Gen. Paul LaCamera, Commander, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and U.S. Forces Korea, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Philip Goldberg, Col. Joshua Wood, Commander of 51st Fighter Wing, and senior staff welcomed a congressional delegation led by Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi at Osan Air Base, Aug. 3. Photo courtesy of UNC – CFC – USFK. License.
For decades former congressman and presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul, has warned of the dangers of an interventionist foreign policy. During his bid for the presidency in 2008 and again in 2012 he waged what was essentially a one-man war against the U.S.’s long, costly (in blood and treasure) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Looking back it is easy to see how correct he was, especially following Joe Biden’s haphazard pullout from Afghanistan. More recently, Paul has decried Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan as “a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military conflict with zero benefits.” He writes at the Ron Paul Institute (abridged):
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “surprise” trip to Taiwan last week should be “Exhibit A” as to why interventionism is dangerous, deadly, and dumb. Though she claimed her visit won some sort of victory for democracy over autocracy, the stopover achieved nothing of the sort. It was a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military conflict with zero benefits.
As Col. Doug Macgregor said of Pelosi’s trip on a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, “statesmanship involves advancing American interests at the least cost to the American people. None of that is in play here. … Posturing is not statesmanship.”
Pelosi’s trip was no outlier. Such counterproductive posturing is much celebrated by both parties in Washington. Neoconservative Senators Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham were thrilled with Pelosi’s stop in Taipei and used it as a springboard to push for new legislation that would essentially declare war on China by declaring Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally.”
The “one China” policy that, while perhaps not perfect, has kept the peace for more than 40 years is to be scrapped and replaced with one sure to provoke a war. Who benefits?
Foolishly taking the US to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine is evidently not enough for Washington’s bipartisan warmongering class. Risking a nuclear war on two fronts, with both Russia and China, is apparently the only way for Washington to show the rest of the world it’s serious.
The Washington Post’s neoconservative columnist Josh Rogin accurately captures the mindset in Washington DC with a recent article titled, “The skeptics are wrong: The US can confront both China and Russia.”
For Washington’s foreign policy “experts,” those of us who don’t believe a war with both Russia and China is a great idea are written off as “skeptics.” Count me as one of the skeptics!
By Ron Paul, MD,Ron Paul Institute. Dr. Ron Paul is a former member of Congress and Distinguished Counselor to the Mises Institute.
Read more here.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for my free weekly email.
