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Ron Paul by Reuters
Since Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is that rarest of Republicans -- a war critic who's both rational and prescient describing our careening, imperial foreign policy, let us openly address his probing questions (italics) Friday on the House floor. In defending Wikileaks disclosures, Paul proclaims what should never be forgotten (but is, every day):
Just as with the Vietnam War, the Iraq War was based on lies. We were never threatened by weapons of mass destruction, nor al Qaeda in Iraq, though the attack on Iraq was based on this false information. Any information which challenges the official propaganda for the war in the Middle East is unwelcome by the administration and the supporters of these unnecessary wars.
Number 1: Do the America People deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
The phrase, "American People," is a figment of the imagination, manufactured on the spot to justify whatever one believes. Deserve ? Not by electing hacks. Truth, even after ten years? Forget it. What U.S. government since Lincoln has honored the public with transparency, let alone "truth" on wars (except FDR). Not Teddy Roosevelt (modern imperialism), Truman (Korea, line in the sand), JFK/LBJ/Nixon (Vietnam), through Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and outliers we've not yet heard about. It's way easier to argue downright LYING, rather than truth, drives presidents to sell invasions (including the Afghan surge against "terrorists").
So, Rep. Paul, how's your "truthiness" going -- posing the same blunt, unanswered questions without policy change for ten straight years?
Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?
Actually, it's a smaller question. You can ask, but digital information is hard to protect, especially when not "top secret." The only way to protect all such information is to massively reduce government transparency, already abysmally low, thus making officials more paranoid about the gross distortions and half-truths they deign to afflict on the public. Great solution.
Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our government's failure to protect classified information?
Opinionated, well-heeled screw-ups get hostile when mortified in public. And they get media. And it's easier to attack remote leakers than indict criminal Wall Street banksters. Actually, much outrage is manufactured, a kind of play-acting by the embarrassed but hardly up in arms. Plus, scapegoating is terrific political business, especially against an oddball foreigner "threatening our security." But two bad wars, countless predatory drones killing civilians, and a White House assassination program of untried American citizens -- that's called freedom and the American way.
Number 4: Are we getting our money's worth of the 80 billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?
Are you kidding, or what? "Worth" and "intelligence" are mutually exclusive categories. Just ask Palinistas. How many feel safer? We wouldn't get good value if we spent a fraction of this outlandish total. These make-work subsidies support an army of bureaucrats and savvy entrepreneurs (or war profiteers, depending on perspective). The bigger question is what the nation gains (vs. loses) overall by spending more on defense than the rest of the planet? Intelligence kills fewer innocents than militarism.
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks' revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?
There you go again, answering your own question. So far, no deaths or injuries from Wikileaks, except to the ego of officials and faux patriots. If we measured federal policy solely by the needless killing fields created, then predatory drones would be instantly illegal. And we'd cut the Pentagon budget cut in half, following true libertarian values.
Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Gee, don't you believe in conspiracy law, or crimes of collusion and the like? Not much change to the First Amendment, as this golden rule stands: he who has the gold owns the rule -- not that one, instead, he who owns the press has first amendment rights, everyone else less so. The Internet is still unstoppable, whatever the legal outcome. And thanks to the Supreme Court, corporations have unlimited rights to "free speech," which they buy for billions, then eagerly deduct as business expenses. The business of America is business, hook, line and sinker, and it's now deductible. What a deal.
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