Afghan troop surge is foolish and totally wasteful – Ron Paul

Eight years is long enough to figure out that you have made mistakes and get out of there before more people die, commented US Congressman Ron Paul on the surge of troops in Afghanistan.

Thirty-thousand soldiers is by far not enough to gain full control of Afghanistan but nobody is going to give Barack Obama more troops, so the troops surge announced is something in the middle between total victory and leaving the country immediately.

Ron Paul told RT, “They are just perpetuating the fraud, pretending they are doing something wholly while not accomplishing anything, just spending more lives and more money. I see no chance whatsoever for this policy to be successful.”

“We are picking sides [in Afghanistan], helping one side versus the other, which guarantees a civil war,” said the Congressman, adding, “The overriding issue that motivates hatred towards us is the presence, our occupation.”

Commenting on the expenses of the war (a US soldier in Afghanistan costs about $1 million a year for taxpayers) Ron Paul said, “They are getting money out of thin air and as long as people trust the dollar they can create money like that and the world thinks the dollar is ok. People are still picking dollars and we are still using them, but there is always a limit to the economic losses and we are maybe reaching that limit.”

As for his campaign to audit the Federal Reserve and the resistance of the Fed to let anybody take a look at its records, Ron Paul says this is a clear sign they have a lot to hide. “They want secrecy because they have so much power.”

“There is one thing they really do not want us to know – what kind of influence the Federal Reserve, who controls our money, has with other countries.”

That is why Ron Paul has introduced a bill that would legalize competing currencies, like gold and silver, to circulate next to the paper currency and not be punished for it with additional taxation.

As for the re-assignment of Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve, Ron Paul points out that “It is the system that is bad. This idea that a secret Central Bank can create money and monetize the government debt – that is the principle that is bad. As bad as Bernanke may be, the issue is much bigger than just Ben Bernanke.”