Ron Paul: a hard rain's gonna fall

Ron Paul: the peacenik from B'Port
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When the USA unleashed its Operation Shock and Awe on Iraq, which member of the Texas congressional delegation would you have guessed would eventually become a leading oppenent of the war?

Maybe Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Austin? Sheila Jackson-Lee, Democrat of Houston? Or maybe some other lefty Dem?

As it turns out, the correct answer would have been Ron Paul, REPUBLICAN, of Brazosport.

It's surprising since he's a Republican, albeit a Republican who frequently goes his own way.

In another way, it's not suprisingly in the least, because my impression of Paul always has been that he doesn't give a damn what the party elders, the political cognoscenti or just about anyone else thinks about him so long as he follows the Constitution. (During the congressional committee talks about the resolution to invade Iraq, Paul said he offered the suggestion that the Congress should just declare war, if that's what was being planned, which evidently appalled all the other members of the Internation Relations Committee.)

Anyway, on Wednesday night, speaking to a virtually empty chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul read a speech in which he warned that offensive, pre-emptive wars almost always fail. Our own U.S. Revolution was one of the few exceptions, he said.

Paul said political leaders won't admit an error in judgment for fear of being labled unpatriotic, naming LBJ during the Vietnam War as an example, and said the "neocons" want to create an "American empire."

During these trying times, dissent against the war invites repercussions and personal freedoms are sacrified, he said. (Paul once ran for president on the Libertarian ticket, so he's big on personal freedoms.)

Flawed policies, however, eventually will fail when economic laws assert themselves, Paul warned, but until that happens, the U.S. government will just keep printing money.

(Look for the economic laws to kick us in the teeth in about 15 or so years, I think he said, if I'm remembering right.)

Bottom line: "Economic law overrides politicians' deceits," the gentleman from Brazosport said, saying he fears an economic collapse in the U.S. more than foreign intervention.

The latest tab for Shock & Awe is $300 billion. Plus, of course, 1,700 American troops killed and 12,000 wounded and maimed -- all to take over a country whose military budget was roughly two-tenths of 1 percent of our own military budget.

Unfortunately, our options are few, Paul said.

But the best option at this point is to leave Iraq, he believes, so Paul and three other Congress members proposed on Thursday a resolution to set up a timetable for withdrawal.

It'll get shot down, of course. I mean, I guess.

I don't know a lot about politics or government and don't claim to know a lot. All I know is that President Bush, before he was first elected, said he was opposed to "nation building." And now we're trying to build a nation.

Then, after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S., he said we needed to invade Iraq because it had weapons of mass destruction that very well could be used against us. But now there aren't any weapons of mass destruction.

So now we're doing it because we want to spread democracy.

It's a hell of a mess we're in is all I know.

Oh, I do know one other thing. No one can blame Ron Paul for it. He's one of the few members of Congress who voted against the Iraqi invasion.
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[Rep. Ron Paul's Website]