A Light Shines in the Darkness and the Darkness Comprehends it not: Ron Paul Exits the Stage

Last week Ron Paul officially ended his campaign for the presidency, and so once again "politics as usual," carries the day. The Ron Paul campaign was the most electrifying in years successfully tapping into America's growing disenchantment with the Bush Administration. The record of the last eight years has been a cruel one: record high gas prices, preventable terror attacks, anemic job growth, and a baseless and costly war. Ron Paul was the only candidate who spoke to all these concerns, and his record of consistency and principle was able to spark a revolution throughout the country. He was not an establishment candidate, but one grown out of America's populist soil: anti-war protesters, civil libertarians, gun-rights' activists, tax opponents, vegan radicals, and all those who feel alienated and distrustful of the two parties.

While his candidacy was always a long-shot he was still able to raise tens of millions of dollars, outperform Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, and Tom Tancredo in the Republican primaries, and call attention to important matters that otherwise would have been neglected. Just how boring -- or more boring -- would the Republican debates have been without Ron Paul railing against the Iraq war, the follies of nation-building, and the deceitful conmen known as Neocons? Without him stirring controversy, the debates would have been pitiful, bland, and monochrome.

Despite the success of the Ron Paul campaign it all comes to naught unless it influences the direction of public policy. Will the Ron Paul revolution continue under some other banner, or will his troopers just resign themselves to defeat, with some returning home and others returning to the ineffectual Libertarian party?

Even with the strong anti-war sentiment in the country, the Republican Party and the larger conservative movement have built a little cocoon around George Bush and moral sanctity of the Iraq war. Neither Bush's leadership nor the wisdom of going to war is open to question. Many in the Democratic Party are against the war and probably support an immediate withdrawal, but the leadership has capitulated to almost all of Bush's demands, and their attitude seems to be that "yes, Iraq was a mistake, but we just can't pick up and leave." Of course, this idea ensures that our occupation of Iraq will be indefinite.

Regardless, the American people had a choice to set a better course for themselves and their country, and either because of indifference, habit, defeatism, ignorance, apathy or whatever, they chose politics as usual.

So get used to the new 100 year war.

What's so great about the Surge?

Last year President Bush implemented a new strategy in Iraq -- the "surge" -- aimed at increasing security in Baghdad, and putting another 4,000 troops in the Anbar province to fight the Sunni insurgents. At first, the results didn't look too promising. When General Patraeus released his interim report on the "surge" in July 2007 coalition fatalities were at an all time high. Still, General Patraues claimed the "surge" had been moderately successful.

Since then there has been a remarkable decline in U.S fatalities, and now they are at an all time low. While the immediate reaction is to attribute this decline to the "surge" there may be other factors at work.

Conservative columnist Paul Sperry argues that the reduction in violence isn't so much due to the troops as it is the cash "bribes" we are offering to the tribal sheiks in the Anbar province. He writes:

The only, 'success' in Anbar is really just a return on U.S. financial inducements to tribal sheiks. Instead of dropping bombs in Iraq, we're now dropping bundles of cash in the laps of insurgents who without the crude bribes would no doubt return to ambushing our troops.

There is also corroborating evidence from the TimesOnline:

The Sunday Times has witnessed at first hand the enormous sums of cash changing hands. One sheikh in a town south of Baghdad was given $38,000 (£19,000) and promised a further $189,000 over three months to drive Al-Qaeda fighters from a nearby camp.

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If these cash "bribes" are responsible for the reduction in violence then we can say that in all respects the "surge" has been a failure. Perhaps the White and military were growing weary of all the negative press coming out of Iraq and wanted to turn back the tide. The Sunni insurgency was just too difficult for us to handle, so instead we tried a new approach: bribery.

This makes me wonder that if the part about the Sunnis turning against al-Qaeda is just a cover story. Al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq is hotly debated and, I suspect, wildly inflated. In fact, I doubt al-Qaeda has any real presence in Iraq at all. Perhaps we refer to foreign "terrorists" in Iraq as al-Qaeda because most of the foreign fighters come from Saudi Arabia and Bush doesn't want to alienate one of our "allies."

However, I think the military just decided to hand out cash bribes to the Sunnis and invented the part about them turning against al-Qaeda. The military cannot just claim we are paying off the insurgents to keep the violence down, so they concocted a story to make the "bribes" appear legitimate.

This is all speculation at this point, and I invite any criticism, but we cannot trust the White House and military to tell us the truth about Iraq.

Why is there a Ron Paul Revolution?

Ron Paul is a 72 year old Republican Congressman from Texas and his bid for the presidency has sparked a revolution. Outside of a few libertarian circles, the Congressman was relatively unknown, but now he's the trendiest and hippest thing to appear on the political scene in quite some time. He isn't a particularly able speaker, nor does he possess much charisma, but he always speaks from conviction and doesn't kowtow to establishment opinion.

He first broke into the national headlines in the first GOP debate when Rudy Giuliani assailed him for suggesting America's policy in the Middle East was partly to blame for the 9/11 terrorist attack. "We've been bombing Iraq for ten years," exclaimed Congressman Paul and he went on to say that "they attacked us because we're over there." Needless to say this sent all of the hardcore Bush Republicans into orbit. Not even a Democrat had dare say anything so bold or confrontational, but here was a Republican saying it -- without apology.

Few people probably know, but Ron Paul did run for the presidency back in 1988, as a Libertarian, and didn't come close to generating the kind of support he's generating in this election cycle. But Ron Paul's message really hasn't changed. He's been a defender of limited government his entire public life, and besides Libertarians run candidates every election cycle, so why is the message just now catching fire?

Perhaps it's not the message so much as the times. American politics still lingers in the shadow of 9/11 -- its wars and security measures -- and many Americans have grown weary of the Bush Administration's bellicosity and over zealous use of executive privilege. In 2006 the Democrats regained control of Congress and the Senate but have been little more than rubber stamps for Bush's agenda. Democrats have shown no leadership in standing up to President Bush and are all too happy to make a big ruckus but eventually cave and give the president what he wants. The American people are disgusted with Democrats, and rightfully so.

Ron Paul is the only candidate who isn't giving this Administration one inch of compromise. He wants to overturn all -- every last bit -- of the post 9/11 Bush agenda. He wants us to pull our troops out of Iraq, to repeal both Patriot Acts and the Military Commissions Act. He wants to end illegal wiretapping, torture, and all other "security" measures not allowed by the Constitution.

Americans who oppose much, if not all, of the post 9/11 agenda have not had a voice in either party, and many feel that this Administration is not just abusive, but dangerous, and desires more "security" measures as well as an expanded war in the Middle East, including both Syria and Iran. But this agenda has faced few political obstacles. Ron Paul has become the iconic leader of the opposition, and his grassroots support is spreading like wildfire.

Today, Ron Paul's supporters hope to outdo their November cash bomb of 4.2 million, and surpass 6 million. It's a high hurdle, but it can be done. Despite Ron Paul's energized support he probably will not win the Republican nomination, but maybe the Ron Paul revolution will outlive Paul's candidacy and new leaders will emerge and the revolution will transform into an unstoppable juggernaut that will halt and reverse the disastrous effects of the Bush presidency.