Libertarians for Ron Paul

Dr Jeffrey Hart was a long time associate of William F. Buckley, Jr and here pens an appreciation of Buckley’s clear view of the Iraq mess - a view which was at odds with the National Review line on the war.

“Buckley published three syndicated columns about Iraq, all of which were reprinted in National Review. The first argued that it is doubtful that an effort “hugely greater in scale and more refined in conception” would produce the desired result. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, Buckley speculated that this rationale for the invasion, now discredited, would not matter if all ended well. But as the 2004 presidential election approached, he compared the evident quagmire to the French defeat by a brutal insurgency in Algeria.”

“In these pieces, Buckley diverged sharply from the generally optimistic view of Iraq taken by National Review.”

“But the conviction hinted in the columns only hardened during the last year of Buckley’s life, when he arrived at a tragic view of the Iraq War. He saw it as a disaster and thought that the conservative movement he had created had in effect committed intellectual suicide by failing to maintain critical distance from the Bush administration.”

Full column @ http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_03_24/article1.html 

“The Bush administration and its supporters are still defending the war. They know that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, that al-Qaida was never operating there until after the U.S. invasion, and that dreams of remaking the Middle East through American military might were overly optimistic and disturbingly utopian. Still, they soldier on, arguing to those of us who opposed the war all along that “everyone thought that Saddam had those weapons” at the time.”

“Actually, everyone  did not  think that. I was chatting a few months ago with former OC Weekly Publisher Will Swaim, and we laughed at how strange it was that the foreign-policy establishment couldn’t figure out what was obvious to a few lefty editors at an alternative weekly and some righty editorial writers on a suburban newspaper. The skeptics had one thing in common: We didn’t trust the government to give us the straight scoop. We understood that government officials tend to manipulate the facts to reach a preordained conclusion.”

Steve Greenhut looks at who was right about Iraq http://www.ocregister.com/articles/war-iraq-editorial-2008187-last-everyone 

“Yesterday, the trustees for Social Security and Medicare released a report saying that both will be completely depleted by 2041 and 2019 respectively. The “oxy-moronic” thing about this is that these programs are deemed “trust funds” in the first place. There’s certainly no trust in a fund that is slated to eventually be wiped out.”

“Throughout his campaign Ron Paul has repeatedly outlined a solution to the problem that gives both the Democrats and Republicans reason to smile. Paul proposes to utilize some of the massive amounts of money saved by switching to a non-intervention foreign policy to help those people currently dependent until the programs can be phased out over a long period of time. He would let the younger people immediately opt out of the program. The approach is a sensible and gradual approach.”

full column @ http://www.libertymaven.com/2008/03/26/ron-paul-has-a-bipartisan-plan-for-social-security/989/

“There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives and limited intervention in foreign affairs. That organization was known as the Republican Party. But the only one of those beliefs that still motivates the G.O.P. establishment is limited taxes. In 2008, people who still hold all of them joined the Ron Paul Revolution.”

“The real significance of the Paul campaign is not the ubiquitous bumper stickers and lawn signs or the online fund-raising records ($6 million in one day, plus another $4 million, hilariously, on Guy Fawkes Day) but the mirror Paul held up to the modern Republican Party. When his fellow candidates denounced big government, Paul was there to remind them that President Bush and the G.O.P. Congress had shattered spending records and exploded the deficit. When they hailed freedom, Paul asked why they all supported the Patriot Act and other expansions of executive power. And when they called themselves conservatives, Paul asked what was so conservative about sending thousands of young Americans to try to transform the Middle East.”

Full article @ http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1724358,00.html?cnn=yes

“Last week marked five years since President Bush’s decision to engage in

preemptive war against Iraq (or more accurately, preventive war, since there was no imminent threat to thwart; rather its purpose was to prevent a potential threat that had not yet emerged from materializing – even though there was no concrete evidence that such a threat would, in fact, materialize). Speaking at the Pentagon, the president declared that the Iraq war was worth fighting: “Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision.” The implication is that the benefit warrants the cost.”

“But five years later, the president was unable to demonstrate that the Iraq War was worth fighting by the criteria he used to justify the decision to go to war.”

Full column by Charles Pena http://www.antiwar.com/pena/?articleid=12582

“Communities seeking relief after natural disasters are more likely to find it in the aisles of their local Wal-Mart than in the federal government, according to a report issued last week.”

“Private organizations such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and other so-called “big box” stores provided more supplies and relief than the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina, George Mason University’s Mercatus Center said in a report released March 20. Local store managers took advantage of their autonomy and moved quickly to reopen after the storm and distribute supplies — sometimes for free, and often without the permission of superiors. One Wal-Mart employee in Kenner, La., broke through a warehouse door with a forklift to get water for a nearby retirement home, the report said.”

“But at the bureaucratically stymied FEMA, supply purchases and shipments were tied up in red tape, and offers of help from other parties were turned down for fear of liability issues.”

full story @ http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3444456

“The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented bailout of Bear Stearns was crafted not at the White House or Treasury, but in secret by a New York central banker whose name is unknown to Washington power brokers and was a Clinton administration presidential appointee.”

“”It’s a new day,” commented an investor and longtime Fed watcher. Around the world, that day’s dawning is viewed with apprehension because of election-year rhetoric from America.”

“The plan pressed by Timothy F. Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, can effectively substitute the central bank for the market in determining financial outcomes. Nobody takes seriously the assertions by Fed spokesmen that the aid for Bear Stearns and its dictated bargain-price sale to J.P. Morgan was ”extraordinary.” So, in Washington and New York, the question is who will be next. Speculation turned to who else will qualify as ”too big to fail.””

Full column by Robert Novak http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/852299,CST-EDT-novak20.article

On the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Libertarian Party offers the following statement by Executive Director Shane Cory:

It is with a heavy heart that I woke up on March 19, 2008, in a country still at war in Iraq, now five years after it first began.  It is also with great disappointment that neither Republicans nor Democrats have provided a plan to end what is shaping up to be a “forever war.” On this five-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Libertarian Party renews our call to bring American troops home without undue delay. May the courage and sacrifice of the 3,990 soldiers who have died in Iraq while serving their country never be forgotten.

The Libertarian Party is America’s third largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties.  You can find more information on the Libertarian Party by visiting www.lp.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.
Source: http://www.lp.org/media/article_570.shtml

Justin Logan, associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute:

“Five years ago, few predicted that the Iraq war would turn out this way. (My Cato colleagues were notable exceptions.) The war’s supporters, like Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, issued endless false assurances to the American people before the war that ‘we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time.’ Senator Hillary Clinton could not be bothered to read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq before voting to send U.S. troops into battle. The bipartisan foreign policy community in Washington that urged the American people to support this war has studiously avoided introspection over its consequences. Al Qaeda has been strengthened, Iran’s regional stature has grown, our allies have been alienated, and our adversaries have rejoiced.”

“Today, Senator McCain chortles about staying in Iraq for 100 years. The American people shrug their way to the next Britney Spears story. The sad fact is that until the American people demand more from their political leadership, there is no hope for a meaningful change in policy. In all likelihood the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war will come with U.S. troops patrolling Iraq. Perhaps that anniversary will precipitate a genuine change in policy.”

Source: http://www.cato.org/pressroom.php?display=comments&id=869  

“It was supposed to be a quick war and a cheap one. Five years later, 160,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq. And the costs keep piling up - $12 billion every month - putting a strain on an already faltering economy.”

“The United States has poured more than $500 billion into Iraq, mostly for military operations. But that figure is just a small piece of the much larger bill that taxpayers will pay in the future.”

“Because the money for the war is being borrowed, interest payments could add another $615 billion. A heavily depleted military will have to be rebuilt at a cost of $280 billion. Disability benefits and health care for Iraq war veterans, many of them severely injured, could add another half-trillion dollars over their lifetime.”

Full story http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/17/MNBVVL9GK.DTL