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by
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
April 16, 2002
Last
week I appeared on a national television news show to discuss
recent events in the Middle East. During the show I merely
suggested that there are two sides to the dispute, and that
the focus of American foreign policy should be the best
interests of America – not Palestine or Israel. I argued
that American interests are best served by not taking either
side in this ancient and deadly conflict, as Washington and
Jefferson counseled when they warned against entangling
alliances. I argued against our crazy policy of giving hundred
of billions of dollars in unconstitutional foreign aid and
military weapons to both sides, which only intensifies the
conflict and never buys peace. My point was simple: we should
follow the Constitution and stay out of foreign wars.
I was
immediately attacked for offering such heresy. We've reached
the point where virtually everyone in Congress, the
administration, and the media blindly accepts that America
must become involved (financially and militarily) in every
conflict around the globe. To even suggest otherwise in
today's political climate is to be accused of "aiding
terrorists." It's particularly ironic that so many
conservatives in America, who normally adopt an "America
first" position, cannot see the obvious harm that results
from our being dragged time and time again into an intractable
and endless Middle East war. The empty justification is always
that America is the global superpower, and thus has no choice
but to police the world.
The
Founding Fathers saw it otherwise. Jefferson summed up the
noninterventionist foreign policy position perfectly in his
1801 inaugural address: "Peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with
none." How many times have we all heard these wise words
without taking them to heart? How many champion Jefferson and
the Constitution, but conveniently ignore both when it comes
to American foreign policy? Washington similarly urged that
the US must "Act for ourselves and not for others,"
by forming an "American character wholly free of foreign
attachments." Since so many on Capitol Hill apparently
now believe Washington was wrong, they should at least have
the intellectual honesty to admit it next time his name is
being celebrated.
In fact,
when I mentioned Washington the other guest on the show
quickly repeated the tired cliche that "We don't live in
George Washington's times." Yet if we accept this
argument, what other principles from that era should we
discard? Should we give up the First amendment because times
have changed? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights? It's
hypocritical and childish to dismiss certain founding
principles simply because a convenient rationale is needed to
justify foolish policies today. The principles enshrined in
the Constitution do not change. If anything, today's more
complex world cries out for the moral clarity provided by a
noninterventionist foreign policy.
It's
easy to dismiss the noninterventionist view as the quaint
aspiration of men who lived in a less complicated world, but
it's not so easy to demonstrate how our current policies serve
any national interest at all. Perhaps an honest examination of
the history of American interventionism in the 20th century,
from Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, would
reveal that the Founding Fathers foresaw more than we think.
>Ron
Paul, M.D., represents the 14th Congressional District of
Texas in the United States House of Representatives. |
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