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Honoring
Our Military Veterans
by
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
Although
we honor veterans every November, the looming
prospect of a second Gulf war makes this year
especially meaningful for both our armed
forces and those who served in past wars. Not
surprisingly, many of the veterans I speak
with in Texas urge caution in Iraq. Combat
veterans understand perhaps better than any
of us that war should always be a last
resort, that young people should never be put
in harm’s way without very serious
deliberation.
It’s
easy to talk about honoring veterans and
their sacrifices on a national holiday. Yet
so often the rhetoric obscures the reality
that the federal government treats veterans
badly. Congress wastes billions of dollars
funding so many unconstitutional programs,
but it fails to provide adequately for the
men and women who carry out the most
important constitutional function: national
defense.
If
we really hope to honor veterans, we must
change the culture of the Veteran’s
Administration, which is as bureaucratic and
inefficient as any federal agency. This
dramatically affects the well-being of
millions of former servicemembers, who rely
squarely on the VA for health care,
retirement living, and monthly payment of
veteran’s benefits. Legislation and better
funding can help, but as with all federal
agencies, mismanagement is the real problem.
Veterans deserve dignified care, and we
can’t provide that with a VA that is run
like the Postal Service or the IRS.
While
we need to treat our retired veterans better,
we also should understand that we can best
honor both our veterans and our current armed
forces by pursuing a coherent foreign policy.
No veteran should ever have to look back and
ask himself "Why were we over there in
the first place?" Too often history
demonstrates that wars are fought for
political and economic reasons, rather than
legitimate national security reasons.
Today’s
American soldiers are the veterans of the
future, and they should never be sent to war
without clear objectives that serve definite
American national security interests. They
should never fight at the behest of the
United Nations or any other international
agency. They should never serve under a UN
flag, nor answer to a UN commander. They
deserve to know that they fight for the
American people and the Constitution, and
that the decision to send them into battle
was made by their own congress rather than by
UN bureaucrats who don’t care about them.
Only by using American troops judiciously and
in service of the Constitution can we avoid
the kind of endless military entanglements we
witnessed in Korea and Vietnam. We honor our
veterans by ensuring that their service to
the nation is never in vain.
Ron
Paul's Biography
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