Ron Paul Fires Back At Union Leader, Calls Military Interventionists the Real Isolationists

Larry Fester
USA Daily
Tuesday October 09, 2007

Ron Paul fired back at the Union Leader, a New Hampshire publication that published an editorial trivializing Dr. Paul’s foreign policy positions.

Paul responding to the paper’s attack on his foreign policy said, “my foreign policy position must rest on two fundamental assertions: first, that the Founding Fathers were not isolationists; and second, that their political philosophy -- the wisdom of the Constitution, the Declaration, and our Revolution itself -- is not just a primitive cultural relic.”

Ron Paul is distinguished from his fellow Republicans running for president, and most Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, in that he voted against the Iraq war. While Paul supported going after terrorists in Afghanistan, Dr. Paul had cited at the time what he viewed as the unconstitutional nature of the Iraq war along with other reasons for not supporting it.

Ron Paul continued his response to the Union Leader with poignant questions, “I have not been accused of deviating from the Founders' logic; if anything I have been accused of adhering to it too strictly. The question, therefore, before readers -- and soon voters -- is the same question I have asked for almost 20 years in Congress: by what superior wisdom have we now declared Jefferson, Washington, and Madison to be "unrealistic and dangerous"? Why do we insist on throwing away their most considered warnings?”

Paul then charged those seeking interventionist foreign policies as being the true isolationists, “It is not we non-interventionists who are isolationists. The real isolationists are those who impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders. The real isolationists are those who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.”

Ron Paul described his administration’s world view on how Americans would interact with people from other nations, “Under a Paul administration, the United States would trade freely with any nation that seeks to engage with us. American citizens would be encouraged to visit other countries and interact with other peoples rather than be told by their own government that certain countries are off limits to them.”

Ron Paul’s response to the Union Leader highlights one of two major distinctions between himself and rival Rudy Giuliani. Paul has promoted a more traditional non interventionist foreign policy abroad and has promoted freedom domestically while his opponent Rudy Giuliani has promoted an interventionist foreign policy abroad and domestically promoted security.

The debate on these two issues will likely heat up as Republicans will either buy into Giuliani’s apparent theme that ‘you can’t have freedom without security’ or Paul’s apparent theme that ‘freedom is security’. (Discuss Ron Paul and other candidates on www.usadaily.net