Yesterday I overheard someone on the radio stating that we needed to stay the course because the United States would be attacked with massive bombings if the U.S. military pulls out of Iraq.

Imagine my delight in finding this issue addressed by Ron Paul, in his article “The Fear Factor“, which states, in part:

…Things seem similar to the days before the war in Iraq. Prior to the beginning of the war, several government officials began using phrases like “we don’t want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” and they spoke of drone airplanes being sent to our country to do us great harm.

It is hard to overstate the damage this approach does psychologically, especially to younger people. Of course, we now know there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, let alone any capacity to put them to successful use.

To calm fears, Americans accepted the Patriot Act and the doctrine of pre-emptive war. We tolerated new laws that allow the government to snoop on us, listen to our phone calls, track our financial dealings, make us strip down at airports and even limited the rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury. Like some dysfunctional episode of the twilight zone, we allowed the summit of our imagination to be linked up with the pit of our fears.

The surprising thing about all of those who are so worried about the supposed imminent danger that foreign agents pose, is that while saying that Bush is doing the right thing about the (unconstitutional, undeclared) war in Iraq they turn a blind eye to the fact that Americans are less safe because the hands of the border patrol and troops that are supposed to be guarding the borders (a constitutional duty of the federal government) are threatened with arrest for doing their jobs.

Unfortunately if an American wants to assert their rights, they seem have more support as long as they do it in some other country from the United States.

Fortunately there is Hope For America: Ron Paul.

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