Ron Paul and Foreign Policy

Ron Paul invited the audience at last Thursday's Republican debate to entertain the notion that the Middle East would be a better place with the U.S. out of the picture.
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Dr. Paul's own remedy is that if "we trade with everybody and talk with them . . . there's a greater incentive to work these problems out." But here's a rub.

As historian Michael Oren observes in "Power, Faith and Fantasy," his history of America's 230-year involvement in the Middle East, as early as the 1790s "many Americans had grown dismayed with the country's Middle East policy of admonishing the [Barbary] pirates while simultaneously coddling them with bribes." It was precisely out of a desire to "trade with everybody" that the early American republic was forced to build a navy, and then to go to war, to defend its commercial interests, a pattern that held true in World War I and the Persian Gulf "Tanker War" of the 1980s.

These details of history pose a problem not just to Dr. Paul's views of the Middle East, but to the intellectual architecture of libertarianism itself. Liberal societies are built on the belief in (and defense of) individual rights, but also on the overawing power of government to transform natural rights into civil ones. In the same way, trade between nations is only possible in the absence of robbers, pirates and other rogues. Whose job is it to get rid of them?

Is Ron Paul really naive enough to think that he could schmooze ObL?

ohio county wrote:

Is Ron Paul really naive enough to think that he could schmooze ObL?

Nobody has challenged Barack Obama at having made the same assertion.

Stephanie wrote:Ron Paul has always insisted we persue Osama Bin Laden. He has never wavered his desire to bring that maniac to justice. In fact, Dr. Paul voted in favor of persuing him and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and has repeatedly introduced legislation aimed at capturing Bin Laden.

http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=271

I see no "schmooozing" of Bin Laden or any other terrorist by Dr. Paul.

Stephanie wrote:Ron Paul has always insisted we persue Osama Bin Laden. He has never wavered his desire to bring that maniac to justice. In fact, Dr. Paul voted in favor of persuing him and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and has repeatedly introduced legislation aimed at capturing Bin Laden.

http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=271

I see no "schmooozing" of Bin Laden or any other terrorist by Dr. Paul.

Aaron wrote:

Stephanie wrote:Ron Paul has always insisted we persue Osama Bin Laden. He has never wavered his desire to bring that maniac to justice. In fact, Dr. Paul voted in favor of persuing him and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and has repeatedly introduced legislation aimed at capturing Bin Laden.

http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=271

I see no "schmooozing" of Bin Laden or any other terrorist by Dr. Paul.

We discussed this on the other forum. Congress can't issue letters of Marque and Reprisal to the President. The letters are issued to the individual(s) that are responsible for seeking out transgressors (in this case, OBL) and is the document that authorizes them to travel to other nations. The constitution clearly gives the authority to issue these to Congress.

Under Paul's bill, Congress would issue the letters to the President, who would in turn send in the US Military to complete the task. That's not how it works. It's unconstitutional which is suprising considering it's coming from a constitutionalist.

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To declare war,

Perhaps we should just put the 12 sitting Justices out to pasture and annoint Aaron from Poca...

ohio county wrote:

Perhaps we should just put the 12 sitting Justices out to pasture and annoint Aaron from Poca...

Well, we could do a lot worse. I'd rather see Justice Aaron from Poca than Justice Ruth Bader Meinhoff Ginsburg.

Stephanie wrote:You know I find it odd that people spend many years studying the law and our Constitution and issues are raised time and again before SCOTUS because of misinterpretations of COTUS and ambiguities in COTUS and yet some floor manager in a manufacturing plant from Poca, WV is convinced he has all of the answers.

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

From those few words Aaron is convinced he knows precisely how and to who Congress has the authority to grant letters of marque and reprisal. Why do we even need SCOTUS any more?

COTUS says Congress shall have the power to:

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

yet for years the President has been able to "fast track" trade negotiations and circumvent Congress.

COTUS says Congress shall have the power to :

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

yet for a century money has been coined not by Congress, not by a federal agency, but by a privately owned bank we know as the Federal Reserve.

COTUS says Congress shall have the power to:

To declare war,

yet again we find ourselves embroiled in a war on the other side of the globe without a declaration of war from Congress.

Perhaps we should just put the 12 sitting Justices out to pasture and annoint Aaron from Poca, West by-God Virginia the sole interpreter of Constitutional law. Hmmm..........

Letters of Marque and Reprisal are grants of authority from Congress to private citizens, not the President. Their purpose is to expressly authorize seizure and forfeiture of goods by such citizens in the context of undeclared hostilities. Without such authorization, the citizen could be treated under international law as a pirate. Occasions where one's citizens undertake hostile activity can often entangle the larger sovereignty, and therefore, it was sensible for Congress to desire to have a regulatory check upon it. Authorizing Congress to moderate or oversee private action, however, says absolutely nothing about the President's responsibilities under the Constitution.

Douglas Kmiec, (then dean of the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America) 2002

Stephanie wrote:OIC, when I disagree with you it's always a rant.

You're not a floor manager? I don't care what your job title is. I didn't say the manufacturing plant was in Poca, I said you are from Poca.

Douglas Kmiec is promoting his opinion on the intent of the founders regarding letters of marque and reprisal. What you fail to mention is that according to your own source, this is a minority opinion.

Ron Paul disagrees with Kmeic's opinion and that is all Kmeic has, an opinion. Until the matter is brought before SCOTUS (of which neither Kmeic or you are a member) this is certainly open for interpretation. Unless, that is, we are just supposed to skip all the formalities and let the dean of a law school make all of those decisions for us.

SEC. 3. AUTHORITY OF PRESIDENT.
(a) The President of the United States is authorized and requested to commission, under officially issued letters of marque and reprisal, so many of privately armed and equipped persons and entities as, in his judgment, the service may require, with suitable instructions to the leaders thereof, to employ all means reasonably necessary to seize outside the geographic boundaries of the United States and its territories the person and property of Osama bin Laden, of any al Qaeda co-conspirator, and of any conspirator with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda who are responsible for the air piratical aggressions and depredations perpetrated upon the United States of America on September 11, 2001, and for any planned future air piratical aggressions and depredations or other acts of war upon the United States of America and her people.

(b) The President of the United States is authorized to place a money bounty, drawn in his discretion from the $40,000,000,000 appropriated on September 14, 2001, in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery from and Response to Terrorists Attacks on the United States or from private sources, for the capture, alive or dead, of Osama bin Laden or any other al Qaeda conspirator responsible for the act of air piracy upon the United States on September 11, 2001, under the authority of any letter of marque or reprisal issued under this Act.