[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 156 (Wednesday, December 7, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H11187-H11188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE BLAME GAME
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim my 5 minutes
at this time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, our country faces major problems. No longer
can they remain hidden from the American people. Most Americans are
aware the Federal budget is in dismal shape. Whether it is Social
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or even the private pension system, most
Americans realize we are in debt over our heads.
The welfare state is unmanageable and severely overextended. In spite
of hopes that supposed reforms would restore sound financing and
provide for all the needs of the people, it is becoming more apparent
every day that the entire system of entitlements is in a precarious
state and may well collapse. It does not take a genius to realize that
increasing the national debt by over $600 billion per year is not
sustainable. Raising taxes to make up the shortfall is unacceptable,
while continuing to print the money needed will only accelerate the
erosion of the value of the dollar.
Our foreign policy is no less of a threat to us. Our worldwide
military presence and our obsession with remaking the entire Middle
East frightens a lot of people both here and abroad. Our role as world
policeman and nation-builder places undue burdens on the American
taxpayer. Our enormous overseas military expenditures, literally
hundreds of billions of dollars, are a huge drain on the American
economy.
All wars invite abuses of civil liberties at home, and the vague
declaration of war against terrorism is worse than most in this regard.
As our liberties here at home are diminished by the PATRIOT Act and the
national ID card legislation, we succumb to the temptation of all
empires to neglect habeas corpus, employ torture tactics and use secret
imprisonments. These domestic and foreign policy trends reflect a
morally bankrupt philosophy, devoid of any concern for liberty and the
rule of law.
The American people are becoming more aware of the serious crisis
this country faces. Their deep concern is reflected in the current mood
in Congress. The recent debate over Iraq shows the parties are now
looking for someone to blame for the mess we are in. It is a high
stakes political game. The fact that a majority of both parties and
their leadership endorsed the war and accept the same approach toward
Iran and Syria does nothing to tone down the accusatory nature of the
current blame game.
The argument in Washington is over tactics, quality of intelligence,
war management and diplomacy, except for a few who admit their tragic
mistakes were made and now sincerely want to establish a new course for
Iraq. Thank goodness for those who are willing to reassess and admit to
these mistakes. Those of us who have opposed the war all along welcome
them to the cause of peace.
If we hope to pursue a more sensible foreign policy, it is imperative
that Congress face up to its explicit constitutional responsibility to
declare war. It is easy to condemn the management of a war one
endorsed, while deferring the final decision about whether to deploy
the troops to the President. When Congress accepts and assumes its
awesome responsibility to declare war as directed by the Constitution,
fewer wars will be fought.
Sadly, the acrimonious blame game is motivated by the leadership of
both parties for the purpose of gaining, or retaining, political power.
It does not approach a true debate over the wisdom or lack thereof of
foreign military interventionism and preemptive war.
Polls indicate ordinary Americans are becoming uneasy with our
prolonged war in Iraq, which has no end in sight. The fact that no one
can define victory precisely, and most Americans see us staying in Iraq
for years to come, contributes to the erosion of support for this war.
Currently, 63 percent of Americans disapprove of the handling of the
war, and 52 percent say it is time to come home. Forty-two percent say
we need a foreign policy of minding our own business. This is very
encouraging.
The percentages are even higher for the Iraqis. Eighty-two percent
want us to leave, while 67 percent claim they are less secure with our
troops there. Ironically, our involvement has produced an unusual
agreement among the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, the three factions at
odds with each other. At the recent 22-Member Arab League meeting in
Cairo, the three groups agreed on one issue: they all want foreign
troops to leave. And at the end of the meeting an explicit communique
was released: ``We demand the withdrawal of foreign forces in
accordance with a timetable and the establishment of a national and
immediate program for rebuilding the armed forces that will allow them
to guard Iraq's borders and get control of national security.''
Since the administration is so enamored of democracy, why not have a
national referendum in Iraq to see if the people want us to leave?
After we left Lebanon in the 1980s, the Arab League was instrumental
in brokering an end to that country's 15-year civil war. Its chances of
helping to stop the fighting in Iraq are far better than depending on
the U.N. NATO, or the United States. This is a regional dispute that we
stirred up but cannot settle. The Arab League needs to assume a lot
more responsibility for the mess that our invasion has caused. We need
to get out of the way and let them solve their own problems.
Remember, once we left Lebanon suicide terrorism stopped and peace
finally came. The same could happen in Iraq.
Everyone is talking about the downside of us leaving, and the civil
war that might erupt. Possibly so, but no one knows with certainty what
will happen. There was no downside when we left Vietnam. But one thing
for sure, after a painful decade of killing in the 1960s, the killing
stopped and no more Americans died once we left. We now trade with
Vietnam and enjoy friendly relations with them. This was achieved
through peaceful means, not military force. The real question is how
many more Americans must be sacrificed for a policy that is not
working? Are we going to fight until we go broke and the American
people are impoverished? Common sense tells us it's time to reassess
the politics of military intervention and not just look for someone to
blame for falling once again into the trap of a military quagmire.
The blame game is a political event, designed to avoid the serious
philosophic debate
[[Page H11188]]
over our foreign policy of interventionism. The mistakes made by both
parties in dragging us into an unwise war are obvious, but the effort
to blame one group over the other confuses the real issue. Obviously
Congress failed to meet its constitutional obligation regarding war.
Debate over prewar intelligence elicits charges of errors, lies, and
complicity. It is now argued that those who are critical of the outcome
in Iraq are just as much at fault, since they too accepted flawed
intelligence when deciding to support the war. This charge is leveled
at previous administrations, foreign governments, Members of Congress,
and the United Nations--all who made the same mistake of blindly
accepting the prewar intelligence. Complicity, errors of judgment, and
malice are hardly an excuse for such a serious commitment as a pre-
emptive war against a non-existent enemy.
Both sides accepted the evidence supposedly justifying the war,
evidence that was not credible. No weapons of mass destruction were
found. Iraq had no military capabilities. Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein
were not allies (remember, we were allies of both Saddam Hussein and
Osama bin Laden), and Saddam Hussein posed no threat whatsoever to the
United States or his neighbors.
We hear constantly that we must continue the fight in Iraq, and
possibly in Iran and Syria, because, ``It's better to fight the
terrorists over there than here.'' Merely repeating this justification,
if it is based on a major analytical error, cannot make it so. All
evidence shows that our presence in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other
Muslim countries benefits Al Qaeda in its recruiting efforts,
especially in its search for suicide terrorists. This one fact prompts
a rare agreement among all religious and secular Muslim factions;
namely, that the U.S. should leave all Arab lands. Denying this will
not keep terrorists from attacking us, it will do the opposite.
The fighting and terrorist attacks are happening overseas because of
a publicly stated Al Qaeda policy that they will go for soft targets--
our allies whose citizens object to the war like Spain and Italy. They
will attack Americans who are more exposed in Iraq. It is a serious
error to conclude that ``fighting them over there'' keeps them from
fighting us ``over here,'' or that we're winning the war against
terrorism. As long as our occupation continues, and American forces
continue killing Muslims, the incentive to attack us will grow. It
shouldn't be hard to understand that the responsibility for violence in
Iraq--even violence between Iraqis--is blamed on our occupation. It is
more accurate to say, ``the longer we fight them over there the longer
we will be threatened over here.''
The final rhetorical refuge for those who defend the war, not yet
refuted, is the dismissive statement that ``the world is better off
without Saddam Hussein.'' It implies no one can question anything we
have done because of this fact. Instead of an automatic concession it
should be legitimate, though politically incorrect, to challenge this
disarming assumption. No one has to like or defend Saddam Hussein to
point out we won't know whether the world is better off until someone
has taken Saddam Hussein's place.
This argument was never used to justify removing murderous dictators
with much more notoriety than Saddam Hussein, such as our ally Stalin;
Pol Pot, whom we helped get into power; or Mao Tse Tung. Certainly the
Soviets, with their bloody history and thousands of nuclear weapons
aimed at us, were many times over a greater threat to us than Saddam
Hussein ever was. If containment worked with the Soviets and the
Chinese, why is it assumed without question that deposing Saddam
Hussein is obviously and without question a better approach for us than
containment?
The ``we're all better off without Saddam Hussein'' cliche doesn't
address the question of whether the 2,100 troops killed or the 20,000
wounded and sick troops are better off. We refuse to acknowledge the
hatred generated by the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens
who are written off as collateral damage. Are the Middle East and
Israel better off with the turmoil our occupation has generated?
Hardly! Honesty would have us conclude that conditions in the Middle
East are worse since the war started: The killing never stops, and the
cost is more than we can bear--both in lives and limbs lost and dollars
spent.
In spite of the potential problems that may or may not come with our
withdrawal, the greater mistake was going in the first place. We need
to think more about how to avoid these military encounters, rather than
dwelling on the complications that result when we meddle in the affairs
of others with no moral or legal authority to do so. We need less blame
game and more reflection about the root cause of our aggressive foreign
policy.
By limiting the debate to technical points over intelligence,
strategy, the number of troops, and how to get out of the mess, we
ignore our continued policy of sanctions, threats, and intimidation of
Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria. Even as Congress pretends to argue
about how or when we might come home, leaders from both parties
continue to support the policy of spreading the war by precipitating a
crisis with these two countries.
The likelihood of agreeing about who deliberately or innocently
misled Congress, the media, and the American people is virtually nil.
Maybe historians at a later date will sort out the whole mess. The
debate over tactics and diplomacy will go on, but that only serves to
distract from the important issue of policy. Few today in Congress are
interested in changing from our current accepted policy of intervention
to one of strategic independence: No nation building, no policing the
world, no dangerous alliances.
But the results of our latest military incursion into a foreign
country should not be ignored. Those who dwell on pragmatic matters
should pay close attention to the results so far.
Since March 2003 we have seen:
Death and destruction; 2,100 Americans killed and nearly 20,000 sick
or wounded, plus tens of thousands of Iraqis caught in the crossfire;
A Shiite theocracy has been planted;
A civil war has erupted;
Iran's arch nemesis, Saddam Hussein, has been removed;
Osama bin Laden's arch nemesis, Saddam Hussein, has been removed;
Al Qaeda now operates freely in Iraq, enjoying a fertile training
field not previously available to them;
Suicide terrorism, spurred on by our occupation, has significantly
increased;
Our military industrial complex thrives in Iraq without competitive
bids;
True national defense and the voluntary army have been undermined;
Personal liberty at home is under attack; assaults on free speech and
privacy, national ID cards, the Patriot Act,
National Security letters, and challenges to habeas corpus all have
been promoted;
Values have changed, with more Americans supporting torture and
secret prisons;
Domestic strife, as recently reflected in arguments over the war on
the House floor, is on the upswing;
Pre-emptive war has been codified and accepted as legitimate and
necessary, a bleak policy for our future;
The Middle East is far more unstable, and oil supplies are less
secure, not more;
Historic relics of civilization protected for thousands of years have
been lost in a flash while oil wells were secured;
U.S. credibility in the world has been severely damaged; and
The national debt has increased enormously, and our dependence on
China has increased significantly as our Federal Government borrows
more and more money.
How many more years will it take for civilized people to realize that
war has no economic or political value for the people who fight and pay
for it? Wars are always started by governments, and individual soldiers
on each side are conditioned to take up arms and travel great distances
to shoot and kill individuals that never meant them harm. Both sides
drive their people into an hysterical frenzy to overcome their natural
instinct to live and let live. False patriotism is used to embarrass
the good-hearted into succumbing to the wishes of the financial and
other special interests who agitate for war.
War reflects the weakness of a civilization that refuses to offer
peace as an alternative.
This does not mean we should isolate ourselves from the world. On the
contrary, we need more rather than less interaction with our world
neighbors. We should encourage travel, foreign commerce, friendship,
and exchange of ideas--this would far surpass our misplaced effort to
make the world like us through armed force. And this can be achieved
without increasing the power of the state or accepting the notion that
some world government is needed to enforce the rules of exchange.
Governments should just get out of the way and let individuals make
their own decisions about how they want to relate to the world.
Defending the country against aggression is a very limited and proper
function of government. Our military involvement in the world over the
past 60 years has not met this test, and we're paying the price for it.
A policy that endorses peace over war, trade over sanctions, courtesy
over arrogance, and liberty over coercion is in the tradition of the
American Constitution and American idealism. It deserves consideration.
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