The U.S. has developed a very bad habit of getting into wars it shouldn’t get into; wars that having nothing whatsoever to do with defending the United States. But then, to add insult to injury, the bad habit is exacerbated when the government doubles-down, and triples-down, on the failure of the war. Wars that shouldn’t not have taken place are stung along for decades! This, more than any other foolish government policy, has led our country into dire straits.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you again, Dr. Paul.
Good.
We want to talk a little bit about foreign policy.
It always seems to be around one place or another, and it always seems to be doing about the same things that we have a concern about.
Are we in a war?
Are we going to get in a war?
And what's the story?
Oh, we'll listen to the PR people and the press releases from the administration, and they'll explain everything to us.
Of course, I'm making fun of that because if you listen too much of that and think you're getting information, you'll really get confused.
But I think that the whole principle of interventionism is entrenched in both of the political parties.
And we're involved around the world, and we have an empire, and the empire is under threat, fortunately, I think, long term.
And they deal together, but they pretend there's a big difference.
And one thing they characteristically do is they will give support to certain factions and certain sides in a war, but they might have rules to try to escape any moral responsibility.
Like, we're going to give you these bombs, whether it's in Palestine and Gaza or whether it's in Ukraine.
And we'll give them all this money, billions and billions of dollars.
When it all adds up, then we'll have some rules to say, well, we don't want you to use these weapons in any illegal fashion.
So we have to caution you, don't go too far, don't go over the red line.
For Ukraine, don't go into Russia and drop any bombs.
And, of course, we instruct the Israelis on exactly how they can use weapons, and they really don't care.
So the problem is we give the support, both parties do it.
The American people get stuck with the bills.
And yet we lose total control.
All the American people suffer from is the inflation that comes by the printing of the money because we don't have any money for these kinds of wars.
And the inflation is paid for by the poor people in this country.
So the more wars we have indirectly, you know, there's a lot of welfare benefits and a lot of punishment for the poor people.
But it's also very lucrative.
And one of the reasons why it is bipartisan support is both parties support those special interests in the military-industrial complex.
And that answers a lot of questions of why they do it.
But there's a lot of people involved.
You can't say that everybody that supports sending money over to Ukraine, I consider them all very confused, but I don't consider them malicious because a lot of them probably have very sincere efforts, especially even in the Middle East and Gaza.
You know, they really take seriously their position.
And unfortunately, the majority of all Americans don't even talk about non-interventionism.
You know, stay out of these affairs and quit spending the money.
That doesn't mean you support the bad guys because you haven't given somebody some money to stir up another war.
But that's what's going on right now.
And even this starting up this past week, we heard from Blinken who was campaigning for U.S. will allow Ukraine.
He wants to say he wants to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory, which is a big escalation.
Even though we do it already, it's symbolically something.
Oh, if you do that, the Russians might get upset.
Well, they're already upset.
And when it's in their best interest, they're going to fight back.
And, of course, we've been indoctrinated.
The American people have been indoctrinated to believe that it's Russia started the whole thing rather than NATO confronting the Russians.
And the same way in the Middle East is We give tremendous support there, and the sides are split, and there's a lot of politicking going on, and even in Congress, they're still arguing how much money to give to Israeli, to the Israelis, because there's a lot of death and destruction there.
But we said, yeah, but we didn't do it.
Our troops aren't there.
That's a little bit of fibbing, to tell you the truth.
So it's a foreign policy of interventionism that is a problem.
And right now, we're getting some information, and we'll talk a little bit about that.
And that is what's planned.
Let's say, well, maybe it'll get much better because, you know, Trump will take him on.
He'll change the foreign policy.
And then we're coming together now.
Nikki Haley, she's joining.
She's now with Trump.
And maybe we'll have less intervention over there.
Well, that remains to be seen.
And we have a bit of concerns there.
Chris?
That's right, Dr. Paul.
Yes, government must remain limited.
Otherwise, you're asking for trouble once you allow it to do things.
And, you know, we've had a lot of trouble for a long time.
And it's always like a one-two punch with government against us.
You know, the first punch is creating the failed policy in the first place.
But then that's not it.
It doesn't stop there.
Then after it fails, they double down.
And then they triple down.
And they just keep going and going, adding to the failure.
COVID was a great example.
I mean, what did they end up with?
Eight boosters, ten?
I mean, who keeps track anymore?
They just keep doubling down.
With war, Ukraine, they've lost half a million people.
What a sad story that they lost all those people.
But the U.S., our government, is addicted to sending billions and billions and billions into this lost cause.
And it gets even worse with countries like France.
They're saying, oh, well, we're going to send some people over there.
We're going to send advisors.
I mean, have they lost their minds?
Can you imagine being one of these advisors and you're going over into this lost cause?
But this is not anything new.
Anybody that knows about Vietnam or any of the lost cause wars that have become a tradition, unfortunately, for our country.
They get into these wars that have nothing to do with defending us whatsoever.
Think of Afghanistan, Iraq.
There was zero chance of remaking the Middle East, but they took 20 years and $6 trillion and didn't do it.
And that's it, and they just moved on.
Now we're on to Ukraine.
So this is the problem.
Failure doesn't deter them.
They just keep piling into the failure.
But now we're dealing with Russia.
Russia is not the Middle East.
Russia can do some serious harm to us.
And that is where it gets very dangerous.
Right.
You know, Zelensky is something else.
Sometimes I look at what he's doing, and the word that comes to my mind is the attitude and the cavalier attitude is sort of like he's a madman.
How will we get this war going?
And there are people that really want to get the war to go.
There are the profiteers that want to do this.
And there's a lot of war hawks around.
There's a lot of people in the Congress, although there's more and more deciding that the American people are getting a little bit annoyed by some of this spending, and they're arguing over it because people are starting to see the connection of the economic suffering here at home.
And I think that's good if they realize where this comes from.
It's always been assumed, how much you need, oh, well, we don't have the money in the bank.
Oh, that doesn't matter.
We have this little secret.
We have this Federal Reserve.
They know how to get the money.
And then they march on, they've done that.
But it is something that just makes no sense whatsoever.
And NATO is a big part of this because they were the instigators along with the United States with the coup in 2014.
And they do persist in this.
But it's this expansion of war.
It's an obsession with it that we need a bigger war.
And this is for the preservation of democracy and freedom.
That's what we're fighting for.
And that's what we tell our military people where you have to go over.
And in many past wars, especially the Middle East wars in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and others, that there's so many have suffered tremendously, and yet it was not designed.
It did not come about through the legal means of the people speaking through their members of Congress and saying, well, they're the enemy.
We'll declare war and we'll have a war and we'll fight for our freedom.
But it's nothing like that because they don't want to have a debate on the House floor.
Why should we be doing this?
They do it, they get into trouble, and then they come along and say, oh, they're really in trouble.
If you don't do this, we're going to have a lot of people die.
But the whole truth is, if we do exactly what they ask for when they ask for more money and more weapons, more people die.
So it is to me such a tragedy.
President Trump's Israel Focus00:11:55
But I have noticed that there's been a shift in the presidential primary now because the one person that held out from supporting Trump was Nikki Haley.
And she has recently, you know, capitulated and endorsed and endorsed Trump.
But she's also, you know, superficially, and when you hear her talk over the years, you would say, well, at least she's probably not, she's probably a lot more aggressive than even Trump would be.
But since she's made this announcement, you know, it's a little bit scary, you know, because it looks to me like they're solidifying the Republican Party in a certain way.
And this whole thing about, you know, it'll be different and we're not going to finance this.
I'm really, you know, skeptical that that's going to happen.
So I think we still have a lot to do to get the people educated on why the answer isn't, you know, okay, give them a couple billion dollars because they're in trouble and we'll tell them what to do and we'll keep our troops out and then we'll sneak them in the back door and they will run the show, run the computers and all the security apparatus and we'll help them out.
But we're not going to send ground troops over there.
And we know that our government and our people and our military is very, very much involved.
And in the last couple years, ever since, you know, it's been very obvious what's going on, especially since 2014, that things have gotten much, much worse over there.
And that, of course, has been seen by, I think, a greater number of Americans are waking up to it.
But it's sort of sad to think that, well, you should have known better.
But no, they keep stimulating.
Then they finally will have to back down for some either political reason or an economic reason.
So it is in transition.
It's part of the campaign going on right now.
But if I said, well, if I know what the answer is, elect so-and-so, ABCD, and this will all change.
Right now, I think the principles that are behind and the support for interventionism overall is so strong is not going to be that easy.
It's just like solving the economic problem of this country.
There's going to be a lot of payback for how we have lived beyond our means, same way on foreign policy.
There'll probably be some payback to us when it's realized that we no longer have that aggressive empire that we forever have bragged about.
All right, Dr. Paul, yes.
I wanted to read a quote that struck me this week from Putin himself.
He was talking about, it almost sounded like he has sympathy for the Ukrainian people for what their government has done to them.
And here's what he said, quote, they don't want to come to an agreement.
They cling to getting something and turning the tide on the battlefield.
It doesn't work.
Why is this happening?
Today's rulers of Ukraine do not feel sorry for these people.
They don't consider them theirs.
This is the problem and tragedy of Ukraine today.
They do not consider these people theirs and they do not protect them, end quote.
Now, Putin is talking about Ukraine.
But as I'm hearing this, I'm thinking he's talking, that could be applied to our government.
Do you feel any type of kinship to our government, that they are our leaders, that we are their people?
I know I don't.
And what a shame that that's the case.
There is no kinship.
First off, look at what they did.
They locked down the country, which you never do under any circumstances, especially not for a virus that 99.9% of people survive.
And look what they did to us.
Do you think that they care about us?
Do you think they care when they open the borders and let anybody into our country?
That doesn't feel like these people are looking out for us.
They run up 34 trillion in debt and are addicted to sending even more money overseas.
They support this tragedy in Gaza and creating hatred towards us.
You know, we didn't do anything, but they're creating so much hatred around the world towards us by supporting what Israel is doing.
I mean, it really feels like he's describing Ukraine.
It really feels like the U.S. government does not care about our interests whatsoever.
They just have these goals that who knows where they come from, and they're going to pursue them no matter the cost for us.
And I think this is a very dangerous situation, not just for us, but for the entire world.
You know, I'm going to read a quote from an article that Lou posted.
He's quoting Jay Stephenson.
And this has to do with Haley endorsing Trump.
And what they were thinking about was the fundraising.
And Stephenson has started the article.
He says, I posted the full quotes from the article below in case there's a paywall.
And Trump has obviously made a deal with donors to put Nikki Haley in his cabinet based on what the article implies and what he told a reporter in the video link below.
Right after he made that statement, and Haley said she would vote for him, Trump, the despicable Haley then flew off to Israel and signed a bomb with the statement, finish them.
And that was a big event.
It was just the nature of that.
Taking bombs and is killing and making a big deal and smiling.
I'm on TV.
I'm going to sign this big bomb.
And how many people can I kill with this?
So that to me is so sad that this means there was this coalition, the people coming together.
Haley's coming together with Trump.
And Trump makes sweeping promises to donors on audacious fundraising tour.
Oftentimes, his comments at the events are about foreign policy and topics he discusses at rallies, such as inflation and immigration.
And I hate to even get into that type of politics because I lump them together so often.
I'm always looking for the exceptions.
And right now, this is really not good news for a movement.
And we cannot think that this election is about a lot of corruption and the Department of Justice and so many other things.
But I think the one thing they're going to forget about is, you know, there's a lot of foreign policy problems going on.
But right now, we have a challenge to our whole judicial system with the election.
And therefore, there has to be a lot of cleaning up to do.
And that's why I think that eventually our empire is going to fail and we're going to go bankrupt and there'll be a moral bankruptcy and there will have to be a renewal of our love of liberty and more people who are dedicated to peace rather than a coalition where you get together and we'll share fundraising and it's a big money event.
That to me is disgusting.
Absolutely, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish up.
Yes, that Nikki Haley, she disgusted so many people, anybody that's on social media, and even President Trump saying that she's going to have a part on his team.
I mean, that really takes the wind out of your sails because that is, I mean, it's just so bad.
I'm concerned about President Trump, not because that he'll confront China or Russia directly, but Iran, it feels like a different thing for me because his attraction to Israel that he brags about all the time.
Other countries want us to fight their wars for them.
Ukraine would love for us to go fight for them.
Israel is the same way.
So what happens if President Trump is in office and Israel or Iran or whatever, and that turns into a regional war?
What does President Trump do?
I'm not very confident about that, especially if he has Nikki Haley on his team.
And that is a problem for Americans to get us involved in some kind of regional war that we have no business getting involved in.
But wars, when I was growing up, I thought that these things, they just spin out of control.
They're events that just happen, but it is just not true at all.
I was wrong growing up.
They don't just happen.
People, specific people, push for them very, very hard.
Special interests, they try one angle, and then they try another angle, and then another, and another, until they get the war that they want.
And this is not what the people want.
But as we talked about yesterday, our votes, when it comes to our anonymous votes versus a special interest that is sitting right in front of the politician writing a check for them, we have no shot whatsoever.
And this is why it's a very dangerous time.
President Trump is a very good salesman.
He could get people whipped up and chanting USA, USA for a war.
President Biden can't do that.
He can't sell anything to anybody.
So we're in a dangerous time, no matter who gets elected, and we just have to keep pushing for peace and not intervention.
That's for sure.
And no easy going.
And I, over the years, would always argue, yeah, you know, you'll hear it.
And it's said today, and there are some things that are pretty darn serious about this election.
And I think about the Department of Justice and a few other things.
But there's so many people who say, this is the most important election ever.
Well, I think it's pretty important, but it's just blending in with some events that are destined to happen anyway.
And that, of course, for me is the bankruptcy that's coming and the runaway inflation that is coming.
So that is, but it won't be a result of only the election.
That is just part of the system that's happening over the last 30, 40 years on how we have maintained and we're determined to have our empire.
So we started off by talking about Blinken, who he hinting that he will allow Ukraine, like he's in, we're in charge, to bomb the Russian territory at their nuclear sites.
And Ukraine also will be quite willing because they're so anxious to do this.
And of course, the whole thing, the whole problem is what we've been alluding to, and that is, is it so simple?
If you think this is going to be a big step toward total victory, why didn't it happen 10 years ago or 20 years ago?
Why are there never any victories?
It always leads to more problems.
So this is going to be the same thing.
The escalation looks like it's coming.
There is a concession, even though they have said both Israel and the Ukrainians have promised, oh, we're limiting this.
Why Wealth Led to Excesses00:02:19
We're not going to do this.
We're not going to bomb over here.
And we're going to do this.
And we're going to protect the civilian.
And it doesn't happen.
It just marches right on.
And I think that one of the worst things is there's two things.
About half of them are probably sinister and really want to take over the world.
And they are just shifting gears.
Maybe the current empire has to be removed.
We need a different type of empire.
And the other ones are just misled.
And they happen to believe this will be easy.
We can participate in the coup in Ukraine.
And Europe will take care of them.
And then we'll have democracy in Ukraine.
What a joke that was.
But they still do it.
So many of us wonder why can't they see what they're doing is really pretty stupid.
I mean, if you look at the history and the pretenses, especially in the last 60, 70 years of all the interventions that we had and how much it cost, in a way, it's sort of a sad story.
Tremendous wealth that we have been able to create over these years throughout the last 100 years or so.
At the same time, it has been that wealth that has allowed us to go to excesses.
The excesses in the welfare state as well as the military empire.
It has permitted that.
So it's sort of a malinvestment is what's happened.
We have tremendous wealth because we are still producing wealth, but it'll end.
And that's why people are getting a little bit nervous.
But the wealth is there as a result of having a fair amount of freedom.
But the freedom is disappearing.
The wealth will disappear.
And these wars will continue to get worse unless we, as a people, wake up and say the founders were on the right track.
We ought to reassess things and decide living in a republic rather than in a dictatorship of the majority is much better.