Warmongering like its 2002

Congressman Ron Paul once again this week confronts congress as one of the lone voices of reason, speaking out against the new "sanction bill" (HR 2194) against Iran. As usual, I have to concur with his line of reasoning and historical perspective he confronts his fellow legislators with.

"There you go again" as Ronald Reagan used to say in various debates with the press and in Presidential debates. It seems our government is bent on repeating the mistakes of the past, drumming up war and conflict during times of tremendous economic pressures and hard-times. A child has better rationality than our spineless, lying leaders in Congress. When you are sick and weak is not a time to go picking fights with more of your enemies.

Of course, the American government is counting on continued support for their fear mongering campaign against "terrorists and evil doers". The one good thing I THOUGHT Obama was going to be good for was to bring more reasoning and "detente" to solving our foreign conflicts. Besides a few initial speeches in the international arena by Obama, it appears to me the Pentagon has a lot more influence on international strategy than the business and economic wings of government. Then again, maybe defense contracts are the main source of economic activity in the USA these days and without them our economy would REALLY be devastated.

The main thing America should remember is that our sanctions have NEVER WORKED. Starting with Cuba...the only people that have suffered from our policies have been the poor and disenfranchised Cubans world wide. In Iraq, our decade of sanctions that still culminated in invasion and war didn't keep that government from arming and storing away billions of riches for the ruling dictator. Again...those policies only brought pain and suffering to the general population and lost America potentially millions of supporters within Iraq. One of the core points to all these conflicts is that until you win the minds and hearts of the people in these conflictual countries, you will never maintain control over those lands. And in the midst of this truth, the USA government continues to bomb and/or occupy Iraq, Afghanistan and now looking seriously at Iran. Oh...and lets not forget the thousands of troops we still have in Korea for 60 years, in Germany and elsewhere.

Someday the USA is going to have to wake up to the reality that we will not always have economic or even military superiority at the rate we are losing our wealth, our unity and our reputation. Instead of "peace makers" and best example of capitalistic inspired economic growth...we are quickly turning into an ugly two headed beast of "international bully" and "international debtor" in the eyes of the rest of the globe. While we rely on external sourcing for oil and other sources of energy and export our manufacturing base to foreign competitors...we continue simultaneously to build bigger dependence on government as a welfare state. Tie into that the growing "police state" mentality to support all the crazy laws we have passed related to fixing immigration problems, the patriot act, and trying to stem the outflow of huge capital from the highly taxed and regulated systems of the USA...we have a recipe for quick continued disaster for the USA as a whole. It is hard to fathom how the combined institutions of the USA can drive our country into the stone age at such a high rate of speed. All of the great historical empires couldn't build weapons or train soldiers fast enough to maintain their empirical pursuits...and I fear America will fare no better.

Warmongering and stirring up more conflicts in the Middle east and elsewhere is not the answer to our economic troubles or even our foreign security threats. Building more bombs and missiles while forbidding our enemies to do so is not the best first step towards "detente" and peace. I hope Ron Paul and the few other moderates there seem to be in Congress these days can get their voice heard and over ride some of our insane bureaucratic thinking on these issues. If we don't start focusing on the realities of global economic trade and reform, we won't have any money to build bombs with anyhow. Maybe that is the quickest path to peace...temporary poverty and financial devastation.

I'm grasping at straws here...but somehow there has to be a better way.