October 18, 2009
Venue: U.S. House Committee on Foreign AffairsDate: 10/15/2009
Transcript:
Ron Paul: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the last months, we have had a pretense of having a debate about Afghanistan, but unfortunately, it’s not much of a debate. We’re deciding whether or not to send 40,000 or 80,000 troops over to Afghanistan and we can’t even decide where the frontlines are. But the worst part of this is this is just déjà vu again, all about going to war needlessly. The same arguments were used in going into war against Iraq and that is “weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaeda, scare the people, it’s in our national security interest to go there” and we continue.
The Taliban never did a thing to us. The Taliban, we were paying them money up until May of 2001. They’re not capable, even if they wanted to, they’re not capable of touching us. So we’re over there, pursuing a war, spreading the war, and going into Pakistan. The American people don’t want it. We’re out of money. We can’t afford medical education here and we’re demanding that we send 80,000 or 40,000 troops to Afghanistan and expand the war. It’s time to end the whole mess.
Chairman Howard L. Berman: The time of the gentleman has expired.
The time has expired and the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Paul, is through.
Ron Paul: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It seems like we’ve had now a war going on for eight years, into the ninth year, and from the discussion, it looks like we’re searching for a justification for it; what is the reason we are there? I think we got that cart before the horse. We’ve been fighting all this time and it means that it isn’t a management problem. It’s a policy problem of how we got there, why we’re there, and what we’re doing, and besides, this type of debate about management, I can’t imagine this type of debate going on in World War II. You know, we knew who the enemy was; we declared war. The President said he’s the commander in chief and told the Congress what he needed. Now, that isn’t an argument for the Congress not paying attention. It’s an argument against the way we go to war and it looks like we have accepted this notion that perpetual war leads to perpetual peace, and we satisfy the military-industrial complex and the special interests and all these motivations just to stay in war endlessly.
But even these eight years, I don’t see where the success is. Men die, thousands of Afghanis are displaced and die. It cost a quarter trillion dollars and we’re still finding out, you know, what are we there for? Oh, well, “if the Taliban takes over” – whom we used to, you know, get along with quite well = “if they take over all of a sudden, al-Qaeda is going to be there and there’s going to another 9/11.”
This is making the assumption that 9/11 couldn’t have occurred without these training camps in Afghanistan. Do you think those nineteen guys went over there and did push-ups in those camps? There is no way. There is no way they were there doing those things. The report, when they studied 9/11, they said, “Well, there is a lot of planning going on in Germany. A lot of planning going on in Spain and there were 15 of them and were Afghans [Saudis]. I mean, if somebody really wanted to, I bet they could have talked the American people into bombing Saudi Arabia. I mean, 15 of them are Saudis. I imagine under those circumstances, the American people and the Congress could have been talked into bombing Saudi Arabia under those conditions.
So I just don’t see how we could continue to do this and come up with any sensible policy because we never challenge, we never question whether preemptive war is a good strategy and this is what this is all about: preemptive wars, starting wars, saying it’s preventative. But this is a completely un-American approach to fighting wars because under the original system, the people got behind the war, declared the war, knew who the enemy was and we didn’t come up with these strategies; “Do we need 40,000 or 80,000 people and who should we give the money to? Should we give it to this group?”
Why don’t we ever ask the question and this will be the question I’ll leave with you. Why don’t we as a Congress and the administrations, former administrations as well as this one, why don’t we ask the question, what is the motivation for somebody to attack us? And I don’t think it’s ever really asked because I think there is a different answer than then if some say, “Oh, they hate us. They hate us for our freedoms and our wealth.”
And I don’t believe that for a minute. I think the people in Afghanistan, the large majority, no matter what the reports are from the administration, our puppet administration, most people want us out of there. They don’t want us in Pakistan. The people in Pakistan don’t want us there. People in Iraq don’t want us there. It’s occupation. So my question is this, why is that never talked about, or why is it dismissed so easily if indeed you study and you find out that people who are willing to sacrifice their life to make a point is because we are seen as foreign occupiers. Just as the Soviets were seen as foreign occupiers, just as we joined those individuals who wanted to throw out the foreign occupiers in the past, and yet now, we are. We learn nothing from history, both ancient history or even recent history. Why don’t we pay more attention to the true motivations behind somebody who wants to commit suicide terrorism against us. Anybody care to answer?
Chairman Howard L. Berman: In 20 seconds.
Unidentified Male Speaker: In twenty seconds. (Laughs).
Robert Kagan: Congressman, I think in 20 seconds, I can only tell you that some of us do pay a great deal of attention to what the ideology is that drives al-Qaeda and affiliated groups to try to attack us. It’s been articulated in tremendous detail on multiple books. It goes beyond not liking us because of our wealth and a variety of other things and it has to do with the struggle within Islam that they see us participating in whether we are present there or not. It is a very, very sophisticated strategy. It is a very, very sophisticated ideology and it is extremely clear on what their intentions are and why.
Ron Paul: Why Are We In Afghanistan?
