[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13946-13947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  DO NOT BELIEVE THE U.S. FEAR FACTOR PROPAGANDA AS IT RELATES TO OUR 
                             FOREIGN POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, today we saw some financial fireworks on the 
markets. The Dow Jones average was down 350-some points, gold was up 
$32, oil was up another $5, and there's a lot of chaos out there; and 
everyone is worried about $4-a-gallon gasoline. I don't think there is 
a clear understanding exactly why that has occurred.
  We do know that there is a supply and demand, there's a lot of demand 
for oil. The supplies may be dwindling. But there are other reasons for 
high costs of energy. One is inflation. For instance, to pay for the 
war that has been going on and the domestic spending, we have been 
spending a lot more money than we have. So what do we do? We send the 
bills over to the Federal Reserve to create new money. In the last 3 
years, our government, through the Federal Reserve and our banking 
system, created $4 trillion of new money. That is one of the main 
reasons why we have this high cost of energy in $4 gallon gasoline.

[[Page 13947]]

  But there is another factor that I want to talk about tonight. And 
that is not only the fear of inflation and future inflation, but the 
fear factor dealing with our foreign policy.
  And in the last several weeks, if not for months now, we have heard a 
lot of talk about the potentiality of Israel and/or the United States 
bombing Iran. And it is in the marketplace, and it's being bid up. The 
energy crisis is being bid up because of this fear. It's been predicted 
if bombs start dropping, that you're going to see energy prices double 
or triple. It's just the thought of it right now that helps to push 
these prices, the price of energy, up. And that is a very real thing 
going on right now. But to me, it's almost like deja vu all over again, 
as has been said.
  We listened to the rhetoric for years and years before we went into 
Iraq. We did not go in in the correct manner. We didn't declare war. 
We're there. It's an endless struggle. We're in Iraq. We're endlessly 
struggling there, and I cannot believe that we may well be on the verge 
of initiating bombing of Iran.
  Leaders on both sides of the aisle and the administration have all 
said so often that no options can be taken off the table, including a 
nuclear first strike on Iran. The fear is, they say, maybe some day 
they're going to get a nuclear weapon, even though our own CIA and our 
NIE, National Intelligence Estimate, has said they have not been 
working.
  The Iranians have not been working on a nuclear weapon since 2003. 
They say they're enriching uranium, but there's no evidence whatsoever 
that they're enriching uranium for weapons purposes. They may well be 
enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, and that is perfectly legal. 
They have been a member of the nonproliferation treaties, and they are 
under the investigation of the IAEA, and Alberidy last verified in the 
last year there have been nine unannounced investigations and 
examinations of the uranium nuclear structure, and they have never been 
found to be in violation. Yet this country and Israel are talking about 
a preventive war starting bombing for this reason without negotiation, 
without talks.
  Now, the one issue that I do want to mention tonight is a resolution 
that is about to come to this floor, if our suspicions are correct, 
after the July 4th holiday. And this bill will probably be brought up 
under suspension, it will probably be expected to pass easily, and 
probably will be, and it's just more war propaganda, more preparation 
to go to war against Iran.
  And this resolution, H.J. Res. 362, is a virtual war resolution. It 
is the declaration of tremendous sanctions and boycotts and embargoes 
on Iran. It's very, very severe.
  Let me just read what is involved in this, if this bill passes, what 
we're telling the President he must do. This demands that the President 
impose stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, 
ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran and 
prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials. I 
mean, this is unbelievable. This is closing down Iran. Where do we have 
this authority? Where do we get the moral authority? Where do we get 
the international legality for this? Where do we get the constitutional 
authority for this?
  This is what we did for 10 years before we went into Iraq. We starved 
children. 50,000 individuals that were admitted probably died because 
of the sanctions on the Iraqis. They were incapable at the time of 
attacking us, and all of the propaganda that was given for our need to 
go into Iraq wasn't true.
  And it's not true today about the severity. And they say, Yeah, but 
Ahmadinejad, he's a bad guy. He's threatened violence. But you know, us 
threatening violence is very, very similar. We must look at this 
carefully. We just can't go to work again under these careless, 
frivolous conditions.

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