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Summary White House hopeful Ron Paul called Wednesday for minding our own business US foreign policy.
No more wars unless you declare them, and fight them, and win them, and get them over with, because perpetual war is bankrupting our country, he told a cheering crowd of some 200 people packed into a civic center room.With scarcely two weeks before Iowa holds the first presidential nominating contest, the Texas lawmaker has clawed his way to the top spot in an average of polls that tracks US politics.His well-organized, well-funded campaign, stocked with passionate young people, has vaulted him to the lead over better-known rivals like former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.He could be the upsetting factor in the fight for the Republican nomination to take on President Barack Obama in the November 2012 elections, according to Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa.Pauls appeal hinges on his unorthodox libertarian message, notably his devout calls for ending government involvement in the economy and his sharp criticisms of US overseas involvements -- both military and in foreign aid.Every year we spend more and more money overseas. We spend it on foreign aid, and intervention, propping up dictators, fighting wars that we dont need to be fighting, and they drain the US treasury, he said.Paul, who has called for cutting some $500 billion from overseas spending, said his approach was one time what Republicans advocated, you know: Minding our own business and having a strong national defense.But Paul, a sharp critic of US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the conflict with Libya, forcefully rejected his rivals charge that hes an isolationist: Im a non-interventionist, thats quite a bit different. --AFP
