We ignored Ron Paul at our own risk and now we are paying the price...

America Paying the Price for Ignoring Ron Paul-Type Foreign Policy

by Bill Sardi

With protests in over 40 locations worldwide against the U.S. in the past week, America should be re-evaluating its foreign policy.

American diplomats appear dumbfounded. The UK Guardian posts a headline report that reads: "US media angrily marvels at the lack of Muslim gratitude."

The Guardian article goes on to say: "One prominent strain shaping American reaction to the protests in the Muslim world is bafflement, and even anger, that those Muslims are not more grateful to the US… Attacks in Libya that left four US diplomats dead – including Ambassador Christopher Stevens – and a mob invasion of the US Embassy in Cairo, in which the US flag was torn to shreds, have left many to wonder: How can people the USA helped free from murderous dictators treat it in such a way?"

But Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian’s political commentator, says: "That it was the US who freed Egyptians and ‘allowed them’ the right to protest would undoubtedly come as a great surprise to many Egyptians. That is the case even beyond the decades of arming, funding and general support from the US for their hated dictator.

Greenwald adds: "Beyond the long-term US support for Mubarak, Egyptians would likely find it difficult to reconcile… the claim that the US freed them with the ‘made in USA’ logos on the tear gas canisters used against them by Mubarak's security forces; or with Hillary Clinton's touching 2009 declaration that "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family."

In June of 2012 Congressman Ron Paul said invasions against Iraq, and efforts to overthrow Syria and Libya, are mistaken. Congressman Paul said the overthrow of Arabic countries, characterized as civil wars, like in Syria, "suggests setting up a new regime we hope we can control."

Ron Paul also noted Osama bin Laden’s goal was to bog down the U.S. in endless wars in the Middle East. Can the U.S. ever activate an exit strategy out of Afghanistan?

Congressman Ron Paul’s foreign policy stance has been lonely. Regarding the Comprehensive Iranian Sanction Bill, only Ron Paul and ten other Congressmen voted against it – 400 voted for it.

Ron Paul said sanctions, like those against Iran, are actually an act of war. He noted the U.S. has 700 military bases and a U.S. foreign policy that has spent, over time, more than $1 trillion. The U.S. is broke and it’s giving away borrowed money for foreign aid.

Ron Paul, speaking before the Arab American Institute in 2007, asked if 10 years of sanctions against Iraq that caused children to die for lack of medicines and food, built long-term friendship with Iraq? Paul suggests making Arabic countries trading partners rather than invoking sanctions against them.

In the first debate of the 2012 Presidential campaign, Congressman Paul said the U.S. should stop sending money to other countries.

Just how much money specifically goes to Arabic countries? A Politifact.com report cites the following: seven of the top 11 recipients of U.S. foreign aid in 2009 were Arab, Muslim or both: Afghanistan ($8.8 billion in aid), Iraq ($2.3 billion), Egypt ($1.8 billion), Pakistan ($1.8 billion), Sudan ($1.2 billion), the Palestinian territories ($1 billion), and Jordan ($816 million). In addition, at least 30 other countries that can be considered Arab or Muslim received U.S. aid, including Somalia ($281 million), Morocco ($244 million) and Indonesia ($226 million).

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, writing in The Guardian, says: "The maelstrom of anti-western violence in the Arab world has little to do with an anti-Islam propaganda film released on YouTube. It has more to do with decades of perceived western imperialism.

Abdul-Ahad went on to say: "Barack Obama's Arab honeymoon was squandered by drone attacks on Pakistan and Yemen and his impotence over Israel."

Congressman Ron Paul has been ridiculed for his so-called isolationist foreign policy stance. Sadly, war hawks prevailed over his voice of reason.

In the ramp up to the 2012 Presidential campaign, Michael Scheuer, wrote this in the May 3, 2012 issue of Foreign Policy magazine:

If elected president, Paul's most valuable contribution to a prosperous and secure American future might well lie in his application of a non-interventionist foreign policy, following the wishes of George Washington and the other founders.

… A President Paul would infuse these principles into U.S. foreign policy and produce a noninterventionist doctrine: far fewer unnecessary and costly wars, far fewer dead soldiers, and far greater U.S. national security. This is a workable, adult approach to the world – especially the Muslim world – unlike the adolescent approach America's bipartisan governing elite has hewed to for decades.

… A Ron Paul presidency would reverse a half-century of Republican and Democratic leaders maintaining national security policies that lethally push Muslims, premised on the delusion they will not push back. President Paul would replace the interventionism of these men and women – who are merely mis-educated, not evil – with the founders' guidance, the Schoolyard Rule, and a belief that the federal government is an engine of national destruction and bankruptcy. For President Paul, the protection of the United States' genuine interests by avoiding unnecessary wars and frivolous interventions is first, last, and always the main foreign-policy priority of the U.S. government."

Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi239.html