REP. PAUL: I think it is the acceptance just recently that we now promote preemptive war. I do not believe that’s part of the American tradition. We in the past have always declared war in the defense of our liberties or go to aid somebody, but now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war. We have rejected the just- war theory of Christianity. And now, tonight, we hear that we’re not even willing to remove from the table a preemptive nuclear strike against a country that has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security!
I am afraid of the congressman is in denial. The facts are that Iran has committed, either directly or indirectly through their Hezbollah terrorist organization, at least seven acts of war since 1979. These include:
1. Attacking the U.S. Embassy in Tehran
2. Illegally detaining U.S. diplomatic personnel for 444 days.
3. Bombing the U.S. embassy in Lebanon (Hezbollah)
4. Bombing the British embassy in Lebanon (Hezbollah; per the NATO treaty)
5. Bombing the French embassy in Lebanon (Hezbollah; per the NATO treaty)
6. Bombing the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon (Hezbollah).
7. Bombing the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia (Hezbollah).
8. Facilitating the design of IEDs targeted at US and Coalition Forces in Iraq.
9. Facilitating the manufacture of IEDs targeted at US and Coalition Forces in Iraq.
10. Facilitating the importation of IEDs targeted at US and Coalition Forces in Iraq.
11. Illegally detaining British sailors illegally captured in Iraqi waters.
Of course, this is irrelevant to Congressman Paul. He believes it is all America's fault. He is missing the main point: no behavior of ours can justify such barbaric acts.
A short P.S. for Congressman Paul: The United States is not an empire, we do not maintain an empire, we do not desire an empire. Please come to your senses Mr. Congressman.
1 comment:
"We do not maintain an empire, we do not desire an empire".
That is certainly something that we would all like to believe, but I think it is probably untrue. While America certainly does not maintain colonies in the same manner that the European states did during the 19th and early 20th centuries, it nonetheless pursues a foreign policy with much the same goals. America today has troops stationed in 135 nations worldwide, and maintains over 700 miliary installations on "foreign" soil. World War II ended 60 years ago, and yet we still occupy Germany and Japan. This nation pursues military and diplomatic policies designed to protect our access to strategic foreign resource reserves (notably oil) and props up regimes that will support and expand this access.
I think few people would disagree that the maintenance of American economic preeminence in the world should be a goal of our government. However, when we are willing to engage in premptive warfare and overthrow democratically elected governments from Guatemala to Iran to defend "our" resources, one must pause to think. Our armies occupy most of the world. If a regime becomes inconvenient, we change it. We manipulate other peoples for their resources.
What was imperialism, again?
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