[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20662-20664]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, it breaks my heart to see what is happening to 
our country today. All Americans have grieved over the losses served on 
9-11. The grief for those who lost loved ones is beyond description. 
These losses have precipitated unprecedented giving to help the 
families left behind. Unless one has suffered directly, it is difficult 
to fully comprehend the tragic and sudden loss of close friends and 
family.
  There are some who, in addition to feeling this huge sense of 
personal loss that all Americans share, grieve for other serious and 
profound reasons. For instance, many thoughtful Americans are convinced 
that the tragedy of 9-11 was preventable. Since that may well be true, 
this provokes a tragic sadness, especially for those who understand how 
the events of 9-11 needlessly came about.
  The reason why this is so sad and should be thoroughly understood is 
that so often the ones who suggest how our policies may have played a 
role in evoking the attacks are demonized as unpatriotic and are 
harshly dismissed as belonging to the ``blame America crowd.''
  Those who are so anxious to condemn do not realize that the policies 
of the American Government, designed by politicians and bureaucrats, 
are not always synonymous with American ideals. The country is not the 
same as the Government. The spirit of America is hardly something for 
which the Government holds a monopoly on defining.
  America's heart and soul is more embedded in our love of liberty, 
self-reliance, and tolerance than by our foreign policy, driven by 
powerful special interests with little regard for the Constitution.
  Throughout our early history, a policy of minding our own business 
and avoiding entangling alliances, as George Washington admonished, was 
more representative of American ideals than those we have pursued for 
the past 50 years. Some sincere Americans have suggested that our 
modern interventionist policy set the stage for the attacks of 9-11, 
and for this, they are condemned as being unpatriotic.
  This compounds the sadness and heartbreak that some Americans are 
feeling. Threats, loss of jobs, censorship and public mockery have been 
heaped upon those who have made this suggestion. Freedom of expression 
and thought, the bedrock of the American Republic, is now too often 
condemned as something viciously evil. This should cause freedom-loving 
Americans to weep from broken hearts.
  Another reason the hearts of many Americans are heavy with grief is 
because they dread what might come from the many new and broad powers 
the Government is demanding in the name of providing security. Daniel 
Webster once warned, ``Human beings will generally exercise power when 
they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular 
governments under pretense of public safety.''
  A strong case can be made that the Government regulations, along with 
a lack of private property responsibility, contributed to this tragedy, 
but what is proposed? More regulations and even a takeover of all 
airport security by the Government.
  We are not even considering restoring the rights of pilots to carry 
weapons for self-defense as one of the solutions. Even though pilots 
once carried guns to protect the mail and armored truck drivers can 
still carry guns to protect money, protecting passengers with guns is 
prohibited on commercial flights. The U.S. Air Force can shoot down a 
wayward aircraft, but a pilot cannot shoot down an armed terrorist.
  It will be difficult to solve our problems with this attitude toward 
airport security.
  Civil liberties are sure to suffer under today's tensions, with the 
people demanding that the politicians do something, anything. Should 
those who object to the rapid move toward massively increasing the size 
and scope of the Federal Government in local law enforcement be 
considered un-American because they defend the principles they truly 
understand to be American?
  Any talk of spending restraint is now a thing of the past. We had one 
anthrax death, and we are asked the next day for a billion dollar 
appropriations to deal with the problem.

                              {time}  1330

  And a lot more will be appropriated before it is all over. What about 
the 40,000 deaths per year on government-run highways and the needless 
deaths associated with the foolish and misdirected war on drugs? Why 
should anyone be criticized for trying to put this in proper 
perspective?
  Countless groups are now descending on Washington with their hands 
out. As usual, as with any disaster, this disaster is being parlayed 
into an opportunity, as one former Member of the Congress phrased it. 
The economic crisis that started a long time before 9-11 has 
contributed to the number of those now demanding Federal handouts.
  But there is one business that we need not fear will go into a slump: 
The Washington lobbying industry. Last year, it spent $1.6 billion 
lobbying Congress. This year, it will spend much more. The bigger the 
disaster, the greater the number of vultures who descend on Washington. 
When I see this happening, it breaks my heart, because liberty and 
America suffers, and it is all done in the name of justice, equality 
and security.
  Emotions are running high in our Nation's capital, and in politics 
emotions are more powerful tools than reason and the rule of law. The 
use of force to serve special interests and help anyone who claims to 
be in need unfortunately is an acceptable practice. Obeying the 
restraints placed in the Constitution is seen as archaic and 
insensitive to the people's needs. But far too often the claims of 
responding to human tragedies are nothing more than politics as usual. 
While one group supports bailing out the corporations, another wants to 
prop up wages and jobs. One group supports federalizing tens of 
thousands of airport jobs to increase union membership, while another 
says we should subsidize corporate interests and keep the jobs private.
  Envy and power drives both sides, the special interests of big 
business and the demands of the welfare redistribu-
tionists.
  There are many other reasons to make one sad with all that is going 
on today. In spite of the fact that our government has done such a poor 
job protecting us and has no intention of changing the policy of 
meddling overseas, which has contributed to our problems, the people 
are more dependent on and more satisfied with government than they have 
been in decades, while demanding even more government control and 
intrusion in their daily lives.
  It is aggravating to listen to the daily rhetoric regarding liberty 
and the Constitution while the same people participate in their 
destruction. It is aggravating to see all the money spent

[[Page 20663]]

and civil liberties abused while the pilot's right to carry guns in 
self-defense is denied. It is even more aggravating to see our 
government rely on foreign AWACS aircraft to provide security to U.S. 
territory. A $325 billion military budget, and we cannot even patrol 
our own shores. This, of course, is just another sign of how little we 
are concerned about U.S. sovereignty and how willing we are to submit 
to international government.
  It is certainly disappointing that our congressional leaders and 
administration have not considered using letters of marque and reprisal 
as an additional tool to root out those who participated in the 9-11 
attacks. The difficulty in finding bin Laden and his supporters make 
marque and reprisal quite an appropriate option in this effort.
  We already hear of plans to install and guarantee the next government 
of Afghanistan. Getting bin Laden and his gang is one thing, nation-
building is quite another. Some of our trouble in the Middle East 
started years ago when our CIA put the Shah in charge of Iran. It was 
25 years before he was overthrown, and the hatred toward America 
continues to this day. Those who suffer from our intervention have long 
memories.
  Our support for the less than ethical government of Saudi Arabia, 
with our troops occupying what most Muslims consider sacred land, is 
hardly the way to bring peace to the Middle East. A policy driven by 
our fear of losing control over the oil fields in the Middle East has 
not contributed to American Security. Too many powerful special 
interests drive our policy in this region, and this does little to help 
us preserve security for Americans here at home.
  As we bomb Afghanistan, we continue to send foreign aid to feed the 
people suffering from the war. I strongly doubt if our food will get 
them to love us or even be our friends. There is no evidence that the 
starving receive the food. And too often it is revealed that it ends up 
in the hands of the military forces we are fighting. While we bomb 
Afghanistan and feed the victims, we lay plans to install the next 
government and pay for rebuilding the country. Quite possibly, the new 
faction we support will be no more trustworthy than the Taliban, to 
which we sent plenty of aid and weapons in the 1980s. That intervention 
in Afghanistan did not do much to win reliable friends in the region.
  It just may be that Afghanistan would be best managed by several 
tribal factions, without any strong centralized government and without 
any outside influence, certainly not by the U.N. But then again, some 
claim that the proposed Western financed pipeline through northern 
Afghanistan can only happen after a strong centralized pro-Western 
government is put in place.
  It is both annoying and sad that there is so little interest by 
anyone in Washington in free market solutions to the world's economic 
problems. True private ownership of property without regulation and 
abusive taxation is a thing of the past. Few understand how the Federal 
Reserve monetary policy causes the booms and the busts that, when 
severe, as now, only serve to enhance the prestige of the money 
managers while most politicians and Wall Streeters demand that the Fed 
inflate the currency at an even more rapid rate. Today's conditions 
give license to the politicians to spend our way out of recession, they 
hope.
  One thing for sure, as a consequence of the recession and the 9-11 
tragedy, is that big spending and deficits are alive and well. Even 
though we are currently adding to the national debt at the rate of $150 
billion per year, most politicians still claim that Social Security is 
sound and has not been touched. At least the majority of American 
citizens are now wise enough to know better.
  There is plenty of reason to feel heartbroken over current events. It 
is certainly not a surprise or illogical for people working in 
Washington to overreact to the anthrax scare. The feelings of 
despondency are understandable, whether due to the loss of lives, loss 
of property, fear of the next attack, or concerned at our own frantic 
efforts to enhance security will achieve little. But broken or sad 
hearts need not break our spirits nor impede our reasoning.
  I happen to believe that winning this battle against the current crop 
of terrorists is quite achievable in a relatively short period of time. 
But winning the war over the long term is a much different situation. 
This cannot be achieved without a better understanding of the enemy and 
the geopolitics that drive this war. Even if relative peace is achieved 
with a battle victory over Osama bin Laden and his followers, other 
terrorists will appear from all corners of the world for an indefinite 
period of time if we do not understand the issues.
  Changing our current foreign policy with wise diplomacy is crucial if 
we are to really win the war and restore the sense of tranquility to 
our land that now seems to be so far in our distant past. Our 
widespread efforts of peacekeeping and nation-building will only 
contribute to the resentment that drives the fanatics. Devotion to 
internationalism and a one-world government only exacerbates regional 
rivalries. Denying that our economic interests drive so much of what 
the West does against the East impedes any efforts to diffuse the world 
crisis that already has a number of Americans demanding nuclear bombs 
to be used to achieve victory. A victory based on this type of 
aggressive policy would be a hollow victory indeed.
  I would like to draw analogy between the drug war and the war against 
terrorism. In the last 30 years, we have spent hundreds of billions of 
dollars on a failed war on drugs. This war has been used as an excuse 
to attack our liberties and privacy. It has been an excuse to undermine 
our financial privacy while promoting illegal searches and seizures 
with many innocent people losing their lives and property. Seizure and 
forfeiture have harmed a great number of innocent American citizens.
  Another result of this unwise war has been the corruption of many law 
enforcement officials. It is well known that with the profit incentives 
so high, we are not even able to keep drugs out of our armed prisons. 
Making our whole society a prison would not bring success to this 
floundering war on drugs. Sinister motives of the profiteers and 
gangsters, along with prevailing public ignorance, keeps this futile 
war going.
  Illegal and artificially high priced drugs drive the underworld to 
produce, sell and profit from this social depravity. Failure to 
recognize that drug addiction, like alcoholism, is a disease rather 
than a crime, encourage the drug warriors in efforts that have not and 
will not ever work. We learned the hard way about alcohol prohibition 
and crime, but we have not yet seriously considered it in the ongoing 
drug war.
  Corruption associated with the drug dealers is endless. It has 
involved our police, the military, border guards and the judicial 
system. It has affected government policy and our own CIA. The 
artificially high profits from illegal drugs provide easy access to 
funds for rogue groups involved in fighting civil wars throughout the 
world.
  Ironically, opium sales by the Taliban and artificially high prices 
helped to finance their war against us. In spite of the incongruity, we 
rewarded the Taliban this spring with a huge cash payment for promises 
to eradicate some poppy fields. Sure.
  For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no Federal 
war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related 
crimes was a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds 
of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of 
it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to 
severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved.
  This war has been behind most big government policy powers of the 
last 30 years, with continual undermining of our civil liberties and 
personal privacy. Those who support the IRS's efforts to collect 
maximum revenues and root out the underground economy, have welcomed 
this intrusion, even if the drug underworld grows in size and 
influence.

[[Page 20664]]

  The drug war encourages violence. Government violence against 
nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the unnecessary prison 
overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay for all this so-
called justice. Our eradication project through spraying around the 
world, from Colombia to Afghanistan, breeds resentment because normal 
crops and good land can be severely damaged. Local populations perceive 
that the efforts and the profiteering remain somehow beneficial to our 
own agenda in these various countries.
  Drug dealers and drug gangs are a consequence of our unwise approach 
to drug usage. Many innocent people are killed in the crossfire by the 
mob justice that this war generates. But just because the laws are 
unwise and have had unintended consequences, no excuses can ever be 
made for the monster who would kill and maim innocent people for 
illegal profits. But as the violent killers are removed from society, 
reconsideration of our drug laws ought to occur.
  A similar approach should be applied to our war on those who would 
terrorize and kill our people for political reasons. If the drug laws 
and the policies that incite hatred against the United States are not 
clearly understood and, therefore, never changed, the number of drug 
criminals and terrorists will only multiply.

                              {time}  1345

  Although this unwise war on drugs generates criminal violence, the 
violence can never be tolerated. Even if repeal of drug laws would 
decrease the motivation for drug dealer violence, this can never be an 
excuse to condone the violence. On the short term, those who kill must 
be punished, imprisoned, or killed. Long term though, a better 
understanding of how drug laws have unintended consequences is required 
if we want to significantly improve the situation and actually reduce 
the great harms drugs are doing to our society.
  The same is true in dealing with those who so passionately hate us 
that suicide becomes a just and noble cause in their effort to kill and 
terrorize us. Without some understanding of what has brought us to the 
brink of a worldwide conflict in reconsidering our policies around the 
globe, we will be no more successful in making our land secure and free 
than the drug war has been in removing drug violence from our cities 
and towns.
  Without some understanding why terrorism is directed towards the 
United States, we may well build a prison for ourselves with something 
called homeland security while doing nothing to combat the root causes 
of terrorism. Let us hope we figure this out soon.
  We have promoted a foolish and very expensive domestic war on drugs 
for more than 30 years. It has done no good whatsoever. I doubt our 
Republic can survive a 30-year period of trying to figure out how to 
win this guerilla war against terrorism. Hopefully, we will all seek 
the answers in these trying times with an open mind and understanding.

                          ____________________