The World in a Different View

I read an article bashing Ron Paul's foreign policy views.  I ended up posting a comment to that article and thought that I should post it here as well.  Here's what I wrote:

There is so much wrong with this article that I don't even know where to begin.

1. On Osama Bin Laden, he may have not even been a factor if we didn't support him in the first place.  But as it is, Paul was for going after Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but with a mark of reprisal, and not by invasion and nation building.

2. The United States would not be in NATO or the UN. I would wonder what either of these organizations have to contribute to the US.  If anything both organizations just serve to compromise or circumvent US sovereignty. When our defense department looks towards the UN and NATO for indication to go to war instead of our own Congress, then you know our sovereignty is compromised.

3. Federal foreign aid to disaster areas would not have happened sure, but the caveat would be that it is FEDERAL.  There is nothing to stop the american people themselves in donating and giving aid, and if we had more of our own money that government takes from us, then I am sure we would be happy to donate and give aid ourselves.

4. Iraq... The US supported, funded and armed Saddam Hussein.

5. Yugoslavia, I can't say too much here as I am not familiar with that history, but I will point out Rwanda because the US did nothing in that country while it was being ethnically cleansed.  I wonder why...

6. Libya... we did more than so called 'protect' innocent civilians although that is what the American public was sold on.  It went from protecting to overthrowing the government. I remember the original intent was to just institute a no fly-zone in civilian populated areas, but quickly evolved into bombing Ghaddfi's headquarters. Now also throw in the fact that Islamic militants such as Al-Qaeda were part of the side that we were protecting...

7. Syria... Islamic militants are also at work here, but more so this is a civil war. Let's be honest here, what you are advocating is not the protection of citizens, but the victory of the rebels in overthrowing the current regime. This is the painfully obvious goal here, not the protection of the Syrian citizens.

8. Didn't a report just come out stating that Iran is not close to developing a nuclear weapon nor have they even decided to pursue one?

In closing, it seems that in recognizing all of these examples, you try view them in a way to advance your own political view.  Such myopic views of these situations is what is the real problem here. The attention span of our media seems to be limited to the 1 minute clips that they present, which is just enough to grab an audiences attention, but we never get the whole story. We can't rely on today's media any longer to do their job because they can be flat out lazy instead of diligent. This means that the public, who needs information to make informed decisions, must be diligent themselves to seek that information.