Ron Paul to Launch Foreign Policy Institute Next Week

Credit: David Carlyon/wikimedia

Former Congressman Ron Paul will launch the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity next week in Washington D.C. The institute will be headed by Daniel McAdams, Paul's former Congressional foreign policy aide.

From the announcement:

The Ron Paul Institute will focus on the two issues most important to Dr. Paul, education and coming generations. It will fill the growing demand for information on foreign affairs from a non-interventionist perspective through a lively and diverse website, and will provide unique educational opportunities to university students and others.

The neo-conservative era is dead. The ill-advised policies pushed by the neo-cons have everywhere led to chaos and destruction, and to a hatred of the United States and its people. Multi-trillion dollar wars have not made the world a safer place; they have only bankrupted our economic future. The Ron Paul Institute will provide the tools and the education to chart a new course with the understanding that only through a peaceful foreign policy can we hope for a prosperous tomorrow. 

The Institute's board of advisors includes Lew Rockwell, Andrew Napolitano, former Ambassador Faith Whittlesey, Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.), Rep. John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.), and former Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Read more from Reason.com on Ron Paul here.

Comments

[Almanian!]

YEAH? WELL, WHAT ABOUT RP'S NEWSLETTERS??!

/Max

[The Immaculate Trouser]

We already have this.

It's called antiwar.com.

[darius404]

Antiwar.com is sane?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

No, but neither is putting Llew Rockwell on your board of directors.

[OldMexican]

Re: The Immaculate Trouser,

The reason being....??

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Because Llew is an asshole whose editorial position is pro-dictator apologia when it's possible, and when it's not it is to apply an anti-septic or convoluted tone to describing situations which are entirely undeserving of such.

[Heedless]

Editorializing in favor of police brutality is sort of a deal breaker for me.

Not sure that makes employing him "crazy", but I do find it distasteful.

[Overt]

I like Ron Paul and I agree that Conservatives should return to a less interventionist policy.

That said, I have little doubt that this think tank will find itself in a decade completely overrun with the types who would rather blame Israel or other allies for the messes they are in than give articulate arguments explaining why the US ought to stay out.

I hope I'm wrong, but that seems to me to be its future.

[[e-mail]]

The burden of proof lies upon those who would take the country to war, not the other way around.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Institute's board of advisors includes Lew Rockwell[...] and former Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

That right there's a mark of quality if ever I saw it.

[Almanian!]

Kucinich is still the nicest politician I've ever met. Which does nothing for the fact that he's an absolute loon.

But a NICE loon.

[Irish]

When Kim Jong Un dies, we can expect this organization to release reports lauding him for standing up to U.S. imperialism.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

North Korea is just defending itself from a US that has already made half of the Korean peninsula a puppet for corporate interests. Is that really so bad?

[Ronny Paulino]

Why won't he f*cking dump Lew Rockwell already? Crikey!

[darius404]

Napolitano will be there. That should help keep them in line.

[Jordan]

Related and hilarious:
Ron Paul: Bradley Manning More Deserving Than Obama of Nobel Peace Prize

"While President Obama was starting and expanding unconstitutional wars overseas, Bradley Manning, whose actions have caused exactly zero deaths, was shining light on the truth behind these wars," the former Republican presidential contender told U.S. News. "It's clear which individual has done more to promote peace."

[The Immaculate Trouser]

What have any of the Wikileaks documents done to prevent a war or create a peace?

I dislike Obama, but your average McDonald's worker has done about as much for the cause of peace as Manning and Obama combined.

[PapayaSF]

Manning is a jerk. Among other things, those documents revealed the identities of anti-Taliban people in Afghanistan, endangering their lives.

[Jordan]

Glenn Greenwald said it best:

"By stark contrast, Manning risked his own liberty, really his life, to expose documents that he thought would expose the horrors of war and the serial deceit and corruption of the world's most powerful factions,"

The vast majority of what was leaked should not have been secret in the first place. The U.S. government long ago proved it was worthy of neither loyalty or trust.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The way to advocate for transparency is not to indiscriminately dump a whole raft of information without review, knowing that while some of the secrets are BS others save lives. That's the act of a selfish asshole or a partisan moron, not of someone who genuinely and constructively cares about other people and the role of our government.

[MJGreen]

He didn't just dump the info onto the Internet. He gave it to an organization that he figured would vet the information and release information appropriately (which, if I recall, they handed over to the newspapers when they realized they couldn't do it either).

[Scarcity]

I did not follow Manning's case closely at all so I can't comment on what his leaks did or didn't do. But I think Paul's point here is that "shining light on the truth behind those wars" (if that's what the leaks did) could cause more critical thinking in the future, potentially avoiding a future war.

[OldMexican]

Re: Immaculate Trouser,

What have any of the Wikileaks documents done to prevent a war or create a peace?

"Timmy! He has a rock in his and he intends to use it against you!"
"Why, you little tattletale!"
"Yeah, I may be a tattletale but I helped avert an act of aggression!"

Pretty much the same thing.

You're welcome.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Where is the "rock" in this analogy?

What information in the released documents was pertinent to avoiding a war?

[dave b.]

Henry Kissinger is going to send over a fruit basket.

[A Serious Man]

...with a bomb hidden in it, Wile E. Coyote-style.

[A Serious Man]

I'm surprised he named it after himself as opposed to The Liberty Institute, or the Institute for Peace and Prosperity or some such platitude.

[Hyperion]

The neo-conservative era is dead. The ill-advised policies pushed by the neo-cons have everywhere led to chaos and destruction, and to a hatred of the United States and its people

We can only hope this is true.

What about the ill-advised policies pushed by the SoCons? IOW, WOD.

And what about the ill-advised policies pushed by the Dems? IOW, everything they do.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I think almost all of the statement you excerpted is untrue.

The neo-con era is hardly dead. The Dems have embraced all of the neo-con premises with righteous fervor, and the right is only just now beginning to withdraw from neo-conservative foreign policy.

It's arguable whether every policy pursued uniquely by neo-cons lead to chaos and destruction, but there are plenty of interventionist policies that worked out quite well.

As far as hatred of the US, meh. In my observation, the people and countries that hate the US the most are those with the least cause to hate. There's little correlation between hatred of the US and the level of damage that the US has caused in a country.

[Heedless]

No shit. The Japanese like us better than the Brits. Go figure.

[The Late P Brooks]

The neo-conservative era is dead.

Not even sleeping.

[Hyperion]

And, uhhh, what does Mr. Paul, uhhh, expect us to do with all these drones? Just let them go to waste? Let me be clear, we must protect our children, even if, uhhh, that means killing other children. And, uhh, besides that, drones are fun, I like them.

/Obama

[Pro Libertate]

Aw, man, Jonathan Winters died.

[rts]

Everybody pays taxes! Even businessmen, who rob and cheat and steal from people everyday, even they have to pay taxes!

[Almanian!]

Bummer. THAT guy was funny as hell. I hadn't seen much of him since Carson left - he used to be a regular.

RIP, Jonathan.

[PapayaSF]

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Institute's template for all foreign policy position papers:

Foreign Policy Recommendations for [country name]

- Lower trade barriers
- End aid [if applicable]
- Withdraw troops [if applicable]

That is all.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Assuming it's written by Ron Paul, sure.

If it's written by Llew Rockwell, we'll have to add an algorithm for blaming Israel and/or praising some crap dictator.

[DJF]

How about if we just don't give money or equipment or anything else belonging to the US taxpayer to Israel, crap dictators or any other foreign country?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Sounds good to me.

OTOH, I don't consider *selling* weapons to allies, joint force exercises, or mutual defense treaties to be included in any of that.

[DJF]

Selling weapons is ok as long as there is no subsides and right now there are plenty of those going on.

Joint force exercises are pretty worthless and mostly PR

Our allies are mostly worthless and repeatedly lie about their willingness to pay for their own defenses. Most of our allies want the US taxpayer to pay for a large parts of their defense and so keep on cutting their own defenses. If they don't think its worth the money to pay for their own defenses why should the US taxpayer kick in money to do it?

[Calidissident]

Unless a mutual defense treaty actually helps the US the defend the country, I disagree. And given our strength relative to the rest of the world, I don't think there's another country we need to have a mutual defense treaty with

[Warty]

Coincidentally, today I founded the Warty Institute for Bloodshed and Pestilence. Oddly enough, Dennis Kucinich is on the board of directors.

[Almanian!]

Tell me you have a position for James Traficant. Please.

[Warty]

He's the VP of Development. Beam him up your donation.

[Troy muy grande boner]

Are there any positions that deal with pornography? I'm a self-taught expert.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Institute's board of advisors includes Lew Rockwell

...

*sigh*

[Troy muy grande boner]

Apparently there was a Shit on Sugarfree Day and no one told me about it.

[Jesus H. Christ]

Having L eeeewwwwww Rockwell on the board is a real turn off for me. I guess Alex Jones saw Rockwell was invited and decided there was too much crazy already? Damn, way to start a shitty organization. I'm going to start a financial advice compamy with MC Hammer.

[David Emami]

By including Lew Rockwell, they've made the organization pointless from the start. If he or any of the other Rothbots announced that the sky was blue, it'd be best to look out the window to be sure.

Upcoming policy recommendation from the Institute: end the aggressive imperialistic American practice of not ordering the nations in Russia's "near abroad" to kiss Putin's ass.

[Thane of Whiterun]

I was going to come here and bitch about Lew Rockwell being on the board.

My fellow commenters did not disappoint.