Non-Intervention as Foreign Policy
Part of what makes Ron Paul’s candidacy so attractive to some Americans is his unwavering commitment to a foreign policy called “non-interventionism.” Some critics of non-interventionism call it isolationism, comparing it to U.S. policy in the period between the world wars. To call it isolationism is, in one sense, not terribly fair: the word “isolation” suggests that President Paul would cut us off from the rest of the world. Such isolation was not really possible in the 1930s, and today, it is even less possible.
Calling it “isolationism” is also unfair because it is historically inaccurate to describe U.S. foreign policy in the 1930s as what Ron Paul proposes. The U.S. was by no means “non-interventionist” at that time. Indeed, I am hard-pressed to find a time in American history when Ron Paul’s foreign policy as an idea would have been regarded as mainstream.
I was active in the Libertarian Party back in the 1980s and into the early 1990s. I am pretty sure that the last vote I cast for a Libertarian Party candidate for president was in 1988 — for Ron Paul. I read much of the foreign policy material from libertarian authors like Murray Rothbard and Justin Raimondo in this time, as well as the U.S. Senate report “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders” (1976). While I could and did argue for a non-interventionist policy, I did not have the wild enthusiasm for it that some members of the party expressed. I often found myself with a nagging suspicion that something was missing from the simple, beautifully consistent formulations that were so popular in the more ideological circles: that the U.S. forced Japan into World War II by shutting off trade; that the U.S. made Hitler’s rise to power possible because our entry into World War I prevented a negotiated settlement between the two sides; that the U.S. made our enemies in the Middle East because of our one-sided support for Israel; that the U.S. was a principal cause of war in the modern world.
When I went back to college to complete my BA and MA in History, I read a wider range of sources, and I found that most libertarian foreign policy history (like most libertarian economic and political history) was terribly incomplete and often misleading. Perhaps the final blow to my belief in the “our intervention makes other countries hate us” theory was Jonathah Kwitny’s Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World (1986). Kwitny was arguing for Ron Paul’s model of “why they hate us.” By the time I finished reading Endless Enemies, his method of argument and his incomplete examination of the facts had done rather the opposite of what an author is supposed to do: Kwitny had persuaded me to the opposite point of view!
I am not saying that these authors were intentionally lying. A better description would be that these authors’ enthusiasm for a particular ideological model had caused them to select sources that fit the results they wanted, and take a less-than-critical eye about the sources that they used. (This is by no means a problem limited to libertarians; any highly ideological approach leads to problems like this.)
As an example: Thomas Jefferson’s farewell address is often quoted by libertarians (and liberals) to point out that the U.S. should have “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” True enough, but Jefferson is hardly an example of non-interventionism. The United States overthrew Muslim foreign governments in North Africa rather than pay tribute — and this action took place on Jefferson’s watch. (By the way: the Barbary pirates described themselves as jihadists; holy warriors, with the right to enslave any non-Muslim. I am still trying to figure out how to blame the modern state of Israel, founded in 1947, for why they hated us in 1800.) Congress also built up a “small but meaningful navy” for the purpose of foreign intervention, far from American shores.
Granted that an absolutist never-intervene-anywhere foreign policy is unworkable in our time. Could we at least hope for a foreign policy that promotes America’s national and commercial interests first, last, and always? The practice of thrusting our armed forces into situations where the best outcome we could expect was to expend an ocean of blood and treasure for zero gain (and zero gratitude) had a large part to play in the election of Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 — and I think you’ll agree that that’s a tragedy we’d prefer not to repeat.
Unfortunately, the reasons for the Iraq War were actually pretty strong in 2003, which is why the authorization for the war was approved by large majorities of both houses of Congress. There is a case that we should have gone in, broken up the Hussein government, and then left. It might still be a mess there today, and we would still be blamed, but it would have been much cheaper in blood and treasure.
Yes, the reasons for the Iraq war were pretty strong in 2003. But by early 2004 I felt I’d been duped. Whether I actually was duped I’ll never know for sure, but I would speculate that a lot of people felt the same way. Could this not be the engine behind the non-interventionist meme?
Without question, this drives it. I am quite confident that what happened was not that the Bush Administration duped us. There were Iraqi emigre groups who appear to have duped us for their own, often noble ends.
The precautionary principle was also at work: as Bush pointed out, the first proof that we had that Iraq had WMDs might be the loss of an American city to a nuclear weapon.
Past history of Iraq’s use of poison gas, and serious efforts to produce nuclear weapons played a part in making the precautionary principle appropriate.
Never assume conspiracy when error and confusion are so much more common.
The big question is, why didn’t they release all the WMD found reports that were uncovered with the Wiki-leaks scandal?
Of course, I was satisfied with the 11 years of UN sanction violations as a reason to remove the regime. I would have been okay with precise elimination of Sadam, his family and the top few levels of the government.
You make a convincing argument against the conspiracy, I’ll grant you that. I just think that if you’re going to do something as horrible as go to war, you would want to make dammed sure there was no “error and confusion” in your reasoning.
I also believe that the group that eventually won over the President’s confidence (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Frum ,etc) were just a tad too eager to invade Iraq, which had “better targets” than Afghanistan.
Would that the president had the wisdom and prudence of his father, and listened to SoS Powell’s counsel instead.
I disagree completely. Saddam was an old right wing / general washington type cause from the gulf war days. Our enemy post 9-11 was stateless terrorists not arafat, gaddafi,saddam etc they were trying to put new wine in old skins and they did the Team b thing to make a bogus rationale for a war.
I’m one who believes that Powell’s “wisdom” of suggesting that we not finish the Iraqi invasion the first time around was actually bad advice. We should have just finished off the Iraqi government.
Now, whether we should have rebuilt Iraqi government, or just left them in a big mess, is difficult to say…but the fact remains that we ended up going there TWICE because of a misguided attempt to be “nice”.
And Libertarians would argue that part of the reason the world is so messy is because of our interventions. And what exactly is the cost of failure? Sometimes it’s not as bad you think.
Look at the last big war the US fought before the middle east – Viet Nam. What exactly did we accomplish there? Nothing. They had about a decade and a half of communism, found out it sucked, then went to a China style system (which isn’t exactly a free market, but where is? Certainly not us)
Beyond that, we’re broke – can’t you people see that we are doing to ourselves what Reagan did to the Russians? And for all our supposed might, we can’t even beat a bunch of stone agers in Afghanistan (well, neither could they). If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.
Broke, yes, but military spending is only a part of it, and foreign intervention even a smaller part of it.
And what does that mean? How about the 4,500 lives we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan? How about the 30,000 injured, maimed and crippled? As I’ve said here before, walk throught a military hospital before talking about how we shoudl throw our kids around the world into dangerous situation made worse by chickensh$t ROEs.
We side with Pakistan over India which is real smart and has really made us more secure. We are now going to trade 5 murderous terrorists in a brilliant use of our FP.
What you chickenhawks never will understand is that war is the last resort of failied politics. Not only that but since WWII we have fought political wars run by D.C. at the expense of winning and lives. And finally, again since WWII, we have been fighting these D.C. led adventures using politically correct methods of warring instead of winning and defeating our foes.
Yep we are broke financially but also our military is broke, over extended, over used, just plain worn out. And now our great leader wants to cut 13 bridages which means longer deployments and more deployments and less in reserve. You world’s policmen supports just do not get it.
So unless you have a child in the military or Congress has their blood and treasure involved in the military, I think RP’s views of using our military to defend the U.S. is the right foreign policy to use.
You are correct that war is a last resort. Efforts to resolve the Iraq WMD question politically, unfortunately, did not work. I also agree with Eisenhower that it is better to find a way to solve these problems behind the scenes (as he did with Mossadegh).
As a Navy vet, it has always disgusted me to no end to hear the endless warmongering of “chickenhawks” who have never had any real skin in the game. Its easy to advocate interventionism when your own ass is never on the line. This country has been bled white since WWWII following an asinine policy of being the global police force. Titanic amounts of blood and treasure have been squandered with no end in sight. This idiotic and, yes, criminal approach has bankrupted our country and undermined adherence to the Constitution to such a degree that we can’t even recognize what the hell we have become as a nation. Paul is correct on this point and always has been. Its just another sign of our collapse as a nation that his position is considered “extreme” by so many people.
As a Navy vet, what do you think about the modern slogan for “America’s Navy”, “A Global Force for Good”. Do you think it reflects the attitudes of the majority enlisted? I wonder if the United States has now achieved the highest point of arrogance in it’s history. The “Commander in Chief’s” face is a manifestation of arrogance and a reflection of the largely ignorant electorate. hard to see this ship turning around.
Have you notice the recruiting ads on TV these days? They almost all depict soldiers, sailors, and aircrew “helping” in various situations. Saving communication satellites from collisions with space junk, flying Transformer-style cargo planes into devastated cities to evacuate civilians, Rescuing downed pilots, and of course, delivering food to starving refugees. There’s no indication at all that a) the US has enemies from whom the US needs protection or b) soldiering frequently involves committing acts of extreme violence against foreigners. It’s as if we’re *trying* to recruit the kind of people who eventually become conscientious objectors. “I thought the US military was a force for good! I didn’t know we’d be killing people! Eeew!”
I guess this is nothing new. After Vietnam, the pitch was the military as trade school. “Enlist now and learn a valuable skill which you can use in civilian life!” Or as a source of funding for your “real” life. “Enlist now and earn money for college!” Except maybe during Reagan’s administration, I don’t recall anything along the lines of “Enlist now and serve your country with pride!”
Where does a young person these days go to join the killin’ Army?
My view is that any activity that is not militarily defensive in nature of American interests is an unConstitutional act. That means that the vast majority of acts that we have engaged in since WWII have been unlawful, including the use of American servicemen and assets as some sort of social services entity. Americans are free to contribute any amount of time and money to charitable activities to deliver foreign aid they care to engage in. That is all that should be allowed, if we were following the law. For far too long our political class has been allowed to put our servicemen in harm’s way in pursuit of improper ends that have never achieved their stated goals. We have been forced to pay for this through higher and higher taxes, which is bad enough. But, worse, we have breached the compact with our servicemen by ordering so many to their deaths in contravention of the Constitution that they have sworn to uphold.
If the post-World War II military actions are unconstitutional, then nearly all the ones before World War II are as well. The Constitution grants pretty astonishing powers to Congress and the President in military matters, only slightly restrained by the War Powers Act. There is a good argument that many military actions have been poorly considered, but that does not make them unconstitutional.
Part of why Eisenhower preferred to use the CIA to solve various foreign policy problems (such as overthrowing Mossadegh in Iran) is that he was looking for a way to reduce American bloodshed. Eisenhower had sent huge numbers of men to death in World War II, and was understandably horrified at the prospect of doing so again. Unfortunately, black warfare, such as what the CIA does, has its own set of problems because it is taking place out of public view or review.
Questions of the constitutionality of our foreign adventures have dogged this country ever since the Spanish-American War. Many Americans objected to the Phillipine “Insurrection”, the occupation of Puerto Rico, and the invasion of Panama and Haiti up to the time of WWII. The mere fact that these activities were engaged in doesn’t mean that they were settled constitutional law, any more than the abortion question. Many American lives were lost in the pursuit of these Progressive Era policies. In fact, more lives were lost in the Phillipine Campaign than in the Spanish-American War itself. We all know too well the sad history of this country’s post-WWII foreign misadventures. Its time we stopped this sort of criminal activity, which enriches the crony capitalists at the expense of the poor bastards in the service who get caught up in the follies and failures of these adventures, as well as bankrupting our treasury.
“If the post-World War II military actions are unconstitutional, then nearly all the ones before World War II are as well.” This is a desparate remark. FDR, while some controversy exists about the reasons for entry, did ask Congress for authorization. Point
“The Constitution grants pretty astonishing powers to Congress and the President in military matters, only slightly restrained by the War Powers Act. There is a good argument that many military actions have been poorly considered, but that does not make them unconstitutional.” Bingo. We fought to win in WWII but since then our military actions to win war were politicized. Therefore if we are going to fight a war, we should make sure it is properl considered, and fought to win.
“Part of why Eisenhower preferred to use the CIA to solve various foreign policy problems (such as overthrowing Mossadegh in Iran) is that he was looking for a way to reduce American bloodshed.” Oh, and that turned out so good for us and was such a great success in our FP quiver.
“Eisenhower had sent huge numbers of men to death in World War II, and was understandably horrified at the prospect of doing so again.” As the overall commander he had no choice except on the best way to win which he did.
So how do your comments speak in opposition to RP’s foreign policy ideas?
As a Navy vet, it has always disgusted me to no end to hear the endless warmongering of “chickenhawks” who have never had any real skin in the game.
I know what you mean- I myself am sick and tired of people opining about law enforcement/police tactics when they haven’t even filled out an application form for Police Academy (1 thru 7).
Its easy to advocate interventionism when your own ass is never on the line.
I dunno- “Vets for Freedom” seems to have a bit less trouble with Stolen Honor Winter Soldiers than “Vets for Peace”, to cite one example.
This country has been bled white . . . Titanic amounts of blood and treasure . . . has bankrupted our country
. . . and James Cameron’s “Titanic” sucks just as much today as it did back in the late ’90s.
and undermined adherence to the Constitution to such a degree . . .
Indeed- I, too, saw no mention of the Supreme Court’s contraception/abortion rulings or FDR’s court-packing plan in “Team America World Police”.
Paul is correct on this point and always has been.
. . . because “gut the military to shore up entitlements” is one of those “ephemeral truisms”?
Its just another sign of our collapse as a nation that his position is considered “extreme” by so many people.
All I can say is- “Messrs. Alan Keyes and Andy Willoughby, the checks are in the mail!“
As an army veteran who put in 20+ years I get sick and tired of military vets who think the only people in this country who have a say about the military should have joined it. That is not how this country works. You volunteered for the military, and the military in this country is under civilian control. Get over it. It doesn’t take a GED to figure out how the military should be used, and I don’t have to be a math teacher to add 2+2.
“Sometimes, the motives are hard to figure out in hindsight.”
And that’s the problem. The United States should not be intervening unless there is a clear and compelling reason to spend our Treasure. Those who spend our Treasure must be able to clearly state why they’re risking lives and increasing our debt. Ron Paul gets a lot of support because the politicians can’t answer the question in a lot of cases because there is no reason. Our military shouldn’t be engaged in humanitarian efforts except in very rare circumstances because the risks are still very real and the efforts are very seldom appreciated. If you ask the question “What do you risk, what do you gain” in most humanitarian missions you get “we risk lives, we spend money, we get nothing in return”. The politicians are spending Treasure to gratify their ego, not for the interests of the United States.
The same argument goes for all the foreign aid… what do we get for the money? At best a big pile of nothing, at worst a flaming bag of excrement on our doorstep.
The problem is rampant throughout the government – there are no clear objectives for the money and effort expended. If we asked every agency “What are you trying to accomplish? What have you accomplished?” then we’d shut down 95% of Government. Anywhere you look it’s the same story – no accountability for the money being spent or the lives destroyed. Is it any wonder that the Ruling Class fears the Tea Party?
At the start of George W. Bush’s first administration, he argued that the U.S. was not going to be in the business of nation building. He managed to upset a lot of Democrats because he was committed to taking a much more hands-off approach to foreign policy–no more Mogadishu Line struggles. Unfortunately, this did not survive 9/11.
I agree: nation building for its own sake is a bad idea. Unless we are prepared to be a lot more long-term than a democracy can realistically be, we need to settle for destroying governments that appear to be an imminent threat, and pull out as soon as that mission has been accomplished. It’s not ideal, but it may be all a democracy can do.
And yet we still managed to build democracy in Germany and Japan following WW II, despite the costs of decades long occupation or military support, turning them into highly valuable trading partners.
Aren’t they better world neighbors than what Afghanistan and Iraq are turning into with the quick and dirty scheme?
Like any business investment, you get what you put into nation building.
I agree that properly done, and with an appropriate investment, nation building can work. But intellectuals were opponents of totalitarianism in the 1940s, and were therefore prepared to invest in it. Not now.
Well, I’d say the intellectuals were opponents of those other guy’s totalitarianism then, I don’t think any were particularly upset with Stalin’s, but since they couldn’t have his they settled for what the West could build.
I agree completely that they refuse to oppose it now and so won’t tolerate the cost.
The problem is that unlike the Japanese and Germans the people living in Afghanistan and Iraq etc. are not capable of running their own representative governments. That is the fatal flaw with the national security policy of the post 911 Bush administration. The idea that we can combat hostile murderous Islam by “converting” its followers to representative democracy through military, diplomatic, or any other means is childish wishful thinking. Idealism is a terrible and dangerous foundation to build a national security policy on. An administration pressured into less interventionism by strong support for Rob Paul foreign policy ideas would be a vast improvement.
That presumes the Germans and Japanese had a history of running representative governments before 1946.
They didn’t.
Although both are presented as constitutional monarchies prior to WW I and WW II that just “happened” to be subverted by militarists (in Japan) and national socialists (in Germany), the reality is that the legislatures in both were dominated by the former nobility.
Japan has several outbreaks of violence – rebellions, coups, or near-coups depending on how you want to label each, between the Meiji Restoration and the final seizure of power by Tojo.
Germany was quite stable as a front for Bismarck until he was pushed aside by the Kaiser and it just became his baby. That Germany failed so utterly between the wars speaks of its ability to manage a representative government on its own prior to the American nation building.
Sure they were both industrialized, but politically they were far from the U.S. and England, and barely comparable to the French and Italians in terms of post-feudal political sophistication.
We turned over some significant local control within a few years to both, but real political independence took some time for both, and a functional end to both occupations took decades.
Excellent!
Iraq might still be capable of self-government. At least, it was a plausible possibility. Before the Baathists took power in the 1950s, Iraq had a reasonably stable democratic form of government. Not perfect, but in the context of Middle Eastern Muslim nations, not too bad. Afghanistan, I’m afraid, is unlikely in our lifetimes to be anything but a collection of 12th century warring tribes.
Sam: The difference is that we-our military-was allowed to win the wars. They were not constrained by a leftist MSM; they did not have their hands tied behind their backs by ROEs which in far too many cases have caused the deaths of our guys; and the kicker is that we were fighting a state and not an amorphous ideology that hides behind women and children and whose biggest weopon is IEDs supplied by one of our allies….
Absolutely.
It is just those elements are part of a much longer, full-blown Clausewitzian analysis of the interactions of the political on the theoretical in war, and I didn’t want to start a five page essay/rant on all of that.
“That presumes the Germans and Japanese had a history of running representative governments before 1946.”
No, it doesn’t presume that. Straw man arguments in order to suport the insupportable are also poor foundations for security policies. The simple , obvious truth, is that Islam itself is the problem. Germany and Japan had cultural foundations to support functioning modern representative governments. Islam is a retrograde, vicious, and stunting ideology. The proof of which is plain to the most casual observer of anyplace controlled by it adherents. As a society we are incapable of acknowledging that bald truth. However, the truth does not require acknowledgement. You are just as dead when you jump off a cliff whether or not you believe in gravity.
Well yes, it does presume that, or something so close as to be indistinguishable.
The historical reality is that neither Germany nor Japan had the cultural foundations to support functioning, modern, representative governments in 1945, no matter how well they managed with sufficient prodding from the U.S.
Indeed Japan had nearly as stunted, vicious, retrograde ideology driving it in the form of the Bushido that continued to dominate it through the early Showa Period. This ideology did not merely permit, but encouraged the roster of utterly savage war crimes, from the common massacre and mass rape to medical experiments as depraved as those of the Nazis, and active use of biological warfare agents.
No strawmen are needed to support the simple history of both Germany and Japan, and their lack of modern democratic traditions or successes prior to 1945, or the degree to which we actively destroyed the most destructive elements of both German and Japanese culture after WW II.
What is needed is a pretense that we have never faced anything as dangerous as the Islamist threat in order to assert we need some dramatically new response to combat it. We do not. We have been here before and been victorious. All that is needed is the belief in our system and the will to win. We had that before, it has been gutted and we must regain it.
the situation with Germany and Japan is absolutely NOT comparable with either Iraq or Afghanistan. Those two were DESTROYED and had NO choice but to do what they were told. Iraq was kept from “chaos” by a tyrant and is now reverting to its chaotic roots. Afghanistan is a mountainous disconnected tribal area that has been known for centuries as the “graveyard of empires” -Mongols, Alexander the Great (Macedonia) smart and would not go there). Rommans, Axis knew better, British, French, Russians, and now U.S. Are we so ignorant our “leaders” didn’t know? These people live in the 17th century.
” It’s not ideal, but it may be all a democracy can do.”
I think your last paragraph sums up the problem with Iraq and Afghanistan nicely. Few people had any real problems with the wars as started, many had serious problems with the “nation building” because that’s a 20-50 year project. It’s takes a vast amount of hubris to think that your project in some far-flung land is important enough to commit Treasure for 2 generations when the result, either good or bad, doesn’t materially impact our national security. Had we left both countries after we removed the immediate threat then it’s possible Iran would have taken over and it’s also possible that the people would have taken matters into their own hands and established something better than we could have ever managed. Every Administration should carefully consider whether or not their “projects” can be completed within the Administration’s term(s) as cancelling unfinished business is likely part of the opponent’s campaign agenda.
True. Major difference, of course. Germany and Japan both had advanced industrial economies and modern infrastructures (less so in the case of Japan) that were largely destroyed by the war. Bringing those those things back online was half the battle. What do Iraq and Afghanistan have? Nothing. They have absolutely no real capacity to pay their own way, now or in the future. They also have no ethics beyond tribal loyalty, which ensures that whatever income they do generate will go toward enriching people’s relatives rather than developing the economy. It’s difficult to imagine either country being prosperous and independent fifty years from now, much less valuable American allies in the region. What they will be is corrupt, backward, dysfunctional, theocratic states with more in common with Iran than with us.
Even if Iraq and Afghanistan’s population had not done better (and I think we probably did accomplish some good in nation-building in both places), so what? I fear that Afghanistan is probably incapable of anything but continual tribal warfare. Iraq has the potential, perhaps, to be a self-governing modern nation, but more likely, three self-governing modern nations.
Perhaps what has Americans angry is getting involved in countries where there seems to be no American interests involved, such as Libya. Yemen and Somalia come to mind as well, and you could probably also make the case that we were invading Iraq because it had broken countless UN resolutions, not because it was a direct threat against us. If Americans do NOT see a direct threat against us, then they really see no reason for intervening. That is why there was absolutely no anger over attacking Afghanistan. We were attacked on 9/11, the people who helped carry it off were based in Afghanistan, and so we went there to avenge the deaths of 3,000 Americans. Simple. But when this odeous practice of “nation building” was then interjected into the battle, Americans started to lose interest in and support for the war. Had we just gone in there, killed (not captured, but killed) as many Taliban and al Qaeda as possible, and then left, then you would have had a successful minimal intervention in another nation with successful results. No Afghan would have wanted to attack the United States again if they knew they would face horrible retribution if they did so. But no, we had to “spread democracy” and do all the things Woodrow Wilson would have been proud of, and now we have an Afghanistan that is going to fall as soon as we leave and probably return to the way it was when we got there. THAT is what Americans object to and THAT is what Americans want to prevent from happening again.
I wonder if we even have to “win” anymore. The thought of being the subject of an American “nation building” project – successful or not – should be scary enough to ensure good behavior.
“We’re going to oust your despotic regime and transform your country into a modern, functioning democracy” should be taken to mean “We’re going to come over and f**k up your country, kill a whole bunch of people, then leave you dangling.”
In other words, the scariest words in any language should be “We’re from America and we’re here to help.”
After living 80 years as a history teacher and a “political Junkie”, I applaud the American people for their resistance to agressive war UNDER ANY PRETEXT. Every conflict that we have entered -constitutionality not withstanding- has been entered because we the people were convinced (by whom?) that we had been attacked and had every right to defend ourselves. 1) An American ship was sunk in Havana harbor –slogan “Remember the Maine” (who done it? Spanish American War, 2) WW1 the Lusitania (carrying munitiona -Churchill was head of Navy in UK and engineered that– as well as American tourists) was sunk by a German U-boat,
slogan “Remember the Lusitania” –Woodrow Wilson had just been re-elected oon the slogan “He kept us out of war”. 3)FDR KNEW the Japanese were coming because our military had cracked their code some time before BUT the people had to be convinced that we had been attacked -slogan “remember” Pearl Harbor”. I know, I know –Hitler was horrible. 4) “Remember the Tonkin Bay Incident” brought us into the Vietnam War –my brother-in-law died in that one. Later we found out that the Incident was false and years later the Secretary ofDefense gave a”mea culpa” BUT that didn’t bring Stu back! 5) Remember 9/11 and still we don’t really know — 6) What do we really know that hasn’t been “spoon fed” to us by our “wonderful” leaders about WMD’s who had “egg on their faces” after— and on and on and on –war material commpanies, contractors, banks making $$$$ to go to war and drain us of any $$$$ the people have (we are the ones who pay) and have no qualllms about the young men who are killed or horribly disabled.
Unfortunately, Iraqi support for terrorist groups (and I don’t mean al-Qaeda) meant that overthrowing Hussein was a national security interest of the U.S. The uncertainty about Iraq’s WMD capabilities and intentions were also a national security interest reason for intervention.
The Bush Administration also saw injecting the democracy virus into the Middle East by nation building in Iraq as a legitimate goal of the war. It appears to have worked–the Arab Spring is definitely a result of demonstrating that Arabs were capable of democracy. Arab democracy, however, seems to lean towards Muslim Brotherhood Islamism, unfortunately. Democracy barely works in industrialized nations that have enjoyed the fruits of the Enlightenment; it may not work at all in places that have not.
Very good point. I work with the Army, and can say unequivocally that Iraq did have chemical and biological weapons and did not destroy all of them as claimed. There was actually a rather good PBS special around 2003 (I don’t know if it is still available) detailing the run-around that Iraq was giving the UN inspectors, essentially playing a shell game and moving stuff between sites. The vast bulk of the chemical munitions were evacuated into Syria (both the Washington Post and the Washington Times had articles interviewing the Russian scientists that helped develop the bug-out plans). This one reason why the Syrian revolt has intel people rather nervous: who’s watching those chemical munitions caches?
The guerrillas that are fighting against our troops (with Iranian help) like to use howitzer shells left over from Saddam’s stockpiles (which were huge) to make IED’s (BTW, Iranian intelligence sells an IED kit for about $1000 for this purpose); occasionally we’ll find a chemical-agent shell used, missed during the evacuation. Fortunately, the terrorists don’t know how to detonate them properly.
There were actually a number of chemical weapon shells found (although usually old and degraded) after the war, and there is no question in my mind that the 15 tons of chemical weapons that were to be used in the attack on Amman, Jordan in 2004 were part of the pre-war Iraqi stockpile. But pointing out the evidence on this now that the media have made “There were no WMDs” the only position that people are allowed to think, it hardly seems worth mentioning.
and yet so much truly harmfull stuff was looted after the US took Baghdad. anyone remember the Al qua qua munitions dumps?. or people just stealing spores of all sorts of stuff out of the iraqi dept of public health and looting all sorts of sealed IAEA Stored nucelar materials?
If the point of the war was to keep that stuff out of the hands of terrorists we lost the war sometime in early 03.
Again I ask: Then what is wrong with RP’s FP views? Taken in aggregate, I have not seen in the comments here where Ron Paul’s FP views are so wrong and deliterious to our nation’s interests.
His insistence that Iran is not a threat.
If you are still here: Then what do you suggest we do? Cong. Paul has said he would first use aggressive diplomacy. What is wrong with that? Has sanctions worked? Ever? What would you do, bomb them? Oh, that is rich. Then we have a whole nation and the complete Arab world hating us. That is really good FP. Send in Hillary aside from scarring them, little else would get accomplished.
Read this and give me an answer.
http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030
No,in fact mubarak and Gaddafi were warning people to look at the chaos in iraq if they wanted liberation so bad. Thankfully they didn’t listen to them but it would have given me pause if I were an Egyptian or Libyan.
and of course supporting the likes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt itself was / is not supporting democracy quite the contrary.
The people that helped carry off 9/11 are based in Saudi Arabia. If we cannot even come to terms with the fact house of Saud funds global terrorism and are responsible for 9/11 as Taliban and Al queda there is no hope for this country.
The Invasion of Iraq was idiotic. PNAC war bunnies planned and promoted it, then ran for cover when it went south on them, cowards all.
Rome Fell because it could not maintain costs of its expanding frontiers and borders, the armies required to protect them and corruption of its treasury and government. We are placing ourselves into the same situation and will also fall, a grand experiment in government victim to its own success.
The overwhelming majority of Saudis involved in 9/11 was an intentional effort by bin Laden to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. While the Saudi government funds a lot of stuff that is very destructive to the West (their peculiar fundamentalist version of Islam, for example), and individual Saudi citizens do fund terrorism, the statement that the Saudi government funds worldwide terrorism is not accurate.
By the end of this editorial, I was a hard-core non-interventionist!
The incoherence of the Establishment GOP is stunning.
I’d wager money that you were “a hard-core non-interventionist” at the beginning of this article, too.
Non-interventionism is a great idea. If we had any brains, we’d have had a foreign policy like the Swiss for the last hundred plus years…only we don’t have any brains.
And, now it’s too late to grow some. You can’t be non-interventionist when you’re constantly under attack. Our embassies have been attacked, our people murdered over and over and over again…and, now we got to deal with it.
Like it or not.
“As a Navy vet, it has always disgusted me to no end to hear the endless warmongering of “chickenhawks” who have never had any real skin in the game.”
You must really hate guys like Woody Wilson and Frankie Roosevelt.
Not only do the references to interventionist disasters, like the failed invasion of Canada during the War of 1812, make a covert case for Paul’s foreign policy, the author plays fast and loose with the facts.
For example:
“The United States overthrew Muslim foreign governments in North Africa rather than pay tribute — and this action took place on Jefferson’s watch.”
I would like to know which Maghreb potentate was overthrown by American forces during either of the Barbary Wars? Not a one. In fact, treaties negotiated with the antebellum powers brought the end of hostilities both times. Perhaps Mr. Cramer refers to the history of an alternate universe.
I can highlight other faults with his version of history without even having to note the most obvious, like the abject failures of Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, etc… Consider his take on the reasons for the Spanish-American War. Mr. Cramer claims to believe that those wise and noble Americans were motivated primarily by a benevolent impulse to free Cubans from the tyrannical clutch of the barbarous Spaniards. How interesting that “fact” sounds in light of the treatment meted out to Filipino insurrectos (and, as ever, civilians caught in the middle) by American occupying forces! This was a war that led, directly or indirectly, to the deaths of more than one million Filipinos and even featured concentration camps run by Americans.
You just proved Clayton’s point about not having full information.
Take a look at what’s now called the Tripolitan War (because it was fought in Tripoli) and perhaps you’ll learn a bit about American history that you didn’t know before.
Note that negotiations don’t always work:
However, after “intervention,” as you’d call it, and the capture of a city, the other side was much more willing to talk:
Note, it was the taking of Derna and a “strong force” that made the pasha see the wisdom of negotiating a peace… not flowery words, but military force, and the application thereof.
By the way, if you wanna call me a “chickenhawk,” feel free. You’ll just look like a fool because I attempted to follow my late father into the Navy but was turned away because of a disability… but I did call the recruiter and ask.
See also “The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World” by Frank Lambert and “Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation” by Joshua London.
What most people don’t realize is that the Barbary Coast rulers enslaved about as many white Americans as Americans enslaved black Africans.
Even I didn’t know that about the white slavery.
I’ll have to look into that book.
that’s because in this politically correct day and age it’s never mentioned in history classes…
Muslim slavers (most but not all of them Arabs) enslaved millions of Europeans, Americans, and untold millions of blacks and Asian people over a period of centuries.
And it’s still going on to this day.
There is quite a bit of recent scholarship about the role that Muslims played in enslaving something more than a millionaire Europeans from the Renaissance onward.
The major public motivation for progressives like William Randolph Hearst to push for the Spanish-American War was to end the reconcentrado camps in Cuba. (Hearst probably had an economic interest–newspaper circulation–but that was not the goal that caused Americans to back the war.) Cuba, you will notice, received independence (although some limited by the Platt Amendment) in 1903.
The U.S. brutal suppression of Filipino resistance groups was perfectly logical: we had freed them from Spanish oppression, and they were not sufficiently grateful! That does not justify what happened, but it does explain it. Progressives were big on taking up “the white man’s burden” (in the words of Rudyard Kipling), and that it did not produce results of which we are proud today does not change the motivation. Remember that much of British imperialism in Africa was driven by efforts to suppress the slave trade. Good motivations sometimes lead to bad results.
Also, although not necessarily justifying anything, if you wanted to play in World politics then (and now) you had to have a Navy – and navies need places to berth their ships. The Philippines made a very good naval base.
I’m curious: do you have any evidence that before the Spanish-American War started, that any advocates were making the case for taking the Philippines as a naval base? We already Hawaii.
The Phillipines is a very bad example to use as it was not typical of either American or British imperialism.
First it must be understood that Kipling was absolutely right about the “white man’s burden”, however much “progressives” like to tar that as racist.
While other powers fell short, the Americans and British very much lived up to the ideals Kipling spoke about, replacing some utter savagery in many places. Although considered apocryphal, one can consider the story of the British officer looking to end suttee in India. A local leader complained it was their custom, and the British had promised not interfere with local customs. The British officer replied that it was British custom to hang people who burned women to death, that the locals could build their pyre and he would build a gallows next to it, then they could follow their custom and his troops would then follow theirs.
Note especially that in his poem Kipling is rather clear that you do not become wealthy through such imperialism; instead you sacrifice “the best ye breed” to “serve another’s need”. “Progressive” sentiments perhaps, but hardly a call to exploitation.
That understood, when we look at the Phillipines we must understand that a primary force behind the entire conflict was anti-Catholicism.
The Filipinos were not typical Pacific Islanders, sneaking off for a bit of cannibalism on the side. They were Catholics, and had been for centuries. While the same is true of the Cubans and Puerto Ricans, Americans were quite familiar with Spanish-speaking Spanish-Mexican Indian Catholics, and could relate with them on a level they could not with Tagalog speaking Melanesian Catholics. Those were of a completely alien ethnicity, speaking a completely alien language. “Naturally” they needed to be uplifted first.
The thing is, that problem was not the worst of the situation in the Phillipines. The country was not united, or even have a minor racial split as between “white” and “black” Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The Moros in the Phillipines were Muslims, and barely subdued Muslims at that, having been annexed by the Spanish from various Muslim rulers on Borneo (now inherited by Brunei, Malaysia, or Indonesia)relatively recently. Aside from the Catholic Filipinos wanting to rule themselves, the Muslims wanted to be free of the Catholic Filipinos, if they could not own them of course, as well as free of the Americans. Further, looking at the most brutal incidents of the wars, will show a strong trend to the involvement of the Moros as either inciting them or being the target of the reprisals, particularly once it passed to the Moro War phase.
Finally I will note that the worst excesses of British imperialism in Africa were concentrated in the south, and were overwhelmingly influenced by the Dutch Afrikaaners. Yes, Cecil Rhodes let himself be infected by that taint and brought it north, but the prime movers of apartheid were always the Afrikaaners, with the English accepting it as the price of peace in that corner of the Empire. A mistake to be sure, but let us note its source.
Imperialism was not perfect; then again little is.
Compared to the alternatives, and considering all the details, we see a massively better record for the British and Americans taking Kipling’s advice than most post-modern, progressive, historical anlyses would suggest.
“This was a war that led, directly or indirectly, to the deaths of more than one million Filipinos”
That claim is absolute, unadulterated nonsense. Even WWII, with gigantic armies clashing, with cities being bombed into ruins, and with deliberate attempts to exterminate whole populations didn’t cause that level of casualties…and it lasted about three times longer than the Philippine insurrection!
Though, I agree we never should hsve been in the Phillipines.
Mr. Cramer thank you for writing about this subject.
I find your perspective as an enlightened libertarian and a historian a refreshing one in election season.
My fear is that Ron Paul and many of his followers do no understand radical Islam, the Koran, or the concept of religion-driven terrorism. If I recall correctly, Mohammed himself “converted” Medina by the sword, and some (not all) of his followers have always followed this example to this day. Like you, I fail to see how this is “our fault” or Israel’s fault given the history of Islam is by no means a bloodless one.
Thanks for your insight and writing.
best regards!
The problem with non-intervention as a policy is that the real world is far too complex. Nations have to have allies, and those allies may request or require intervention. Other countries may threaten or be threatened in such a way that precludes total war, but still require action of some sort. Trade and commerce may be threatened, e.g. the Barbary Pirates, the Somali pirates, and the current goings-on in the Strait of Hormuz. It frequently happens that a president sees that with a small intervention now, he may avoid a large war later.
“Avoiding overseas entanglements” primarily means avoiding the sort of mutual treaty obligations that lead to WWI, where half the parties were fighting simply because they had promised to. It does not, however, mean that one can avoid fighting at all; there will always be bad guys.
“It does not, however, mean that one can avoid fighting at all…”
There’s no guarantees. No matter how much Belgium wanted to be neutral in 1914 or 1940, the Germans were coming through on their way into France, and that’s that. It wouldn’t have made a difference what their policy was.
That’s not true for us though.
We could have avoided every single war we’ve fought since 1898, if only we’d minded our own business.
IMO, of course.
Right, Japan never would have bombed our Navy if we’d… well, we didn’t do anything to Japan, they were afraid of what we might do, not angry about what we did. In fact, when Japan annexed French Indochina, we immediately stopped shipping things there, which is what you want, right? We stopped our “interference.”
And who cares about 6 million Jooooooooooos dying in Europe, not to mention the disabled, Gypsies, and other innocents that were murdered by that regime.
We could have just sat here and sang Kumbaya while the ovens worked.
“Right, Japan never would have bombed our Navy if we…”
…hadn’t slapped an embargo on them, essentially cutting off their supply of oil and other vital materials.
Can’t do that kind of stuff and expect to stay neutral.
Imperialistic, militaristic governments that are in the middle of waging a war of conquest get all upset when you do that.
So wait . . .
Once a war breaks out we now have an obligation to continue supporting whatever side we were supporting before?
We cannot decide that we favor one trading partner over another?
They have a “right” to our business forever?
Or are we only forced to do that with imperialistic and militaristic governments because they get upset, while we can casually betray the non-interventionist governments, like we are supposed to be, because they will never retaliate against us?
And of course if we are dealing with two imperialistic and militaristic governments we are just plain hosed no matter what.
That doesn’t sound like a standard for a sovereign nation.
Sure, we could have avoided every war since 1898.
We could have avoided WW I, and Germany would have use unlimited submarine warfare from 1914 on, and won a decision in the West as well as the East. We could then have played Third World flunky to Germany for the next 100 years.
We could have avoided WW II, and Germany and Japan would have divided the world between them, with a few scraps for Italy to keep Mussolini from whining too much, and then become the Third World target for the two of them to scheme over.
We could have avoided the Korean War, and China and Russia would have partitioned first Japan, then India and the Middle East, and finally split the Pacific and Western Europe, leaving us wondering if they would really fight each other before destroying us.
We could have avoided the Vietnam War, and just delayed the previously avoided partition by a decade.
We could have avoided the Afghan-Soviet War, and the Soviet Union would have cleansed Afghanistan, partitioned Pakistan with India, partitioned Iran with Iraq, and given us an oil embargo that would leave us starving from all the grain we’d have to trade for it.
We could have yielded the Cold War before it started, and the Soviet Union would have included Portugal.
We could have avoided Desert Storm, and Saddam Hussein would now rules the Arab Gulf; which might not be that bad if the constant war with Iran didn’t close it more often than not.
Just because you can avoid a war does not automatically mean you will be better off as a result.
That is the excluded middle that all this suggested lack of interventionism fallaciously overlooks.
“Just because you can avoid a war does not automatically mean you will be better off as a result.”
No, it doesn’t, but in our particular case, I think we could have avoided all those wars if we’d had a better (i.e. neutral) foreign policy, and I believe that we would be better off if we had followed that path.
But, since we don’t have a time machine, we can’t really test it out, to see how it would have worked out, if we’d styed out of WWI, for example. Maybe we’d be better off, maybe worse. No way to say for sure.
All we know is what did happen, and now we have to play the cards we’re holding as a result.
If we cannot test it out, then any claim to us being better off “if only” is left as nothing more than posturing, no matter how much anyone “believes” it or not.
With nothing else to support it, “believe my hypotheticals because” does not constitute sufficient rationale to accept them.
That was the basis for “Hope and Change”, and we see how well that worked out.
The notion that we would have been better off without involving ourselves in World War II assumes that Germany would have had no territorial ambitions after defeating the British Commonwealth–a most implausible idea. David Bergamini’s Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy points out that the Japanese government had plans for how they and Germany would divide up the world, with the U.S. divided between them. (Japan was planning to defeat Germany in World War III.)
Regarding the above, particularly Clayton’s point, bet dimes to donuts that Germany had a similar plan to defeat Japan. After they’d taken care of the Soviet Union and Italy, of course.
Sorry Mr. Clayton, There is too much evidence to ignore the hand Saudi Arabia has in funding terrorism.
Not only does the House of Saud fund global terrorism, they support Wahhabi schools in the USA teaching Sharia law. Funds are funneled through members of Saudi royal family to Hamas, Wahhabi Schools, and many other terrorist organizations, schools and training camps that openly call for the overthrow of western democracy.
If President Obama’s administration were to send funds to Hamas..what would be the outcry, and confirmation that the US government supports terrorism against Israel. However if people in Saudi Arabia’s administration send Billions to Hamas and other terrorist groups, promotion of Sharia law, destruction of anything to do with western Democracy, we pull the wool over our eyes and pretend it isn’t happening.
Its time to stop pretending and covering up for people calling for destruction of Israel and Western Civilization, regardless who they may be.
As I mentioned, the Saudis do a lot of damage to the West with their funding of fundamentalist Islam. But that is not terrorism (although it creates an environment where terrorists may feel more comfortable). Please provide evidence that the Saudi government (as opposed to individual Saudi citizens) is funding terrorism.
The problem with the non-interventionist policy is that it is utterly fantastical. It proposes that if we just stayed within our borders, other actors would leave us alone and be happy to trade with us (never mind that trade directly violates a non-interventionist’s viewpoint). Of course, this view does not propose how these same actors would act vis-a-vis other countries that do trade with us or make moves to trap us within our own waters. Ask a libertarian this and he will insist that he is not calling for disarming the military, but in building up our defenses within our own waters. I wonder if the libertarian ever thought that what he is indeed calling for is the militarization of the United States, the very thing he abhors.
“never mind that trade directly violates a non-interventionist’s viewpoint”
No, it doesn’t. It’s about maintaining political neutrality, like Switzerland or Sweden have traditionally done.
They’ll trade with pretty much anybody (for example both countries traded freely with Germany during WWII), they just don’t get involved in international political disputes or wars, partly because of good fortune, and partly because that’s their deliberate policy.
Yes, Sweden and Switzerland remained neutral during World War II. Sweden allowed German troops to transit their country on the way to invading Norway. Switzerland closed its eyes while the Nazis sent trains of Jews from Italy to Germany for extermination. It was neutrality based on fear of being the next victim.
“So, in other words, you are defending the morally bankrupt behavior of two countries that traded freely with a country that was at the same time gassing Jews and killing millions of French, British, Russians, and Americans. Glad to know that you picked such a high point to defend the non-interventionist beliefs of libertarians.”
Yeah, and we followed the morally superior policy of allying/trading freely with butchers like Joseph Stalin and Chiang Kai Chek, frying a million or so civilians in bombing raids, and getting hundreds of thousands of our kids killed.
I think I prefer the Swiss plan.
All other things being equal, I’d just as soon follow the Swiss plan.
Sorry, that was me in response to Chris’ comment below, regarding morals.
I don’t believe we traded freely with Josef Stalin, but we certainly did fight by his side. However, there was a greater threat at the time we allied with Josef Stalin, and afterwards we did not continue to ally with him (Cold War much?).
In the real world, all things are not equal. That’s why non-interventionism will never work. As I like to point out with libertarians, the closest practitioner to their non-interventionism is in the White House. It has not gone over well with any other country.
Lend-Lease to Stalin
“The USSR was highly dependent on rail transportation, but the war practically shut down rail equipment production: only about 92 locomotives were produced. 2,000 locomotives and 11,000 railcars were supplied under Lend-Lease. Likewise, the Soviet air force received 18,700 aircraft, which amounted to about 14% of Soviet aircraft production (19% for military aircraft).[15]”
“Although most Red Army tank units were equipped with Soviet-built tanks, their logistical support was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks. Indeed by 1945 nearly two-thirds of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge 3/4 ton and Studebaker 2½ ton, were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminium, canned rations, and clothing were also critical.[16]“–wiki
We did a lot of business with Stalin, for awhile there. About $13 billion worth. That’s in 1940 dollars.
So, in other words, you are defending the morally bankrupt behavior of two countries that traded freely with a country that was at the same time gassing Jews and killing millions of French, British, Russians, and Americans. Glad to know that you picked such a high point to defend the non-interventionist beliefs of libertarians.
Oh, and wanting to be the last to be eaten by the crocodile still means that you would be eaten. Sweden and Switzerland are both fortunate that the United States was the victor of WWII.
Btw, I apologize for consistently spelling the Philippines wrong. For some reason, all my life, I’ve always wanted to use two “l”s and only one “p”…even though I KNOW that’s not right.
It drives me crazy.
I am with Gary Wills: we should only fight when there is a possibility that someone might be able to put together enough resources to harm us.
In many conflicts the best policy would to balance our actions so that both sides lose.
A lot of the conflicts come from non-viable societies which we feed and cloth, drawing closer to the abyss from medical care driven population growth.
If we do get involved, it should be to physically contain and not solve conflicts. Again, peoples deserve their fates and love it when it comes, if that were not so, it would not happen.
The purpose of the Military is to close with and destroy the enemy.
Anything else is rubbish.
As I understand Ron Paul’s position on military action, his argument is that our government ought not to intervene militarily without a clear and present need to defend the U.S. So long as the Constitutional requirement of a Congressional declaration of war is followed, the Constitution doesn’t enter into the calculation. The Constitution does not limit the government’s actions versus foreign powers only against us. So his foreign policy stand, as I comprehend it, is one of opposition on practical grounds to foreign ‘adventures’ of a military sort. It is entirely certain that he would not as President have ordered the military into Libya on his own nor would he have gone into Iraq. I rather suspect that his response to a 9-11 attack would be much more violent than you seem to think. But, then, so would mine be: use tactical nukes against terrorist HQ and training facilities and against the capitols – the government buildings, not the cities – of those nations who allow those facilities and headquarters on their soil. No warnings, no consultations with supposed allies. And lest you be too quick to criticize, I am a retired Army NCO, 24 years of service and two wars.
“It is entirely certain that he would not as President have ordered the military into Libya on his own nor would he have gone into Iraq.”
That’s the trouble with Paul. Both of those nations attacked American citizens and killed them (either via terrorist proxies or directly in the case of Libya), and Ron Paul doesn’t seem to care much.
I’d love to see us move to being a neutral country, if we can figure out a way to do it, but not if it means ignoring attacks against our country and its citizens.
If someone attacks us, like at Pearl Harbor or like on the Achille Lauro, then to hell with neutrality, and we beat their damned brains out and make sure they ain’t around to ever do it again.
“Background: Four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists in October hijack the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, carrying more than 400 passengers and crew, off Egypt. The hijackers demand that Israel free 50 Palestinian prisoners. The terrorists kill a disabled American tourist, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, and throw his body overboard with his wheelchair.”
As far as I’m concerned, that means war with the Pals, and we keep on fighting them until they, and their backers (in this case Iraq) are destroyed. Unfortunately, our government didn’t see it that way, so instead of destroying the Pal terrorists, we’re now suppling them with guns and money, and back then we were doing stuff like invading Panama, instead of the Gaza Strip. I guess our government must have mistaken them for a Mexican drug cartel or something.
Clayton,
Well, that’s a half-a-century ago, and more; a half century of Sadaam and his predecessors plugging away at any independent centers of power…
So most of you have decided that war is okay or even neccesary sometimes .The next question is are ALL wars neccasary and the answer is obviously no. Certainly even the most ideological hawks can name a few interventions that were avoidable. on the opposite side, even Austrian economics godfather and Ron Paul mentor Murray Rothbard had a few wars he felt were just (revolutionary war and the souths secession).
US
Just saying,a de facto interventionist policy is as simple minded as a non interventionist one. Believe it or not, there may come a time when we look around and nothign rises to the level of threat of risking ANY american lives!
I have come to like the idea of Swiss-style neutrality as a policy for us–with the caveat that we be willing to take an active role in accepting the refugees of countries at war, and see to it that they be trained in the militia, and encouraged to support our neutrality–rather than turn them away at the border. (Both the United States and Switzerland were guilty of that behavior, by the way, although the Swiss at least took in children–and we should be everlastingly shameful of that.)
But the thing that bothers me about Ron Paul’s view, is that he thinks it is just fine to pull out all our troops around the world, and doesn’t give one whit about the instability that such an action is going to cause. At the very least, give each country a deadline of four years, and offer to train them in the proper care and use of militia weapons (rifle and pistol primarily)–even offer to sell them weapons at a discount, or find Chinese merchants who are willing to do so–and let countries like Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and South Korea fret over whether or not they want an armed population, or be left vulnerable to invasion!
In the end, such a policy would be a greater aid to freedom, because it will encourage countries to accept militias as a defense mechanism, and encourage the people of those countries to come to terms with weapons as a means for defending freedom.
I’ll also part with Paul on two countries in particular, that I would like to see us continue to support: Israel and Taiwan. They are special cases, though, because they are allies that already have targets on their backs!
A couple of clarifications: First, the refusal of accepting refugees was something that happened in WWII, and while the refusal mostly involved Jews fleeing Germany, in some cases, it involved sending Russians back to Russia as well.
Second, we should be everlastingly shameful that we refused to accept the refugees. The way I phrased it, it almost sounds like I said we should be everlastingly shameful of accepting children refugees!
Oh, how I sometimes wish I could edit some of these comments…