All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 7, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
23:53
Shock Poll: MOST Americans OPPOSE US Troops Defending Israel

A new poll released yesterday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs shows that a solid majority of Americans oppose using US troops to defend Israel - the lowest level of support for defending Israel since the poll began in 2010. Meanwhile both political parties insist the US will defend Israel if Iran retaliates. Also today, US sends troops BACK into parts of Iraq!

|

Time Text
Polling Hints at Middle East Shift 00:13:57
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this crazy morning?
Very good.
You know, we have some news about the Middle East.
Of course, there's news all the time.
It's been going on for a long time.
I think the day you arrived in Washington to help me out on the foreign policy research, that things were stirring, but it never said, never ends.
It never ends.
The wars start.
We try to stop them.
They have them anyway.
After they get tired of it, then they pretend to stop the wars.
And I'm thinking right off the bat about Afghanistan.
You know, we tried to stop that.
Didn't happen.
Couldn't get them to quit along the way.
And people tolerated it.
And politicians got together.
And, well, after 20 years, they finally decided that they ought to quit doing this.
But they never quit.
They never quit.
They just changed their style.
And one thing I've noticed, Daniel, in these recent episodes is almost always when they cling on to a country.
Syria would be a pretty good example and really Iraq as well.
If there's some oil there, they don't seem to want to ever leave.
And yet we have a presidential candidate that claims we could make it on our own.
I happen to believe we could make it on our own and that we don't have to spend so much money.
But there's a lot of special interests that likes to see us in this activity.
And that's why we stay.
And right now, though, following some polling, we see a hint of maybe a shift in attitude.
And this has to do with the Middle East.
And this episode has occurred now.
This comes from anti-war.com.
There's a poll that we want to cite.
The majority of Americans oppose using U.S. troops to defend Israel.
And that should have come without a lot of discussion.
And my first reaction was a bit cynical, a bit.
Using troops, of course not.
But I don't even want to use our money, you know.
So because that requires stealing from people who work hard in this country to go and subsidize this.
But anyway, the big picture is the non-interventionist foreign policy that we advocate is not here yet, but the people are getting tired of it.
And I think it will become more appropriate if we get the people to move, especially the congressmen, move in the direction of less nonsense, less involvement, less staying forever.
And the one thing is, you know, we see some splits in support for Israel.
And that's a mixed bag.
And there's a lot of politics involved, but it's still significant.
The people are now thinking that at least don't send any troops.
But I don't want to send them any advice or any money or whatever, because it's the principle of it, the non-interventionist foreign policy that they resist that is the real problem.
And I don't know why, Daniel, that we haven't done a better job.
That means everybody that would like to see peace, because all you have to say, it's a moral principle, and it's also what the Constitution advises us to do.
Stay out of entangling alliances.
The founders advocated that.
So hopefully we can take this little news here today, Daniel, and turn it into something that maybe the people are waking up and there are some splits.
Interesting to see the splits in the support for and against these policy.
So Daniel, I hope that you can follow up and give us a little bit of encouragement.
Yeah, the poll was done by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and they've been doing this poll since 2010.
And this shows the lowest support since they started the poll for among the American people of sending U.S. troops to defend Israel.
And the poll, which is interestingly enough, was conducted between June 21st and July 1st.
So this is well before the latest round of Israel assassinating a Hamas official inside Tehran, inside Iranian territory.
So it doesn't even take that into account.
There was a previous incident in April where, as our viewers remember, Iran retaliated for an Israeli attack on an Iranian diplomatic facility in Syria.
So that was clearly in people's minds, but it wasn't as clear as it is today where we sit waiting for the Iranian response to the Israeli assassination.
But the poll numbers are fascinating.
The poll found that 56% of Americans oppose U.S. troops defending Israel and only 42% support the idea.
What I found actually most interesting about this poll is that support for defending Israel is stronger among Republicans, but with only 53% in favor.
So barely over half of even Republicans.
And keep in mind that takes into account the evangelical voters and the neocons and people like this.
Only barely over half support the U.S. military getting involved in an Israeli war in the Middle East.
Now, I would say, Dr. Paul, contrasts that with the rhetoric we hear from politicians of both sides, you know, which is very, very firmly in favor of the U.S. getting involved.
We heard it from the administration where we heard Secretary Austin say the U.S. will defend Israel if Iran retaliates.
Yesterday, Speaker Johnson sent a letter to the White House saying essentially the same thing.
They said, if Iran dares to shoot back after Israel shot at them, the U.S. will go to war against Iran.
So my takeaway, Dr. Paul, is two things.
As I said, the very, very weak Republican support for going to war for Israel and the huge disconnect between the American people, the American voters, and the political class who are always enthusiastic about these wars.
Very good.
You know, the people who support these wars, you know, always have an angle and a reason for doing it.
It's sort of just warmongering.
It's, you know, oil.
And also, it has to do with empire building and maintaining an empire.
You know, right now, we're talking more specifically about a war that's been going on for a long time.
And we talk about, you know, the war, you know, Gaza and Israel.
But Iran is involved.
Many countries are involved.
And the surrounding countries are involved.
It keeps going and going in this direction.
And I keep thinking, you know, they like to say, well, so-and-so invaded that country.
And these are the good guys and these are the bad guys.
I think of that in Ukraine.
You know, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Period.
We got to get Russia.
We have to put on sanctions.
We hate Russia.
But it turns out that it's much more complicated.
Many countries are involved, the surrounding countries near an area like that, just like that in the Middle East.
All the surrounding countries are involved and are in danger or participating.
So in Ukraine, we have this support coming from NATO.
How many countries in NATO?
And then they have to stir this up.
But no, it's only described as Russians invading Ukraine.
It's illegal.
So all the direction has to be directed toward Russia, as if Russia was the Soviet system.
But now in the Middle East, just think of all that going on.
And the American people know about it because it's a special situation.
Israel is different than the rest.
They have received support, you know, believing that it was necessary and it was moral and it was absolutely to our benefit.
The truth is, there's an argument that can be made that our intervention in the Middle East, in particular our relationship with Israel, doesn't necessarily help Israel.
Sometimes, and I've said it in public, that it's going to backfire, it has backfired, because, you know, if this war keeps expanding, like it seems to be destined to do, you know, this could be delayed.
There could be a lot more killing and troops.
And this whole thing, we're not, the people don't want to use the troops, but they're not arguing about sending weapons, sending money, sending all the things that you need to fight a war.
So this is a major thing, and it doesn't involve Israel against the Palestinians.
It's a lot bigger than that.
And it's usually carried out.
And there's a little bit of desperation under the conditions of today, because we have been the boss and we've had the empire, but that is changing.
The empire is getting weaker.
The money is getting more, more debased, and there's going to be less wealth.
And there's economic problems ahead.
So this is an age that we live in.
And it's connected to this excesses in the foreign policy.
And hopefully, you know, the American people wake up.
And I would say that we're talking about a little wake up.
The people are saying, hey, don't plan to send the troops over there.
We've been doing that for years.
And just think how many we could probably list them, but just think of the list of places that we've gotten into, cost a lot of money, cost a lot of lives, and we never leave.
And that's the whole thing.
I mean, we've been involved so long right now.
We're talking about Iraq.
I can't believe all that is going on.
Oh, I thought we already taught them how to be good Democrats.
So it's a result of bad policy, but it's also going to be compounded by the empire shrinking in power and shrinking in funds.
And that's when we're going to see this problem get worse.
So I was delighted to see that the American people hopefully will wake up and say enough is enough.
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right, Dr. Paul.
It's not helping Israel.
And people will criticize us by saying we don't care about Israel, but we're doing them no favors.
The United States government is doing Israel no favors.
You know, the Israeli government is operating on the assumption that the United States is going to back them up.
And I think that affects their behavior.
If they were not operating under the assumption that the U.S. military and U.S. weapons would be backing them up, they would be more likely to find some sort of a deal, some sort of an arrangement in the neighborhood that would allow them to continue.
What they've done on the other, what they've done with the assumption that we would be behind them is that they've been acting very, very reckless in the neighborhood.
They're bombing all of their neighbors at once.
They're irritating everyone and making everyone furious.
So what happens when you're in that situation and everyone just is furious with you?
And it turns out, oh, well, all the tough talk by Speaker Johnson and all these politicians in America about backing up Israel militarily flies in the face of the reality, which is that America does not have the stomach to go into a major Middle Eastern war.
The result of that scenario, Dr. Paul, is going to be very bad for Israel.
So people who are advising against a different in favor of a different approach to Israel, I would say the outcome will be better for Israel if they listen to us than if they listen to the neocons and others who keep screaming for escalation.
But the other thing, Dr. Paul, and I don't know if you noticed that last night there was some primary elections and Corey Bush, who was one of the squad and was considered one of the few that would criticize Israel, otherwise a horrible representative.
But she lost and she lost in a race where APAC, the Israel PAC, put in a record amount of money, millions and millions of dollars to unseat her.
And after she lost her primary with these millions and millions of dollars, well, APAC ran around Twitter X bragging about how they've knocked out, they have 100% success rate in knocking out people who are critical of Israel.
And I think that just shows again, Dr. Paul, the huge disconnect between the political class, the Mike Johnsons of the world, and the donor class, which is represented by AIPAC and the large donors, and put those on one side of the ledger.
And on the other side of the ledger, as we see from this poll, Dr. Paul, the American people, the voting American people are on the other side of this.
They have completely different views, but those views are being made irrelevant by the political and the donor class.
I think that's a recipe for disaster.
Why Democracy Faces Challenges 00:06:49
And usually the headline is a distraction on what they really want to do because they want to go over and they say we're going over there to spread democracy.
And if you say democracy is good, you could just look at the result around the world in this country and our elections, say, is this, is this democracy that they want?
Of course, the founders had advised us against this, but it's always spreading goodness and we're always on the side of good.
But then there's a time that people will lose, we will lose credibility.
And that's what's happening now.
That's why it's so dangerous.
And we have a lot of responsibility because we're the ones that tend to get involved and claim these wonderful things that we're going to do.
And we could only get elections in there.
But just think of many places that we've gone into, and it just doesn't work.
So we, and we, you know, we're citing today that the American people might be waking up to some degree and moving in a direction.
That might represent, you know, an attitude and an opinion by the people, but that is not the way it's supposed to work.
We're supposed to have policies and guidance with the Constitution.
And if we could follow that, you might have a place where the people do speak out.
And it's not called old-fashioned democracy the way they define it.
It's the people deciding things because they live in a free country.
And I don't think we have enough emphasis on that because we're always picking sides.
And where are we going to spend the money?
Who's going to have the most power and who's going to make the most money with selling weapons and that sort of thing?
So it's been ongoing.
It's been going on for a long time, but there's no reason for us not to argue the case because to me, it's always so frustrating to think how wonderful the world would be if they gave up on this aggressive foreign policy.
And that to me, we should be able to sell that idea, this whole thing.
But I think it's the free lunch that drives it so much or the greed and the profiteering by special winters, whether it's the pharmaceuticals or the weapons industry.
So this is something, it's a moral issue as well as an economic issue, as well as the basic principle of what a foreign policy should be like.
But we certainly have a lot of problems out there that has been created by us working hard to develop an empire and then desperately try to defend it.
And that's not going, that's not doing so well.
Yeah, well, Dr. Paul, the other article that caught our attention, we have a slightly abbreviated show because we're having internet problems in the studio yet again, but was an article that we saw in the cradle.
We both saw this article.
It came out yesterday, which is the headline is: U.S. troops return to oil-rich Kirkuk despite talks to withdraw from Iraq.
So Iraq, if our viewers will remember, has told us numerous times, hey, guys, we'd like you to leave, you know, if you don't mind.
And we keep saying no.
We've been in talks to leave.
We had not been in Kirkuk for quite some time.
And now all of a sudden, they're sending military troops back into Iraq, into the Kirkuk section of Iraq.
So it makes you wonder just when the region, Dr. Paul, is a Tinderbox ready for a major war.
It seems like this would be a smart time to take our troops out because they all have a target on their back.
They're not doing anything for the U.S. national security.
All they're going to do is get killed for nothing.
But no, the people who run Biden, we don't know who they are.
They decided to put U.S. troops back into that part of Iraq.
You know, the perpetual war that we participate in is done now for the explanation is that what we have to do is we try to spread democracy.
That's it.
That didn't solve all the problems.
And we also know that we have to have the oil and these countries motivate us.
And yeah, we have a lot of oil at home.
But now the big thing, and it's been going on is in these various countries, and that is ISIS is there.
ISIS is there.
The terrorists are there.
And so they have this.
And guess what?
Guess what?
Someday they're going to wake up and say, huh, maybe this is blowback.
Maybe ISIS is a reaction to our foreign policy, which is totally immoral, unconstitutional, and causes problem.
And maybe people present it.
Oh, that means our foreign policy is wrong.
We're creating the incentive for people to do this.
And then we have an enemy, and then we can go ahead and work real hard to win the war.
Yeah, I think more than a few people have noticed that whenever the U.S. government wants to bomb the Middle East or wants to send in new troops, as you say, they magically discover, oh, there's ISIS there.
And in this case, The Cradle writes about the fact that there was an amnesty toward the end of June, I think it was, where they let out 1,500 ISIS fighters from jail as long as they promised to behave themselves.
Well, that must have been given with a wink because it looks like, at least according to what the Cradle is reporting, well, they didn't behave themselves.
So, Shazam, here come more U.S. troops into the region.
I mean, if you're not a conspiracy theorist, you probably should be by now.
Right.
You know, the other day I mentioned the fact that maybe the slowness in the retaliation, you know, against Israel might be that Iran is planning something else or keeping us off balance.
And it looks like that could be a little bit of the strategy.
But they will have to, you know, finally make a decision of that because what are they going to do if this turns out to not work very well and the wars are expanded and then they have to keep blaming somebody else.
And, you know, I thought their strategy would change.
And before they hit the embassy or that minor attack in Iraq by Iran, you know, it was, it was, you know, maybe that's what's going to happen.
Maybe there's 50 places now lined up.
Obstacles And Policy Growth 00:03:02
Who knows?
You know, and maybe they will never at one time, you know, start bombing Israel or marching in troops or whatever, because strategy is a big deal.
But I hate to mention some things like that because, you know, they're listening and they might think, well, that's very bad, or maybe that'll work, you know, for us.
So it's so sad that these kind of things have to go on.
And unfortunately, one thing I disclose excited about participating in is pointing out where we mess up as a country and as a policymaker.
And then all the statements, you guys aren't patriotic.
Don't you care?
Don't you care about the troops?
Well, maybe telling the truth is being patriotic and pointing out that we cause and bring upon ourselves many of these problems that we're dealing with today.
Absolutely.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul.
I think we've handled these couple of issues.
I think it's good news.
It's a good news day in a way.
I think I hope more Americans will realize that there's nothing in it for us to get involved militarily and we should stop support for anyone in the Middle East or anywhere else.
But I want to thank the viewers.
I want to ask you again, if you're watching this whatever medium, to hit the equivalent of like so we can help us spread the show around.
Please tell your friends about the show.
Tell your enemies about the show and comment below the show.
Let us know what you think about it.
So thanks again.
And over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
You know, this is a good baby step in the right direction.
But it is important.
Polls, we watch them.
We always have to qualify on what we think it means or could be.
And polls aren't 100% correct or whatever.
But polling is trying to measure the sentiment of the people.
And of course, elections and the results of elections are quite frequently altered by the people who really want to take over and not give up any power.
But still, you can, from this and from the debates and the campaigns, you can sense what a prevailing attitude is like.
And of course, telling the truth is the greatest weapon we have on our side.
But just think of the people who can control the opposition and lie through their teeth and control the judicial system as well as the media.
And that makes it very difficult because yes, we may have a nice sounding philosophy and believing strongly that it would work.
I tell you what, the obstacles are pretty great, even though the appeal for the non-interventionist foreign policy should grow and be the policy of the American people.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
Export Selection