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by RON PAUL
Late last week, Congress passed – and President Donald Trump signed – the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill marks the first time the U.S. military budget officially passed the $1 trillion mark. Of course, when you add in other military-related spending such as interest on the debt, veterans’ affairs, and military components of other government agencies, the true number is at least one and a half times that amount.
To paraphrase the famous 1953 President Dwight Eisenhower speech, “The Chance for Peace,” each of these dollars spent on military offense and the maintenance of the U.S. global empire rather than on defense of our own nation is taken from the mouths of the hungry and off the backs of hardworking American families.
Congress is so addicted to military spending that they appropriated even more money than President Trump requested, including an unconscionable $800 million for thoroughly corrupt Ukraine. Will Washington ever be called to answer for why Americans, who are seeing their standard of living eaten away by inflation and a declining economy, should continue to subsidize a criminal regime overseas whose ruling class enjoys the comfort of golden toilets?
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The Ukraine money also undermines President Trump’s claim to be a neutral mediator in the conflict. How can you be a peacemaker when you are sending nearly a billion dollars in weapons to one side to help kill the other side? It makes no sense.
Congress even included measures in the bill that would prevent President Trump from bringing any U.S. troops home from real “forever wars” in Korea and Europe. For how many more decades must the American worker continue to subsidize a U.S. military presence in countries completely unrelated to our own security? World War II ended 80 years ago and the Korean war some ten years later. Yet the American military empire remains, at an incalculable cost to Americans.
Some fellow critics will say this is all about welfare for rich countries overseas, and that’s partly right. But more than that, it is welfare for the politically-connected U.S. military-industrial complex at home. Imagine how many retired U.S. military officers and former U.S. officials-turned-lobbyists might be financially inconvenienced if we finally “just marched home?”
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This week Western Christians will celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace, with the Orthodox celebrating a few days later. It is disheartening that so many Americans who call themselves Christians also hold fast to a view that we must bankrupt our country and impoverish our people by playing policeman to the world and arbiter of whose regime must be changed by Washington.
Christians are among the biggest victims in these overseas operations, including in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. Yet many American Christians turn a blind eye to the suffering and misery produced by neocon-led militarism overseas. They don’t care that unquestioning support for Israel, for example, has nearly erased Christianity from where it was born.
Imagine if Jesus were born in the Holy Land today.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”
That is the message of the Savior whose birth we Christians celebrate this week. Continuing to bankrupt our country and export misery overseas in the futile pursuit of a global military empire places us in opposition to this worthwhile advice. Let us all join together and work for a real peace in the New Year!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Ron Paul is a former U.S. Congressman from Texas and the leader of the pro-liberty, pro-free market movement in the United States. His weekly column – reprinted with permission – can be found here.
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3 comments
Well said, Ron Paul!
So Paul doesn’t want us to pick a side in the Russia / Ukraine conflict and bemoans the money we are sending to Ukraine. I wonder if he will be consistent and apply that same logic to the BILLIONS of dollars we send Israel each year?
Dr Paul has been critical of our mindless subservience to Israel for years.
As for Russia/Ukraine, if we had a brain, or leaders with brains, we would help Russia kick Ukraine’s ass, then let Russia have Ukraine as a peace offering for all the crap we have done to Russia in recent decades.