| | It would be harder to find things that are right in this article of John's then to point out all that is wrong with it - which proved to be a lengthy task in itself.
Contrary to what he implies, when we trade with one another we do NOT establish a contract or obligation to go to war.
And a convergence of interests between nations can NOT morally include making their citizens the subject of a sacrifice for the sake of the other nation.
"Common interests like entering into a military alliance to work towards a common goal of defeating a common enemy" has a different meaning depending upon whether you are under attack (already have not only an enemy but a self-defense issue) and when a military alliance is made that diminishes a nations sovereignty and commits it to a contractual agreement to go to war without control of the actions of the other parties or any concern for whether that future war would be moral or in our best interests.
When talking about "entangling alliances" don't forget to include George Washington who said, "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have as little political connection as possible... Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalships, interest, humor, or caprice?... It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."
Note George Washington’s use of the word "permanent" when talking about alliances.
Jefferson said, "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."
He also said, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.".
Nor was that the end of his caution against America becoming embroiled in foreign adventures. Among many quotes counseling against such entanglements, Jefferson wrote to George Logan that, "It ought to be the very first object of our pursuits to have nothing to do with the European interests and politics. Let them be free or slaves at will, navigators or agriculturists, swallowed into one government or divided into a thousand, we have nothing to fear from them in any form."
There is a world of difference between an ad hoc, temporary alliance of any sort that falls inside the parameters of the constitution, is not in violation of our national self-interest, and, obviously, does not commit us to engaging in military attacks on nations that have not attacked us. What kind of nonsense is John saying when he says, "...it was nothing short of moral hypocrisy for Thomas Jefferson to decry the folly of alliances with other nations while having had solicited the military support of France during the American Revolution." Excuse me, but we were defending ourselves, it was a request for a temporary alliance, it did not commit us to fight for them, it was about self-defense and in our national interest and, again, it was not "entangling" since it carried no commitment. But John doesn't let these facts get in the way of damning Thomas Jefferson as a moral hypocrite.
For those who want to read Ron Paul’s words rather than those imputed to him here is a link to the speech before congress where he opposed the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe.
John goes on from there to create straw men conspiracy theories involving oil revenues and Halliburton. None of which have been used by Ron Paul or by me or in any of the recent posts to this site (well, that I know of. Maybe there have been some posters – There are some people whose posts I no longer read). It is a good thing that these are just straw men, because if any of those silly arguments had substance, John didn't do much of a job in knocking them down. But they are just straw men and deserve no more attention.
After that John begins his assiduous cherry picking of facts as if facts without the right principles can give a country proper direction. He makes his case for the invasion of Iraq as if we had reason to fear an imminent attack which is absurd. He points at the contribution of money to terrorists which is infinitesimally small when compared to the funding by Saudi Arabia and Iran and says nothing about the active role of Iran in terrorism. It is all about gather your facts as you may to suit what you want to justify and then call your opponents names (I feel much better knowing I'm on the same side as Thomas Jefferson.)
John has convinced himself that Iraq was the rationally chosen target because, "The Middle East is the breeding ground for all of Islamic fundamentalism. The only hope of changing this vile and disgusting culture is to rid some or all of the tyrants that breed this hatred. Since we are not an omnipotent power we can't rationally get rid of all of these tyrants, so a choice had to be made, and Iraq considering its history of flagrant violations of their armistice with the U.S., their support for Islamic terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah..." Well, you get the idea. John has declared Jihad and claims that Iraq supported Hezbollah and Hamas - Hey, John, Hamas if funded primarily by Saudi Arabia with significant funds from Iran, but NO other governments are or were known to support Hamas - did your evidence of Saddam's support for Hamas disappear with the WMD's? And Iran is the only government that supports Hezbollah. Pesky facts. Notice that he claims that the Middle East breeds this Islamic Fundamentalism - as if a region is the cause of a philosophy. Then he says, "...perhaps it [Iraq] was not the most prudent target for attack in this greater war against Islamo-fascism." I guess not! So much for cherry picking data to justify foreign adventures - 6 years of war, American lives lost in the thousands, and the fragile economy so overburdened that our very ability to go on without crashing into a horrendous depression is in question - yeah, I'd say it wasn't the most prudent of decisions. It is a huge, monstrous sacrifice by American for the interventionist’s crusade - which in this case is called Islamo-fascism. I would expect no less disastrous results anytime politicians feel free to unleash the hellish dogs of war without the guiding principle of self-defense (and please, before some says otherwise, it was not Saddam's people behind 9/11).
John says, "Non-interventionists, and politically opportunistic liberals do their best to try to see to it we fail in that endeavor [creating a democracy in Iraq], dooming our nation to look like weak cowards in front of our terrorist enemies who would be emboldened by an American defeat." Have you noticed that it is always about "how we will look" - a kind of political vanity concern - but the interventionist don't say how our children or their children will pay the debts incurred funding a 3 trillion dollar effort that still isn't over, and they don't say much about the dead and wounded whose numbers rise into the hundreds of thousands, many of them innocent civilians. But they do claim that blowback is nonsense (they will attack us if we look like cowards, but they will not if wage war on them?) How about no more pretending to know the future and returning the principles of Jefferson and Washington?
John talks about how things change (yeah, it may look that way when you view facts through something other than clear cut principles like self-defense). He talks about the American funding of the Mujahedeen and doesn't seem bothered that our government happily funded Islamo-fascists when they were enemies of the Soviet Union. Things change he says, and then he brings up a new enemy for us, the "oligarchy of Oil facist (sic) dictators." John seems to be an angry man and I don't expect him to ever run out of enemies. We shouldn't have to pay for his wars.
He says, "It is unfortunate we don't live in a world where we don't have to prioritize threats and just go after everyone who maliciously assaults freedom, but we must take into consideration limited resources and not fall into the fallacy we are omnipotent." See, he really would like to wage war, with other people filling the body bags and paying the bills - he just thinks its unfortunate that we don't have enough "resources" (read bodies and your money – that is what wars are fought with). That is the nature of an interventionist who is unbridled by self-defense. He is free to spin some facts and make nebulous claims about being this or that being in our interest - like the Conservatives justify this and that with claims of "national security".
He says, "And we must use alliances to serve our national interests, because without them our limited resources would not be enough to insure our safety and well being and the safety and well being of our international trading partners whom we economically depend on for our continued wealth and prosperity." Remember that national resources are the men and women in uniform and the money in your wallet. If we hadn't gone into Iraq we would have lots more resources than we do today, as would our children and their children, and you don't increase your resources by waging wars, or by overtaxing your military and to say that our continued wealth and prosperity depend upon military intervention because Iraq threatened our trading partners is absurd. But then John isn't really focused on Iraq anymore, he has new targets and "trading partners" is clearly a good spin in his mind.
"So it is rather pointless to argue against interventionists who routinely use faulty reasoning like citing complicated historical examples and cherry-picking the facts suitable to support their tacit moral premises. So too are the comparisons of events that transpired over a period of centuries without regard to then current historical cultural attitudes, pointless arguments wrought with post hoc reasoning." I agree – those are his words. No doubt he meant to use the word “isolationist” but notice how perfectly the shoe fits “interventionists.”
John says, "When interventionists such as myself cry foul when we see our enemies of freedom carry out heinous and vile acts against humanity, there is a different breed of non-interventionist that seeks to morally equivocate by pointing out past atrocities committed by the United States as proof we have no moral high ground to take action, such as pointing out American history of southern plantation slavery and the brutal wars against the indigenous tribes of America. But the atrocities carried out by western nations in the 18th and 19th century while indeed were inexcusable, they were done in a time when every nation on this planet in these centuries were engaging in similar if not even vastly more horrific practices." That is very disingenuous because it is not non-interventionists as such, but historical revisionists of many different stripes that need to blamed for those ugly falsehoods. It is no more an argument for interventionism than picking ones nose and crying out that the product discovered proves your point - what point? That people lie about history? That people on both sides of an argument might make inexcusable arguments? It may damn those who make that kind of argument, but it does NOTHING to justify going to war in the absence of self-defense. Another red herring smeared straw man.
This methodology of using tacit moral premises, context-less selective historical data, and post hoc reasoning, is nothing less than intellectually evading the basic philosophical premises that should be used to evaluate what is a just and proper foreign policy. This is why demanding that military interventions be reserved for self-defense is moral. This is why Jefferson and Washington were right about avoiding entangling alliances. If we don't heed this clear logic and return to the concept of individual rights, self-defense, and a rational self-interest we will lose our semblance to that nation envisioned by the very founding fathers that John calls moral hypocrites.
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