Writing Off Ron Paul Forever

Ron Paul has gone a long way down from being a legitimate independent thinker in 2000 to being another politician hoping for a political victory to a real crisis.  Paul ventured to ask nine questions about WikiLeaks, and made clear ahead of time he intended to defend the leaks as legitimate and righteous.


This is not an impossible task, nor is it necessarily wrong.  My personal struggle with Wikileaks is that the original idea is awesome, but Assange is a dick and the way the information was leaked was basically negligent, and the information itself was either diplomatic chatter that wasn't meant for public ears (because it is just chatter) or frighteningly important information that ought to have been kept secret.  Very little of it is valuable information whose leakage doesn't endanger common people.  The only thing that comes to mind for me is the British-US agreement to keep American cluster bombs on British soil despite in defiance of an international treaty banning such weapons.


Anyway, there are worthwhile questions to ask and useful lessons to take from Wikileaks.  Unfortunately, Ron Paul missed the point in the most remarkable way possible.


(I originally posted these responses to Ron Paul's nine questions on my friend Will's wall.  I have made small changes, but largely these are the my original answers.  My responses have been italicized.)




Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen? We deserve the truth, but those serving us deserve the safety secrecy provides. Otherwise, we'll uncover our own schemes and only ruin ourselves.  In the case of Yemen, publicizing that the US government agreed to launch missile strikes against terrorist camps while not speaking about such strikes publicly ought to remain a secret.  It was an agreement.  Even if American troops were involved on the ground, I would argue secrecy would still be important.  Since we were merely launching missiles with no risk to our troops, I see no reason the American public needed to know this was happening at the moment.  And the reason the Yemeni public cannot know is even more obvious,

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information? Yes, and it was because in post 9/11 it was thought there could never be too much information-sharing. If everything was shared, more could be pieced together. But on this extreme, it is very easy for one person to leak EVERYBODY'S information.

Number 3: Why is the hostility directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information? Because that's asinine. If someone robs a bank, you should be mad at the robber, not the bank for failing to protect itself. You should be CRITICAL of the bank's failures and use the event as a reason to improve security, but it absolutely is not the bank's fault, and hostility directed towards the bank is infighting.  Certainly this is a time to review our intelligence system.  But blaming it is ridiculous.

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering? If this much information was leaked, then yes we are certainly using the money towards intelligence gathering, and we are indeed gathering intelligence. Are we getting 80 billion dollars worth? Hard to measure that kind of thing. But the question implies we are wasting money on intel, and that is insulting.  If the question was backed up with some way to measure the use of our money, and evidence the measurement shows a severe waste of money, that would be different.

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? First: if Wikileaks causes North Korea to launch an attack because it feels alone or Iran to further radicalize because it now knows most of the Arab world dispises it, then Wikileaks will be responsible. Second, this is an unfair comparison. It's like comparing the number of accidental civilian deaths to the number of military targets destroyed. No matter what, accidental civilian deaths will outweigh the military targets destroyed.

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?
Assange is not an American citizen, he does not have First Amendment Rights. Second, transmitting stolen information is illegal, just like selling blackmarket goods is always illegal, even if you bought it from the guy who stole it. Buying stolen property doesn't make it yours, even if you didn't know it was stolen. In Assange's case, he knew.

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?
How do these attacks maintain a foreign policy of empire? Where?? In all the cables, we are dealing with two or more countries making a deal. I have no idea how one can claim the leaks prove a foreign policy of empire.

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?
What? OK, what deaths? Second, who DIDN'T think the world was corrupt? Thirdly, the 'secret wars' are secret because, if they were published, they would create a huge backlash. You don't announce you go into a gang-controlled neighborhood, you do it as secretly as you can. There is no proof the US or any other country is secretly launching attacks in another country without that country's permission, if not at their request.  This is not like Cambodia.  That makes it not a secret war, but a covert operation. And it is covert because, if it was known the US was involved, the population of that country would riot or become radicalized. Therefore, this information is just as damaging.

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?
It still is, but it depends on when you think the gov't is wrong. Funny Ron Paul says this, his son just got elected on the Tea Party platform of patriotic dissent. There is no question in America whether dissent is patriotic or not, and this is a stupid thing for him to say.  It is pandering in the absolute worst way.

What bothers me most about these questions is that they are all rhetorical. They are asked in a "I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just asking the questions" Glenn Beck kind of way. #7 is particularly sneaky. He implies there is a foreign policy of empire so naturally it seems easy to overlook this is HIS word. He needs to substantiate that claim, and others, and until he does, saying his questions are valid and helpful is a waste of time.

Ron Paul used to be a pretty cool guy. Then he stopped being so reliable. Then his son turned out to be a conspiracy wheeling idiot. And now Ron Paul is asking questions that he never intends to answer. Answering the questions shows he is wrong. Asking them in a seductively "Well what about....." kind of way goes to show how even the most independent of politicians can fall victim to scare tactics. Sigh.


An afterthought:


In "The Believer," (a very good film about Neo-Nazis), a debate arises among the Nazis.  Many of them throughout the film deny the holocaust.  However, of course, they are anti-Semitic and want the Jews exterminated.  And they fly the Nazi flag and revere Hitler.  One of the Nazis points out the contradiction.  Either Hitler committed the holocaust, and therefore he deserves his legacy, or he did not, and they should not associate with him because he was a failure.  His point is they can't assert the holocaust never happened while simultaneously flying the Nazi flag.  If it never happened, why associate with Nazis at all?


Similarly, many are in the awkward position of arguing both that Assange is a dangerous criminal who leaked classified information AND that the information is ultimately not critical information, therefore discrediting him as a 'hero' among those who would call him such.  And it is an untenable position.  I would say it is clear what he WANTED to be (the former) but also clear what he ended up being (the latter).  He wanted to be known as basically the guy who tore down the American government by exposing its secrets.  In fact, he did not expose a whole lot of information that was important, merely interesting (like the opinions that individual American diplomats have of world leaders).  And the information he leaked that WAS sensitive, is in fact so sensitive it is easy to say it was a bad choice for him to release it.  Those two truths make the miniscule amount of information that was leaked that was important to leak (like the American-British deal to violate an international treaty) statistical anomilies, and not due to Assange or Manning's espionage skills.  They literally 'dumped' the leaks, and waited for the news media to find the interesting pieces.  They do not deserve credit for anything.


That said, it is interesting to point out the US, contrary to their claims, comes out of the leaks looking incredibly astute.  Their diplomats are cunning and thoughtful in their critique of other leaders, and the leaks dispel any belief there is some sort of conspiracy in Afghanistan or Iraq to keep the people down (unless you are paranoid enough to believe that information is "more secret," and just hasn't been leaked yet).  Further, they prove there has been a remarkably low number of civilian tragedies in those wars, despite the insurgents hiding among civilians without even so much as an armband to distinguish them.


Interestingly, such tactics, according to the Geneva Conventions, make the insurgents legally and morally (as much as such a document can assign morality) responsible for the deaths of those civilians.  Obviously that doesn't mean a million civilian casualties would be OK, but I find it intruiging the Geneva Conventions are so readily enforced against powerful nations but rarely against their enemies.  Even if you believe, by default, that the underdog has the moral high ground, that doesn't give them the right to hide among the civilians they are claiming to protect...


If you feel I have missed anything about Wikileaks or Ron Paul's questions, or that I am dismissing their importance without adequate reason, please please tell me so.  Show me evidence of the good that was done or the "truth spoken to power" by either.  Show me a positive result either has provided the world, and I will be glad to debate the merit of that positive.  As it stands, I think defending Wikileaks is an utterly foolish thing to do with no rational basis, and I believe I have shown this to be true beyond a reasonable doubt.