Ron Paul: Against All Wars (and Thinks Almost All of Them Have Been the American Empire’s Fault)

Here’s some testimony from Paul’s former staffer. It’s far from entirely negative, although its point is surely to take Ron out as a plausible commander-in-chief.

If this guy is right, Ron hates Israel, doesn’t think it should exist, and uncritically takes the Palestinian view on everything.

He thinks Bush had advance notice of 9/11 and CIA had something to do with it.

He thinks we shouldn’t have gotten involved in World War II and that prevention of the Holocaust is not a sufficient reason to fight. The only reason to get involved is if Hitler had actually invaded the United States.

The cause of WWII was Wilson’s imperialism during and after WWI. Although the article doesn’t deal with WWI, it’s clear a non-imperial America could have stayed out of that one too.

We’ve already talked about Ron’s view of Lincoln the imperialist and the true cause of the Civil War.

I’m not going to talk about the HISTORICAL ARGUMENTS here. But we have to wonder how many Republicans or how many Americans would want their commander-in-chief animated by the alleged lessons of this “historical narrative.”

Ron gets all weepy-eyed when the necessity of natural security violates the rights of a single person. But he’s never for actually fighting for people’s rights.

He’s under the sway, the article says, of Lew Rockwell, Lew’s disciples, and the anarchist left.

Believe it or not, my point here is the opposite of providing amunition for Paul bashing. It’s just to show why he’s a marginal candidate who never has and never will be a serious contender for the nomination for president of a major political party. Well, it also shows that Paul is the carrier of a narrative found for generations among populists—mainly on the agrarian left (which is close to the Porcher right)—that has a real place among intellectuals of a certain kind these days. As a third-party foundation, it would draw more than flies, if less than 10% of the vote, in November.

Thanks to Paul Seaton for sending this article my way.

(In response to pro-Paul threaders below—let me add that the former staff was fired by Paul and ran against him for Congress and lost. Let me also add that everything he says I’ve read elsewhere, with the exception of the personal animosity toward Israel. So I’m actually looking for evidence for or against what Mr. Dondero says, and not personal attacks on either him or Rep. Paul.)