. on the Kurds within his country who were attacking Iraqi military. Kuwait gave $30 billion to help Iraq in its war with Iran and Iraq wanted the debt cancelled, but Kuwait refused. Kuwait was also “slant drilling” into Iraqi oil fields. So in 1990 he thought he could conquer Kuwait and have U.S. backing. Oops.

The Saudi government who supported Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war, allowed the U.S. to build (using Bin Laden and Sons Construction) and use bases within Saudi Arabia to attack Iraq in 1990. Saudi Arabia is the holiest of holies for the Muslim religion. Many religious zealots in the religion issued a Jihad against America. Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi who was a central figure to many Muslims for his great ‘win’ against the Soviet Union in keeping occupiers out of Afghanistan. The CIA supported him and funded him. Then he saw the U.S. as the great new evil. 15 of the 19 hijackers responsible for the attack on 9/11 were Saudi, as is their leader.

THOSE DARN JIHADISTS JUST HATE OUR FREEDOMS, OUR WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND OUR CHRISTIAN RELIGION

Imagine Ron Paul as President. Removing all troops from the Persian Gulf and ignoring the UN. Selling food and everything else to Iran, Iraq, and every other country in the region. Signing new treaties with each country, and formally apologizing to the Muslim community. THen Congress issues a Letter of Marqe and Reprisal against Osama Bin Laden, putting a $1 Billion price tag on his head.
Our troops would be honored by the vanquished as truly good will soldiers instead of invaders, and our troops would be honored by us. Good will never fails, but it never is considered good will by using guns. National Defense is never National Offense, and 9/11 should not change us for the worse.