Superpower
or Superdebtor?
by
Rep. Ron Paul,
MD
by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
Since
the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, the
US government has spent more than 40 million taxpayer dollars on
the Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi. As we
now know, Chalabi in turn fed the US government lies about Iraqs
weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda in the hope that
the US would invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam Hussein, and put him
in power. To hedge his bets, it appears he made a few deals with
the Iranians, delivering US intelligence to that country. Hows
that for gratitude? Now we see that the US has raided the house
of Ahmed Chalabi and seized his papers and computers to see how
much damage he may have caused the US with his Iranian dealings.
Round
and round we go, and we never seem to learn. Regime change plans,
whether by CIA operations or by preemptive war, almost always go
badly. American intervention abroad installing the Shah of Iran
in the fifties, killing Diem in South Vietnam in the sixties, helping
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the eighties, and propping
up dictators in many Arab countries has had serious repercussions
for American interests including the loss of American life.
It
is clear that interventionism leads to the perceived need for more
interventionism, which leads to more conflict and to increased resentment
and anti-Americanism. It is an endless cycle and the American taxpayer
is always left holding the bill. This policy has huge dollar costs
at home, which contributes to huge deficits, higher interest rates,
inflation, and economic dislocations. War cannot raise the standard
of living for the average American.
The
day is fast approaching when we no longer will be able to afford
this burden. For now foreign governments are willing to loan us
the money needed to finance our current account deficit, and indirectly
the cost of our worldwide military operations. But economic law
eventually will limit our ability to live off others by credit creation.
Eventually trust in the dollar will be diminished, if not destroyed.
At that point it will become painfully obvious to even the most
strident supporter of our interventionist foreign policy that the
super-power has become a super-debtor, its power and influence greatly
diminished, and its people much poorer and more vulnerable.
It
is not too late to change course. The United States can again be
viewed as the shining city on the hill and an example to other nations
by re-embracing the kind of foreign and economic policies that made
us wealthy and admired across the globe in the first place. This
means less government, less taxation, and no foreign meddling. Regaining
our economic security will go much further toward guaranteeing our
national security in the future.
June
8, 2004
Dr. Ron
Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
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