Ron Paul vs. Insanity

After watching Ron Paul in the last debate, it should become much more self-evident that Ron Paul is the last sane man in the GOP. In particular, I liked the exchanges between John McCain and Ron Paul, and then Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul.

Apparently, the simple logic behind Ron Paul's argument against non-intervention is way over-the-heads of the other candidates. Whether or not the U.S. wins every battle in Iraq really is inconsequential in terms how successful the geopolitical agenda is. For those who didn't pay careful attention to what I just wrote, I wasn't diminishing the consequences in terms of blood and treasure. What I am saying is that the U.S. can win every battle, but still not achieve military victory.

Unfortunately for Senator McCain, he must not be aware that this is an occupation. It is fairly hard to win an occupation. It is the occupation itself that fuels the insurgency, and no matter how many battles the U.S. wins, as long as the battles never end, military victory will be elusive.

There is yet another fallacy in McCain's thinking: Conflating a military victory with success. In other words, even if the U.S. were to achieve a military victory, what do We-the-People win?

Today, we are less free than ever before. We have less economic opportunity than ever before. These are corollaries of being on a perpetual war footing. The natural consequence of empire is destruction of liberty and wealth.

Furthermore, in response to John McCain sounding off about the troops, I can think of no position friendlier to the troops than to bring them home immediately. When veterans are as under-served as they are, the last thing we should be doing is creating even more disabled veterans. Every day the war continues, there will be more disabled veterans, making it that much less likely that any one of them will get the help they need.

Tom Tancredo's point about the terrorists who wish to kill us was misplaced, and does nothing to show that Ron Paul is wrong. That there are people throughout the world who wish to kill Americans has never been in dispute. But this is the wrong answer to the two questions that need to be answered.

Why does this threat exist? If it is due to a lack of intervention abroad, then why isn't every other country throughout the world at war for the same reason? Burkina Faso doesn't have a huge security-industrial complex, nor does she have troops all over the globe, yet her fate isn't imperiled. Seriously. Pursuant to neoconservative orthodoxy, non-intervention itself creates the conditions for intervention, which means every country not at war should be at war.

What is the most efficient way to deal with the threat? How does invading and occupying foreign territory do anything to curtail the threat of asymmetrical warfare, i.e., terrorism? That there are terrorists across the globe does not excuse the occupation of Iraq, nor does it make Iraq a mission worth finishing. Tancredo's point was a non-sequitur.

Out of all of the Republican candidates, only Ron Paul answers the above two questions with sense. Ron Paul is the cure to the insanity.