[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 20, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1075-H1076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      DO NOT INITIATE WAR ON IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I was recently asked why I thought it was a 
bad idea for the President to initiate a war against Iraq. I responded 
by saying that I could easily give a half a dozen reasons why; and if I 
took a minute, I could give a full dozen. For starters, here is a half 
a dozen.
  Number one, Congress has not given the President the legal authority 
to wage war against Iraq as directed by the Constitution, nor does he 
have U.N. authority to do so. Even if he did, it would not satisfy the 
rule of law laid down by the Framers of the Constitution.
  Number two, Iraq has not initiated aggression against the United 
States. Invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, no matter how evil a 
dictator he may be, has nothing to do with our national security. Iraq 
does not have a single airplane in its air force and is a poverty-
ridden Third World nation, hardly a threat to U.S. security. Stirring 
up a major conflict in this region will actually jeopardize our 
security.
  Number three, a war against Iraq initiated by the United States 
cannot be morally justified. Arguing that someday in the future Saddam 
Hussein might pose a threat to us means that any nation any place in 
the world is subject to an American invasion without cause. This would 
be comparable to the impossibility of proving a negative.
  Number four, initiating a war against Iraq will surely antagonize all 
neighboring Arab and Muslim nations as well as the Russians, the 
Chinese and the European Union, if not the whole world. Even the 
English people are reluctant to support Tony Blair's prodding of our 
President to invade Iraq. There is no practical benefit for such 
action. Iraq could end up in even more dangerous hands like Iran.
  Number five, an attack on Iraq will not likely be confined to Iraq 
alone. Spreading the war to Israel and rallying all Arab nations 
against her may well end up jeopardizing the very existence of Israel. 
The President has already likened the current international crisis more 
to that of World War II than the more localized Viet Nam war. The law 
of unintended consequences applies to international affairs every bit 
as much as to domestic interventions, yet the consequences of such are 
much more dangerous.
  Number six, the cost of a war against Iraq would be prohibited. We 
paid a heavy economic price for the Vietnam war in direct cost, debt 
and inflation. This coming war could be a lot more expensive. Our 
national debt is growing at a rate greater than $250 billion per year. 
This will certainly accelerate. The dollar cost will be the least of 
our concerns compared to the potential loss of innocent lives, both 
theirs and ours. The systematic attack on civil liberties that 
accompanies all wars cannot be ignored. Already we hear cries for 
resurrecting the authoritarian program of constriction in the name of 
patriotism, of course.
  Could any benefit come from all this war mongering? Possibly. Let us 
hope and pray so. It should be evident that big government is anathema 
to individual liberty. In a free society, the role of government is to 
protect the individual's right to life and liberty. The biggest 
government of all, the U.N. consistently threatens personal liberties 
and U.S. sovereignty. But our recent move toward unilateralism 
hopefully will inadvertently weaken the United Nations. Our 
participation more often than not lately is conditioned on following 
the international rules and courts and trade agreements only when they 
please us, flaunting the consensus without rejecting internationalism 
on principle, as we should.
  The way these international events will eventually play out is 
unknown,

[[Page H1076]]

and in the process we expose ourselves to great danger. Instead of 
replacing today's international government, the United Nations, the 
IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the international criminal court, with 
free and independent republics, it is more likely that we will see a 
rise of militant nationalism with a penchant for solving problems with 
arms and protectionism rather than free trade and peaceful 
negotiations.
  The last thing this world needs is the development of more nuclear 
weapons, as is now being planned in a pretense for ensuring the peace. 
We would need more than an office of strategic information to convince 
the world of that.
  What do we need? We need a clear understanding and belief in a free 
society, a true republic that protects individual liberty, private 
property, free markets, voluntary exchange and private solutions to 
social problems, placing strict restraints on government meddling in 
the internal affairs of others.

                              {time}  2015

  Indeed, we live in challenging and dangerous times.

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