Ron Paul, Iraq, Gladiator, and Fighting the Last War

Funny how seeing a movie can crystallize your thoughts. I've had the so-called "War on Terror" on my mind since a conversation last weekend with a cousin in California. I even made a note to myself to say something about it on this blog tonight. I was tired as I lay down in bed, thinking I would go to sleep. I turned on the TV and found Gladiator, one of my favorites. I watched the whole thing and that added to my thoughts and so I write (okay, type).

One aspect of the film that hit me stronger tonight was the tremendous sacrifice a soldier makes in war, along with the powerful impact of death on those who love the fallen.

I suppose that's nothing new. What is striking today is how such loss occurs in futile endeavors. Did we learn nothing from the Vietnam War? Of course not. Our president and vice president both dodged the war. What would they know about such loss? I never served, so maybe I don't know much about it either. I can only imagine, from seeing it in movies, from the loss of my brother many years ago, from the fear of losing my children, but none of that is the same as living it.

My cousin would be happy if we were to kill every Muslim on the planet. I have heard similar sentiments from much closer family members, and from friends as well. He spoke of how the Muslims all want to kill us. In his eyes (and he is far from alone) we must fight them everywhere, because if we do not, they will come here as they did on 9/11.

This is just another version of the Domino Theory that pitted us against the Communists across the world. In my admittedly limited understanding of recent history, it is that theory that got us into Vietnam and sustained our presence there for so long.

In our current context the irrationality is so blindingly obvious that most people seem unable to see it. The ego of modern America is part of what drives this. How many times have we heard politicians say that America is the greatest nation on earth, or some similar remark. Half of these idiots have never been anywhere else, except maybe on some taxpayer-financed congressional junkets where they spend all their time in high-end hotels and at tourist exhibits.

Try strapping on a backpack and staying at a campsite in southern France, or taking a local train along the Japan-Sea backside of Honshu, and then tell me you know something about the rest of the world. I've done both and realize I still know next to nothing about the world, certainly not enough to say we're better than somewhere else. My experience does qualify me to say that Europe and Japan are wonderful places to live, filled with people who are mostly decent. That is not much different from my country.

But I digress (must be the insanity). The ego of modern America tells us that the bad guys, whoever they happen to be this week, are out to get us. The enemy is diabolical and will stop at nothing to destroy us because ... well, because we're the good guys and the bad guys always want to get the good guys.

Part of that ego-blindness is the incredible manner in which we ignore our own misdeeds. We had to support Somoza and the Shah, even though they were not terribly nice to their people, because that was part of our greater mission to save the world from itself. Sometimes the good guys have to allow bad things to happen, and work with unseemly sorts, but we have to because we have to fight those darn bad guys and that justifies everything. We even worked with Saddam Hussein and supported Osama bin Laden. Besides, the people oppressed by our flunkies don't count - they don't fit within our ego definition of who matters. The media consistently reports on the number of American soldiers killed. Does anyone count the Iraqis?

There is only one prominent voice (Ron Paul) who points out how this bit us in the ass on 9/11. Most of America cannot hear that voice because it doesn't fit in the storyline we are fed by the mass media (pro-war Republicans vs. anti-war Democrats). Or maybe it's because people don't want to hear the truth because that would fundamentally shatter their entire world view. What happens if we're not the good guy any more?

The alternate scenario is far more sensible. They hate us and attack us because we keep interfering in their world. I agree that many of our current enemies are evil. But if we stepped out of their world and focused on our own, they would not take that as a signal to come here. Evildoers look for a bogeyman. We are currently supplying that image for them. If we walk away, they will find another. It would be delicious irony if the Europeans, Russians and Chinese found themselves dealing with nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran, after they helped them acquire the weapons. But the ego does not allow us to think that way. My cousin completely rejected this idea. He cannot accept the notion that they might not be interested in us if we left them alone. Our ego makes us believe we are so important that they must focus on us in one way or another.

The other prominent parallel is how the "Best and the Brightest" led us into and kept us in Vietnam, and messed the whole thing up. Today's leadership (including nearly all of Congress - and yes I am including the Democrats) boldly donned the attitude of the Best and the Brightest. There is a saying that the generals are always fighting the last war. I don't know if that explains it, but we did not do whatever we should have done to win the Vietnam War, and we are not doing whatever we should to win the Iraq War either.

One of the problems with both Vietnam and Iraq is that the public was never willing to sacrifice what was required to win (if winning was ever possible). One of the failings of leadership was a failure to recognize that public support for the wars would not be sustained. We are battling people who are willing to strap a bomb to themselves in order to kill us, and yet we are unwilling to make even the slightest of sacrifices. We do not conserve energy, for example. If we really want to defeat the Muslims and/or Arabs, all we have to do is cut our oil consumption in half. This would decimate the Arab economies. That effort on our part would be nothing compared to the sacrifices our parents and grandparents made during World War II.

We will not make that effort. The easier thing to do, and a fairly wise thing as well, is to stop messing around with the rest of the world. In playing our role as the world's "Good Guy," we ignore the Golden Rule (aka the Ethic of Reciprocity). We do things to others that we would not want them to do to us.

If some other country decided that America was being led by religious fundamentalists bent on controlling the world (when I started typing that I meant it as a ridiculous example, but then again ...), and attacked us to save the world from us, we would not be too pleased. So where do we get off attacking Iraq? Oops. I keep forgetting that we're the good guys. Sorry about that. I'm probably just repeating something Chomsky said anyway.

Something wrong with liberals and Democrats (Republicans too)

Paul Krugman wrote a column in the New York Times on May 28th that stands out as something that bothers me about liberals and Democrats, though I have similar gripes about conservatives and Republicans.

In his op-ed piece (which non-subscribers can read at the Free Democracy blog), Krugman thoroughly criticizes President Bush for the war in Iraq. He goes further and attacks the three principal GOP candidates for statements they have made about 9/11, Osama, and Iraq.

I agree wholeheartedly with Krugman's criticisms of Bush, Giuliani, Romney and McCain. What irks me is his failure to hold Democrats responsible for going along with the war. In other columns he has been somewhat critical of Hillary for not admitting error in voting for the war. He seems positive about John Edwards for admitting he was wrong.

All of the most prominent leading Democrats share responsibility for the war in Iraq. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and John Kerry voted for it. Why do so many liberals and Democrats turn a blind eye to this? Why do they get off the hook just because they're Democrats? Even our local congressman, Michael McNulty, voted for the war. He continued to support the war for a long time. Local Democrats and the local media completely excused this.

Most striking is how liberals like Krugman ignore Republicans who opposed the war from the beginning. I take this personally in that I ran for Congress opposing the war against a Democrat (McNulty) who persistently supported the war, yet there was absolutely no support for me from liberals, and no criticism of him for his position from them or the media.

And in the current presidential race, there is a Republican who opposed the war from the beginning. Ron Paul should be the choice of everyone who opposes the war. But Krugman, who represents both liberals and the media, steadfastly ignores Ron Paul.

This behavior shows that liberals use the war as a tool for partisanship. They don't care about the war itself, but rather they care about it as a means to attack Republicans. Of course I think conservatives and Republicans do the same. That's what's refreshing about people like Ron Paul. He says what he believes, votes the way he thinks is right, and never (in my experience) makes it about labels like liberal Democrat or conservative Republican.

More about Ron Paul

I was responding to an e-mail discussion within my family about Ron Paul and figured most of what I wrote would make a good post about why I support him. So ...

For any of us looking at any candidate, there will always be issues with which we disagree. The difference between Ron Paul and most others is that he doesn't hide the positions he thinks others might not like. He is the real Straight Talker.

And his views actually have an intellectual root to them. Some Republicans used to believe in states' rights. Thus, the Republican position on abortion was that the federal government should stay out of it, and let the states have their own rules. Then the Republicans got power, and they tried, and keep trying, to make federal prohibitions on abortion. I'm pretty sure Paul stands by the old position (I saw him talking about this) and votes against federal regulation of abortion - even though he personally believes abortion should be illegal.

Of course, I disagree with him myself on this issue, and believe abortion is, and should remain, a part of the constitutional right to privacy. Interesting - if you check out his interest group ratings on vote-smart.org: http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=BC031929
He gets widely varying ratings from NARAL and the right-to-life groups. In 2005 he actually got a 75/100 rating from NARAL, but in 2003 he got a zero.

The big thing about Ron Paul is his belief in a small federal government. For more than a decade he has been consistent on this issue, basically the lone dissenter from the Republicrat/Demolican expansion of the federal government into everything it can get its hands on.

This view - that federal government should be much smaller than it is today - is at the core of Ron Paul and his campaign. He would describe it as returning the federal government to the role it is limited to by the Constitution. And this core view is the thing about Paul that Steve [my brother] and I really believe in. We may disagree with him on an issue here, or an issue there, but this fundamental issue is something that really motivates us.

One issue that might motivate you, however, is that Ron Paul opposed the Iraq war from the beginning - unlike John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, etc. Consider, for example, his recent speech (it's short): http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2007/cr041707.htm

And you can see his original opposition statement in December of 2001:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul7.html
and his further statement in 2002:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul58.html

Ron Paul has been the most consistent, and the most outspoken, opponent of this war. Compare him to any other presidential candidate, and just about any politician at a national level, and you will find him far and away the closest to the position we all share on Iraq. We opposed it from the beginning, and have consistently opposed it throughout. Ron Paul is the only one who has consistently agreed with us on this. He also opposed the Patriot Act from the beginning, by the way. And on my pet issue, he has also consistently opposed the drug war- for example: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul4.html

My political prediction (okay, it's just a guess), is that Paul will focus on one or two early primary states, and probably just NH. He will not get much press coverage but he'll get his message out. McCain, Giuliani and Romney will split the mainstream Republican vote (the people who vote Republican because they're Republican and don't even remember why they're Republican), and Paul will win the rest. He might just win NH, or maybe come in #2, and then he'll finally get national media attention. If he is able to get national media attention on his opposition to the Iraq war, and if - a big IF - he can stay focused on that issue and not allow himself to digress and talk about all the 100 ways he's different from everyone else, he will become the leading candidate among anti-war Republicans. That would make him a contender.