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| Our Foolish War in the
Middle East By Statement of Hon. Ron Paul of Texas, The US House of Representatives, 15 November 2001 The West has been at
war with the Muslim world for over a thousand years. In this
century, the British led the charge prior to World War II. Since that time
it has been the United States. Although the British remain close allies of
ours in intimidating the Muslim world, it is the military strength of the
United States that assumes the burden of responsibility for the policy. It
is justified by claiming a right and need to protect "our" oil. For over a thousand years the West has
dominated the Middle East. During these thousand years resentment has
continued, but for obvious reasons it is now being directed toward
America. No one should be surprised when our ships become vulnerable and
are actually blown up in the Middle East. If the U.S. understood the history of this
region it would see the total folly of anchoring a war vessel in an enemy
port. This lack of understanding of history and
respect for religious beliefs of the area, in combination with our foreign
policy of aggression and empire building, leads to arrogant foreign
military intervention, not only in the Middle East, but around the world
as well. It is clear that we are not
in the Middle East for national security reasons but instead to protect
powerful commercial interests. This assures we protect oil supplies for
the West, and provides us with an excuse to keep the military industrial
complex active. To put this in a
proper perspective, consider how Americans, or especially Texans, would
feel if the Gulf of Mexico were patrolled and protected by warships of a
foreign power, say the Russians. What would we then think if that same
power patrolling the Gulf built air bases in Texas and Florida with our
government's complicity with the argument that this was necessary to
protect "their" oil and with our government's complicity?
This would anger many Americans and this anger would be directed to both
the foreign occupiers of our territorial waters and our own government
that permitted it. Yet this is exactly what has been happening in the
Persian Gulf region. For religious, historic and sovereignty reasons, the
Muslim people harbor great resentment toward us. As a consequence of the USS Cole incident,
our Navy has recognized the great danger we face in this region. This has
forced us to avoid sending any more naval vessels through the Suez Canal.
The ongoing conflict cannot end peacefully as long as we pursue this
policy of folly. The Cole disaster was needless and
preventable. The loss of this vessel and the senseless deaths of 17
Americans were a consequence of a policy that has led to a lack of
military readiness for our country, while increasing the danger to all
Americans and in particular our servicemen in that region. It's positively
amazing that with a military budget of $300 billion we do not have the
ability to protect ourselves against a rubber raft, which destroyed a $1
billion vessel. Our sentries on duty had rifles without bullets and were
prohibited from firing on any enemy targets. This policy is absurd if not
insane. It is obvious that our navy lacks the military intelligence to
warn and prevent such an event. It is incapable even of investigating the
incident, since the FBI was required to try to figure out what happened.
This further intrusion has only served to increase the resentment of the
people of Yemen toward all Americans. But the Yemenis never will cooperate with
our CIA and FBI agents, many of whom already have been forced to retreat
and return to the States. Our insistence on invading Yemen to search for
all those involved will only make our precarious situation in the Middle
East worse. Our policy in the Middle
East cannot possibly be successful. It's obvious there will be an
inevitable conflict between our support for the moderate Arabs- which
antagonizes the Islamic fundamentalists of this region- and our special
treatment for Israel. It is clear that the powerful financial interests of
this country want to use our military force to protect their commercial
and oil interests in this region, while there will always remain powerful
U.S. political support for the State of Israel. The two sides never will
be reconciled by our attempt to balance our support by giving help to both
sides. This is exactly opposite of being neutral and friends with both
sides. The one reason why this confrontation is going to continue is that
75% of known oil reserves are now owned by Muslims around the world. Our current foreign policy does nothing
more than stir the flames of hatred of both sides, clearly evident as we
witness the daily fighting between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Growing influence of the radical Islamic fundamentalists will allow them
one day to overthrow the secular moderate puppet regimes supported by our
government. As the world becomes less stable due to
currency, trade and other economic reasons, this region will become even
more volatile. We should expect higher oil prices. Hatred toward America
will continue to escalate, and United States security will continue to be
diminished due to the threat of terrorist attacks. All the anti-ballistic
missiles in the world will not be able to protect us against attacks such
as the Cole suffered or from the nuclear and biological weapons that can
be brought into this country in a suitcase. The greatest threat
to our national security is our own bad policy. Our policy has
continued to permit our own military technology, developed by our
taxpayers, to get into the hands of our so-called allies as well as our
potential enemies like China. The turmoil in the Middle East is now
spilling over into Indonesia, a country made up of 17,000 islands and very
vulnerable to political instability, especially since its currency and
financial crisis of a few years ago. Indonesia is the world's fourth
largest nation, with the largest Muslim population of any country. Hatred
toward the West, and especially America, due to the Middle East policy,
has led to Christian persecution in Indonesia. The embassy is now closed,
and American ambassador Robert Gelbard has been recalled after his life
was threatened. Our many failures in the last fifty years should prompt us to reassess our entire foreign policy of interventionism. The notion that since we are the only superpower left we have an obligation to tell everybody else how to live should come an end. Our failure in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, and the Middle East, and our failure yet come to in Bosnia and Kosovo should alert all Americans to this great danger. But no, we instead continue to expand our intervention by further involving ourselves in yet another sovereign nation. This time it's Columbia. By sending more weapons into the region we continue to stir up this 30-year civil conflict. And just recently this conflict has spilled over into Venezuela, a major force in South America due to its oil reserves. The Foreign Minister of Venezuela, angered by U.S. actions, recently warned that "any ship or boat which enters the Gulf of Venezuela, of whatever nationality it may be, will be expelled." Our intervention in many of these regions, and especially in South America, has been done in the name of the drug war. But the truth is it's serving the interests of the companies who own the oil rights in this region, as well as those who produce the weapons that get sent into these regions. Source: |