Ron Paul’s Soros Defense Plan

Front Page Magazine ^

[mnehring]

It was recently observed that Ron Paul was to the left of Obama on national security and the best evidence for that statement can be found when one year ago Ron Paul joined forces with Barney Frank​ on a proposal to gut national defense via a panel of experts, quite a few of whom were tied to George Soros​.

In July 2010, Barney Frank and Ron Paul co-authored a Huffington Post article rolling out their Sustainable Defense Task Force. The Task Force “consisting of experts on military expenditures that span the ideological spectrum” would recommend a trillion dollars in defense cuts. The experts, however, didn’t quite “span the ideological spectrum” — more like float under it.

The panel of experts who would decide how to best gut national defense featured such independent thinkers as William D. Hartung of the New America Foundation. Hartung’s main expertise was appearing in “Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire.”

Then there was Lawrence J. Kolb of the Center for American Progress and Miriam Pemberton of the Institute for Policy Studies. If you want to know what the Center, the Foundation and the Institute all have in common, it’s Hungarian and smells like stale cabbage and the death of nations.

The rather creepy Institute for Policy Studies issued a paper proposing that Obama act as king and rule through executive orders. The New American Foundation is not only backed by Soros but has his son on its leadership council. The Center for American Progress is run by the co-chair of Obama’s transition team and is, for all intents and purposes, the think tank of the White House. All three are Soros funded.

But it doesn’t end there. Also on the panel was Christopher Hellman of the National Priorities Project (NPP). If you are wondering what the NPP is, it’s a think tank whose objective is to “influence national spending priorities.” And if you’re in the mood for a double, Miriam Pemberton is also on the board of the NPP. The man behind the curtain at NPP? None other than our favorite Hungarian James Bond villain.

Going further down the list there’s Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information (CDI). The CDI’s goal is to strengthen “national and international security through international cooperation [and] reduced reliance on unilateral military power to resolve conflict.” CDI operates under the aegis of the World Security Institute, which is apparently the least creepy name they could think of. Wheeler is a Counterpunch contributor, a site which even Stalinists think goes a bit too far. CDI gets money from the Open Society Institute (OSI) where the stench of death and stale cabbage never goes away.

Then there’s Charles Knight and Carl Conetta of the Project for Defense Alternatives, which appears to be a subset of the Commonwealth Institute. Of its board of directors, S.M. Miller is also the founder of United for a Fair Economy which enjoys generous support from a certain philanthropic chap who occasionally destroys economies for sport. Another member, Guy Molyneux, has also worked with OSI. A third board member, Richard Healey, was formerly director of the Institute for Policy Studies and is on the advisory board of the Center for Social Inclusion, founded by two OSI veterans.

If you think this can’t get any worse, meet Paul Kawika Martin of Peace Action (PA). You might know PA better by its old name, the “Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy” or just “SANE,” a Communist front group investigated by none other than Senator Thomas Dodd. PA has the same attitude toward American defense that burglars have toward alarm systems in other people’s homes. They don’t like them very much. And they have a “five year strategic plan” for the job.

Paul Kawika Martin travels around fighting progress on board The Rainbow Warrior and is also involved with Physicians for Social Responsibility. Martin has also collaborated with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a front for the Iranian regime. I think you can guess by now who funds Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Also on the task force is Laicie Olson of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. The Center is actually a subset of the Council for a Livable World. Olson originally worked for Physicians for Social Responsibility. Another task force member was Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network (NSN). The NSN’s goals are to “build a strong progressive national security and counter conservative spin.” Its founder was part of Obama’s transition team and resigned to work for Janet Napolitano. Soros’s OSI helped fund NSN, and its Special Counsel was on the NSN Policy Committee. If you’re tired of reading through all this, then here’s the summary. Of the Paul-Frank Task Force, 9 out of 14 members were linked to Soros’s organs. Two were affiliated with the Cato Institute. One is indeterminate. Ron Paul proposed to put a bunch of Soros-funded think tank experts in charge of dismantling the US military. Think about that for a moment. Ron Paul supporters can see conspiracies in a glass of water; can they see anything wrong with this picture? Can they see anything wrong with having a man from a group that was investigated for its Communist ties in the driver’s seat on national defense? The task force’s proposals included cutting nuclear deterrence; reducing the fleet by 57 ships, including two carriers; canceling the Joint Strike Fighter; “severely curtail missile defense” — and that is a direct quote from the report — retiring four Marine battalions; reducing the military by 200,000 personnel; cutting defense research spending by 50 billion over ten years; and increasing health care fees for members of the military. Not only did Paul join forces with Barney Frank to slash military preparedness, but he ended up putting the experts of a foreign billionaire with global ambitions in charge of the project. And that was what he did as a congressman. Can anyone imagine what he would do as president?

But why would Ron Paul allow George Soros that much power and influence over America’s defense policy? There are a number of possibilities. There is the possibility that Ron Paul just didn’t know and didn’t bother to do his research. Which is not much of a recommendation for the job he’s running for. There’s another possibility that Ron Paul knew and didn’t care, that he had no objection to being part of a left-right alliance against the “American Empire” with Soros. But there’s also a third possibility. During the previous election, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI) ran an ad praising Ron Paul for his position against the war. AAEI was an umbrella group for MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, SEIU, Americans United For Change, the National Security Network and others in the progressive bestiary. A number of those beasties were Soros groups. I’m not one to dabble in conspiracy theories, but when Soros pays for an ad praising you during the Republican primaries and then you put his experts in charge of America’s defense policy, then maybe some questions should be asked.

[cincinnati65]

"Remember, he is the LOSER who lost to McCain, who is THE LOSER who lost to Obama last time."

I'm NOT a Paul supporter nor a Romney supporter, but thinking like that would have kept Reagan from being elected in 1980. Think about it.

[Absolutely Nobama]

Sure do. In fact, I’ll ping you when it’s up.

[Munz]

We gave the aid not just for resources, we gave it so that others would not TAKE IT! See the beauty of a resource is not just having it but also denying it to someone else.

You would rather that Iraq had the Saudi oil fields? Because that was the option in the Saudi’s mind. Or did you not get that?

[Fester Chugabrew]

You would rather that Iraq had the Saudi oil fields?

As far as I can tell, they both have oil fields. Ownership does make the resource disappear. Each should be free to sell the oil or keep it. I don't have a problem with that. The world has plenty of oil, more bubbling up all the time. The beauty of being American is the freedom to invent, while at the same time make use of resources at hand. At least it used to be.

[piasa]

Saudi’s asked for our aid. That is what pissed off Bin laden

While that is widely accepted as fact due to the media's lack of interest in using history as a guide in their reporting, it's not really true. It's just one of the bogus after-the-fact rationalizations for why al Qaeda's activities were "justified." Bin Laden, years before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and subsequent massing on the Saudi border compelled the Saudis to ask for our help, had already established himself as an America-hating SOB. Al Qaeda, "the worldwide jihad" after all, was born not after the Saudis asked for our help in the early 1990s but even earlier, in 1988.

OBL's mentor, Azzam, with whom he cofounded MAK even before al Qaeda, was already known for his prolific rants against the U.S. and for his assertions that the U.S. undermined the Mujahadeen in the war in Afghanistan against the USSR.

In the late 1980s before al Qaeda was born and just as things were looking bad for the Soviets in Afghanistan, Azzam and Osama bin Laden got in a big dispute over MAK's goal. OBL wanted to wage jihad simultaneously against the United States and the various insufficiently islamic Governments that ruled over muslim lands from which he had recruited dissidents- a multi-front war. Azzam in contrast, planned to focus more narrowly on completing the war in Afghanistan, which he viewed as a training ground for his ultimate goal. He intended to gather these veteran mujahadeen together for an assault not on the United States or other Arab governments, but against Israel, upon whose ruins Palestine could be formed.

Their disagreement was sufficiently bitter that OBL left MAK and took the more radical members with him, forming, with Jalaidan, "Al Qaeda." This was in 1988, so he was preparing for war with the United States years BEFORE Iraq started the Gulf War, before this well-publicized 1991 gripe about US toops in Saudi Arabia ever came to be.

It wasn't long after the break, about a year, that Azzam was killed in a bombing.

After Azzam's death, the opportunistic OBL immediately moved back in and took over MAK's global operations, absorbing most of Azzam's followers.

The way was now clear, in 1989, for OBL to begin planning his multifronted jihad against the United States and the unpious rulers of countries from whence his jihadists came. Azzam's goal of Palestine went on the back burner- the jihad bin Laden had in mind was far broader than that, and OBL's big "base" , al Qaeda, eventually became the umbrella under which allied terrorist groups would join, their leaders becoming voting members of al Qaeda's shurra councils of operations and financing.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Thanks. You took a lot of time and effort to articulate that synopsis. OBL is one of those cases where some clandestine operations would have been in order decades ago. Instead of castrating OBL we castrated ourselves.

Major wars and grandstanding tend to snowball. Not good. Our involvement with foreign entities should be predominantly trade-related. I hate to admit it, but I suspect we’ve lacked the “tact, poise, and reason” to “gently squeeze them.”

What does the acronym MAK stand for?

[2CAVTrooper]

What part of rolling back the budget to FY1940 and eliminating those agencies didn’t you understand?

That alone would eliminate a massive portion of the deficit. Not to mention realigning the remaining agencies to eliminate the costly redundancy.

[Munz]

>As far as I can tell, they both have oil fields. Ownership does make the resource disappear. <

tell that to a dictator who has control of the fields who is anti-america.

[Fester Chugabrew]

tell that to a dictator who has control of the fields who is anti-america.

Either he can market his goods or stew in his own juices. The fact is, we have decent resources right here on our own turf.

[Wallace T.]

It is not so much the administrative costs of the civilian bureaucracy but the enormous transfer payments through Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,and so forth that are the most burdensome. You could easily shut down, for instance, the Department of Education, but there is too much political pressure to prevent elimination of programs like Head Start. Then you have the enormous problem of servicing the national debt. This country has the benefit of historically low interest rates, a situation that will not last forever. The Fed does not operate in a vacuum and cannot hold rates down indefinitely. The effect of a 500-600 basis point increase in the cost of borrowed money would overshadow even a doubling of present military expenditures.

There is no political will to cut back on Federal transfer payments and welfare programs. Defaulting on government debt would lead to a worldwide financial crisis. Our national debt now exceeds our GNP. Even Obama would be compelled to massively increase military expenditures if Iran decides to block the Straits of Hormuz or North Korea attacks South Korea, both of which events would likely trigger a world war. Then there are the issues in the culture and economy: the consequences of permissiveness, a Third World level educational system, the collapse of our industrial base, drug abuse (legal and illegal), etc.

No Presidential candidate has an effective plan to address these issues, not Romney, not Gingrich, not Paul, not Santorum, and certainly not Obama. Reality will hit this nation as it did Britain, Spain, the USSR, and the Roman Empire. God help us.