Dr. Paul and co-host Daniel McAdams on the string of disasters produced by US interventions. Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq... What's next on their list of failures? Ukraine, where the US House just voted to send lethal weapons!
Dr. Paul and co-host Daniel McAdams on the string of disasters produced by US interventions. Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq... What's next on their list of failures? Ukraine, where the US House just voted to send lethal weapons!
Dr. Paul and co-host Daniel McAdams on the string of disasters produced by US interventions. Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq... What's next on their list of failures? Ukraine, where the US House just voted to send lethal weapons!
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams who is the Executive Director of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity and also a co-host of this program.
Daniel, good to have you with us today.
Good to be back doing it again.
Good.
I have a subject I want to visit with you on and with our audience.
It has to do with the empire.
It's still with us and of course we'd like to see the end of the empire.
We believe sincerely that there's more liberty where there's less government and less empires.
To manage an empire requires a lot of money and it's very true that civil liberties are undermined with an empire.
And we need to keep the people informed about what's happening.
But things don't look good, you know, as far as us winning over these ideas and thinking that America would be better off not managing empire.
But you know, this last week there was an announcement about what was going on in Afghanistan.
And one time, our president, when he was a candidate, said that was the good war.
He wanted to end the war in Iraq, but the good war he would pursue.
But even a year ago, he said we should be out of there at the end of 2014.
That didn't happen.
Matter of fact, they were going to keep 7,000, now it's up to 10, which means they're going to keep as many as they need or what they think they have to have.
So the troop numbers are still there.
We're still engaged.
We're not going to walk away.
I think those in Congress right now have the clout to keep us very much involved with Afghanistan at the expense of the American taxpayer.
And you know, they can always say, what if something happens, you know, and there's always an excuse.
What we saw recently is the claim that ISIS is involved there now.
So we have to maintain these high troop levels.
We have to maintain two permanent bases in Afghanistan.
So I think that thrills the military-industrial complex as well for us to stay.
It's sort of like al-Qaeda related to Iraq.
You know, how many victories have we had in Iraq?
We've had quite a few victories, and right now we're back into Iraq again.
And was Al-Qaeda there before we got in?
But we're very much engaged there, even though they said we have moved out.
I doubt if all Americans moved out of that largest embassy in the world out of Baghdad.
So that war has continued, but we're not doing so well in Yemen either.
I mean, it looks like the declaration of victory there was a farce.
You know, it's interesting how history is being rewritten as well, because now what's being said is, you know, this is a great victory for Iran, that Iran is moving into Yemen.
But the reality is much different.
You know, starting back in 2010 and even earlier, the U.S. started firing drones into Yemen.
As a matter of fact, one of the very first drone strikes killed a deputy governor of one of the regions, and that infuriated his tribe, and they declared war on the government there.
So because the government was allowing us and encouraging us to use drones and killed innocent people, that turned the tribe against that government.
And now we've had two governments overthrown there.
And the new group that's taking over is a Shia militia, not as closely tied to Iran as people would like us to think, but nevertheless, it was our intervention that set the stage for what's happening now.
It was hardly Iran being involved, and we were going in there to protect them against those vicious Iranians coming into Yemen.
You know, even this is not a clean break, even though we had to leave because we were being overrun.
The embassy was closed and the base was closed.
The CIA is still staying there.
The drones will still be available.
And I think we're going to be very much involved for a long time to come because it has been stated flatly in our media, and the media speaks for our government, and it said the most dangerous source of terrorism against the United States here at home is in Yemen.
So they already have the excuse made, although every country is a danger.
Every country has another Hitler, and therefore we have to go in and to occupy them and take care of them.
But this week we also had some verification of an argument that I've made over the years about why we shouldn't have even gotten into that war because the hype was very strong, and that's 12 years ago, and yet we've had a recent report from the CIA, the NIE report.
And what is that all about?
Debating Empire's Legacy00:08:07
Sure.
Well, the national intelligence estimate, which is the total product of the U.S. intelligence community in total, the consensus view, that 2002 national intelligence estimate for Iraq had been classified up until recently.
And now more parts of it were declassified.
And we know now that as President Bush was saying that Iraq has chemical weapons and biological weapons and is pursuing nuclear weapons, that NIE said exactly the opposite.
It said there is no proof that they are pursuing these.
As Condoleezza Rice was talking about the aluminum tubes, remember that was a big one.
These aluminum tubes can only be used for nuclear weapons.
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
Well, those aluminum tubes, according to the NIE that we now know, were not used for nuclear weapons.
They were actually used for creating rockets.
So they were lying at the time, and they knew that they were.
You know, while I was in office, and obviously when you were working with me, we had a friend made, you know, William Odom.
He's no longer alive, but he was a man of great experience.
But do you recall his statement about what kind of a mistake this was being into Iraq?
Yeah, the great general said this is the greatest strategic mistake in U.S. history.
I think he said.
Well, you know, I guess time will tell.
We've made so many, picking and choosing, you know, gets pretty difficult.
But, you know, that war is not over.
The Middle East is not settled.
They're still making, you know, the intent of going in there prior to 9-11.
And we know that as a case from the 1990s, the neocons were busy laying their plans.
So yes, there's a lot going on, and the Middle East is not being remade with their plans.
And this is the whole thing.
There's so many unintended consequences.
But you know what?
It never seems to phase them.
And I just wondered, determination is a good quality.
You know, if you have a goal, it's a worthy goal, and you're determined, and you have setbacks, and you keep going and pursuing it, determination is something that we all should strive for.
But when does determination turn into insanity?
When is it stubbornly foolish?
I guess the big question there is determination to do, what are you going to do?
Are you doing the right thing or are you doing the wrong thing?
But I would think that right now we're not doing, our government's not being determined in the right manner.
Well, you know, like the Bible says, by your fruits you shall know them.
Look at the fruits of the intervention.
Well, you know, in spite of all this, and we can name others, I mean, we don't have very much victory.
You know, we've meddled a bit in Tunisia, a lot in Libya, a lot in Egypt.
And of course, we've been in Syria.
We were going to have regime change.
That has not gone well.
And that, of course, was the source of ISIS.
And it goes on and on.
Every day you read more about more weapons.
Yemen, a lot of weapons.
Turned over to our ancestors.
$1 billion worth of weapons.
And then what does the Congress do?
Well, they plan to send more weapons.
And where is it that they're trying to do this?
Where's our policymakers stirring up trouble?
Of course, it's in Ukraine.
It's been going on for a couple years, and Congress is not ignoring this.
We had a pretty important vote yesterday, even though not many Americans paid much attention to it.
That's right.
H. Res 162 was the bill.
And as you remember very well when you were in the House, never went through committees.
No one ever had the text until the very last minute.
We didn't even know the number of the bill until they went down to the floor to introduce it.
But this was a bill, if you remember back in December, Congress passed an authorization of $300 million for defensive lethal weapons to Ukraine.
And the president says he hasn't made up his mind yet.
So what this bill was doing was telling him, you better send those weapons over right away.
Even though there's been a ceasefire and the guns have for the most part been silenced, Congress is pushing, send these weapons over there.
And they're also saying these weapons need to be used to restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
And if you read between the lines, what that means is encouraging the Ukrainian, the government in Kiev that the U.S. backs, encouraging them to take over Crimea again, which is now Russian.
So that means war with Russia and to take over the East again.
So they're pushing them to start an even larger war.
Could be World War III.
A lot of these resolutions come up, as they did, you know, in the past 10 years.
They don't have the force of law, but they have a moral force behind it.
They emphasize it.
They endorse it.
It's part of the propaganda machine.
And on this resolution that was just passed, it's four pages long.
And all this is condemnation of the conflict.
And, of course, you know, the position I've taken and the non-intervention is, yes, there's problems over there, but to blame only one side is getting involved in the wrong sort of way, especially when we see that they're not being accurate in what they're saying, because all this is a condemnation of Russia.
Russia is 100% guilty of this.
And of course, the difference right now is they talk about lethal and non-lethal weapons.
Well, this is interesting.
They said these are going to be lethal defensive weapons.
So they're still being, you know, not looking for another war.
But, you know, the vote vote, I have a copy of the votes here.
In one way, a little bit encouraging, in another way, very discouraging.
Do you recall?
There was a time when maybe two, three, four, five of us would say enough is enough.
We don't need another war.
But so the numbers have improved.
There were 48 no votes and 348 yes votes.
I mean, you know where the power is.
And there were only 10 Republicans that voted this way.
They deserve to be complimented.
And I think I'm going to read those names rather quickly just so people might realize who they are.
Who the heroes are.
Yeah, because they have all the pressure.
Even though this is supporting the Democratic president, it also makes my point that, yes, there's a lot of fighting and a lot of bipartisan bickering and they don't get along.
But when it comes push to shove, here we are.
The Republicans hate the Democrats.
And there's only 10 Republicans willing to stand up against the president wanting to go into another illegal war.
Well, look what passed for the debate on the floor.
It was Ileana Ross Leitnen controlling the Tom on one side and the sponsor of the bill, Elliot Engel, on the other side.
They both completely 100% supported the bill.
So there's no debate.
The only fight is between which one supports it more.
That reminds me, and I'm sure you recall that when I was trying to get time to debate the issue on the House floor of going to war against Iraq, that I should have had half of the Republican time to be in opposition to balance it out.
The Democrats split their time, but our side said, no, you can't.
At the time, they gave me three minutes, and one member of Congress made fun.
Yeah, they give Ron Paul three minutes to defend the constitutional position.
But then, after a few people debated that, they gave me five minutes.
It was wonderful for me to defend it.
But let me do this rather quickly.
Justin Amash, we know he's a friend of liberty.
Jimmy Duncan's a good friend of mine and does very, very well.
Tim Housekamp and Walter Jones, Thomas Massey, Mick Mulvaney, and Dana Rohrbacher.
But the rest all went along with this, and they vote with the neocons.
Doubtful Criticism00:00:31
It's really sad.
But the other part is, this went through, not too many knew about it.
And I doubt if there was any criticism on all the cables and all the news programs yesterday.
I doubt if there's an editorial other than on the internet and a few people like this that would challenge this and point to the source of our problems because this is just a roadmap to more problems in that country and it means that the empire is still alive and well, unfortunately.