Hate to start the new year off with political garbage, but this is a freaking election year, so it has to be done - sorry. Ohio goes through this agony alongside Texas on March 6, but since I'm a registered Libertarian I won't switch parties just to vote for Ron Paul.
As my favorite presidential candidate for the second straight time, sadly unaware of his first run in 1988 as a Libertarian while still the Republican who voted for George H. W. Bush to give him Reagan' s shadow third term in effect, Dr. Ron Paul, M.D. is the only viable candidate to bring some small measure of peace and recovery from the overreach of the American Empire that circles the globe and acts as though any nation's business is also ours, just as the domestic government apparatus seems to think nothing in our personal lives is exempt from their scrutiny, rules, regulations or control one way or another.
Yet it is this very humble foreign policy stance that makes Dr. Paul more enemies in the current GOP establishment than anything else (with drug legalization and restoring civil liberties close behind defunding the American Empire). The lovers of American prestiege through bossing the world around and fighting weaker nations that cannot effectively defeat our military are carping about how Paul is unelectable to the GOP for his views on peace and non-aggression, effectively calling him an enemy of Israel, an ally of America's supposed enemies abroad and even a traitor.
To these war lovers either for power politics' sake or misguided patriots who equate national greatness with being able to kill foreigners, invade their homelands and destroy it when they did nothing to us warranting such preemptive war or occupation, I ask a few questions.
Why do we still have bases in Germany and Japan, effectively controlling their airspace and moving about their country with immunity from any prosecuciton for breaking their laws with Status of Force agreements? World War II has been over for 66 years going on 67. We stayed in West Germany and later reunified Germany in part because of the Cold War as the British wanted to keep America in Germany, the Soviets out and the Germans themselves down from becoming a danger to peace again. In Japan, we still control their airspace flight rules and regulations, along with bases in Okinawa or other points. These bases are only needed to project American military might around the world. How would Americans like Chinese naval bases in California and Washington State or Russian naval bases in say New York and Alaska, along with foreign Army or Air Force bases in those or some of the other 46 states. How long would Americans stand foreign (Chinese, Russian or fill in your own nation as an example) soldiers patrolling our cities from their bases with air and ground forces killing thousands of Americans per year with immunity from prosecution and only tacit apologies to our government or small bribes to grieving loved ones? We have killed foreigners by accident and not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the past in Germany, Japan and South Korea in smaller numbers.
Why does the Nation of Israel need to look over its shoulder and ask America's permission before taking any action for self-defense or preemptive attack against its neighbors and enemies, instead of just doing what is necessary like any other sovereign nation? Are they a free and independent country among other? If so then why do they behave like an American colony looking to the mother country for protection and assistance constantly? Yes, all those Christian Zionists who interpret Genesis 12;2 as making it America's duty to support Israel through our government by any and all means necessary. This sort of activity is unprecedented in our history except perhaps when we had an overseas empire between 1898 and 1946. Ron Paul seeks to deal with Israel as he does every other nation, giving special privlieges and maintaining a special relationship with to none of them. Peace, contact and trade with all and entangling alliances (formal or informal) with no other nation or group of nations.
In a related question, why are American conservatives afraid of Iran getting a nuclear weapon? Even if they nuke Israel as some believe would be the immediate result, Israel has 200-300 nuclear bombs of its own that nation will not admit to even having. They could blast Iran to ashes in retaliation and any other enemy daring to attack them out of solidarity for the Muslim Persians. Most Americans think our trouble in Iran began in 1978, but to Iranians it began when US and UK oil companies staged a coup through the CIA and MI6 against an elected Iranian president in 1953 named Mossadegh after he nationalized Iran's oil fields to benefit his nation and not foreign companies as had been the case for decades. Shah Reza Palavi was returned to power after being overthrown in a revolution a few years earlier by the US and the Iranians who hated their despotic ruler never forgot that. Ron Paul would deal honestly and openly with Iran as President, not bully them with endless and increasing sanctions (themselves in effect an act of war, as with those slapped on Japan by the US in the two years leading up to Pearl Harbor). If Iran clearly attacked the US, then President Paul would ask Congress for a war declaration (as the Constitution requires and many presidents especially those since 1945 have ignored).
Why are we still in NATO, and why does it even still exist grasping for a reason to continue? When the Warsaw Pact dissolved by 1991, NATO should have also been discontinued, or America should have left it (as France once did in the late 1960s only to rejoin later) once the danger of war in Central Europe with the USSR and their allies ended. All NATO does now is meddle in the Balkans, fight as our token satellite armies in Afghanistan (reminding me of Hitler's allies invading the USSR in 1941 - Hungary, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, Spain - and all just as useless). and fighting Libya to get oil contracts for Britain and France and kick the Chinese companies doing business with Quadaffi out. They meddle while giving America token allies we must provide the muscle to assist. We must leave NATO and advise our former allies in it the alliance should end as the Cold War relic it is. If Europe wants to meddle collectively in world affaris presenting a unified military component then let them create a new military alliance modeled on NATO. Canada, the other non European NATO member (Turkey is partially European geographically) can always do whatever it wishes about staying or leaving the alliance.
Ron Paul would end our wasteful spending propping up dubious allies in the world (some of whom are nothing better than clients or colonies of the American Empire), stop giving foreign aid that benefits US companies through crony capitalism by putting that money first in corrupt foreign leaders' pockets. He would close and abandon the hundreds of needless military and naval bases we maintain around the world not for national defense but to project the American Empire's power everywhere. Why do we suddenly need US Marines based in Australia, except to complete the geographically encirclement of China. Why does NATO need to admit Georgia and Ukraine as new members or America put missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic allegedly as a counter measure against Iran but to effectively encircle Russia. President Ron Paul would never advocate such blatently aggressive measures that could incite a war, but would advocate defending American soil and its citizens from foreign invasion or attack. Preemptive war was what bad aggressor nations like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan and Soviet Russia (invading Poland on September 17, 1939, fighting the 1939-40 Winter War with neutral Finland who joined Germany later only for protection, breaking its non aggression pact with Japan on August 8, 1945) to crush weaker nations such as Poland, Ethiopia, China and Finland or extract territory from them. Now the United States does the same thing - start wars with nations that never attacked us directly, such as Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11 nor did Iraq, Al Queda did. And the Taliban would have handed over Bin Laden and his cohorts as their guests if only the US government had provided evidence and proof of Al Qudea's guilt in the attacks. Why did the Justice Department never indict Bin Laden for his part in those attacks during the almost ten years it took to find and execute him (unless the Arab terrorist mastermind had actually died in December 2001 from kidney failure as various intelligence agencies like the CIA claimed)?
After that long rant against US foreign policy, I wish to conclude Ron Paul is the only Republican of Democrat running for President in 2012 who will not start a preemptive war with another nation and will seek to live in peace with the other 192 nations across the globe, while cutting the bloated and wasteful Defense Department budget that sustains an unsustainable American Empire and spend only what is necessary to protect this nation and no other. People who cling to the idea of American naval might being invincible through its fleets need to know someday a missile attack will destroy that notion of the Aircraft Carrier as the premere weapon just as carrier airplanes destroyed that former queen of naval operations - the Dreadnought Class Battleship. Maybe it will take an American task force sank in the Straits of Hormuz or South China Sea, or an army annihilated in some place like Afghanistan to make people realize our day as the only superpower is fading as has been the fate of all world empires. Ron Paul would pull us back from the brink of such needless waste and posturing to remain the world's bully. I pray Iowans don't select one of the other six Republican candidates as their majority choice tonight, since any and all of them will seek war at any cost as their first resort to solve some of our diplomatic problems. Don't let the talking heads of our media tell you who to vote for as the chosen GOP establishment candidate if you want peace, less inflated money and true prosperity after some hard medicine to right the American economy from the zombie state it remains in after billions in useless bailouts for preventing the business cycle's correction.
Don't let CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, or talk radio tell you who not to vote for because that candidate cannot win if you want a man of peace running the US Executive Branch instead of President O-bomb-a the Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 2009 or the six war loving GOP candidates who want to attack China, Iran or Russia just to maintain the American Empire and help their crony capitalist friends make profits from government defense contracts. If you want an end to the 21st century's endless war posture, please vote Ron Paul for President tonight, Iowa.
As my favorite presidential candidate for the second straight time, sadly unaware of his first run in 1988 as a Libertarian while still the Republican who voted for George H. W. Bush to give him Reagan' s shadow third term in effect, Dr. Ron Paul, M.D. is the only viable candidate to bring some small measure of peace and recovery from the overreach of the American Empire that circles the globe and acts as though any nation's business is also ours, just as the domestic government apparatus seems to think nothing in our personal lives is exempt from their scrutiny, rules, regulations or control one way or another.
Yet it is this very humble foreign policy stance that makes Dr. Paul more enemies in the current GOP establishment than anything else (with drug legalization and restoring civil liberties close behind defunding the American Empire). The lovers of American prestiege through bossing the world around and fighting weaker nations that cannot effectively defeat our military are carping about how Paul is unelectable to the GOP for his views on peace and non-aggression, effectively calling him an enemy of Israel, an ally of America's supposed enemies abroad and even a traitor.
To these war lovers either for power politics' sake or misguided patriots who equate national greatness with being able to kill foreigners, invade their homelands and destroy it when they did nothing to us warranting such preemptive war or occupation, I ask a few questions.
Why do we still have bases in Germany and Japan, effectively controlling their airspace and moving about their country with immunity from any prosecuciton for breaking their laws with Status of Force agreements? World War II has been over for 66 years going on 67. We stayed in West Germany and later reunified Germany in part because of the Cold War as the British wanted to keep America in Germany, the Soviets out and the Germans themselves down from becoming a danger to peace again. In Japan, we still control their airspace flight rules and regulations, along with bases in Okinawa or other points. These bases are only needed to project American military might around the world. How would Americans like Chinese naval bases in California and Washington State or Russian naval bases in say New York and Alaska, along with foreign Army or Air Force bases in those or some of the other 46 states. How long would Americans stand foreign (Chinese, Russian or fill in your own nation as an example) soldiers patrolling our cities from their bases with air and ground forces killing thousands of Americans per year with immunity from prosecution and only tacit apologies to our government or small bribes to grieving loved ones? We have killed foreigners by accident and not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the past in Germany, Japan and South Korea in smaller numbers.
Why does the Nation of Israel need to look over its shoulder and ask America's permission before taking any action for self-defense or preemptive attack against its neighbors and enemies, instead of just doing what is necessary like any other sovereign nation? Are they a free and independent country among other? If so then why do they behave like an American colony looking to the mother country for protection and assistance constantly? Yes, all those Christian Zionists who interpret Genesis 12;2 as making it America's duty to support Israel through our government by any and all means necessary. This sort of activity is unprecedented in our history except perhaps when we had an overseas empire between 1898 and 1946. Ron Paul seeks to deal with Israel as he does every other nation, giving special privlieges and maintaining a special relationship with to none of them. Peace, contact and trade with all and entangling alliances (formal or informal) with no other nation or group of nations.
In a related question, why are American conservatives afraid of Iran getting a nuclear weapon? Even if they nuke Israel as some believe would be the immediate result, Israel has 200-300 nuclear bombs of its own that nation will not admit to even having. They could blast Iran to ashes in retaliation and any other enemy daring to attack them out of solidarity for the Muslim Persians. Most Americans think our trouble in Iran began in 1978, but to Iranians it began when US and UK oil companies staged a coup through the CIA and MI6 against an elected Iranian president in 1953 named Mossadegh after he nationalized Iran's oil fields to benefit his nation and not foreign companies as had been the case for decades. Shah Reza Palavi was returned to power after being overthrown in a revolution a few years earlier by the US and the Iranians who hated their despotic ruler never forgot that. Ron Paul would deal honestly and openly with Iran as President, not bully them with endless and increasing sanctions (themselves in effect an act of war, as with those slapped on Japan by the US in the two years leading up to Pearl Harbor). If Iran clearly attacked the US, then President Paul would ask Congress for a war declaration (as the Constitution requires and many presidents especially those since 1945 have ignored).
Why are we still in NATO, and why does it even still exist grasping for a reason to continue? When the Warsaw Pact dissolved by 1991, NATO should have also been discontinued, or America should have left it (as France once did in the late 1960s only to rejoin later) once the danger of war in Central Europe with the USSR and their allies ended. All NATO does now is meddle in the Balkans, fight as our token satellite armies in Afghanistan (reminding me of Hitler's allies invading the USSR in 1941 - Hungary, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, Spain - and all just as useless). and fighting Libya to get oil contracts for Britain and France and kick the Chinese companies doing business with Quadaffi out. They meddle while giving America token allies we must provide the muscle to assist. We must leave NATO and advise our former allies in it the alliance should end as the Cold War relic it is. If Europe wants to meddle collectively in world affaris presenting a unified military component then let them create a new military alliance modeled on NATO. Canada, the other non European NATO member (Turkey is partially European geographically) can always do whatever it wishes about staying or leaving the alliance.
Ron Paul would end our wasteful spending propping up dubious allies in the world (some of whom are nothing better than clients or colonies of the American Empire), stop giving foreign aid that benefits US companies through crony capitalism by putting that money first in corrupt foreign leaders' pockets. He would close and abandon the hundreds of needless military and naval bases we maintain around the world not for national defense but to project the American Empire's power everywhere. Why do we suddenly need US Marines based in Australia, except to complete the geographically encirclement of China. Why does NATO need to admit Georgia and Ukraine as new members or America put missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic allegedly as a counter measure against Iran but to effectively encircle Russia. President Ron Paul would never advocate such blatently aggressive measures that could incite a war, but would advocate defending American soil and its citizens from foreign invasion or attack. Preemptive war was what bad aggressor nations like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan and Soviet Russia (invading Poland on September 17, 1939, fighting the 1939-40 Winter War with neutral Finland who joined Germany later only for protection, breaking its non aggression pact with Japan on August 8, 1945) to crush weaker nations such as Poland, Ethiopia, China and Finland or extract territory from them. Now the United States does the same thing - start wars with nations that never attacked us directly, such as Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11 nor did Iraq, Al Queda did. And the Taliban would have handed over Bin Laden and his cohorts as their guests if only the US government had provided evidence and proof of Al Qudea's guilt in the attacks. Why did the Justice Department never indict Bin Laden for his part in those attacks during the almost ten years it took to find and execute him (unless the Arab terrorist mastermind had actually died in December 2001 from kidney failure as various intelligence agencies like the CIA claimed)?
After that long rant against US foreign policy, I wish to conclude Ron Paul is the only Republican of Democrat running for President in 2012 who will not start a preemptive war with another nation and will seek to live in peace with the other 192 nations across the globe, while cutting the bloated and wasteful Defense Department budget that sustains an unsustainable American Empire and spend only what is necessary to protect this nation and no other. People who cling to the idea of American naval might being invincible through its fleets need to know someday a missile attack will destroy that notion of the Aircraft Carrier as the premere weapon just as carrier airplanes destroyed that former queen of naval operations - the Dreadnought Class Battleship. Maybe it will take an American task force sank in the Straits of Hormuz or South China Sea, or an army annihilated in some place like Afghanistan to make people realize our day as the only superpower is fading as has been the fate of all world empires. Ron Paul would pull us back from the brink of such needless waste and posturing to remain the world's bully. I pray Iowans don't select one of the other six Republican candidates as their majority choice tonight, since any and all of them will seek war at any cost as their first resort to solve some of our diplomatic problems. Don't let the talking heads of our media tell you who to vote for as the chosen GOP establishment candidate if you want peace, less inflated money and true prosperity after some hard medicine to right the American economy from the zombie state it remains in after billions in useless bailouts for preventing the business cycle's correction.
Don't let CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, or talk radio tell you who not to vote for because that candidate cannot win if you want a man of peace running the US Executive Branch instead of President O-bomb-a the Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 2009 or the six war loving GOP candidates who want to attack China, Iran or Russia just to maintain the American Empire and help their crony capitalist friends make profits from government defense contracts. If you want an end to the 21st century's endless war posture, please vote Ron Paul for President tonight, Iowa.